I could still catch up on the news
I'm lucky that my job lets me test out a bunch of different kinds of gadgets for free. At any given moment, I have at least one device running every major computing platform within arm's reach.
But whenever I want to spend my hard-earned cash on a new gizmo, it almost always comes from Apple. I have an iPhone 5, Apple TV, and a MacBook Air. I still think Apple makes the best stuff (they won't forever though, trust me), and that's why it gets my money.
Something changed this year though. For months, my iPad remained on my nightstand, untouched. The battery was dead, not from overuse, but from weeks of neglect while it was in sleep mode, which barely sips power. I didn't feel a need to recharge it.
It was a strange twist in my computing habits. When I first got my iPad, I found myself using it more than my MacBook. I would come home from work and use my iPad to catch up on news and Twitter. At night, I'd use it to stream Netflix in bed. I really only used my MacBook if I needed to do some work from home. It was essentially just a word processor to me.
I started using my iPad less and less this year mostly because I started working a lot more when away from the office. For writers, an iPad isn't an ideal device to get things done, even with one of those cool keyboard accessories. I still need a full-fledged PC to do my job well, as I suspect people in many other professions do.
So I found myself spending much more time on my MacBook, and I realized I could still do a lot of things on it that I could do on my iPad, and then some. I could still catch up on the news, keep up with Twitter, and plow through my exhaustive Gmail inbox. Since the MacBook Air is so thin and light, it was just as easy for me to use on the couch or in bed like I used to with my iPad. It was like rediscovering an old beloved toy.
Yes, iPads and other tablets appear to be cannibalizing the traditional PC market. PC makers like HP, Dell, and to an extent, Apple, have all blamed the popularity of smartphones and tablets for the decline in PC sales. However, in most cases, if you need to get work done, an iPad or other tablet really doesn't cut it. They're great devices for browsing the web, light emailing, and playing games, but still don't offer the full suite of productivity a regular PC does.
That's a problem Microsoft is trying to solve with Windows 8 and devices like the Surface Pro, a tablet that can double as a regular laptop thanks to a handy snap-on keyboard accessory. Unfortunately, most Windows 8 devices don't do a great job at being both things. There are still far too many compromises in weight, thickness, battery life, and apps that manufacturers have to deal with when making these hybrid PCs. As a result, most Windows 8 hybrids are pretty mediocre right now.
Until someone figures out the perfect hybrid device, I don't see a need to carry around three different computing form factors. And iPhone and MacBook Air is the perfect combination for me.
Anna Smith is a mother of two who lives in rural Idaho, works the night shift as a nurse and goes to the gym a lot. She rarely follows the news and knows little about the debate over government surveillance and privacy that has rocked Washington in recent weeks.
None of that is stopping her from suing the president of the United States.
Smith is the plaintiff in one of six legal challenges that have been filed over the government's sweeping collection of telephone and Internet records. Her attorney is her husband. She doesn't understand the legal technicalities and worries that the case could distract from her job and parenting duties.
But the Idaho native knows how she feels about the prospect of anyone tracking calls from her cellphone: She's outraged. "It's none of their business what I'm doing: who I call, when I call, how long I talk," Smith, 32, said in a telephone interview. She added: "I think it's awesome that I have the right to sue the president. I'm just a small-town girl."
Smith's lawsuit, filed June 12 in federal court in Idaho, names President Barack Obama "in his official capacity as President of the United States of America," along with other top officials. Like most of the other cases, it urges a judge to declare unconstitutional a National Security Agency program that scoops up the telephone records of millions of Americans from U.S. telecommunications firms.
The revelation of that program last month by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden -- along with his disclosure of a separate program aimed at collecting the online communications of foreign targets from major Internet companies -- has fueled the growing legal challenges.
But Smith's suit is in many ways the most unusual of the recent cases -- and it arguably best exemplifies ordinary Americans' anxieties about government surveillance. Nearly three-quarters of Americans now say the NSA is infringing on personal privacy, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The other suits were brought by what might be considered heavyweight activists: the American Civil Liberties Union; two digital rights organizations; and Larry Klayman, who founded the conservative group Judicial Watch. Smith just happens to have a cellphone and a point of view.
Her husband, Peter, is a commercial litigator who has never handled a constitutional or national security case. His co-counsel, Lucas Malek, worked briefly as a prosecutor and is now an Idaho Republican state representative and part-time lawyer.
The case faces major obstacles. Nearly all such lawsuits have been thrown out on national security or other grounds since 2005. Meantime, Smith's suit -- one of hundreds the president faces each year -- comes with an additional hurdle.
When the British newspaper The Guardian revealed the phone records program, it published a classified court order to Verizon Business Network Services in which the NSA directed the company to turn over customers' records. Smith is a customer of Verizon Wireless, not Verizon Business Network Services.
Her eight-page lawsuit says she "believes" a similar secret court order went to Verizon Wireless. If Smith cannot prove she was a target of surveillance, her lawsuit will face problems: The Supreme Court in February narrowly dismissed an earlier such case, ruling that those challenging surveillance could only "speculate" about what the government was doing.
"It's a potential weakness," Peter Smith acknowledged. "If we're going to get shut down by a court that says you don't even have a right to know if the order exists, we're toast."
But he and his wife are pressing their case, saying Anna Smith's fear that her records are being monitored reflects the anxiety that millions of Americans with no connection to terrorism feel about the NSA's activities.
Government officials have argued that the NSA's programs have been approved by Congress, overseen by a federal court and operated within rigorous guidelines. They emphasize that, under the records collection program, analysts are not listening to Americans' calls. And they say the program has proved vital to disrupting terrorist plots in the U.S. and overseas.
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