The latest iThing

I feel I have to write something about this because I'm such a shameless mac lover.  People tease me in the halls about my iphone and I dropped a lot of cash on my macbook pro.  But I spend such an embarrassingly large amount of time on this thing--and love it thoroughly--that it was really worth it to me.

So. About the iPad.

I've long been a little tempted by the Kindle, especially the DX, but was obviously curious about what apple was cooking up.  I thought the Kindle would be nice for times when I want to get away from things a little and just read without distractions.  For this purpose there are two things I really like about the Kindle: (1) a very long battery life and (2) the paper-like screen that is not backlit and can be easily seen outdoors.  Free and inexpensive wireless connection to books, newspapers and magazines is nice too. 

Given what I really like about the Kindle, I'm not really tempted by the iPad.  It looks very cool but if I really want to get away from things to read then I don't need the internet and email.  And if I'm working or surfing or emailing, I'll probably have my laptop anyway.

Maybe I'll change my mind when I actually see and touch one but right now I'm not tempted.  I'm just hoping competition from the iPad will push down the price of Kindles.

But I can see how people who aren't geeks like me, who don't always have their laptops with them anyway, might really like the iPad.   Which makes me wonder: for all the people and tech companies in the world, why is Apple so much better at it than everyone else?  Why aren't more CEOs like Steve Jobs?  I'm pretty sure it's not because CEOs are paid too little.  I know it's sacrilegious for an economist to suggest, but I think there may be more to this than incentives.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nonlinear Temperature Effects Indicate Severe Damages to U.S. Crop Yields Under Climate Change

Image
It's been a long haul, but my coauthor Wolfram Schlenker and I have finally published our article with the title of this blog post in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . We've been told that it would show up on the early-edition website this week. It hasn't shown up there yet so I guess it will come out tomorrow [Friday 8/28], probably late afternoon EST. UPDATE: You can find the article here . We set out to develop a better statistical model linking weather and U.S. crop yields for corn, soybeans and cotton, the largest three crops in the U.S. in production value. Our major new finding is that (by far) the best predictor of yield is a measure of extreme heat: how much temperatures exceed about 29C (84F) during the growing season. The threshold varies somewhat by crop--29C is the threshold for corn. Below this threshold, warmer temperatures are more beneficial for yields, but the damaging effects of temperatures much above 29C are staggeringly large. A
Read more

Renewable energy not as costly as some think

Image
The other day Marshall and Sol took on Bjorn Lomborg for ignoring the benefits of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.  Indeed.  But Bjorn, among others, is also notorious for exaggerating costs.  That fact is that most serious estimates of reducing emissions are fairly low, and there is good reason to believe cost estimates are too high for the simple fact that analysts cannot measure or imagine all ways we might curb emissions.  Anything analysts cannot model translates into cost exaggeration. Hawai`i is a good case in point.  Since moving to Hawai`i I've started digging into energy, in large part because the situation in Hawai`i is so interesting.  Here we make electricity mainly from oil, which is super expensive.  We are also rich in sun and wind.  Add these facts to Federal and state subsidies and it spells a remarkable energy revolution.  Actually, renewables are now cost effective even without subsidies. In the video below Matthias Fripp, who I'm lucky to be working w
Read more