iPad

I’ve harked on a lot on this blog about Apple, their products I enjoy and a bit of speculation here & there. I’ve also not updated this site in some time, for various reasons but the primary one being laziness in a time of hectic changes in the life I attempt to lead fruitfully.

So, a month ago I caved like a wet cardboard box and bought an iPad. A month later, and I finally had it. That’s a tale in its own right. I purchased from a guy who is of Irish descent (real Irish descent, none of this pseudo-Irish American bull) in New York city. He posted an ad on a site where people do such things, and I responded. He said he would ship one over to me. All good. Except Apple went ahead and sold a million of these things very quickly, making it difficult to acquire a unit. Eventually I gave up and a twitter cohort alerted me to his friend in Cork having one to sell – at retail price. So, a week of wrangling with bank money transfers and UPS arrangements I had a shiny new 64GB Apple iPad.

I went wifi because I don’t want to be tied down to a 3G contract. If I really want to use it on-the-go, I’ll get a mifi box (a utility that allows mobile phones to syphon their 3G signal and broadcast a wifi signal). The iPad, as I’ll explain later, has not been a “mobile device” for me, per se.

So, first thing’s first, to answer Apple’s own commercial question: What is iPad? For you it could be anything. It fits into so many roles for so many different people that it’s hard to nail down. One thing’s for sure, it’s not a “giant iPod touch”, nor is it a “weak Macbook”. It’s neither. Like the keynote that launched the product said, the iPad is an in-between device. It’s not mobile like an iPhone or iPod touch. It’s like a laptop for times when you don’t need the power of a laptop. I, myself, have a Macbook Pro and iMac. My iMac has always been a bit of a media centre at home, a device to browse the internet and watch movies while eating dinners or lazing about, while the Macbook Pro is a workhorse for college because it can be brought into college/work.

Tweetdeck: A nice but broken experience

Now, instead of needing to bring a somewhat hefty Macbook Pro into work or college for times when I merely want to jot notes down or browse the web on lunch, I can bring my decisively lighter iPad which can do all of the things I need it to do fast, efficiently and with a beautiful UI.

I’ve primarily used it as a web device, probably as intended. More and more I’m less reliant on Safari as apps get more sophisticated. Just today I acquired Pulse News Reader, an RSS reader with a stunning interface. This removes the need to visit all those sites on Safari. Rather, I can pull plain text articles from my favourite news sources (mostly tech stuff, mind you). For “real” news, BBC, New York Times and various others have provided stunning news and article apps. No, I haven’t delved into the world of comic books, books or even magazines (e.g. Wired) yet. Partially because I’m not a huge fan of comics and magazines, but also because the price isn’t right yet. €5 for a magazine is a bit steep when it really is a glorified PDF. No one has “nailed” eMagazine design yet. When it happens, I’ll be all over it though.

iBooks are a more intriguing prospect. As someone waiting for the iPad to solve that itch for an eReader, I’ve yet to be entirely convinced. Sure, it’s beautiful. Sure, it’s functional. And sure, the selection is good (if you use a US-based iTunes account) but reading on a backlit LED can do nothing good for ones eyes… particularly my eyes, which are already reduced to 50% HP (nerd joke for the gamers among us). I do want to buy a book to “test drive” iBooks, but I’m not sure what yet. I still love the feeling of reading a real book, and do so regularly unlike, it seems, my peers. One remarkable thing about iBooks is it could save the publishing industry before eReaders have a chance to create mass piracy issues and the DRM problems the music industry still wrestles with. By the time iTunes came along, the music industry was already crying at the hands of pirates, apparently. Now, though, we have a viable option to bail out publishers before things go from slightly murky to down right horrific.

Pulse news reader is a truly incredible app

Games, as expected, are beautiful on iPad. So beautiful it’ll make you throw up at the tosh you’ve put up with before. Remember Snake on Nokia phones? Compared to the iPhone it makes me want to throw up thinking of the time wasted on Nokia’s terribly slow, chunky and laborious gaming effort. Introducing iPad to the mix would make anyone want to burn anything they own, not just from Nokia, but from Finland generally, just in case someone from Nokia had a hand in creating it.

Some games are wonderful experiences from iPhone upgrades. Flight Control is a perfect example of this. It really takes advantage of the visual real estate provided. Some, like Angry Birds HD are just higher resolution versions of the same thing – but at almost ten times the price, which is a disgrace. Hopefully the market shifts the prices downward, as a lot of apps generally (not just games) are priced far above their realistic price for admission. It makes app buying more of a decision, whereas the iPhone 79c typical price for apps makes it a throw-away decision. If the app sucks, oh well. At €10, the decision is far more decisive and involves more consideration as this is a lunch or early bird dinner. Hell, this is two pints in Dublin (or 5 if you’re in a reasonable country).

Flight Control HD is one of the few great upgraded apps to rebuy

Video is beautiful. But we’ve all heard about video. Yes, it’s crisp. Yes, it’s HD. And so on… what is really remarkable is the fact that the speaker on the bottom of it is mind blowingly crisp, clear and audibly superior to anything on the market in terms of mobile devices. This stands up to most laptops, let alone netbooks on the market. Combined with the lush display and this really becomes a brilliant media device. Furthermore, iTunes is really useful here. I don’t use iTunes on the iPhone because I find the experience clunky. On Mac it’s great (PC, not so much)… but on iPad the team behind iTunes really nailed it on the head. The UI is perfect. Other music apps like Pandora take a lot of inspiration from iTunes which is great, too. A bit of uniform UI is not a bad thing in apps on the same platform.

What have I been using it for, though? Well, to recap what I said earlier, this device is an in-between internet and media device. It plays games well for when I’m bored, it does the twitter, browsing and email experience better then anything on the market (computers included) and impresses everyone around me. I don’t need a 3G version because all of my web-based stuff is done at home, in my girlfriends’ home, in work or in college. I can’t see myself using this on the bus. Not yet, anyway.

Daft Punk in the Star Wars Adidas World Cup ad.. in HD!

The only downside to it is that it’s too good. I genuinely mean that. My iPhone 3G, by comparison, feels slow, unresponsive (especially when typing) and cheap. It’s too light compared to the rugged design of the iPad. No doubt all of this leads to a more robust, fast and durable experience with a new iPhone, perhaps being announced next week at WWDC. All in all, it’ll be another expensive year as an Apple consumer in 2010!