iPad First Impressions

[r0k]

I went to the Apple store around 9am. The line was long but was moving quickly. There were 2 lines. One for reservations that was moving quickly and one without reservations and they were letting 2 of them in for every 5 of us with reservations. By 10am, I had mobile me set up on my new iPad and was reading email. Of course the first message I saw was a below balance alert from my bank.

I had 2 reservations. One for 64 gig and one for 16 gig. I asked about the file size of iWork and after finding out Pages and Numbers were both under 40 meg each, I decided to go for the 16 gig model. I also purchased AppleCare, the case and a dock. I will probably take the dock back. I would have felt a bit more foolish if I had read that balance alert on the more expensive 64 gig model I had reserved.

I downloaded Kindle right away and resumed reading Lord of the Rings. It cost $13 in the Kindle store. I decided to download iBooks and check it out over there. Well I think iBooks is gonna kick Kindle's butt. iBooks appears to provide real page numbers, not those meaningless "position references" that Kindle provides.

Another point scored for iBooks. The free version of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare on Kindle has no table of contents. I paid $3 for the version with a TOC. On iBooks, the TOC is included in the free version. I really didn't expect Apple to outdo Kindle but they did. I'm glad I bought the iPad and I expect my future ebook purchases to be made via iBooks if it is true they provide physical page numbers instead of those awful position references you are stuck with on Kindle. Of course, I'll probably have both around for quite a while because I can read ebooks on my iPod Touch in the Kindle app and I won't always have my iPad with me.

I moved the movies and itunes icons off the home screen. That's not of interest to me. But I did install Pandora and Netflix. So for the first time since I got an iThing, maybe I'll actually use it to listen to music (via Pandora).

(The above was also posted at MacRumors buried in a thread with close to 400 replies, so I decided to post it here as well.)

I went to the Apple Store at Somerset. The people in line were calm and nobody seemed anxious about not getting one. There were a lot of extra mall security guards hanging around. The lines seemed surprising short to me and when I was leaving, I saw that the reservations line was down to only one or two people. I don't think the iPad will "kill netbooks" but I don't think it will be a flop either. I spent some time reading in the car in varying light conditions on a sunny day and it works very well. Every bit as good as e-ink in all conditions except perhaps direct sunlight. I also spent some time setting up a few apps and one app I did pick up was Remote Tap. I'm running the iPhone version because the iPad version isn't ready yet. I can control my Mac without going "downstairs". Of course the lack of multitasking hurts. If I exit RemoteTap to go do something else, when I come back to RemoteTap I have to log all the way back in again. Hopefully Apple will do something about this very soon.

Another "toy-ish" aspect of the iPad is the lack of obvious support for an internal filesystem or network filesystem. After installing iWork, I went looking for documents to edit and I was unable to browse my network. This should be part of the OS, not an add-on. These days, leaving network browsing out of an OS is about as bad as leaving the DIR command off the boot disk of the Osborne I. Again, I'm sure Apple will solve this quickly and if you don't mind paying a few bucks there are third party solutions available from day one. For a total out of pocket north of $600 including AppleCare, I really shouldn't have to shell out another 99 cents to be able to browse files on the network. Oh wait. I forgot. There is the free iDisk app. But I shouldn't have to move apps on and off the iPad through the MobileMe cloud. I should be able to do it peer to peer when I'm on the wifi in my own house.

[jigwashere]

Congratulations, r0k!

[harpgliss]

Hi,

Congrats from me too.

I look forward to seeing how this compares to the Ipod Touch as I am looking to get one here soon.

I am really jealous right now.

David

[r0k]

I got Olivetree Biblereader iPhone version and viewed it on the iPad in 2x mode. I went to a small font and it's almost as good as a native iPad app. I'm typing this on the landscape keyboard right now. Definitely not an arrangement I'd want to use for war and peace but clearly the best on screen kb I've ever used.

[harpgliss]

Hi,

Nice to see you post about the Olivetree Biblereader iPhone software as it is one I use on my Touch.

I do hope they come out with a universal version soon though.

David

[lelisa13p]

* Drool *

[r0k]

Hi,

Nice to see you post about the Olivetree Biblereader iPhone software as it is one I use on my Touch.

I do hope they come out with a universal version soon though.

David

Olivetree had biblereader ported to the t|t on day 1. It can't be long before they have it ready for iPad.

I've gotten through day 1 with 49 pxt charge remaining. Not bad

Reading on this thing is wonderful compared to the tiny itouch screen. I've turned down the default brightness to stretch charge and it's still awesome!

[RickAgresta]

congratulations, r0k; glad to hear you're happy with an electronic adventure at last <serious eye rolling>

[hal]

Congrats, r0k!

[Varjak]

I hadn't given it much thought since I'll likely pass iPad 1.0 over; but I think a buyer should either get the 16 GB model or the 64. I know people usually go with the 'medium' (it's a psychology thing); but the way I see it, Apple is charging $100 for a lousy 16 GB (ridiculous). At least with the 64 GB you are getting 4X the memory for $200 (still a ripoff). On the other hand, Apple could (and probably should) drop the 16 GB model like they did with the 4 GB original iPhone and sell the 32 as the'base' model for $500.