I’ve had an iPad since the first day they were available. It’s taken it’s place in the household as the preferred way to browse the web, watch bedtime videos with the kids, and play games. Just yesterday, my four year old son sat around the device with his friend playing Plants vs. Zombies HD and it was as easy, natural and comfortable as if they were playing tic tac toe instead of an elaborate tower defense game. It would not have been possible for two four year olds to share a game like that with the mechanics of mousing in the way on a desktop computer or on the cramped screen of an iPhone.
In my opinion, the iPad delivers an unmatched content delivery capability. The browsing experience alone is worth the price of admission, but it does so many other activities so well and with such beauty and an organic interaction between user and content that just scratches the surface of what can be done.
This is not a general purpose computer. I am not going to write much source code on it or transcode video or those other activities my laptop and desktop computers do so well. And while text entry is markedly better than on an iPhone, I would not look forward to writing anything longer than this review on its keyboard, although with each sentence of experience I achieve that gets less true. No, what this is is a viewing computer without peer.
You have not browsed the web until you do it with the firm swipes of mobile Safari. I know people have fixated on the lack of Flash and Flash advertising, games and video. And maybe for some people that is a big loss. For me, the only loss is the occasional home improvement show on Hulu, and it seems likely there will be an app for that just as there are ones for Netflix, ABC, Youtube, etc, while sites like CBS put some, but not all, content into DRM free HTML 5 video. What you lose in Flash you more then make up for in the amazing speed of browsing and how natural it all seems. (Having said this, the first time I asked my wife to try answering her e-mail on the device, the first message was to a Flash greeting card.)
The speed of the device is amazing for a low power portable device. Maybe it’s the Apple custom A4 processor, or maybe it’s the limitation of having so few processes, or the optimization of the OS for GPU acceleration, but the iPad is liquid fast at nearly everything.
Video playback is fast. Photo browsing is fast. Mail is fast. The calendar is fast. Large games like Plants Versus Zombies HD launch in a fraction of the time they do on an iPhone. You get the idea.
Third party developers have stepped up to the plate and delivered both beauty and added functionality. The Kindle app is smooth and imported all my Kindle account books quickly–it’s good that there will be competition in the iPad eBook market between Apple’s own iBooks store and Amazon’t Kindle. The Weather HD app is stunning as it embroiders the mundane delivery of a weather report. Wolfram Alpha is big and well laid out and more powerful than ever.
As for the hardware, I am really liking this screen. It is bright, colorful and sharp with an amazing viewing angle. It does get a little smudged which is noticeable when watching movies but its oleo-phobic screen cleans with a quick wipe.. Its wide viewing angle is a great improvement on my MacBook’s screen which would be unreadably dark at the angle I’m typing this. Some people think the iPad is surprisingly heavy, while someone else was surprised how light it was (the same person also expressed remorse at having bought a Nook after about 8 seconds of playing with my iPad).
Be careful with charging this. It likely won’t work with your current iPhone car charger. My wife’s car charger started to burn trying to handle the extra amperage this device demands. Best to only use this with either your computer’s USB ports or the charger it came with. And charging time is slow via a computer, from full empty it takes 7 minutes until reboot, and around 40 minutes per 10% charge (so you are looking at over 6 hours for a full charge from fully drained). The wall adapter is about twice as fast. Regardless, be prepared to make over night charging part of your daily routine, although you will get several days of moderate use between charges given the amazing 10+ hours of activity you get from a full charge. A decade of laptop use has not prepared me for how long you can use this to do everything. It seemingly doesn’t matter what you are doing, you still get 10 hours. Or more.
It goes without saying that you do not want to charge this device from your laptop’s battery like you might do to your iPhone on a lengthy plane trip.
As for the decision to buy the 64 GB model, I think it comes down to perceived usage. I plan to fill it with quality feature length movies for when my wife travels to China. At about 1.5GB per movie (720×480 h.264)–or more if you have 720p content–16GB seemed a little tight while still loading multiple gigabytes of photos and music. 32 GB would probably be sufficient, and it’s going to seem insane in a couple years spending so much for 32 GB of flash memory.
If you get a chance to play with one, try to find a comfy chair where you can put your feet up and make a platform for the device. This will negate the problem of holding its heft and allow you to build up your full speed typing skills. Realize there are all sorts of tricks you will learn and that after an hour you will be a master. Lock the iPad into landscape mode using the hardware toggle switch. I find I never have a need to use portrait mode unless a piece of software makes use of a separate portrait mode. Explore. There are so many little delightful touches to discover like the lock screen photo frame mode, the dictionary in the book reader, tapping on the status bar to go to the top of a web page, etc.
This is a moving target. Every time Apple releases a new version of the OS or a 3rd party developer gets a bright idea, the device will get better. For instance, Apple has announced iPhone OS 4 which addresses many major complaints people have and adds features we didn’t know we needed. This fall, you will be able to keep Pandora and Skype running the background while you are playing a game or browsing the web or whatever; this will make these apps vastly more useable. You will be able to organize your apps in folders. Better organize your e-mail. And look forward to smaller developers coming out with more social network games.
If I were to point out one misfeature it is how badly the 2x mode for legacy iPhone apps looks. It just seems as though Apple could have put more effort in making non-bitmap GUI elements look sharp instead of just stretching all the pixels. You would think they could at least have made text and the built in keyboard look better.
I don’t like the Apple branded optional case, so I would try before buying the case. It just gets in the way making it hard to access the external controls, and should only be necessary in a scratch prone environment. I am thinking about going with a Gelaskin protective skin instead.
In summary, I am a big fan of this device for a wide variety of activities be it web browsing, game playing, enjoying media, reading email (less so composing email), and reading books. I highly recommend picking one up if you have the means, although I would wait a few weeks until they are back in stock at the normal retail prices or even until the 3G version comes out.