Falling (Back) in Love with the iPad

Every day on my way to class at USC, I rode my skateboard down Trousdale Parkway with just a drawstring over my shoulder and quietly chuckled as I watched my fellow students' desperate attempts to get to class on time thwarted by the twelve-pound weights strapped to their backs. I was in college during the beginning of the transitional period from laptops to tablets, and while I eagerly embraced the iPad as my main portable computer, most of my schoolmates were a bit more reluctant to change their ways. 

The lucky ones who had upgraded to MacBook Airs avoided back pain, but the heavier 13 to 15-inch non-retina MacBook Pros were still the norm, and once in a while some poor soul lugged out an ancient Lenovo or HP, complete with a power adapter barely smaller than an iPad itself. My iPad was my most valuable tool in college. I loaded all of my textbooks onto it, a cost cutting and weight reducing measure, but also used it for note taking, research, and sketching ideas. As a game design student I still needed a computer for development, so I demoted my Mac to serve only as a game making machine, which is still its primary purpose today. 

Despite my tablet's prominence in my life, over time something strange happened: I started to fall out of love with the iPad. I read a few novels in iBooks but found myself longing for a paperback when struggling to find a comfortable spot on my knees to rest the ten-inch display. Each passing software update revealed how unsuited my third generation iPad was to simultaneously power its operating system and retina display (a problem that likely encouraged Apple to release their upgraded fourth generation within the same calendar year). I began leaving it behind on daily travels, and while I missed the functionality, I did not miss the heft. Although it was smaller and lighter than a laptop, the iPad still necessitated a backpack. 

The launch of the iPad mini further diminished my attachment to my now outdated device (a feat Apple seems to have a knack for with each of its product launches). The device was the perfect size and weight to carry without hesitation, and even provided a comfortable form factor for playing games. That said, it was severely compromised by its inclusion of the slower A5 chip and its lack of a retina display, which was of upmost importance to me as my eyesight has always been problematic.*

Apple fixed both of those problems in this year's iPad mini. Retina display? You bet. A6 chip? Psh, they went straight to A7. 

After graduating college back in May, I missed the days when I was eager to use the iPad for just about anything at all. I bought the new mini, and the magic came rushing right back. 

The new mini makes my third generation iPad feel like an old Lenovo laptop. It is so much lighter than my previous iPad, and so much more compact. I live and work in Marin County but spend most of my free time in San Francisco, and although I was rarely tempted to bring my full sized iPad to the city, the mini is a natural travel companion. Yesterday I stuck it in my drawstring out of habit, but quickly realized it could easily fit into my jacket pocket. 

Falling asleep at night is a constant challenge for night owls like myself, but with one hand I can read articles in Pocket in night mode on my new mini until I doze off. No need to find a position to prop it against my legs. I was never tempted to lug my giant iPad out of my backpack on the MUNI, (assuming I had even brought it with me at all), but I reach for my mini without hesitation to catch up on some reading or to send an email. My iPhone usually is dead by the time I am ready to come home, so offloading some of its tasks to the mini is also a nice way of ensuring that I have a charged phone, especially in case of emergency. 

Most importantly, the mini is the solution to this far too common conversation:

"So what are you working on?"

"I work at a big game company and I am also working on an iPad game with some friends that will be released in a few months."

"No way! Can I see it?"

"Well, I didn't bring my iPad."

"Why?"

"It's just a little too cumbersome to carry around all day."

Not anymore. The next time I have that conversation, it will end with my new acquaintance playing House of Cards on my iPad mini. 

This article was entirely written on my iPad mini using Pages. I know some have a hard time with touch typing, but I have never used a keyboard with my iPad and am just about as fast as I am with a physical keyboard. Let yourself get used to it - I promise it will be worth your while. 

*I wear thick contact lenses to address my -13 prescription, and have a much thicker pair of glasses that I usually do not wear out for obvious reasons. Even with corrected vision, the thick lenses strain my eyes if I ever read without perfect lighting. While a lot of people do not like reading on backlit screens, for me it is a necessity, as long as the resolution can match the printed page. I started reading the Steve Jobs biography in print and strained my eyes, but finished it on my iPad without a problem. 

Gladwellian Thinking

There are a certain number of inevitabilities in new releases from a popular creator. When Apple unveils a new product, Internet commentators will always complain that it is not revolutionary, their stock value will always plummet, and a few weeks later the company will always announce a record number of sales (slowly raising their stock value once again). 

