I’m on a Southwest flight, half way from Boston to Denver. In my “Life Is Good” cloth bag, I’m toting a Kindle 6-inch and the iPad on which I’m drafting this post in the Pages app.  I told Bryan Person last month that if I had to choose between the iPad and the Kindle for a long flight, I’d take the iPad. That’s still probably true, but the Kindle has been coming back up in my world lately, to the point where I would probably now reply, “Why do I have to choose?”

If I had checked my Kindle along with my laptops in the suitcase, I would have missed a great read that occupied me for the first hour of the flight. At a Logan Airport newsstand, I saw that James Fallows has the cover story in the current issue of The Atlantic, titled “How to Save the News.” I pulled out the Kindle and bought the issue wirelessly for $1.49. It’s a fascinating piece, in which Fallows explores Google’s quiet but significant initiatives to help print news publications break through to the Promised Land of renewed ad strength for digital content. I read the article slowly enough to think about it as I was taking it in.  I find that my Kindle is the perfect way to follow a complex article, because I see fewer words at a time than is the case with print on paper.  The Kindle made getting the article (and paying The Atlantic something for Jim’s good work) almost as easy as simply thinking about doing so.

As for the iPad, it’s the perfect magical tool for a tray table in coach. My Apple iPad case lifts the top of the screen to a comfortable angle for typing and grips the tray, so there is no sliding around. In addition to writing this post, I’ve done some MindNode brainstorming for a Western States Arts Federation tech presentation I will give in St. Louis in September, and I read some from my Financial Times iPad app, which has a smart and simple way to download the latest content for off-line reading.  I haven’t had time to play Plants vs. Zombies or listen to the any podcasts.

So I agree with Mike Elgan, who says there are good reasons for using an iPad and a Kindle. BTW, if you haven’t seen it yet, click here for Mike’s brilliant comparison chart for an iPad, a Kindle — and a Rock. It was great to talk with him for Kindle Chronicles #97 last week.

There are about 10 laptop computers on this flight, one Kindle, one iPad (mine) and lots of print books and magazines.

Life is good, and the news is worth saving.

[Delayed upload, after getting home in Denver.]

I arrived at the Cherry Creek Mall garage this morning at 4:30, which was early enough to put me first in the line of those who had reserved iPods at the Apple Store. The blue-shirted team was pumped up and gave me a royal-geek welcome as James guided me through the simple purchase of a 16GB iPad WiFi only. I still don’t really know what hit me, or what I will do with this thing. It’s gorgeous, heavier than I expected, lousy to read in sunlight, and gorgeous. Even though it mimics the iPhone user interface closely, it still feels strange, which is part of the appeal to me. I love learning something entirely new. This qualifies.

Apple Store at Cherry Creek Mall, Denver

I hadn’t planned to be here this early.  But when I woke up at 3:20 a.m. I knew there was no point in trying to sleep. So I arrived at the mall parking garage at 4:30 a.m. and saw someone walk in just before 5.  I scooted in myself, relieved to find no one in the “Reservations” line outside the door of the store.  There is a separate line for walk-ins, and Daryl and his wife Rhonda are first there.  He’s a retired funeral home owner, and they drove two hours to get here from northeastern Colorado.  The second guy in the Reservations line is named Jim Kinch from Denver. He’s reading a Kindle DX, which is impressive.  He says he thinks he’ll still use it even when he’s got his iPad.

I see Robert Scoble has been in line all night at the Apple Store in Palo Alto.  It’s easy being an early adopter in Denver. “We’re not really waiting in line to get them,” Scoble told MercuryNews.com. “We’re here to celebrate geekdom. It’s always a fun party.” My sentiments exactly.

Though I might put it differently and say I’m here to celebrate innovation.  What I love about what I’ve seen of the iPad is that no one has seen anything like it before.  I had a Compaq tablet computer back in the day, but it was a clunky, unusable beast with a fat electric pen that used AAAA batteries, as I remember.  This thing is the Kindle to that era’s RocketBook. And because of the wild creativity in apps that it will unleash, there is no telling what will appear on that sleek, multitouch screen.

Of course I’m very interested in how the iPad will fare as an eBook reader.  Amazon has a huge head start, and they’re not slowing down.  Last night they announced their Kindle for iPad app, ready for business today. Today’s first iPad users will have 60,000 titles to choose from at Apple’s new iBooks Store – and half of them will be out-of-copyright free books – while over at the Kindle Store they will find more than 450,000 titles.   We all expect a new Kindle to come out later this year, with a color touchscreen that’s still reflective, i.e. easy on the eyes compared to staring into a flashlight, which is how an LCD screen seems to me after a while.  But even if the iPad topples the Kindle as hardware, Amazon will keep selling Kindle books, which was the plan from the beginning, I suspect.

But back to creativity.  One of the most interesting exchanges I’ve seen in the last days of the pre-iPad Era was a rant by Cory Doctorow bemoaning the way kids can’t hack into an iPad or much else these days, followed by a graceful reply from John Gruber.  John cited a 13-year-old who had pitched him a new iPhone app as an example of how the current environment gives smart geeky inventors an even better sandbox than existed a generation ago with the Apple II.  Here’s the kid’s message to Gruber:

I am 13 years old and a big fan of your site. I just made an app called iChalkboard. This is my second app, but my first iPad app. It allows you to simply sketch things out. Check it out: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ichalkboard/id322491414?mt=8. If you need any more info or a promo code, feel free to ask.

I hope you like it as much as I do.

I’m with Gruber on this one. Amazon’s team must have worked round the clock to launch the Kindle app in time for today. Meanwhile, somewhere in Nebraska, another 13-year-old kid has an idea…

Aboard the Henry Longfellow in the Charles River Basin, Boston

I have decided to take a five-month break from politics.

To some extent, I have Steve Jobs to thank for this decision.  Apple’s handing down of its new tablet on Wednesday has turned the eBook space white hot.  The iPad will have a new iBooks app, a direct attack on the Kindle’s dominance of eBooks.  I’m not saying the Future of Reading is more important than the future of civil political discourse in America, but for the next six months I’m going to focus on the former and let the latter lurch along without me. My weekly Kindle Chronicles podcast just passed the 2,000 mark in Feedburner subscribers, and my new companion podcast, The Reading Edge, offers a great way for me to further explore the eBook Revolution. This is shaping up to be a truly amazing year for anyone as passionate about literature and technology as I am.

Apple's new iPad

I don’t have a precise definition of political sobriety, but I have taken actual steps to reduce my intake of political news and commentary.  I turned off my Google Reader feed and created a brand-new one that, so far, contains nothing but eBook blogs and news. No more Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish or Mike Allen’s Politico Playbook, no more deep political reads in The New Yorker or political podcasts. (One reason I am including these links is that I may need them to find my way back to political immersion on the Fourth of July.)

There is no way to avoid political news completely.  I have resolved to continue watching the President’s weekly address, and to finish Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue, an experiment in reading a nook and remaining open to a cultural phenomenon that is as opaque to me as professional sports.  I have a hunch that an open mind is my only hope for an old age that works.  It’s the daily drip of savvy, deconstructive political reporting and toxic partisan bickering from which I take this sabbatical.

On Independence Day we will be in Maine again.  I hope I will return to the fray refreshed by being away for a while, and that The Kindle Chronicles and The Reading Edge will benefit from 153 days of renewed attention and work.