I’ve had my iPad for almost 2 weeks now. It’s time for my review.
I was skeptical of it to begin with. I have had an iPhone and I loved it but dumped it because I got tired of paying 2 cell phone bills. No big deal. As fabulous as it was, it certainly wasn’t the best at what I wanted a cell phone for – making phone calls. I do love iPods as a music device though and I am, in general, a Mac fan. So along comes April 3rd and my “need-to-have-the-latest-gadget” DNA strand kicks in and takes me to a Best Buy to get one. I got there 2 hours before they opened and was 4th in line. Thank God Best Buy (or Apple) didn’t advertise that they were going to be carrying iPads on launch day!
The first impression I got from my iPad was awe. It is fast. It has a beautiful screen. The UI is easy and sleek.
Of course, having a brand new iPad is like having a brand new iPhone or iPod Touch.. it’s not much good without apps.
As I mentioned earlier, I had an iPhone at one point so I had some apps in hibernation in my iTunes. I promptly synced my iPad to get those apps. I did not sync my music, however. I have no plans of carrying my iPad around like an 80-eras jam box on my shoulder nor clipping it to my waist for a jog. If I want music, I have an iPod.
The iPhone apps look horrible on the iPad. They are the size that they would be on the iPhone and either centered on the screen or stretched to fill the screen which makes them pixelated. I’ve only come across one iPhone app that must have provided a free iPad upgrade because it fills the screen natively and looks fabulous (1Password).
So I downloaded a few apps after doing a little research on them. I didn’t want to drop money on useless apps. There are some good free ones though. I’ll get into my favorite apps in a second.
I don’t want to get into all the technical specs just know that the iPad is awesome. I got the 16GB Wi-Fi model as I couldn’t see myself needing more space then that. If you have an iPhone, you know what the “experience” is like. It’s easy to use and fabulous to look at.
Battery life is, so far, what was advertised… about 10 hours. Of course this will vary depending on what you’re doing on the iPad.
I haven’t had any issues connecting to Wi-Fi networks (as some have reported) and it works with my Verizon Wireless MiFi fabulously.
I did have the opportunity to travel with it and it did everything I needed it to. It is also a big plus that the TSA has determined that you don’t have to take it out of your carry-on bag to go through security.
Since an iPad is only as good as its apps, I’ll go into those (or at least the ones I’ve tried out) and give a quick review of my favorites.
Pages – fabulous word processor by Apple made specifically for the iPad. A must have as the iPad does not come with any software to type things into other than Notes. It can read Word documents and save to a Word document. ($9.99)
Numbers – a great spreadheet program by Apple for the iPad. It can read Excel files but it cannot (for the moment) save to Excel format (which makes it kind of useless). My guess is that, due to the backlash about this missing feature, Apple will fix this. ($9.99)
Videos – iPad included video player to watch your videos with. I was concerned that the picture quality would be crap seeing as the video was formatted originally for an iPhone screen. Good thing I was wrong. Videos look fabulous. I’m glad they didn’t try to “up-sell” us to HD movies like they did when they went from the DRM protected songs to the “iTunes Plus” (ie. non-protected MP3s) versions. (Included)
Mail – The iPad mail client is awesome. Reading e-mail is intuitive, easy and fun. (Included)
Calendar – I’ve magically figured out how to sync my Blackberry, Mac, iPad and Outlook to one calendar on my iPad. It’s not perfect but it works. GoToMeeting invitations through Outlook appear as gibberish, though, which is annoying. (Included)
Bento for iPad – a great database program for the iPad. Easy to use and powerful. ($4.99)
Things for iPad – a great organizational tool for task management. The calendar feature included on the iPad doesn’t seem to have a task management feature so if you like “to-do” lists, this is a great one. ($19.99)
iBooks – it’s an e-book reader. It is really cool looking and the UI and animation is fabulous. (included)
Kindle for iPad – another e-book reader. I’ve had a Kindle for a long time now and love it. This will allow you to read any of the books you’ve purchased through your Kindle on your iPad. UI is not as sleek as iBooks. (Free)
