Okay, so I bought an iPad. I wasn’t going to buy one; I kept telling myself over and over that I didn’t need it because I had an iPhone, iMac & laptop with windows 7. For people who know me, this came as a huge shock. I normally buy any new technology on impulse, so why not the iPad? I admit I am an Apple fanboy, have been for just over a year, it started with the iPhone, bought an iMac & haven’t looked back since.
When Apple announced the iPad, some people were excited, some were skeptical, it was given nicknames & a few people criticized Apple labeling it as a potential flop, a large iPod. I was in the excited Apple fan boy camp.
Apple hit production issues with the iPad, as a result they decided to launch to North America only at first. Sales on launch were amazing, with an estimated 300,000 units sold on day 1. That was a successful launch and as so confirmed that America was iPad crazy.
Apple announced the rest of the world launch date to be the 28th May (sorry New Zealand you have to wait a little longer). Pricing was announced a little later and as pretty much everyone thought, the prices were reasonable.
May 28th arrived and the madness started. It was also a full moon; did Apple plan it that way I wonder? I went to the Apple store to just have a look and a play with one. I was impressed with it, so much so I bought one that day.
The Unboxing
Apple has used minimal packaging to box the iPad. Standard Apple plastic wrap over the product that in one move comes off. The iPad comes with the AC charger & USB cable. I bought the 16GB WiFi only model. As it is the WiFi model, it can be used straight out of the box without activation in iTunes. The batteries were at 90% charged out of the box, something all companies should strive to do for the consumer
First Thoughts
I was eager to play around with the default apps on the iPad first. Syncing & installing of music & other media would come later. I noticed the iPad screen would rotate around quite easily when laid on its side. The iPad has a screen rotation lock button on the top right hand side. This is welcome as I let my daughter play around with it because as she moved around with it, the screen kept rotating around. It’s quite sensitive.
The iPad touch keyboard slides up from the bottom of the screen when text input is required. It is a full size QWERTY keyboard, showing the alphabet by default with the numbers & other functions accessible by touching one button. The keyboard is the perfect size in my opinion & I have had no issues typing with it.
Safari works in very similar fashion to the iPhone, except the screen can display a whole lot more of the page. There is no need to pinch & pull the screen to enlarge it with the iPad, although this can still be done if you need to do so. I chose to sync my bookmarks from my iMac Safari on to the iPad. I hardly used Safari on the iPhone as I could not handle the screen size, but it’s not an issue for me on the iPad.
The Maps application uses Google maps as its supplier. The maps fill the whole screen & work exactly the same as the iPhone. There are a few differences however. When entering street view, the screen does not rotate to landscape to display, when searching for an address or landmark the information window is displayed on the screen overlaying the map.
iTunes & YouTube are set out in a format like the iPhone, except expanded to fit in the iPads bigger screen. Both apps on the iPad are very easy to read & have a user-friendly interface to navigate around in.
The calendar has had quite a facelift here. It now has a format similar to iCal on OSX. Extremely easy to read and insert an event. Through iTunes you can sync you calendar with your computers calendar. Whatever is scheduled in the iPad’s calendar sync’s to your computers when synced. I have a gmail account & I manage my calendar in Google, so whatever dates I enter in Google syncs across the calendars. Mail is identical to the iPhone but can display more on the larger screen.
The photos app displays photos by individual photo, albums, events & places. I really like how you can use normal finger gestures to ‘spread’ out the photos. You put two fingers on the stack of photos ‘flick’ them to spread them out over the screen. Another great feature of the iPad is when you are in screen lock mode; you can press the sunflower at the bottom to display a slideshow of your pictures, like a digital photo frame.
All your existing iPhone apps will work on the iPad. All the hard earned money you have paid for your apps will not go to waste. When you start up an iPhone app, it will load inside a window surrounded by a black border. The app inside this window is almost identical in size to that of the iPhone perhaps slightly bigger. At the bottom of the iPad screen there is a 2x button. By pressing this, the iPhone app will enlarge to take up the whole screen. This does result in a pixilated view, but it is not really noticeable.
Syncing
The first time you plug your iPad into your computer, iTunes will prompt you to set the iPad up as a new device or a restore from your iPhones backup (if you have one). I selected it to be a new device so I could manually select the music, videos, apps & settings to my liking. Depending on what you sync, the iPad is very fast purely because it has no data to backup at this point.
The iPad apps
The iPad has been out in the wild for nearly two months and there is already a diverse range of iPad apps in the iTunes store.
iPad apps can be identified by the + next to the price button. This indicates the app works for both iPhone & iPad. There are also apps made only for the iPad, harder to identify as they do not have the plus sign, but are located within the iPad app category.
Today Apple sent me an email today for both thanking me for purchasing the iPad & to also inform me of some of the features of the iPad that I may not have known.
Along with the charged battery & this email, I find Apple’s level of customer service to be impeccable.
I find tweeting from it a delight, the keyboard buttons are quick & responsive, and the iPad games look amazing. I purchased Angry Birds HD for the iPad & compared it to the iPhone/iPod version. Whilst it’s hard to compare the graphics, the ability to see and play the game on a bigger screen is fantastic.
While still in it’s infancy, the iPad is a worthwhile investment. The possibilities are endless here. Whether it is Twitter, YouTube, web browsing, organising your life, using it to find a recipe and cook it, browse an interactive magazine, read books… I can go on, but already the iPad has repaid itself.
