The case for the iPad
My MacBook Pro serves two purposes in my life. First, it is my personal computer — where I email, chat, tweet, and browse online, and where I write documents, edit photos, watch videos, and otherwise stay in touch. I want these functions to just work whenever I open the laptop. Zero hassles.
Second, my MBP is my development computer. Development computers get the snot kicked out of them. They are constantly in flux. Install the new Ruby; install the new Xcode; install the new iPhone SDK beta and the new Drizzle and CouchDB and LLVM. Update the new MacPorts and Homebrew and OpenPKG. Upgrade my git, hg, and svn. Try Erlang, and Haskel, and Hadoop. Then uninstall and reinstall some or all as needed. Eventually, I cross the beams and it’s time for a fresh start1.
On the one hand, I crave stability. On the other, I’m pushing constant change. On the one hand, I have simple requirements that can be met with a simple, 1.5 pound portable device. On the other, I’m a power user demanding the biggest, the fastest, the most of everything in a 17” form factor.
I’ve tried various schemes to manage the conflicting requirements of these two modes of interaction with my computer. On occasion, I’ve completely lost my mind and try outlandish solutions such as dual booting or running my personal computer as a VM inside my development computer (hey, at least it was easy to backup). These solutions never worked because I often wanted to jump between both worlds quickly and effortlessly.
Then the iPhone came along. It was nearly perfect, allowing me to separate my personal computing from my development — in a package that was eminently more portable than my 17” MBP. However, the iPhone has certain constraints that require me to maintain a personal computing presence on my laptop. I don’t like writing long emails on my iPhone. Certain web sites are so poorly designed they must be viewed on a full computer2. I can’t create content (documents, spreadsheets, presentations, diagrams) on my iPhone. Ultimately, the iPhone is a satellite device.
The iPad promises to be my dedicated personal computer. It promises to email, chat, tweet, browse, write, edit, and watch — all while just working. (And, might I add, from anywhere.) That frees-up my laptop to be a dedicated development platform that I can use and abuse without consequence.
I want an iPad to keep my simple personal computing needs separate from my developer computing needs.
1 I subscribe to the Ripley school of developer workstation maintenance: nuke the entire site from orbit — it’s the only way to be sure.
2 I’m not even talking about Flash — I’m talking about sites that screw up HTML that badly.
Resolutions 2010
I had eleven resolutions for 2009 and I completed three of them. Let’s try this again, scoping each a little more broadly:
- Learn one new language or development platform (Erlang, Lua, OpenCL, R are looking attractive)
- Learn how to profile applications in a new environment (I’m thinking: dtrace)
- Build and maintain a presence in the developer community (NSCoder, C4[4], and so on)
- Contribute to an open source project
Closed systems still win
The most insightful thing I’ve read in a while comes from Brian Prentice’s analysis of Jonathan Rosenberg’s The Meaning of Open:
The truth is that closed systems still win. Open systems, practically speaking, are basically good for making others lose. The art of business in the 21st century is figuring out how to open up your suppliers’ and competitors’ business while keeping yours tightly sealed. And in that endeavor Google has proven highly successful.
