{"id":1399,"date":"2010-04-03T12:14:34","date_gmt":"2010-04-03T12:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"\/ifbookblog\/?p=1399"},"modified":"2010-04-03T12:14:34","modified_gmt":"2010-04-03T12:14:34","slug":"the_ipad_is_more_a_re-inventio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/2010\/04\/03\/the_ipad_is_more_a_re-inventio\/","title":{"rendered":"the iPad is more a re-invention of the book than the computer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As readers of if:book know, i&#8217;ve often referred to books as the principal vehicle humans have used to move ideas around time and space. Thanks in large part to the internet, over the past fifteen years that function is increasingly being supplanted by the internet\/computer\/screen combo. I know many people are disappointed in the iPad because they see it as a crippled computer (e.g. Cory Doctorow&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/2010\/04\/02\/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either.html\">recent rant<\/a> in <em>Boing Boing<\/em>).  Perhaps, if Cory and other critics would stop thinking of the iPad as a computer, but rather think of it as the container for a new kind of book, they might see its potential in a different light. Although a book (in technology terms) is a closed system and certainly not a platform for creativity in the sense that a computer (or a typewriter is), that hasn&#8217;t stopped books from being invaluable to humanity. For me, the iPad is a an exciting baby step on the way to realizing Neal Stephenson&#8217;s astonishing conception of the future of the book as described in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0553380966?tag=bringyourbrainco&#038;camp=0&#038;creative=0&#038;linkCode=as1&#038;creativeASIN=0553380966&#038;adid=0MC4SSR78D11QDFJXJ7R&#038;\"><em>Diamond Age: Or a Young Lady&#8217;s Illustrated Primer<\/em><\/a>. Well worth the read.<br \/>\n[NOTE: Having said all this, I am still very disappointed in all the ways that Apple limits that potential by insisting that the iPad live within the tightly controlled garden walls it has constructed.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As readers of if:book know, i&#8217;ve often referred to books as the principal vehicle humans have used to move ideas around time and space. Thanks in large part to the internet, over the past fifteen years that function is increasingly being supplanted by the internet\/computer\/screen combo. I know many people are disappointed in the iPad [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}