Over in the literary world, when Malcolm Gladwell releases a new book, my Twitter timeline will always be flooded with criticism of his style, it will always sit near the top of the bestsellers list, and I will always read it. The notion that game designers tend to dislike Gladwell's writing style, which favors anecdotal over empirical evidence, should come as no surprise. As game designers we enjoy distilling complex systems down to their minute details, and most of us are left with a natural aversion to generalizations. That said, when discussing Gladwell's books it is important to remember that the world is not entirely comprised of game designers and academics.

Malcolm Gladwell is an extraordinarily gifted pop psychology writer. He is not a scientist, nor does he claim to be. In describing his latest book, he says, 

"Books like David and Goliath combine narratives and ideas from academic research in an attempt to get people to look at the world a little differently."

The chief reason I read Gladwell's books is because they are interesting thought experiments written to challenge a widespread belief, while planting a seed for further exploration on a particular topic. I believe it is always healthy to have our beliefs challenged, and Gladwell has made his career writing for people who think similarly.

His critics constantly chastise his prioritization of anecdote over data. Gladwell's work is hardly devoid of evidence (anyone who read Outliers will recall its chart filled chapter on mean ages of hockey players), but the way he addresses evidence is generally in the form of casual citation. So and so performed this study, he might say, giving us a resource to look further into the matter should we choose before summarizing the study's conclusions. An academic in the field Gladwell is talking about would probably be better off reading one of the studies he cites in the first place, but there is good reason his books top the best seller lists while academic journals do not, and it is not simply because of the lack of data.

Now for an anecdote of my own. Early in my time at USC I took a class on the history of Los Angeles. The class was discussing an assigned novel and textbook on the Watts Riots, and the TA asked which source we found more effective in portraying the event. The question was obviously loaded, designed to start a discussion on the positives and negatives of each source until the students came to the conclusion that both had merit and were equally valuable. I raised my hand and said, "the novel was  more effective."

The question was not about which source more accurately described the riots, it was about each portrayal's general effectiveness. While the textbook provided a plethora of dates, important figures, and key events, the novel taught me how it felt to be there. Feel is more memorable than fact, and the novel is the sole reason I can recall the empty details cited in the textbook. It energized them.

Gladwell's style more closely resembles the novel than the textbook. Through beautifully constructed sequences of stories, he encourages us to view his subject with a different lens. Rarely does he prove anything at all, but definitive proof is never the goal of a storyteller. He understands this perfectly:

"Stories necessarily involve ambiguity and contradiction. They do not always capture the full range of human experience. Their conclusions can seem simplified or idiosyncratic. But at the same time stories have extraordinary advantages. They can reach large numbers of people and move them and serve as the vehicle for powerful insights."

I was understandably surprised then, to read the Wall Street Journal's review of David and Goliath claim in its headline that "Malcolm Gladwell too often presents as proven laws what are just intriguing possibilities and musings about human behavior." Actually, he does quite the opposite! Malcolm Gladwell presents intriguing possibilities and musings about human behavior. Period.

He gets into trouble when his musings are read as fact, and it does not help that he begins most of his books with a generalization stating that most thinking about the said topic is wrong. David and Goliath's entire prelude to this generalization is a classic Gladwellian dissection of a likely fictitious Bible story, which is a hell of a hook, but leaves the reader with a strange impression regarding his purpose.

Despite his tendency toward hyperbole that further encourages the academic community's dismissal of his work, Gladwell's theories have inspired some exceptionally interesting discussion. When the Asiana Airline crashed in San Francisco last July, his chapter of Outliers discussing the culture surrounding Korean pilots was commonly cited. Soon after, we were treated to this incredible critique. Gladwell's musings are as opinionated as they are popular, and inspiring fascinating debate is yet another one of their inevitabilities.

The sheer amount of writing on the internet dedicated to lamenting, praising, or discussing Gladwell's work is proof enough that he is achieving his goal. We ARE talking about the world through a different a lens, after all. Gladwell's most vocal critics may require more evidence to see the world through his lens, but that is perfectly alright will him. He never fought for appeal by touting irrefutable proofs, just as Apple never fought for appeal by touting technical specifications. In fact, both Gladwell and Apple appeal to their respective audiences through a surprisingly similar message: think different.