Initial verdict:
I like the iPad itself. However, the price is at least $100 more than I can tolerate. In reality, it’s $200 too much, but I’m giving the benefit of the doubt because of the screen size.
I would probably pay $500 for an iPad with contractless 3g, but for WiFi, it seems like too much money for too little.
From a developer perspective, I like that there is a “Universal” development option for some of the app types, as well as a “Split View” which optimizes the experience for iPad only.
Other thoughts:
- WiFi is VERY tempermental. [TUAW post on it]
- Typing is almost as fast as a physical keyboard
- Really would have liked leaving the protective wrap on it. Touch was very responsive with it on. Speakers were covered, though.
- The internal speaker is pretty weak.
- Running iPhone apps on the iPad is often worse than running Win 3.1 applications on more recent versions of Windows.
- Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access works very nicely.
The Apps:
- The USA TODAY free app is a nice quick view of the news.
- TWC MAX+ [The Weather Channel app]
- iBooks has a wonderful free selection of children’s books.
- Netflix app streaming is good, minus the whole weak speaker thing.
- Tweetdeck runs pretty slowly.
- Tweetdeck has search functionality on a per-column basis.
- The Amazon Kindle app is beautiful on the iPad
- GoToMeeting app makes excellent use of pinch-and-zoom and panning. It’s also to nice to have such a meeting session up on an external device and using separate computing resources. [Like having meeting TV].
- Epicurious app – I can really see the Epicurious app on the iPad being what all those internet connected kitchen devices were always meant to be.
Posts