Aaron Iba’s Posterous

My Favorite iPad Apps

A lot of friends are getting iPads and asking me what my favorite apps are. I use my iPad for 3 main things:

  • Web Browsing
  • Reading
  • Games

Here are my favorite apps for each of these uses.

Atomic Web Browser - This browser has a tone of features that utilize the additional iPad screen size better than the built-in browser.

Kindle - By far my most-used app.  I was worried that the iPad screen would be less comfortable than the eInk on my Kindle DX, but to my pleasant surprise, I can read for many hours on the iPad without a problem.  Given that Kindle on the iPad is so much faster than the DX, I don't have any reason to use my DX anymore.  I love reading Kindle books on my iPad.

GoodReader - Great for reading PDFs.  And it syncs with DropBox.  Just drop a PDF file into your DropBox and then open it with GoodReader on your iPad.  Best way to transfer/read PDFs.

WordBook XL - I think this is the best English dictionary app for the iPad.  It's based on WordNet and the UI is good.  I tried a bunch of other dictionary apps before this one, and liked this one the best.

Construction - The best game I've played on the iPad.  The objective is to build structures out of a limited set of materials.  Challenging and fun.

SuperJuicyHD - A fun puzzle/action game that involves popping bubbles.

Mirror's Edge - A fun side-scrolling action game from EA that uses touch-screen gestures in a creative way.

Rush Hour - A great sliding-block puzzle game.

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Low Tolerance for Boredom

Lisa Nielsen stumbled across my psychological testing results from when I was 7 years old and wrote about it.  She is giving a talk about innovation in education and asked me to share my story, so here it is.

I'm 26 years old.  When I was 23 I founded a software company that was recently acquired by Google, and before that I went to MIT where I got a degree in mathematics and nearly perfect grades.  So if you'll excuse the immodestly, I think based on my recent history most people would consider me pretty successful academically and professionally.

None of my early teachers, however, would have predicted any sort of success for me.  At Estabrook Elementary School, I lit fires and sprayed graffiti in the bathrooms.  At Diamond Middle School, Sopheak Un and I stole all the mouse balls from the computer lab, prompting an all-hands meeting of the students and teachers in the cafeteria.  (I believe Joey Carroll ratted me out).  I was permanently banned from riding the school bus for doing something I am too ashamed of to publish on the web.  In 7th grade, I sold a 3" Israeli army knife to Matt Fallon, who pulled it out during English class.  These are just some of the things I remember getting caught doing.  Detention, suspension, and attempted expulsion where regular occurrences in my early life. 

Everything changed during the summer before high school.  My dad suggested I read the book Hackers, by Steven Levy.  I was already interested in computers because they provided a great source of stimulation at a pace I could control.  But after reading Hackers, I had a new purpose in life.    I wanted to go to MIT and be a hacker myself.  In order to get into MIT, I realized, I needed good grades and a clean academic record, so I made that happen.  I was fanatically motivated to go to MIT, and this created a goal toward which I could leverage my energy and learn to control my impulses.

I'm not saying it was OK that I acted like a hoodlum in middle school.  I feel bad for my teachers and my parents for all the grief I caused them. But I also suffered.  I had a tremendous amount of energy and a craving for challenge and stimulation, yet I was forced to try to sit still in a classroom and passively take in information at a slow pace.  School was a boring prison for me, and I did what I could to bring excitement into my life in an environment that seemed designed to prevent it.

At 26, I still have a low tolerance for boredom and consider this a virtue.  It's what led me to entrepreneurship and gives me a healthy appetite for risk.

I don't have all the answers for how to fix the situation for other kids like me, and I don't know how common my situation is.  My message to educators is simply to keep an open mind when it comes to rambunctious little problem students.  Maybe they just have a low tolerance for boredom.

 

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