Note: I wrote this April 5th, just a couple of days after buying the iPad. I’ll have some updated thoughts. Also, I got a 16GB Wi-Fi only unit.
There are a lot of in-depth iPad reviews better than anything I’d be able to write, so I’ll just think of questions and answer them based on my first two days with it.
How’s the hardware?
The screen is beautiful. Typing on the keyboard is a mixed bag for me. Awkward describes it best. Vertically, typing is comfortable but slow. Horizontally, typing is fast but uncomfortable. The speaker is mono, which doesn’t bother me, but I wish it could get louder. And, yes, this thing is begging for front-facing camera.
So there’s no Flash?
No. And it hasn’t bothered me so far, especially because a lot of sites prepared for the iPad. And YouTube works and its the host for most videos that I come across day-to-day. The only time I ran into the you-need-Flash alert was when I tried to view a video on the NBA site that was linked from their Twitter feed that I saw on the NBA Courtside iPad app. (Which looks cool in the previews I’ve seen online but is useless until the playoffs.)
How’s web browsing?
It’s fantastic, but I miss having keyboard shortcuts. Right now I’d like a four-finger swipe in Safari to open up your tabs. And maybe left and right swipes to go to your next and previous tabs.
There’s no multitasking?
Not for third-party apps. Mail still checks email, Safari keeps your tabs and pages where you left them, and iPod can play music and podcasts while you do other stuff. But acccidentally hitting the home button ends my Geometry Wars session and forgets where I was browsing in NetFlix. Without multitasking, I’ve been annoyed a few times but never frustrated.
What free apps did you try?
Adobe Ideas, NetFlix, Twitterrific, TweetDeck.
Adobe Ideas lets you draw. It seems to be vector-based so you can zoom in as far as you want without losing quality. Since it’s vector-based it cleans up the lines you draw. Lots of fun.
NetFlix lets you watch their selection of streamable content on your iPad. Simple as that, and probably how you imagine it would work. Scrubbing through the timeline isn’t as good as on the desktop version (no thumbnailed previews). The online selection isn’t great for movies, but the TV show selection is very good. Seeing as how I have the WiFi iPad, though, I’ll primarily be using it at home and would rather watch a movie on a TV.
Twitterific and TweetDeck are Twitter apps. I’m not a Twitter power-user and Twitterific’s simpler.
What apps have you bought?
Flight Control ($5), Geometry Wars ($10), SketchBook Pro ($8), Instapaper Pro ($5). I’ve never bought anything off of the iTunes store, so this is my first time having a store account seamlessly linked to my bank account. I get flashbacks to my dorm food account when buying apps—I’m spending real money but it doesn’t feel like it.
Right now I would fully recommend Flight Control. You have an overview of a map and you direct planes and helicopters to their landing strip by drawing their paths—game over if two crash into each other. Once the screen starts to fill with planes and helicopters it’s a lot of fun. But each game starts out so easy that the the first couple minutes feel like a waste of time. It’d be great if there were a higher fast-forward speed than currently available.
Geometry Wars is the same Geometry Wars available on gaming consoles. I’ve never played those, but it was pretty fun on the iPad. It’s a top-down shooter, and you place your thumb anywhere on the left side of the screen to create a vehicle motion joystick and your other thumb on the right side of the screen to create a gun motion joystick. Think Smash TV. I never regretted buying $10 of candy and Thomas Kemper the same way I regret paying $10 for Geometry Wars. Again, it’s fun, but $10 just feels like too much. I think $5 is going to be the sweet spot for most iPad games.
SketchBook Pro is fun to use. And it reminds me of the day I bought a Wacom tablet in high school. But I’m not that serious about drawing, and it seems like serious artists could take SketchBook Pro a long way. You’ve got a lot of brush settings and layers to work with. Adobe Ideas satisfies any urge I have to draw and I’d recommend trying that out first before shelling out $8 for SketchBook Pro.
Instapaper Pro converts web pages to more reader-friendly versions and keeps track of things you want to read later. I haven’t used it much yet, and so far I’ve found that I’ve just been reading things on the original sites. But I think it’ll be good to have a queue of things to read whenever there’s free time. If you read a lot of long articles it might be worth it (still deciding if I’m included in that group).
Those app descriptions were too long just sum this thing up
I woke up Sunday, grabbed my iPad, and lied in bed for an hour using checking my usual sites. That was awesome. It’s only going to get better as more apps are released and app pricing settles down. I’ll be using my laptop a lot less, and as often as it’s connected to my external monitor it could really just be a Mac Mini at this point. The iPad is changing things, just look at all the major sites that were prepped for the release. Serious work will continue to be done on traditional systems. But the iPad has everything necessary for entertainment.