iPad Review

I've been an Apple devotee for 25 years, but this was the first time I was an "early adopter" of a new gizmo -- the iPad. In 2001, I did purchase the then new iPod, but I bought it several months after its debut, and I also switched from landline to cell phone with the original iPhone, but that was 5 months after it came out.

Eschewing waiting in lines, I pre-ordered the iPad and had it delivered to my door yesterday, and then spent time learning its features and syncing it up with apps, photos, music, videos, etc. and I love it!



It is being touted as a device to save the print industry and I have no doubt it will appeal to publishers of books, magazines, and newspapers. Reuters, NPR, AP, USA Today, New York Times, and BBC already have free apps for the utilizing the huge and beautiful iPad screen. Here's a shot of the NYT...



It is fully interactive -- simply touch a story to change its size, photos can easily be enlarged, and plans are to include video soon, something the print paper can't offer.

The iPad will augment the Amazon Kindle book reader, but does it one better since it's in full, vibrant color. Here's a shot of the free book that comes with the iPad, Winnie-the-Pooh...



You can enlarge print, change fonts, touch a word to display its definition, mark text for later use, cut-and-paste, search, etc. Simply touch a page corner to flip to the next or previous page. At the bottom it indicates I'm on page 58 of 260 and 6 pages remain in the chapter. And Amazon has a free Kindle app so you can read any of their 450,000 books on the iPad.

Below is The Weather Channel app with the current conditions and the forecast for the next 10 days. Time lapse radar is in the lower left corner and national radar picture is in the right corner. Touch an icon and you get video from their website as well as localized severe weather alerts if there are any.



Speaking of video, ABC has a free app that streams recent episodes of their top tv shows (also free.) Below is a shot of last week's "V" episode. The color and clarity on the iPad are astonishing, and if you are looking at the screen from an angle, there is no distortion.



The iPad doesn't do everything a full computer does, but what it does it does simply, intuitively, and with typical Apple style and elegance. The user has no need to understand how the iPad does a particular task, just what it can do -- and it is all accomplished by simply pointing, touching, or using several fingers to bring about a result on the screen. Apple's head designer, Jonathan Ive (who was instrumental in designing the first all-in-one computer, the iMac, and then the iPod, iPhone, and iPad) says "It's the things that are not there that we are most proud of. For us, it is all about refining and refining until it seems like there's nothing between the user and the content they are interacting with."

And the iPad elegantly performs basic tasks like running any of 150,000 apps as well as providing calendar, e-mail, Web browsing, office productivity, audio, video reading books, newspapers, and magazines, and gaming capabilities you would expect of any computer — but your relationship to the device is personal, you touch it like you would a friend or an animal.

The critics pegged it correctly when they state the iPad might not replace a laptop because it doesn't create much stuff except documents, spreadsheets, presentations and spreadsheets using the iWork suite and Bento. Third party apps allow some enhancing of photos and other creative actions and more such third party apps will no doubt be forthcoming expanding its range of operations. But the iPad is infinitely more convenient than a laptop for consuming media–books, music, video, photos, Web, e-mail, games, and so on. Users immediately discover that using your hand to manipulate these digital materials is a wondrous and enjoyable experience–as well as deeply personal.

Sure it's a novel idea and brings fun into the computing arena with this huge touchy-feely interface, but I predict it is also the wave of the future, ushering in a whole new way to compute. The only future improvements I envision will be 1) voice activation of the computer ala Star Trek, and ultimately, 2) ESP -- just thinking what you want the computer to do.

Is the iPad a perfect product? No. And the omissions will give the anti-Apple crowd plenty of ammo -- there’s no camera, no Flash, as of now no multitasking -- all valid criticisms. But despite these "shortcomings", the multifarious tasks it does perform, it does remarkably well. Apple will correct many of the current "deficiencies" with software updates and eventually improved hardware, but it is already a magnificent and magical device, and in just 2 short days, in situation after situation, the iPad has become my favorite computer in the house and the one I turn to for email, browsing, reading news, and more.