iPad Thoughts
With all the hype around the iPad and from what it looked like to me, it was hard for me to get past calling it an oversized iPhone. Just scanning the articles about it, it did not seem to offer me anything that my iPhone did not offer, save a bigger screen, as it runs a very similar operating system to what is on my iPhone. With this in mind, let me tell you how I got my iPad, the over-sized iPhone.
My wife called me on Friday, the release date of the 3G model, as she was all “gung ho” to get one for herself. I had convinced her at least that the non 3G model was useless as she would have to rely on other people's wireless connections when she was not at home. Honestly I am not sure why she wanted one but alas when you are married you learn just to accept certain things in life. With a few moments of hesitation, I asked her to pick one up for me also. Being a person who loves to get his hands on all technology, I realized I could play with it for a while but I had a back up plan in mind that if I did not like it I would end up selling it on eBay or simply return it to the Apple store. This would be a small loss but an acceptable one in my book.
My wife brought the iPad home with the plan of having me do the setup of the device for her. With some muttering to myself, I opened the box and started on the iPad adventure for her.
The iPad, itself, uses the same docking cable as my iPhone so I plugged it to begin the setup process. I was required to hook it up directly to my Mac instead of using my USB hubs where I have my iPhone plugged into. After a few moments of more muttering, I got it connected and went through the registration process, which asked the normal Apple questions about who you are and what you are planning on doing with your purchase. After that was complete, I started the syncing process of all my iPhone application. This is where I made mistake number one. Without realizing it, I synced a good number of the non HD application over to the device and applications that I had not touched in quite some time on my iPhone. I thought about resetting it back to factory defaults at this point in time but decided to march on and clean up the applications on the device, and in turn, clean up the crud in iTunes. This, however, took a good part of an hour and my patience was growing thin.
After the initial setup and cleanup was complete, I started to hunt down iPad apps that I thought my wife would enjoy to use. This slowly turned into problem as the more and more I used it, the more and more I found that I was finding a purpose for the device. After 2 hours of playing with the device, I was hooked and there was no turning back. This brought up another problem for me though: now I need to setup the iPad for my wife as I realized I had customized the device for myself and not her. Learning from my initial mistakes, I did not sync all the iPhone applications over and only downloaded what I felt was really needed to make the iPad a more useful tool.
With the good, there is always some bad which brings me to my complaints about it. I already have services with AT&T for my iPhone and wanted to use the same account for both devices. This is not something they allow you to do for reasons that I do not understand, so I was forced into setting up a second AT&T account for my iPhone. I believe, though I have not tested this myself, that I could use the same SIM card from iPhone in the iPad but that seemed foolish as I would want to have access to my phone while using the iPad at the same time. My second complaint is the poor text rendering on some applications when you "2X" them to the same size as the screen. The text, in some cases, is grainy and hard to read. I suspect as more and developers embrace this platform, applications will be made to support both platforms equally, but for now my eyes will be strained or I will have to find alternative applications that support the iPad.
Finally, I wished that they had included mouse support for the device. This would be better alongside a Bluetooth keyboard to have a mouse, so that I would keep my hands at a normal natural position rather then having to reach up and touch the screen. Maybe a future release will include the driver for a mouse.
As I mentioned earlier, I had to find a good selection of applications to make the iPad useful. The iPad, when you purchase it, comes with a good selection of basic applications - email, a web browser and an audio player - that you find on any modern operating system. But each person has to customize the device to fit their needs and these are the applications that I would recommend for the iPad
Dragon Dictation: This useful application is how I started to write this article in an outline format by doing a capture of my voice which the application then turned into a text format. It is not the best for doing full articles yet as it does not understand every word, but it did help me develop an outline which I use when I wrote this article. The application is free of charge so there is nothing for you to lose if you wish to investigate it yourself.
Adobe Ideas: This is a great drawing application that I can use for white boarding ideas in coffee shops or help me show flow of devices when trying to explains network topologies to people in the work environment. It was one of the first things that I looked up when I started to look for items to download. With a touch interface, it seemed like a natural item to include as I was a little surprised that Apple did not include an application like this by default.
Free Books - 23,469 classics to go: If you have ever been to my house, you will quickly realize that I love to read books. I have always found looking at the computer screen hard on my eyes no matter what I did. My eyes have finally accepted the future which makes it possible for me to enjoy looking at screen for hours on end while enjoying the great classic books that are offered by this application. The application has a few interface quirks but nothing that is too difficult to overcome once you spend a few moments with the application. If nothing else, it will reduce the number of paper cuts I will receive over the years reading books.
Plants vs Zombies: This game really showed me what kind of graphics this device is capable of. In this highly addictive game, you grow an army of plants to defend your house from an army of zombies that are trying to eat your brain.The plants have various properties ranging from shooting to freezing to my personal favorite, exploding. Do not think the zombies are defenseless as they use screen-doors to defend themselves, pole vaults to jump over your shooting plants and even a disco zombie who will bring up an army of dancing zombies to invade your home and eat your brains. I am having a lot of trouble putting the game down as it has truly vibrant colors and an awesome soundtrack to keep you addicted to the game.
Overall the device is a treat to use and I would recommend all the skeptic of the iPad to give it a try before writing it off as nothing they would ever use. With the combination of an e-reader, a game platform that development is well underway for, and all the features that you need nowadays to keep up with your email/web browsing habits, the iPad has give me a true all-in-one device that meets all my needs in a nice compact package. The Apple store has them on display for you to discover the joy of using, and I suggest you take the time and give the iPad a whirl before you write it off like I did.
