Tuesday 22 June 2010
Initial iPad Impressions ☀
As a recent (nearly a week) fortunate recipient of a shiny new 64G WiFi iPad, I shall spill my thoughts on the iPad experience thus far.
What’s great about it?
- eBook, PDF, text reading — have already consumed nearly a dozen Kindle books, free sci-fi novels and ancient Greek classics (via Stanza), and ported over all of my programming book PDFs and technical manuals. I absolutely love the page tap/swipe mechanism of all the iPad apps I frequently use — the gorgeous Instapaper, Stanza, Kindle, and GoodReader (for PDFs). All of these are free apps, except for GoodReader which will set you back a 99 cent value item (but I highly recommend you upgrade your free Instapaper to the pro version — the additional features are worth the small extra cost, which I believe is still less than a ritzy cup of Starbucks coffee). You can port your PDFs into the GoodReader app without having to tether the device back to your Mac (or PC).
What are some other good features?
- The web browsing experience with Safari is decent enough, most pages look just as nice (except, ahem, Google Reader and Google Apps which appear needlessly crippled by default and/or presented in byzantine fashion). I do really wish there existed Safari settings to (a) adjust the font size and (b) an option to enable swipe/tap paging like is implemented in Instapaper and the eReader apps — the smooth scrolling makes for an effective handheld UI, but the eBook style paging is a far superior mechanism on a touch tablet.
- The built-in mail app works well, much similar to current iPhone implementation. A smooth reading affair, however, I am not ready to tap out long messages yet.
Some other fair tidings or things not well acquainted enough yet
- The on-screen keyboard, be it portrait or landscape mode, is plain clumsy to me. In portrait mode, my thumbs strain to reach the middle keys (exacerbated since enveloping the iPad with the “official” Apple case) and in landscape mode, I can almost manage to touch-type, albeit it in gingerly fashion. Perhaps it’s about the ergonomics of how the iPad is positioned when attempting to enter text in landscape orientation. Odd that I can bang out text much quicker with my thumbs on a landscape oriented iPhone. Caveat being that it took me more than a few months to become that proficient, so perhaps at least a slight learning curve is in order here. I have a spare wireless keyboard at my disposal, but honestly, the thought of pairing it up with the iPad is not so appealing. Especially when there’s a MacBook Pro nearby.
What don’t I like?
- iPhone apps blown up to 2X look awful, way more grainy than expected. Not as irksome for game apps, but heavy text laden apps look fuzzier than standard-definition TV on a 20 year old projection set.
- Where may I find a decent RSS reader? I downloaded several apps in this category, and all were quite craptacular, even one that I paid for, which smoked and sputtered when I pointed it to my Google Reader account. Even when it didn’t crash like a drunken sophomore, it was missing essential features for a mobile app like search, ability to navigate to points in an index (i.e., a Rolodex like vertical link bar, like done for built-in iPod app user library contents).
- The histrionics of getting content in and out of the device by any other means than tethering. Granted, a few apps (like the aforementioned GoodReader) are capable of seamless, tether-less transfer, but it sure seems like a lot of tap action is devoted to sending stuff to other apps or email, and then swapping out applications in an environment where there is no multitasking capability.
- Device weight — I believe (though internet smarty-pants will correct me, if mistaken, assuredly) it’s nearly 2.5X the weight of a Kindle and my hand starts to ache a little after extended reading sessions. Still, it’s much lighter than a laptop but holding it like a piece of paper for a long period is straining.
Have not done much gaming on it yet — all of my iPhone games were ported and play OK (i.e., Settlers of Catan, Civilization Revolutions). Installed an ipad version of NetHack but NetHack on a touch UI just seems so wrong. Truth told, been fearful of loading too much gaming choice as I might never get any work done then ;)
The skinny
All said, not a bad effort for a version 1.0. I can only imagine the inevitable transformation (at least I hope) unto version 2.0/3.0. It will be a most wondrous gadget then, with many of these identified flaws remedied.
Finally, a request from dearest readers, beloved patrons and fellow Tumblrs for your iPad app recommendations/suggestions?
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