DARREN MURPH

“Going to print”

Three little words, but to me, they mean so much. In a matter of weeks, I’ll be a published author. The book is titled “iPad Secrets,” a guide to everything possible on your iPad that you may not have ever known was actually possible. It’ll ship to a slew of e-tailers (including Amazon outlets around the globe), and a bunch of well-known brick-and-mortar outlets as well. The publisher is John Wiley & Sons, also known as the company that publishes the famed ‘For Dummies’ line (including a pair of spectacular reads from a dear friend of mine, Chris Ziegler).

The book itself has been a monumental labor of love, and it has been an amazing learning experience. I was tasked with assembling a guide that would touch on all three of Apple’s iPad units to date: the original, the iPad 2 and the new iPad. Within the covers, you’ll find nifty shortcuts, tips and outright trickeration that relates to all three, and I’ve spent untold nights making revisions to ensure that the latest and greatest information is in here.

I highly doubt I’ll ever forget how this came to be: I was sitting in Denmark, just days after speaking at one of the most exciting and pulsing conferences I’ve ever been to (Next 2011, put on by Innovation Lab). I received a note from an acquisitions editor at Wiley asking me if I was interested in a book project. I knew that I didn’t have time. I made time. I knew that writing a book would be tough and relentless, but I couldn’t say no. After 20,000+ posts (and counting!) at Engadget, this felt like a beautiful way to extend what has become my career and touch the lives of a different sect of people who use consumer electronics.

Writing a book is exactly like you would imagine it to be, and nothing at all like you’d imagine it to be. Throughout the process, I have to say — Wiley was amazing to work with. I’ve heard some horror stories when it comes to publishing (even a sad tale from my main man Tim Stevens), but I’ve no regrets about diving into this.

It was easily the most challenging single project I’ve ever undertaken, but also one of the most rewarding. Now I understand the look authors give people when they say they’re about to write a book. Unless you’ve done it, you have no idea how long and winding the road is. That said, it’s really a grand feeling to see something of yours in print. As a boy who grew up penning his tales on a screen, there’s still something amazing about the printed word. I’d bother listing out the many, many people I owe thanks for, but all of that is within the front matter of the book.

If you (or someone you know) is interested in taking their iPad relationship to a new level, check out iPad Secrets. Hopefully you’ll find it infinitely useful and enlightening. It’ll ship on April 3rd for those that order online, and it should hit B&M stores a week after. Happy iPading!

P.S. - If you want to pre-order the book, you can do so at these fine e-tailers:

• Amazon US, UK, Canada, etc.
• Barnes & Noble
• Borders Australia

(If you’re looking for it elsewhere, the ISBN is 9781118247365)

On October 3rd, 2011, I boarded a plane from Tokyo to San Francisco. The reason? A week earlier, Apple had invited me to its headquarters in Cupertino for a press event, an event that would undoubtedly lead to the unveiling of its next iPhone. Around 12 hours after I arrived, I co-liveblogged the unveiling of the iPhone 4S with Tim Stevens. It was Tim Cook’s first solo press event as Apple CEO, and it never occurred to me that anything was different.

Cook pulled off an Apple event in spectacular fashion. The cadence was correct. The adjectives were correct. The flow was correct. The mood was correct. It speaks volumes about Cook’s respect for Steve, and it’s proof — at least to me — that Cook has devoted his working hours over the past months and years to learning how to best fill a pair of shoes that will never truly be filled again. At least, not with the same mold.

After 5+ years at Engadget, this was my first time on Apple’s campus. I’ve felt exceedingly privileged to devote my working life to Engadget and the consumer technology industry as a whole, and it was a remarkable privilege to be able to bring the latest creation from Apple to our readers. It’s truly humbling to do the work that I do, and showing up at 4 Infinite Loop reminded me once again what a fantastical world we live in. A day later, the man that co-founded Apple and literally invented products that have entirely reshaped the world passed away. I can’t help but wonder how much Tim Cook knew before going on stage, but he handled the event with poise, regardless. That should not be overlooked. It’s a situation that many would’ve faltered in.

I woke up, back in Tokyo, stunned and saddened by the news. The gravity of the situation is incredible. A sitting president of the United States of America paused to issue an incredibly heartfelt statement on the loss of one of America’s beacons. I was fortunate enough to co-liveblog Steve’s final keynote as an Apple employee: WWDC 2011 in June. The photo below is the final one I took of him, as he was walking off of the stage and the entire crowd within San Francisco’s Moscone West was rising to applaud his appearance. I count myself lucky to have even come this close to a man that will unquestionably go down in history books with the likes of Albert Einstein, Alexander Bell and Johannes Gutenberg.

What saddens me most about the loss of such a luminary is how the future of consumer technology will be less, in some way, without Jobs around. It is incredibly rare to invent something that you can convince a global audience is worthwhile. It is even more rare to do it on multiple occasions, even with enormous industry pressures and plenty of pundits. The iPod, for all intents and purposes, defines the portable media player universe, despite being almost universally panned for its absurd price tag and limited reach upon launch. People that don’t even understand, or care to understand, technology still adore the iPod. This is part of the reason that Jobs’ death is impacting more than just technologists. Even music lovers are fully aware of how their lives have been improved by the introduction of the iPod.

Jobs, and the wildly talented team that he placed around him, quite substantially changed the game with the iPod and iPad. Are they perfect products? No. But the lightbulb, even in 2011, still emits too much waste heat. I don’t see anyone disputing the game-changing nature of that.

My job, and the lives of my friends, colleagues and peers, was made more interesting by Steve Jobs. Regardless of the state of consumer electronics as a whole, there was always one man that we could count on to shake things up. Be it the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, or his unwavering stance to never adopt Blu-ray despite plenty of reasons to do so, he simply made life more interesting. And in most cases, more enriching.

In closing, it’s hard to express exactly how saddened I am by the fact that Jobs will not be around to invent anything else. He invented the iPod and iPad, amongst other things, during my short stint on Earth. I can assure you that the next 30+ years would’ve been filled with even more inventions if Steve were still here. I hesitate to even hazard a guess at what would’ve come next. Would we even have Android without iOS? Would Windows 8 be taking the approach it is without iOS and OS X? Would there be any pressure at all for RIM to innovate without any of the above?

I sincerely hope that Jobs spent as much time as he could pouring whatever knowledge he could into the mind of Tim Cook and the people surrounding him. America needs that breed of innovation to continue. The world does, too. As dark as today seems in the world of technology, my hope is that entrepreneurs, startups and technologists celebrate the life of a visionary by pushing themselves further than they ever thought possible. I can’t say for sure that I’ll ever have the privilege to write about another person with the same level of impact as Jobs, but I want to. Badly. I hope that Jobs has proven that technology can change the world, time and time again. I hope that he has proven that mere mortals are capable of engineering the impossible. And I hope — for the sake of Google, RIM, HP, Dell, Samsung and every other company and consumer wrapped up in the technology universe — that Apple continues to innovate in the way that it has in recent years. Trust me, we’re all better off if it does.