So, last weekend i had a chance to get some hands-on action with Apple’s latest groundbreaker and gamechanger, the iPad. There are a plethora of “real” reviews online, so I’ll just blurb out a few personal observations :
1) It’s heavier than I expected! I suppose I was thinking of it like a kindle or an iphone, both of which are reasonably light, so I was taken back by it’s weight. That being said, it’s lighter than any laptop I’ve seen and the weight comes with a strong sense of sturdiness.
2) I’m glad I knew about the screen-lock switch : it would rotate on me fairly often as I was exploring. I’m sure I would get used to it and even after 5 minutes I was good at toggling it : it was odd though.
3) I’m really glad that they are rewriting apps. The double-pixel versions look like garbage and really betray what a beautiful piece of technology they are on. I’m also really glad they are free (or at least lots of them are) if you already bought them for your iPhone.
4) I’m a little confused about how to use one that doesn’t have whispernet I mean the ATT 3G card. I have become so accustomed to perpetual access on my iphone that NOT having it (especially on something that lends itself great to GPS/Mapping) would feel tragic.
5) I played around with iBooks for a little bit and the experience was far superior to a Kindle. I HATE the e-Ink refresh. That being said, it is not a huge “win” for me as I have already supplanted my amazon dependency with regular doses of methadone from the library.
All in all, I see a future for this device and I think it will be as big as the general population seems to believe it will be. I am excited to see “books 2.0″ evolve – interactive diagrams, etc – and be distributed through this medium. Education applications are obvious, and there have been some interesting discussions in both health care and point of sale that are promising. I’m likely to hold off for Christmas or version 2.0 next spring, and I can’t wait to see where they go with it!
