iPad – The Sweet and Sour.

Saturday my wife surprised me with an early Fathers Day gift! I didn’t ask for anything and wasn’t even thinking of anything. I must be loosing my geek edge because it’s been awhile since I’ve even thought of a gadget that I just had to have. I do/did most of my computing at home using a Lenovo S10 net book, and when the screen becomes a hinderance I move to a rarely used desktop. The point being that, after years of being on the bleeding edge, I’ve become boring!

So anyway back to my surprise gift! Wife says to me that I should go buy an iPad. And normally that would be all I’d need to hear to make it so. But do I really need it? Will I even use it once the novelty wears off? I already have plenty of computers at my disposal and I have fallen in love with my Nook so I didn’t see the iPad replacing that either. But after some thought the geek side of me won out and I decided that I would get one.

I didn’t tell you this to bore you. Only to show that I’m not an Apple fanboy. In fact, apart from an iPod touch that I used for a few months and then passed down to my daughter, we don’t have any Apple products in our house. So I hope this can show that how I feel about the iPad is genuine and not fandom.

OK so first, what’s sour about the iPad?

• No multitasking. This is my biggest issue with the device. If this thing is to replace my netbook it has to multitask. Yeah, the push features work, but having to leave an app, go back to the home screen, select another app and repeat gets old real fast. I want some type of task bar that I can bounce from app to app with.

• Lack of printing. My iPad isn’t even a week old and I’ve already needed to print from it at least 10 times. There is no way anyone should have to pay even 99 cents for an app to enable printing. It’s just something that should be there. What year is this?

• No need for words just look… Although when the screen is on you don’t notice it much. But when it’s off, yuck!

Alright now what is sweet?

• Overall it’s a great device. The iPhone/iPod/iPad OS is so smooth. I think the OS is what makes these devices! With a few updates, as noted above, it could be the best OS I’ve ever used.

• The app store. Want to do something? Chances are there is, like the commercial says, an app for that!

• Battery Life.  I let the kids use it nonstop on our trip home from vacation.  The trip was nearly 8 hours and when it was all said and done the iPad still had a 30% charge left.  I think getting 10 hours of use out of it a day should be easy to attain.

• The wow factor. I took the iPad to school and all my students wanted to play with it. Even the teachers couldn’t help themselves!

Other thoughts…

I think the iPad or some other tablet/slate device is going to change the way people interact with computers. A laptop computer is a one on one session between the user and the computer. In the few times that I’ve watched others use the iPad I’ve  noticed a difference in the way people use it. People gather around it, they want to touch it, they want to share what they are seeing with others. They don’t seem as intimidated by it like they do with a laptop.

So did i waste my money? We all know these things aren’t cheap!
I’d have to say so far that I am very pleased overall with the purchase. There are some things that need to be addressed, but I’m hopeful that the upcoming OS 4 release in the fall will fix the few things that I feel need addressed.

If you can live with the few sour things I mentioned I have no doubt that you would love the iPad.

Tags: Electronics, Gadgets, iPad, Questions