Today I got a new toy at work – one of the perks of being in IT. I got an iPad and have been playing with it for awhile today. It’s a fun toy! First, it has the obvious cool factor. There’s a certain elitism associated with the iPad, and that’s a bit off-putting for me, but it’s way out paced by the fun of the device itself.
First, the things I’m not crazy about. The built in keyboard is a little difficult to get used to. I know…I’ve only had it for four hours…give it time. I’m just glad I already had the bluetooth keyboard for my Macbook, which is what I’m using to type now. Another negative is the issues with the wireless connection. The WiFi at work is a hidden network, and apparently the iPad (and the iPhone) have issues with that. I have to reconfigure the connection each time the device goes to sleep – it doesn’t remember it. The third thing I don’t like is that I couldn’t install iWork from CD. While there may be a way I’m not aware of at this time, I did have to purchase the downloadable versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. This one needs a bit more research.
Upsides are many. I love the number of free apps available. The first app I installed? An air horn. You can find it in the iTunes App Store. On the iPad there’s an icon for Apps. Tap it, type air horn into the search, and voila! I also got a light saber app, just because it’s too much fun!
I really wanted to be able to read my Kindle books on the iPad, and yes, there’s an app for that. It’s free, and also can be found under the Apps icon. Any app that is available for the iPhone is generally available for the iPad, so load that baby up!
I love how you can turn the device and the display changes accordingly. Want portrait, no problem. Landscape? Absolutely!! Want to watch a You Tube vid without all the extra crap on the screen? Turn the iPad sideways and it will only show the video when in landscape mode.
Email is pretty simple on the iPad. I had my Exchange and Comcast accounts set up in 5 minutes. There’s a built in wizard for setting up your Gmail account, too, as well as Yahoo mail. The mail view changes when in portrait vs. landscape mode just like video.
I have so much left to discover and test, so I’ll let you know how it goes. One of my next tests is going to be looking at knitting patterns with the iPad. Maybe it will be the end of all those paper patterns?
Wow! How did you get such a swank new device with the cutbacks?!? Lucky girl!
The iPad is a pretty neat device. It’s so not ready though. Trying to interact with Web pages is often difficult since many sites aren’t contentEditable ready. When I saw the WordPress app I salivated. When I used it, I barfed. The simplest feature – copy/paste wasn’t there. There’s plenty the iPad can do, and even more that it cannot. Regardless, it’s pretty interesting.