subject: Coming To Grips With Lugging An Ipad [print this page] CALL it the male iPad dilemma: too large to slip into a pants pocket, too stiff to be curled up like a magazine and too precious to leave unprotected. With its rigid tablet shape, Apples iPad has raised an awkward consideration for many men: how to carry it in a manner that is practical and yet, well, masculine.
Scottevests vests, above and below, have an Ipad pocket.
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Cocoons Harlem sling.
Women, they have purses to put this kind of stuff in; men dont, said Andr von Houck, a 22-year-old programmer from San Francisco. I dont want to carry any Compaq tc4200 battery bags. His solution: he simply leaves his iPad at home. I dont carry it anywhere.
But guys who want to lug around their iPads are finding themselves quietly reaching for a so-called man purse, or murse. The iPad-shaped bags seem to be the gadgetphiles equivalent of a womans clutch.
Scott Stein, a senior associate editor at CNET who lives in New York City, has reviewed iPad bags and ranked each with a humiliation index. Scoring poorly was the Dell inspiron 3500 series battery Cocoon Harlem Netbook/iPad Sling, which he said looked like a giant iPad fanny pack, while a hipster-perfect olive-drab messenger bag from STM bags received high marks for style.
One might have a clutch that doesnt hold anything, but its stylish, he said. An iPad bag can be similarly stylish and absurd.
The company may want to contact David Hockney, the famed British artist, who carries his iPad in a custom pocket sewn into his jackets. The pocket was put there for a sketchbook that size by my tailor, he wrote in an e-mail. Instead of an old-fashioned sketchbook, he now carries the iPad, using an app for sketching whenever inspiration strikes, which is often.
A selection of Mr. Hockneys impromptu iPad drawings are on display in Paris at the Pierre Berg-Yves Saint Laurent Foundation through January.
