Media in the New Millennium

posted by Doyle

I picked up my iPad on the first Saturday they went on sale at 9:15 (true to Apple customer service, everything was right on time). If you saw the news at all, you can guess it was crowded—but fun. I saw at least a half dozen friends there.

So, those of you who know me know that my first weekend with the new toy was pretty much consumed with playing the with iPad. Here’s a rundown of the good, the “needs improvement” and the “I’ll see if I get used to that” categories. For the record, I don’t think I’ve found anything to put in the bad category yet.

The Good:

Overall, I think the tablet category is showing promise, and I agree with Steve Jobs’ assessment that the net book won’t be long for this world (in a major way) with the introductions of this technology. The interface is intuitive, so even folks without computer skills can easily run the device. While I’ve not had a chance to examine pending offerings from HP and others, I believe the competition will be good for the category as a whole.

Even though apps don’t run in the background (yet), that’s not a big problem. It would be nice to be able to play Pandora, for example, while doing email, but that’s not there yet (you can use the iPod feature in the background). One of my concerns before using the iPad was the ability to quickly switch back and forth between, for example, email and calendar in order to set a meeting. The A4 processor on the iPad makes this just about as quick as moving between two open windows on my MacBook Pro.

The selection of applications native to the iPad (meaning, they can take full advantage of the outstanding screen) is not yet overwhelming, but it’s decent. The Apple Bookstore is lots of fun, although the section is not yet where it needs to be. One of the most pleasant surprises for me was the ability to bring over every book I’d ever purchased on the Kindle Store—and even purchase new books there—for use through the Kindle app on the iPad. In fact, my daughter now has my old Kindle.

Four of the more pleasant surprises are the three iWorks apps (Numbers, Pages and Keynote) along with the Wordpress app (which I’m using now) to update my blog. At just $10 each (Wordpress is free) they’re a great value. They’re not 100 percent—and I’m less than blown away with how the iPad handles fonts—but I can do enough work that I have not carried my laptop away from my office now for two weeks.

One note on carrying the iPad vs. my MacBook Pro—it’s not just the difference in the weight of the two devices. With the MacBook, I carried a cord (no need with the true 10-hour battery on the iPad), a second battery (again, no need), and various other accessories. For the iPad I pretty much need—the iPad. In fact, I often just carry my iPad, Sprint Mifi unit and Apple bluetooth keyboard in a small InCase travel case, saving my a large briefcase and probably 10-12 pounds.

Needs Improvement:

As I mentioned above, the native font selection is far too limited, in my opinion, and I hope that improves.

Like many, I’m a little perplexed at the lack of a camera of any kind. The iPad is great for calls over Skype, but I do enjoy using video Skype to talk to my family when I’m on the road. Without taking my MacBook Pro along, I can no longer do that. (If the photos of the “leaked” iPhone are accurate, maybe Apple didn’t want a camera in both devices. I do find I use my iPhone less since getting the iPad.)

I’m still trying to learn to type well enough on the on-screen keyboard to leave everything else behind. At this point, I use that for brief emails but use the Apple bluetooth keyboard for longer documents. I’m not sure yet if that’s a learning curve or a keyboard limitation. I plan to keep playing with it to decide.

Again, as I noted, the App Store for iPad is still a little thin, but I’m confident that will move along quickly.

The lack of Flash support is becoming less of a problem every day, but it’s still annoying. There are many things I have to watch in my office simply because they are Flash based. As HTML 5 takes over, this will be less of an issue, but Flash is still pervasive. I wish the feud would end.

I’m very disappointed that Hulu is not available yet. I have to believe it’s coming, but I miss not being able to grab a quick episode of “The Office.” The Netflix app, however, almost makes up for this. It looks great, is smooth and easy to use, and the streaming videos are completely watchable.

There are few small glitches that I’ve noticed on various sites, but nothing really significant. In the end, I can do well more than 90 percent of what I need to do on the iPad, which is more than enough to leave my laptop behind.

In general, I’m more impressed than I thought I was going to be. It is a smooth device, it’s fun to use, and the battery life moves it from good to very good in my book. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next.

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