Well, I had to hold back a week to write this article, because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise that we had bought one for my step-daughter, but now that she has been given hers, I can sit down and share my experiences and thoughts about the latest from Cupertino. Besides, it gave me a week to play with the iPad.
Lynda was extremely excited when the iPad was announced in January as she had been looking for a lighter solution to her mobile computing needs for a few years now. Before 2004, she couldn’t imagine needing a laptop for anything and then she decided to get a white iBook computer when I upgraded my aging PowerBook to a new one. Since then she has upgraded a couple of times to lighter but more powerful Mac laptops but still hates to travel with them because of the weight. She also took a misguided detour with an Asus EeePC netbook last summer that came to an end a few weeks ago with her selling it to a former colleague of mine after she became frustrated with its many shortcomings. The iPad sounded like a perfect solution for her as it could do most and probably all that she needed when she travels. But she hesitated and didn’t pre-order one like I thought she would because she wanted to get her hands on one before she made the leap.
We decided, literally at the last minute, on April 3rd to mosey down to the Apple Store at Oxmoor in the early afternoon to at least look and touch one to see if it would really suit her needs. Figured it was probably safe, since they should be sold out by then.
I think we were the second ones in the the non-buying, touchy-feely line. The store was crowded as it normally is on the weekend and we were ushered in with our personal Apple concierge to answer any questions we might have. We were lead to the first blonde maple table where the iPads were set up for demoing and Lynda was handed one. I could tell as soon as she had it in her hand that it was over, the look on her face said that she was not leaving the store without one. Our Apple person went through all the features but basically, just let Lynda play for a few minutes until, reluctantly, she handed it to me for a few seconds. Dang, this does feel nice!
I have to confess, I wasn’t sure I wanted one or if I really needed one. I mean, I have a perfectly serviceable MacBook Pro (has a few years on it, but it still is a really good machine) and a maxed out iPhone 3GS, so I couldn’t really justify or rationalize getting one. But, in just those few seconds I was calculating how many insurance sales I was going to have to make to buy one.
I handed the demo iPad back to Lynda and she turned to Meagan, our Apple person and asked what they still had in stock and Meagan left to check and quickly returned to inform us that they just had the 16 GB models, but they might have some of the 32 or 64 GB models that were being held for the people who reserved them for in-store pickup, but they were only being held until 3 PM if we wanted to take our chances we might be able to get one of those. We discussed it for a few seconds and decided to go ahead and get her one of the 16 GB ones and she told Meagan to get us THREE! Huh?!
While Meagan was going to get them, Lynda told me that she was getting one for her daughter too because she really wanted one bad and got the other one for me because she figured if she didn’t get one for me, she would never get to use hers because she would have to track me down and pry it out of my hands. All joking aside, she got me one because she is just the best lady a guy could be married to, although there is probably some truth to the reason she gave.
Meagan brought us our iPads and we also picked up 3 cases and AppleCare on each. A few minutes later we were checked out and on our way home.
There is nothing quite like unboxing an Apple product and it is hard to do it justice with any sort of description, so I won’t even try. Our iPads came fully charged and powered up and prompted us to hook them up to our computers and sync them with iTunes and register them, which we did. We found out, like a lot of other people did, that the USB ports on our computers do not put out enough juice to charge the iPads while they are on, but they will slowly charge them if you put the iPad to sleep. Had us scratching our heads for a few minutes there though.
Now the fun began as we started loading them up with apps that were optimized for the iPad. The first thing that happens when you go into the App Store though, is that it prompts you to download your free copy of the iBook app. I have to admit that it is a nice little app and one of the neat touches is that it includes an illustrated copy of Winnie the Pooh with it.
There are some really amazing looking apps out there and I will try to review some over the next few weeks and post here on the blog as I know several of my friends are getting an iPad very soon. There are several apps, that as I write this, have not been updated for the iPad, such as CNN and Facebook. The iPhone versions work ok on the iPad, but they reside in a window on the iPad screen that is the same size as the iPhone screen and if you hit the 2x button, they expand to fill the whole screen, but they look decidedly fuzzy and sadly just aren’t an optimal experience. Hopefully, they will be updated soon.
Now, can I really do anything on the iPad that I couldn’t do on my MacBook Pro or my iPhone? No, but that really is not the point. It is lighter and just a bit easier to handle than the MacBook Pro and the screen is a lot easier on the eyes and much easier to type on than the iPhone. By the way, this whole post is being typed in the WordPress app on the iPad, nearly as fast as I would be doing it on the MacBook Pro. The experience of surfing the web on here is different as it literally feels like you are holding the web in your hands, the iPad almost disappears after a few minutes. Watching movies is much the same, especially in a room with the lights turned down. And speaking of movies, the High Definition movies that you can buy or rent on iTunes play back very nicely on the iPad. I can’t wait to take this on my next flight. The iPhone was nice, but the iPad is so much better.
One of the big selling points covered when it was introduced in January was its use as an ebook reader and I was anxious to try it out. Lynda has a Sony Reader Touch and it does ok, except in a dark room and I had tried out a nook last winter in the local Barnes & Noble and was really disappointed in it and have even tried out a friend’s Kindle, but wasn’t that impressed with it. I have to say that the iBook app beats them all rather handily and so far have not noticed any eyestrain that I sometimes get when reading too long on the screens on my computers. It is just an enjoyable experience reading books on the iPad and can’t wait for the iBook Store to get better populated with books. I mean, it is an almost an unforgivable omission not to have Douglas Adams in there as the iPad is the closest anyone has come to his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Can’t wait for someone to come out with a Babblefish app for the iPad…
Overall, I would have to say this is an amazing piece of work, especially for a 1.0 release of a gadget to be this slick and capable and with the improvements that are coming this fall with the iPhone 4.0 software update are going to take what is already a game-changing device and make it even more useful. I already know that Apple’s competitors are rushing to come out with a slew of me-too devices over the next few months, but truthfully, I can’t see them catching up to where Apple already is for some time to come.
Post Script — My step-daughter was thrilled and shocked when we surprised her with her shiny new iPad Sunday when she flew in for Thunder Over Louisville. She thinks it is just amazing.
