iPad thoughts
I bought a wifi based iPad pretty soon after it was released. Here is my quick take: The iPad definitely won’t replace my laptop or cell phone, but it is pretty handy as an entertainment and media consuming device. The screen based keyboard isn’t as bad as I thought, but still isn’t very efficient if I need to bang out a lot of text. I can see the form factor working really well for a variety of cases where someone wants to run specialized apps, such as the medical field using it for patient records.
Pros
- I’m using DropBox + GoodReader to transfer and view PDFs which is working well for reading on planes.
- Netflix streaming of videos is great.
- Kindle app means lots of ebook availability (Apple’s iBook store is fairly sparse now in comparison, but you get access to both).
- I’m really happy with the long battery life.
- Web browser is very quick and crisp (although I wish it had Flash support or more sites switch to HTML 5)
- Mail client/Gmail is very usable, although I still prefer a laptop keyboard for long messages.
Cons
- Wifi support is persnickety. I’ve had trouble connecting to some access points when both my iPhone and MacBook Pro were getting full signal. I hope this is firmware fixable. I thought about getting a 3G iPad but couldn’t stomach a single device broadband fee.
- Most apps originally targeted at the iPhone look either wimpy at original iPhone screen size or don’t scale up nicely when you switch to 2x magnifcationn mode
May 11th, 2010 at 6:09 am
I got my wife a WiFi iPad for her birthday, and it has turned out be a life safer in the hospital (which luckily has wifi access everywhere).
The device has turned out to be much better than a laptop for her. She is not doing a lot writing/authoring. And the device is just easier to carry around and easier to take out of the bag and start doing something in the hospital!
P.S. I am really disappointed with the selection of material in Apple’s Book store, but I’ve been loving the Kindle app! I love Amazon’s selection, and I love the fact that the books can sync their “furtherest reading point” across device which has allowed me to read on her iPad at the hospital, my phone, or my iPad at home pretty seamlessly!