Quick iPad Notes
So I received my 3G iPad on Friday. I thought I’d post some very quick thoughts on it. The gist of it is that I absolutely love it.
So, on to the notes.
3G and GPS. I happened to receive my 3G iPad the day before I was going on a long roadtrip. The iPad with 3G and GPS performed perfectly, and we were able to track our trip and get to our desintaiton and back with no trouble at all. It was super impressive.
Reading is simply fantastic. After being a NetNewsWire user for many years, I simply stopped using RSS this year. I hardly visit websites to read for fun anymore… I simply forget to. Because of the crazy number of feeds I’m subscribed to, reading RSS on my iPhone, with no matter what app I tried, was slow and cumbersome at best. NewsRack for the iPad changes all that. The speed of loading tons of rss feeds is so much faster. I have to remember to try NewsRack for the iPhone, too, but really, iPad RSS is so much better than iPhone RSS.
As for reading books, the iBook app is good, but the Kindle app is fantastic. The black background mode actually makes the idea of reading a book on a screen feasible.
Same goes for news. While the New York Times app is lovely, the USAToday app is just plain awesome.
As for weather… Wow. I’ve tried a few different weather apps, and they’re all great. I have no idea which I like best.
Writing isn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but it isn’t perfect either. I have a much easier time with the keyboard than I anticipated, but I am certainly not a real typist on this thing just yet. I wrote the bulk of the notes for this post on my iPad, but then moved over to my MacBook Pro to flesh out some of it.
The writing apps out there for the iPad are really beautiful and will make you want to do all of your writing on it…
Sorted is the only todo list app I’ve ever liked for any platform. Its simply gorgeous.
Simplenote is of course my ideal notes app, uses it’s lovely widescreen layout and syncs up perfectly with it’s iPhone counterpart and Notational Velocity on my Macs.
Pages is really a full featured text editor. Makes me dream of TextMate for the iPad…
Logmein is a dream on the iPad, especially if you’re someone manages multiple macs. I’ll never have to reach for my MacBook Pro again when wanting to do anything on my Mini that is hooked up to my tv.
Browsing the web is also fantastic. The funny thing is there is little reason for me to use Safari to visit many of the websites I visit the most due to the fact that they simply all have their very own iPad apps. Really all I need is the Tumblr iPad app, and I’m totally set.
I just haven’t had the time to try out that many games yet. But I can say that Strategery is the only war-time strategy game (or whatever you call it) that I’ve ever enjoyed… its great!
So… those are my very quick thoughts on my new iPad… what do you think?
Quick Thoughts On The iPad
The name doesn’t bother me that much. It could be worse.
It’s great that the iPad can create Pages/Keynote/Numbers documents, but how can you get them off the iPad? Can the iPad connect to my wireless printer? Can I somehow connect a USB flash drive?
My first thought was that I would never have a reason to use it. But I know when I’d use it. I would use it right now, right when I’m hanging out on my bed, home from work, with no desire to touch my laptop, but knowing that my iPhone isn’t quite enough.
While I understand why it uses iPhone apps, I do wish it could run real OSX apps. It doesn’t really bother me that Apple completely controls what can go on the iPhone, but there are certain things that I wish could go on the iPad that probably never will due to the closed nature of the iPhone app store. For example, Perian. Perian lets you play tons of video formats on your mac. I doubt we will ever have this for the iPad (unless its jailbroken, of course). It’s just so… Crippling.
Running only one application at a time (no background apps) is still a problem. If this is an issue having to do with processor/memory, thats just sad. It’s more fair if its only a concern about battery life. Still, its still a feature I hope for.
You can argue that the interface doesn’t call for more than one application window open at a time, so there is no reason to have more than one application open at a time. I get that. Still feels like a feature that is heading backwards instead of forwards for me. This goes along the lines of the point above… its hard to not see the iPad as a full computer, even though I know it definitely is not one.
The iBook concept, is of course great, even if it’s not exactly original. What I don’t like the idea, of, however, is having to possibly buy the same book two different ways on two different Apple-backed stores. What if I want a readable copy for when I’m home, and an audio copy for when I’m in the car? I’d love for Apple to somehow sell bundles of both. I mean seriously, it might actually get me to read again. Though I think I’d have to make the text huge to ever even try to read an entire book on-screen.
My biggest issue with the iPad is the whole data price thing. $30 a month for unlimited 3G data is great. But what if I’m already paying for unlimited data for my iPhone, and I have a 3G USB stick for my MacBookPro? Multiple monthly payments for the same stream of unlimited data.
Someday AT&T is supposed let those of us in the US use our iPhones for tethering, and then I’ll just use that for both my laptop and an iPad. Otherwise, the best option is to probably get a MiFi. Though I still say none of this is ideal, and there should be some sort of unlimited data combo-deal for those of us who already have iPhones who want to pay for laptop tethering. [So I buy the 3G model of the iPad, but I only pay one extra tether-data fee that applies to tethering from my iPhone and the 3G data on my iPad.]
So… will I get one? Yes. I think for me it’ll mainly be something I use when I’m too tired to face my laptop. Will I get my mom one? Yes. Will I still need to bring my laptop home on the weekends? Yes.
So, I say “yes” to the iPad. Not “wow”, but, “yes”.
