TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Susan Orlean:

It’s funny… we just bought a new car and we were looking at getting a DVD system, a built in one, factory installed. And they’re ridiculously expensive of course, and all they do is play movies. So a friend of mine said what a waste. Just get Austin an iPad.

And that way if I get him just the small one without 3G, loaded up with a bunch of games and download some movies for him, it would take us like three years before we come close to the price that you pay for DVD. And she said its old technology anyway and it will be useless and they charge about $2,000 for them.

…If you’re on a road trip and you have a $2,000 built in DVD player in your car, and first of all, all they can watch is DVDs. They can’t do interesting educational games, they can’t draw, all they can do is watch a movie, totally passive…and then you get to the hotel for the night and you go inside and you don’t have anything. You buy an iPad and you’re reading books, you’re drawing, you’re doing puzzles, you can watch a movie, and then you get to the hotel and you bring it in with you.

I would have loved to have an iPad as a kid on trips. There’s so much there to spark a kid’s curiosity and imagination. Books, educational games, drawing…

Because of its form, method of interaction and software, the iPad is the biggest step we’ve made toward computing devices where we don’t need to work around the device, but it is designed to fit us. We are forced to mold ourselves to computers—keyboard, mice, abstract user interfaces—and so although they are powerful, computers are inherently artificial to use. You are constantly thinking about how to use it rather than just using it.

We don’t think about how to use a notepad or a book. We just use it. The iPad is closer to a notepad in how we use it than it is to a computer. This allows it to be something more than a computer can ever be: it can be a book, or a notepad, something we don’t think about using. We just think about what we’re doing.

Earlier in the interview, Orlean describes the iPad as a “window” to the web, because the iPad seems to disappear as you use it and all you see is the content. I don’t think it’s just a window to the web, but if the application is properly designed, it’s a frame to whatever you are doing. If you are using a book application, all you see is the words.

The iPad isn’t quite there yet, but it’s a large step toward that. And that is terribly exciting.