blogging- with one hand!
I’ve been a bit timid about jumping on the iPad bandwagon but after hearing the buzz around the office I gave in and picked up the wifi model on craigslist last week. For over a year now I’ve been following the progress of several tablet devices, the most notable of which are HP’s Windows 7 tablet and more recently Google’s Android tablet [Engadget Tablets]. When the iPad finally launched with a mobile OS it became clear that Apple had discovered that a full blown OS can’t run on hardware that is ultra portable, not yet.
I’ll start with what I hate since it’s driving me crazy even as I write this. Not having multitasking is something that has always driven me crazy about the iPhone OS (something I’m used to with my Windows Phones). I fully understand why it is the way it is but it cramps my style and is forcing me to adjust. Just being able to listen to pandora with kindle open or being able to jump from this word press app to surf for links to relevant stories without saving and reopening would really make this thing better.
Not being compatible with flash has also cramped some of my style but since I’ve never been a fan of flash video I’m able to look past it for the most part. It’s really too bad that flash became associated with video to begin with because anyone can create low-bandwidth flash sites and incorporate a video stream that requires far less resources to decode. Also not having a built-in camera is just stupid but I guess that’s just how Apple rolls these days.
Aside from these obvious flaws- this thing rocks! I was skeptical whether or not i’d like reading books on it but i’m half way through groundswell and from now on I’ll avoid buying anymore paper books if at all possible. Another thing I like is being able to remote desktop to my media center PC via VNC and control what I’m watching whether it be hulu desktop, video in a browser window or the media center. Most people also don’t know that if you have a Windows Phone on any carrier you can directly access your 3G connection using wifi on an iPad.
In terms of the user interface- typing with one hand is a lot faster than I thought. I would imagine there will be a swype keyboard soon if not yet available that will make it even better. Without arrows to move the cursor it can be kinda hard to go back and fix things. Beyond that I’m impressed with the hardware switch to lock the screen from turning when the device is turned. I’ve found myself using the device horizontally for the most part but a few apps don’t yet support this.
Quick run down of installed apps:
Speedtest, Kindle, Pandora, Labrynth maze, Truphone, Need For Speed, FB chat, eBay, craigsphone, word press, BBC News, Remoter, TweetDeck, 10 pin lite, Accuweather, Beat the Traffic, Evernote, 3-d brain (!) & Dropbox.
