iPad for Dad, #10: Vacation, Technology, and Podcasts

We had a wonderful vacation in far-away upstate New York, near Canada. Interestingly, every person — all six of us — brought along our technology tools. Our cottage held six people ranging in age from 57 to 87, six laptops, one iPad, one Kindle, a Blackberry, and five cell phones. In order to charge everything we needed to get another surge protector.

Amazingly, the technology wasn’t intrusive, though you could not walk very far without seeing a laptop. I’ve been reading the book, Hamlet’s Blackberry, so I am increasingly aware of the need for downtime away from the virtual world. The cell phones and Blackberry stayed in their chargers, largely forgotten unless we passed them and noticed a message. However, just about all of us used our laptops, mostly to check e-mail, read the newspaper, or in my case, to post to my blogs. But our technology fixes were short, squeezed between walking, sitting on the porch, cooking great family meals, and swimming in the beautiful river (except for my husband who runs in the morning and then loves to fix things around the cottage).

The iPad was the hit of the week.

Dad used his iPad almost every day and passed it around to everyone else to check out. At least twice he took it out, demonstrating just how far past the beginner stage he has come and using it without asking for a bit of help.

Dad has discovered podcasts! At several of his favorite sites, his seminary for instance, he’s found interesting lectures to listen to and enjoy. Several times during the week he took out his iPad and started listening to a lecture. Once he did not use his headphones, and pretty soon everyone else was listening, too.

I sure would like some recommendations for other applications to install on Dad’s iPad. Your ideas are welcome!

If you like this post, read some of the other descriptions of our Father/Daughter iPad for Dad adventures – iPad for Dad, #1, iPad for Dad, #2, iPad for Dad, #3, iPad for Dad, #4, iPad for Dad, #5, iPad for Dad, #6, iPad for Dad, #7, iPad for Dad, #8, iPad for Dad, #9, iPad for Dad, #10, iPad for Dad, #11, iPad for Dad, #12, iPad for Dad, #13, iPad for Dad, #14, iPad for Dad, #15, iPad for Dad, #16, iPad for Dad, #17 , iPad for Dad, #18, iPad for Dad, #19, iPad for Dad, #20, iPad for Dad, #21 and iPad for Dad, # 22.

One thought on “iPad for Dad, #10: Vacation, Technology, and Podcasts”

As “one of the six,” your vacation interlude reminded me of
our last year’s Thanksgiving dinner, which Dad and I didn’t particularly appreciate at the time. Second cousins who were close to our family, along with their two sons and Dad’s sister, joined us for the holiday. We were already impressed when our hostess kept pulling out her new I-Phone to check on strange terms or events. Before this our host (son-in-law) would usually run to find information in a book source. With her and now friend/cousin constantly turning to their I Phones for information, we noticed the two sons retiring frequently to the living room to check out their laptops. At one time all four members of our cousin’s family were in the living room plying their laptops. As we seniors joined the two other couples at the River this summer, we now felt like experienced techies!

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