Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/12/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]My children gifted me with an iPad for my 80th birthday in July. It is a wonderful toy for grownups and a technological achievement for Apple. I use it for reading, surfing the web, email, as an instant TV guide, and playing games but it isn't quite what I wanted for photographic work when traveling. What I really wanted was a somewhat smaller and faster replacement for my venerable 12" Powerbook. Perhaps a netbook sized computer but able to run all the latest Mac and PC software. I've maxed out the memory of my 12" Powerbook, replaced the HD with a 320 gb version, and loaded the bulletproof OS 10.4.11 software. It runs Photoshop, MS Office and GraphicConverter just fine. But the Powerbook is now seven years old and is showing definite signs of age. The iPad screen is big and bright enough. The color is glorious. The screen is even slightly bigger in area than the size of my first 128K Mac screen. I used that one happily for several years and then my daughter used it in college. On a visit to the local Apple store I saw the new 11" and 13" MacBook Air computers. The 11" model seems analogous to an iPad with a keyboard and able to run OS X programs. I could use all my expensive legacy software on it and delude myself into thinking it is really an economy measure. Unfortunately all the salespeople at the store were in their 20s and had no knowledge of Photoshop or the demands placed on a computer by image manipulation. One even suggested that iPhoto, in the included software suite would be all that I ever needed. Does anyone on the LUG have experience using the 11" MacBook Air? Comments? Larry Z