iPad iPocket

I got my iPad a week ago. I'm happy. It is just as I'd hoped. I haven't begun to tap into all the possibilities, but I've taken meeting notes, am using the calendar, have a few dangerously addictive games that amuse me and the kids while we're driving places or waiting around, music and eBooks. For months I held off on buying real paper books, figuring I'd buy some through iBooks. Fortunately iBooks opened its Canadian store a couple of weeks before my iPad arrived. Titles are accumulating rapidly! We haven't yet had an out-of-town trip, so my wifi-on-the-road experience is limited to the funky café we stopped at on the way to Nelson the other evening. I like being able to read recipes from the internet in the kitchen without printing them off the desktop computer. I like puttering in the kitchen while reading, turning the touch-screen pages with a sweep of my elbow when my hands are mucky.

I wanted a way to protect it, so I got out some cast-off mat board, my bookbinding cloth and a few bits and pieces and made a folio for it. The foam sheet on the left will be covered by a microfibre cloth once I locate a suitable one. For now it looks terribly unfinished, but I think with a dark grey cloth glued over the inside of the left cover it'll be great. I managed to cut out all the requisite holes for buttons and plugs on the right side so that it can be plugged in and the controls managed without removing it from the folio. The iPad slips in from the left and when closed the cover is secured with the strip on the far left, using a magnetic clasp (I sacrificed two fridge magnets, smashing them with a hammer, retrieving their teeny rare earth magnets).

The display on the iPad swivels, and except for reading books in bed I generally prefer the landscape orientation. For this, the front cover flips back on itself and a cunning joint and reverse application of the securing strip allows it to create a wedged cant to the screen for easier viewing.

The iPad is great for reading books in bed without keeping Chuck awake with page-turning and adjusting LED book lamps. The first night I used it, I put it into sleep mode rather than powering it right off when I went to sleep. An hour or so later it pinged loudly, notifying me that an e-mail had arrived. My iPad may need to receive e-mail while it sleeps, but I certainly don't! I powered it off.