New Yorker Writer Susan Orlean Threatened Divorce To Convert Her Husband To Mac [Macworld / iWorld 2012]

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Apple stock all-time high January 2012

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD / iWORLD 2012 — Talking on stage about her love of technology and gadgets, New Yorker writer Susan Orlean rhapsodized her iPad, and told how she converted her husband to Apple technology.

A self-confessed geek, Orlean told how the iPad solved all the problems she had with working and traveling with technology. She had a Danger Sidekick, but would go nuts taking notes on it. She finds her MacBook too heavy to carry all day.

She also not afraid of losing or damaging her iPad. “I can it take with me to take notes but it won’t have my life on it if it gets lost or stolen,” she said. “It solved all of my problems.”

And her favorite app?

“I’m a complete app obsessive,” she said. “I’ve done some app reviewing because I love it.”

Orlean said she has a “million” apps, all stuffed in folders, but her favorite app, the one she absolutely couldn’t live without, is Evernote, a popular database app for saving notes, photos, webpages and other ephemera. She uses it for reporting and in her personal life.

However, because the official Evernote app is clunky on the iPhone, she uses FastEver and FastSnap for capturing notes and photos instead.

The only game she plays is Bejeweled. “It’s like being a chain smoker,” she said. “It’s an addiction.”

Orlean is an author and staff writer for The New Yorker. Her bestseller, The Orchid Thief, was made into a movie staring Meryl Streep. Her latest book is Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend about Hollywood’s most famous canine movie star.

Orlean said there are four iPads in her household: one each for her and her husband; one for her son and one for their nanny.

“We got one for our nanny as a Christmas present,” she said. “I’ve never seen such joy on someone’s face.”

She also told how she converted her husband — described as a “Windows guy” — to Apple technology.

“Do you want to stay married?” she joked, which got a good response from the Macworld crowd.

She converted him because on trips he would always forget his PC power adapter and chargers for cell phone and other gadgets. Orlean would nevr forget hers, so it made sense for him to get the same devices.

“I persuaded him,” she laughed. “I got him in line. Now he has an iPhone, an iPad, a MacBook. He’s a changed man.”

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