Yes. Real books are awesome. Yes. Paper smells amazing. Yes. Highlighting and scribbling and touching a paperback adds a whole other level to the reading experience.

But you know what? My iPad has been the best thing that ever happened to the bookworm in me.

Here is why I love reading on my iPad:

1. You can read without glasses. Zoom, I love you.

2. Being a bookworm is a really expensive hobby in this part of the world. I made up for the extravagant price of the iPad in the first 3 months by saving on books.

3. Two words: Backlit display.

4. It is more socially acceptable to read on the iPad in social settings because many people assume you’re working.

5. Instant information access. Highlight to look up words you don’t know, do a quick wiki search to familiarize yourself with a topic you’re not familiar with.

6. You don’t have to wait a month or two for the Amazon-Aramex combination to work in cases where you are really eager to read a book.

7. Search. Come on, you know you want that.

8. It’s really easy to prop up the gadget on your pillow.

9. You don’t have to carry 3 different books at all times. You have ALL your books, ALL THE TIME.

10. Taking notes and saving snippets is just a matter of copy and paste.

My fellow bookworms, stop being so frickin’ romantic and treat yourself to a damn iPad.

From “The Geek Life”

Steve,

I am another Eve, another person forever changed by taking a bite of your rainbow apple. As is the case with most addicts, my first bite was very strongly influenced by the addiction of others. “Taste it, Roba,” they would say. “It makes the world so much more beautiful.”

At first, I resisted. The other fruits were not as beautiful nor as seductive as your concoction, but they were certainly easier on the pocket, more common, more accepted. They were safe. But I was never one for safety, I guess you can say.

I bit into your fruit. I saw the rainbow.

Steve, you gave me the rainbow.

A prism of colors. Joy. Oh, my god. For that, I owe you forever, whether we stay in Heaven or not.

My heart palpitates and my I go all doe-eyed even in the presence of your creations. I have, after all, spent the past ten years crushing on your products. The kind of glorious crush where I feel like passing out when surrounded by a certain amount of beautiful and perfect pieces of machinery. The kind of corporeal crush where I want to run the tips of my fingers over the cold metal and soft plastic and get bedazzled by the faery-style white light. The kind of crush where I want to put an Apple laptop inside a lucite case and place it lovingly on my coffee table as some sort of ultra-modern readymade sculpture for the sole purpose my visual enjoyment.

As is the case with other addicts, my obsession with beauty and perfection saw me seeking others who also had a sense of appreciation for things as absurd as the scent of a perfectly-created MacBook Pro. Steve, you blinded me. My collection of Apple gadgets could feed a family of 5 for a year in the third world country in which I live. Steve, I look at other fruits in vain, both literally and metaphorically speaking. Steve, my friends are a bunch of dreamy designers, artists, and superheroes, wielding shiny, silver weapons. I can’t help it. I am naturally attracted to other addicts. I can smell them a mile away.

You have influenced my life, the way I work, the way I design, the way I think. Dear Steve, you have given me the elixir of life. You have given me simplicity. You have given me dependability. You have given me a tool of joy.

I don’t know how your decision to purge the apple out of your system will affect our addictions. Do we all need to start detoxing? Is the rainbow going to fade out slowly and then die? Is it time to get an Apple tattoo?

I don’t have the answers yet. But I see my need for rehab.

Steve, I will miss you.

I was recently featured on The Next Web’s list of 7 Middle Eastern tech personalities to circle on Google+. How cool is that?

The other people on the list are Sami Shalabi, Wael Ghonim, Joseph Ayoub, Orli Yakuel, Zamil Safwan, and Alireza Yavari.

You can add me to your circles on Google+ here.