Your momma sucks iPad, By Mark Morford

So there I was, giving my wonderful but happily technologically unconcerned septuagenarian mother her 147th semi-repeated lesson on how to do various relatively simple tasks on her beloved MacBook, because as default Apple tech support for my whole family, that's just how I roll.

It was another lesson on everything from what a "file" is and where attachments go when they die, to what an "operating system" is and what the little swirly button on the toolbar means, along with a quick overview of how it all works, more or less, because there's only so much you can say about these things before all eyes glaze over and it becomes ridiculous and needlessly annoying, and we decide to forget about it and pour more wine.

And of course she dutifully took notes (longhand, on a notepad) also for the 147th time, carefully listing out the steps to each task, how many mouse moves,menu pull-downs and multiple clicks, and which program does what thing, before smiling and sighing and saying, "That's enough, I can't remember any more" and shutting it all off and going back to reading her Kindle.

Which she only sort of likes, by the way (her Kindle that is), because while the thing is fairly easy to read in daylight and makes it relatively effortless to flip through "pages," Amazon's little lump of technological mediocrity is also a hideous mess of lousy interfaces and clunky aesthetics, a beige slab hocked up by 1987's worst design ethos, all of it about as enjoyable to use as a food processor designed by encephalitic monkeys, especially considering all the beauty and deep pleasure it imparts -- which is to say, absolutely zilch. ...


(Full URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/07/07/notes070710.DTL&nl=fix)

The first three 'graphs describe my mom to a t. At 74 she decided to buy a new iMac of her own, retiring her candy-colored hand-me-down which was had become hopelessly obsolete. I wish I'd had her wait for the iPad. All she wants is e-mail, a few games, and the ability to watch the videos of her grandkids my sister posts on Facebook. The iPad is perfect for her.

Rec :hi: