48 Hours and a couple Top 5 lists for the iPad
I’ve had my iPad for just over two full days now and it’s kind of amazing how much time I’ve already spent using it. I’ve only got a couple of apps installed yet I’ve been able to move all of my content over from my kindle, watch some television shows, a movies and play some games. I’ve also installed a couple of productivity apps, worked on some e-mail and read twitter and blogs, pretty much what I do on my computer when I’m not working. It will be interesting to see how I use it during my work day, or if my laptop will still be the dominate way I access information while working.
The big ‘a-ha’ is the touch interface. While it seems like the iPad would be too big to hold and type / touch, the size is perfect. Tasks that used to required a combination of mouse point / click or short-cut command keys are now just a touch gesture away on the iPad. You could give this device to anyone, even if they’ve never used a computer before and they could do something amazing with it. It’s so intuitive. I keep looking at my laptop and wishing I could touch the screen and have it do more than leave a finger print.
Given that everything seems to be moving from long-format content to short < 140 sets of characters even the on-screen keyboard makes it useful for applications like e-mail, twitter and flickr. Commenting / sharing and retweeting can all be easily accomplished with the device. I was also able to pair it to my Apple bluetooth keyboard and use the keyboard for typing longer e-mails. If you but the two devices together, they still weigh less than my macbook pro 15-inch and offer me just about as much functionality, if not more portability.
The screen really is amazing. The resolution is so sharp and the back lighting is not too intense and easy on the eyes reading at night. So far all of the books, magazines, comics, images that I’ve viewed on the device don’t leave me wishing for a better screen or more powerful graphics. I do wish my fingers didn’t leave finger prints on the glass.
One area that could use some improvement is the rendering of iPhone applications on the device. Mostly they just feel so small on the interface and it seems like there should be a pretty straightforward way to scale up many of the apps for the larger screen. The ‘2x’ app doubling approach makes the app look like an image from a digital camera from 10 years ago and is somewhat distracting.
Top 5 Devices My iPad pwns:
- Amazon Kindle DX
- iPhone (I had the v1.0 and never used it as a phone, AT&T sucks in the 415)
- Digital Photo Albums (I didn’t have one, but never need to buy one now)
- Bookshelf Stereo / Alarm clocks
- Laptop computer in most ‘on-the go’ situations
Top 5 Non-Gadgety Things I’m Looking Forward To:
- Not carrying full laptop when I’m traveling
- Ditching paper magazines / newspaper subscriptions
- Digital Cookbooks (I’ve already gone digital for most book reading)
- Board Games 2.0 (check out the Scrabble iPad + iPhone integration)
- Ditching DVDs and other media for travel
Top iPad Primary Education Trends
- Teachers ditch computers, replace with iPads for classroom
- Kids stop carrying roller bags to school
- Textbooks get interactive
- Testing / grading gets easier
- Lessons can become self-paced and individualized