Netflix – I was not a Netflix subscriber prior to owning an iPad. I signed up for the free trial just to see how it worked. The program is fast and the videos stream quickly as Netflix adjusts the video quality based on your connection speed. I’m keeping the subscription just for the iPad. I haven’t even had them send me any physical DVDs. I don’t want them. (Subscription-based/ $8.99 per month)
ABC Player – Freaking awesome. All the ABC shows on demand. Looks and works beautifully. (Free)
Twitterific – my favorite Twitter client for the iPad. Works and looks great and its easy to use. Probably not for the power-user though. I upgraded to their non-ad version (Free or $4.99 for upgrade)
USA Today – Reading a newspaper on the iPad is an awesome experience with this app. It’s free for now but will be subscription based come June. (Free currently – subscription based in the near future)
1Password – I don’t know whether this is an iPhone app that was upgraded to an iPad app or what. I just know that I bought it as an iPhone app. In looking on the iTunes store, it looks like they basically upgraded me for free. This is just a secure program to keep track of the thousands of log-ins, passwords, email accounts, etc that you have. ($14.99)
PDF Reader Pro Edition for iPad – A must have for the iPad as you cannot read PDFs on the iPad natively. This one handles large files well and has easy transfer to the iPad via Wi-Fi. ($2.99)
GoToMeeting – Yes, Citrix made an iPad app that will let you attend a GoToMeeting on your iPad. Looks and works great. (Free)
Yahoo Entertainment – Who knew Yahoo could create a fabulous app for the iPad? TV listings and more. Hunt around and you’ll be surprised how full-featured this app is. (Free)
eBay for iPad – I’m an eBay junkie. This app has a beautiful interface and you can manage your eBay activities from it. It could be better but it will do for now. (Free)
Plants vs. Zombies HD – Very fun and addictive game. I never played it on the iPhone but it got well-deserved rave reviews for the iPad so I bought it. Worth every penny. ($9.99)
Labyrinth 2 HD – OMG! I’ve never played this game before but I’m a fan now. It’s basically just a “move-the-ball-around-a-maze” type game but it looks incredible. It uses the accelerometer feature and it “looks” like it’s in 3-D. Take the free version for a test drive. I did and then bought the full version. ($7.99)
Flight Control HD – Fun game that looks great on the iPad. ($4.99)
RealRacing HD – Spectacular racing game that looks fabulous on the iPad. It uses the accelerometer to drive the car. Just like on the iPhone but bigger and better looking. ($9.99)
Magic Piano – Fun little music generator. It’s really something you have to play to experience. You can even have duets with someone halfway across the world. ($2.99 when I bought it although I saw it for $.99 the other day)
Scrabble for iPad – Just like the board game. Looks and plays great. You can play single player vs the computer or with friends. Way cool if you have an iPhone cause you can use the iPhone as your tile rack. Board games rule on the iPad! ($9.99)
So those are the apps I like so far. I have more but the other ones either haven’t impressed me much or I haven’t used them enough to form an opinion.
My criticisms of the iPad are as follows:
- The iPad back isn’t flat. It’s kind of curved a little so it doesn’t lay flat on a table.
- Stare at it too long and your eyes hurt. This is probably just a brightness setting that I can tweak but it’s like staring at a computer monitor for too long – except, in the case of reading, it’s a foot from your face. This part will determine if I keep reading e-books on my Kindle or if I switch to reading on the iPad. I’ll know after my upcoming trip which will happen as I plan to give it a thorough test.
- It gets kind of heavy if you’re using it laying down.
- lack of Flash support
- lack of multi-tasking (although that may be coming with the iPhone 4.0 OS)
I could see a wealth of practical uses for vendors and the automotive industry and I plan to write another article eventually with some ideas. The iPad may be the resurgence of the tablet computer. I’ve always been a fan of tablet computers so this is welcome in my opinion.
Anybody else have any thoughts or know of some great apps that I haven’t mentioned, feel free to comment! I’m definitely interested.
