The Disappearing Evening

Our evening disappeared tonight. I got home, started supper, then ate with Amanda when she got home. We had planned on going swimming but instead spent a bunch of time getting our new cable box working properly. By the time that was done (8ish), it wasn't worth going anymore. So instead Amanda was using her iPad and I found my brother online playing Minecraft.

...two hours later we looked up from what we were doing and realized we'd better finish up and head to bed.

It was a good night, but it disappeared incredibly quickly.

Proportions Blown out of Proportion?

(blog post updated a few hours later)
 
I've been reading a lot of the iPad Mini reviews since Apple's new tablet was announced a few weeks ago.  I understand reviewers comparing the iPad Mini to various 7" Android tablets like Google's Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire HD.  I understand discussing the difference in app quality and availability, pixel density, and price.

What I don't understand is people complaining that the iPad Mini has a 4:3 screen ratio.  Nearly every review of the iPad Mini notes that not having a 16:9 display is an annoyance because widescreen movies will appear letterboxed.

I don't understand why this is such a big deal to some reviewers.  Yes, a 16:9 ratio screen will work better for watching movies.  If you're buying a tablet simply to watch movies on, you'd probably want a 16:9 tablet.

But if you're browsing the web with a 16:9 tablet, I assume you'd either have to scroll the page horizontally all the time (if holding the tablet vertically), or only see a small portion of the wepage at a time (if holding the table horizontally).

Typing would seem to be more awkward on a 16:9 tablet to me, too.  Either the keyboard would be very compressed in portrait orientation or the keyboard would cover so much of the screen that you couldn't see much of what you'd written in landscape mode.

It just seems to me like letterboxing widescreen movies is less of an inconvenience to me than dealing with an overly wide (or tall) screen for everything else.

(portion below added at 2:41am)

It occurred to me just before drifting off to sleep that I had made an error in the above post.  Many 7" Android tablets, including the Nexus 7 and Amazon Kindle Fire HD have a screen resolution of 1280x800, which is not quite a 16:9 display.  However, I believe most of the above points to still have some merit.

Technolust Part 5

Everyone else in the world is probably talking about it, so I might as well too.  My technolust has kicked in -- I want an iPhone 5.

That said, I really don't need one.  In the past month, my phone usage has dropped like a rock.  I don't need to text or call Amanda very much anymore now that I get to see her all the time (yay!)  My phone still works fine for the things I use it for, and I'm used to taking photos with it for this blog!

But still -- I look at shiny new pieces of technology and my heart beats a little quicker.  I think to myself "I've been good -- I've had my current phone nearly two years now.  I'm not one of those people who feels the need to upgrade every year."

I'm sure that the next time I see Amanda's brother-in-law, he'll be telling me about how Telus has upgrade plans in place for people who've owned their phones for two years, and find interesting stuff to do with Amanda between their two iPhones just to bug me.

I think I can be strong though.  I mean, once I have an iPad somewhere down the road, what in the world would I need an iPhone for?

Good Friday, Good Times!

Hi everyone!

I missed posting last night because I was on the way to Grande Prairie.  I left immediately after work (8pm) and arrived here shortly after midnight Grande Prairie time.

Amanda and I thoroughly enjoyed our day today, though we really didn't do much.  After breakfast we did some running around which ended up taking *much* longer than expected.  We both added detours to our route, and mine included a run to Future Shop to play with the new iPads again.  ...I think we were there 20 minutes.  Amanda played around with some games, while I toyed around with Numbers to see if an iPad would work okay for me to keep track of my spending and such when I'm on the road.

I was really impressed.  I was having fun with the iPad, and could imagine all the awesome things I could do with one.  I considered for a *long* moment, then asked Amanda to get me out of there before I grabbed a salesperson to sell me an iPad.

She (very helpfully) reminded me that I've got a stove to buy, and we escaped.  It made for an awkward afternoon though.  After *not* spending ~$600, spending money on pretty much anything with a two figure price seemed really reasonable in comparison...

I managed to restrain myself to a $2.00 purchase -- a discount book from Coles about the final days of Bear Stearns.  I think that's pretty good!