iPad

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Recently I’ve been able to spend some time with the iPad and I’d like to share my thoughts with those interested:

Personal opinions (first experience)

  • It’s not as heavy as people would have suggested to me, it ain’t light but it’s not overweighted
  • As of now you will need a US-account if you want to buy from the iPad itself (not per se from the desktop)
  • If you already want to work with iWork or iBook you must have a US app-store account & credit

    • Overview

    As I’d like the iPad to work for me in the daily environment (work that is) I’ve tested iWork

  • Relatively expansive, in the US-store you can buy for $9,99 but during checkout you might be charged additional tax, so plan your credits or read along and choose Delaware or Alaska if you don’t fancy paying tax (thanks Robin)
  • If you’re not a US resident but want to reach out, check see onemorething.nl
  • At first it looks like you can only open documents using mail but there is a way through iTunes. Just tick your iPad, select Programs and below those there will be a new option to sync certain files to selected applications
  • Keynote works properly but can’t use all things shaped up in ‘the real thing’. For instance it gets rid of your presenter notes which you can’t see or edit any longer
  • Therefore keynote will be a tool to ‘show something quickly without a beamer, which we’ve tested and concluded to be perfect!
  • Numbers imports excel files (partially, e.g. no pivots) but seems to work ‘slow’ on larger sheets, further testing (with smaller and more usefull files pending)
  • Pages works good, rate of typing isn’t bad at all and typo correction makes itself pretty usefull
  • Exporting to iWork or PDF format works fine, including mailing it out again
  • For now??? you can’t export to the ‘original’ format when you edit a .doc or .xls file

    Pro’s & Cons

    Cons

  • Lots of fingerprints :(
  • Nothing yet to ‘easily’ carried (over here in Europe)
  • Lots of games, less usefull apps (and iPhone blow-up is a nogo most of the time)
  • Existing apps aren’t ‘dual’, which sometimes means buying it again :(
  • iPad apps seem (for no apparent reason?) more expensive (say $8 instead of $4)
  • iPhone blow-up of apps is often ugly and ‘seems’ 1px to 4px translation so even text gets blown out of proportion

    Pro’s

  • Not to heavy, easy going
  • Two hands typing (blind) works pretty well, but in portrait mode (although being faster!) the keys are too close together, landscape types more easy
  • Applications, such as iSSH, work more properly on the larger thing (although being higher priced all of a sudden, but it’s dual)
  • GPS (using maps) didn’t work the 2 minutes we tried it in a car … pending
  • iBooks looks usable, even a quick manual translated to ePub reads nice (although apparently not during beer at the Leidscheplein in Amsterdam according to some twitter fans)
  • 1Password is dual and works properly :)

    Benches

    On request

    Typing speed regular vs iPad

  • ipad – landscape : 0,65 (semi-blind)
  • ipad – portrait : 0,51 (2 finger)
  • ipad – bt-key : 0,79 (blind)

    More precise:
    regular (desktop) was average of 2 sessions, landscape to. Other modes only tested once.
    488.5 on a normal keyboard/desktop, 318 ipad/ls, 249 ipad/pt and 387 ipad/bt. Test was conducted as requested through http://speedtest.10-fast-fingers.com

    Other

    Recommendations (work)

  • iWork (pages, keynote, numbers) ($9,99 each excl tax) – documents (in iTunes, iPad, Program’s you can drag files)
  • Twitterrific (free) – twitter, to follow your co-workers
  • iBooks (free, us-store only) – reading books/manuals/etc (ePub format can be dragged to iTunes directly)
  • 1Password (regular or pro) – password tool (including sync to the desktop version)
  • eGlowHD (free) – artfull drawing, for more precise drawing use ‘Draw’ (also free)
  • Pad Info (free) – short view of memory and battery
  • GoodReader ($0,99) – PDF’s on the go, just drag’m as described into the programs tab and take and read them on your way

    Still waiting for

  • European stores, saves stumbling around with accounts (2 accounts works perfectly but for updating you sometimes need to ‘switch’)
  • Wifi fixes for some, I didn’t notice any problems, despite testing a weekend on a ‘mifi’ connection which has a relatively weak signal
  • Better implementation for tools like RDP and VNC, the available apps work but complain about memory :)

    to be updated the coming week while still testing – with thanks to those providing the iPad for testing!

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