The Tablet

I’ve got a MacBook Air. That’ll do me, I tell myself. I also have an iPhone, so I shouldn’t need anything else. But the itch won’t go away.

It’s daft. But sometimes I want to keep writing without sitting at my laptop. I did try using my iPhone. It works, sort of. I wouldn’t want to write a novel on it. Fat finger syndrome doesn’t help.

Ah, but I had an idea. Connect my Bluetooth keyboard to the iPhone. Type away, not a bother. And I did that for a while. It worked well. It let me keep writing when I didn’t want to be at the laptop. 

But that small screen? Yeah, not gonna lie, that made life hard for longer pieces of work. 

—I’m thinking of getting an iPad. 

Mary looks at me across the room. 

—Made of money all of a sudden are we? 

—I reckon we can manage it if I don’t kick the arse out of which one I get. 

—I dunno. It’s a lot. We need to hang on to our savings. 

Fuck, she had a point. I browsed Amazon. Found an Android tablet for £70. I didn’t buy it. Android. I use Apple. Too much of a faff. 

The next day, I ordered the Android tablet. The need to be free of a laptop was stronger than the need to avoid Android. It came with an external keyboard, a mouse and a USB-C charger. Nice.

It arrived. It was shite. I mean, I tried hard to get used to it. But typing on the keyboard was like trying to type on a sponge. A sponge with tiny plastic keys that were worse than those on my iPhone. I battled on because I’d bought the fucking thing. 

A day or so later, I gave up. I knew who would make use of the tablet. Our granddaughter. It would be fine for her. I cleaned all my crap off it, did a factory reset and packaged it all up like brand-new. 

Me and Mary were in our living room. 

—I’m gonna get that iPad. 

—How much? 

Progress. She wants to know how much. I told her. 

—That’s not bad. 

—Yeah, I’ve not gone after the fancy Pro ones. 

—But what d’yer want it for? 

—Writing. When I don’t want to sit at my Mac. 

—Right, the one you’ve got your eye on? Does it have a keyboard?

—Yeah, I added it. 

—Go on then. 

I hit that order button before she could change her mind or the wind could change direction.

Sweet. The iPad, keyboard folio case and an Apple Pencil. Nice. Sorted. 

It all arrived. I fired it up and everything transferred over. I was writing 30 minutes later. 

Mary came into my home office. 

—Happy now, are we? 

—Yep, well chuffed. Look, I’m working already. 

—You could do that on your Mac. 

—I know, but this is more… 

She waited. I didn’t know the answer. I stared at the iPad. Hoping it would answer for me. It didn’t. The git. 

—This is a change of pace when I get tired of typing on my Mac. 

—It’s still typing, but with a different keyboard. 

She was right; of course she was. 

—My Mac is getting old. This will share the workload, so it will last longer. 

She nodded. And said nothing. I’d scored with that one. I did a mental fist bump. 

Oh yeah, I used it to draft this post. See? It was worth getting, I tell myself.