Preliminary iPad Report

Image by Lyn Millett via Flickr

Technology Thursday

I have owned an iPad for 5 days. Here's a preliminary report. It's not magical but it is really pretty cool. At the moment, I predict it will serve 4 main purposes for me: casual browsing, games, reading, and movie & tv watching.

Casual Browsing.
For purposes of scanning email, Twitter, the web, checking in on Facebook and reading the news, it's just great. I do all these things on my phone, but the experience on the iPad is far superior. And I've already downloaded The Economist and Financial Times iPad apps, yes, adding these pubs back into my already overloaded reading queue, but still useful.

Games.
There was a great article recently about casual gaming and I seem to be squarely in that demographic.

I play Words With Friends (a version of Scrabble) all the time, typically having about a dozen games going at once (find me there as medleyva; if you start a game, just let me know who you are) and I'm a fan of Angy Birds.

Casual games are defined by the ease with which they can be picked up, including by players bewildered by more complex "hardcore games" for PCs and consoles, with their intricate story lines and controls. The category spans early sensations like Tetris, the Russian-made puzzle game for PCs and consoles from the 1980s, to Bejeweled, a decade-old shape-matching game that is still in wide use in mobile devices. The average mobile-game player is 45 years old and nearly as likely to be female as male...

...Angry Birds has attracted an unusually high-brow roster of fans. U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has said he plays the game on his iPad, according to Andy Payne, chairman of a British games-industry trade group, who spoke to Mr. Cameron at a group dinner in September. (A spokeswoman for the prime minister didn't return a request for comment.) The author Salman Rushdie in a recent radio interview called himself "something of a master at Angry Birds."

Now, I'm not very good at Angry Birds, but it makes me giggle and passes the time on Metro sometimes. Oh, picturing Salman Rushdie playing Angry Birds also makes me giggle. Just for the record. I'm also a big fan (although, again, not very good) of PopCap's Plants versus Zombies. All of these are just lovely on the iPad. And there's the mesmerizing app called Uzu which lets you create pretty images (like the one above) on your iPad or iPhone. Probably good for meditation purposes, too, I suspect! (If I were any good at meditation. A topic for another post.)

Reading.
Apart from the magazines I mentioned earlier, I haven't had a chance to do a whole lot of reading on the iPad yet, but I have tossed a few free classics from the book store into my 'iBooks' reader. I already used the ebook readers Kindle and Stanza on the phone and will try them out on the iPad, too. It's a bit heavy to use as a reader, but propped on a small pillow or something seems to do fine.

Movie and TV Watching.
The same issue with angle and propping holds for movie and tv watching. But Youtube and Netflix on the iPad are lovely and for watching short trailers or news clips it's just great. I've watched a television episode (42 minutes or so) on the iPad but haven't yet tried to watch a whole movie. Browsing photos is fantastic on this device, as well.

You might ask - what about work or other actual content creation and writing. Notwithstanding John Gruber's insistence that the iPad is a device for creativity, not just consumption - and it is, I don't disagree with him - after a mere 5 days I still find myself resorting to my laptop for a real keyboard if I want to actually do any writing. And I use my desktop with a large monitor if I want to do any serious photo editing. (Here's Gruber's original in-depth review of the device.)

Overall, I'm enjoying it. We did not, by the way, spring for the 3G connection. I still expect to need my laptop for work travel, so I won't carry the iPad in addition to the laptop+phone. Since we currently expect to use the iPad only at home or perhaps in coffeeshops with wifi, we decided not to spend the extra for a 3G connection.

Comments

[acm]

if they were a bit cheaper, I'd be tempted to hang one on the kitchen wall where it would become the go-to resource for checking business hours, looking up IMDB and other curiosity-satisfiers, and ordering specials of the month from our favorite restaurants. I suspect we'd use it for all kinds of other things too, and yet somehow we muddle along... :)

[Bert Ianarelli]

Try downloading the PDF manuals to a Mac or PC for every appliance and gadget you own (obtainable from the manufacturers' website Support pages) and transfer them to iPad via e-mail attachments or through iTunes. Insurance booklets, government publications, catalogs -- they're all accessible as PDF files online. Apple's free iBooks app is the best place to store PDF literature.

Then when you next ask 'What filter does my fridge use?" or "What type of bulb do I need for my microwave?" - you have the answer right on your iPad!

How do I program the DVR? Add a clicker to the garage door opener? iPad has the answer.

[DrHeidi]

I am addicted to my husband's iPad. I too use it for games, reading and some videos. Angry Birds is a kind of obsession for me and I am working on the stupid and ridiculous task of getting 3 stars for each level so i can get all of the golden eggs...can we say time suck?
anyway, the reader isn't bad either and definitely helps when i am up late nursing the baby and want to read without turning on a light and disturbing my husband. I have read the past few book group books that way...so, that is the answer to "when do you have time?"
we don't have the 3G connection either. my husband got the iPad for work, but it really isn't too helpful for that...we are thinking of getting the keyboard, which may help. I like it in the house when i need to order groceries with Peapod (there is an app which works fine) so i don't have to turn my back on the kids while i work on the desktop.
the iPad is also a good distraction for the kids (our 3 year old especially) while in restaurants when we are still eating and they are finished...i know, we are probably rotting their brains, but beats having them running amok in a restaurant...right?