Personal Computing: I Bought an iPad

By Chris M Evans On May 9, 2010 · 2 Comments · In Featured, GestaltIT, Storage

Despite my doubts about its usefulness, on my recent holiday in the US I purchased a shiny new iPad. OK, over the last few week’s I’ve talked about how I couldn’t see the point of the platform, but two things conspired against me; (a) I love technology (although I stop short of calling myself a geek) and (b) reverse peer pressure from my family goading me about my inability to walk past technology without acquiring it, tipped me over the edge.

I decided to go for the (at the time) top of the range model (after all, if you are buying kit, why go for anything less?) – the 64GB iPad Wifi. Since then of course, we’ve seen the release of a 3G enabled version. I’m sure you are thinking; is it any good? What apps do you use? These seem to be the most popular questions I’ve been asked so far. There are plenty of sites doing teardowns of the technology itself, so I won’t bore you with that. What’s more interesting to me is how I will use this semi-superfluous hardware when I already have desktops, laptops and portable devices in embarrassing excess already.

First Impressions

My first disappointment with the iPad is the sheer weight of the device. OK, there’s a 10-hour battery in there, which from first usage seems a reasonable estimate of how long it will last, but trying to find a comfortable grip while reading and typing is really tough. The temptation is to always rest the iPad down on something – a table, the arm of the chair and so on. This slightly defeats the concept of a piece of hardware designed to be handheld for long periods of time.

On a positive note, the screen quality is fantastic. It’s crisp and bright and video is a dream to watch. In fact, the screen quality is so good, you can start to see the difference in quality of uploaded video content (witness my poor content on Vimeo compared to the excellent Gestalt IT posts on iTunes). For a device that will primarily be read-only, a decent screen had to be a given. It is possible to type on the Ipad using two hands, which does make it more usable for input than the iPod Touch/iPhone is.

One slightly picky issue I have with the hardware design is the lack of a docking port in landscape mode. The iPad can double up as a photo frame (albeit a very expensive one) and all pictures look better in landscape mode (because most of them are taken that way), however the lack of a docking port in that position means the iPad can’t be left “on its side” without having a power cable trailing out of it. Knowing Apple’s focus on design, I’m surprised this feature wasn’t included. I expect if I take the iPad apart, I’ll find that shoehorning another connector into the case probably wasn’t possible.

For those of us not in the US, at this stage the App Storage doesn’t work OTA (over the air), as you can see from my screenshot. This issue can be circumvented by using iTunes on a PC to download and transfer applications, however some apps don’t show in the UK App Store at all at this stage. Presumably after the 28th May when the iPad is generally available in the UK, this will change. The other alternative is to use a non UK iTunes account. I achieved this using an iTunes gift voucher – don’t tell anyone but apparently I live in Beverly Hills.

My Apps

So what Apps do I use? I suspect you can guess that many of them are iPad modified versions of those I use on the iPhone/iPod Touch. These include Evernote and NetNewsWire, but I’ve also started looking at Apps that work better with a larger screen, such as the newsreaders for The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and New York Times. I’ve also downloaded Kindle and put some free books into the iBooks app. I was never a fan of reading on my iPhone, but the iPad seems to make more sense. I hope more Apps get converted and that the trend of charging more for the iPad version doesn’t continue.

Summary

Overall, I think it’s clear that the iPad is pretty much a read-only device. The actual content sits elsewhere on my network, whether that be on NAS, or in the ‘cloud’. I don’t see me using the iPad for work, but I’m sure it will find plenty of uses around the house – if I ever let anyone else have a go!