Some tasks have a hard time fighting their way to the top of a todo list. They end up drifting for a long time in the deep, calm ocean of "nice to fix but never urgent". This week, I happily got some time for such an item: I have been picking some of the lowest hanging fruit in the area of adapting our web application to touch. I have been tracking Javascript events, wrestling with propagation, clicks versus touches and adapting CSS rules. Even more fun is having a solid reason to fill my desk with tablets. Mobile phones are not (yet, at least) a supported target, but I had reason to use an Ipad mini and an Ipad pro as well as a Nexus 7.
Tablets are fun. In all sizes.
Using software on the Ipad pro feels luxurious. The Nexus feels like … a magical pocket book or something. Friendly, grippable plastic, an unusual (at least for me) aspect ratio and the bonus fun of having a different operating system. Strange to me yet friendly. The Ipad mini shares with the Nexus the feeling of being a miniature wonder after handling the Ipad pro, size alone makes both devices feel almost playful and yet they are also completely usable and useful. They simply beg to be used more for fun things.
After switching between them regularly for a few days, I am left with a desire to do more with each of them. I wonder what it would be like to have each as my primary device, and how I might simply do more, more often, with tablets. How much more of my daily stuff can I move to a tablet if I try? And which is the smallest device I could get by decently (whatever that means) with?
The Nexus 7 is the very first generation, but it is running Marshmallow very well. I wonder if it will even go to Nougat eventually? (Searches.) The answer seems to be no.
It is easy to forget what magical times we live in when it comes to technology. Handling more different devices is one way I can remind myself of that.