Apple iPad: Love at First Sight, No Buyer’s Remorse

It’s been a bit over three weeks since the iPadlaunched, and the hype has quieted somewhat. We’ve all seen the reviews that came out right around launch and we’ve heard all the arguments both for and against Apple’s tablet device.

It’s also been exactly three weeks since I bought an iPad and I thought this would be a good time to share my experience with it. This isn’t an objective review; this is just me sharing my personal experiences with a new device. Before launch a lot of people wondered what the iPad was for, and this is my answer. This is what the iPad is used for in our house.

First a quick bit of background information on me. I primarily use Windows 7 (a desktop machine) at home and OS X (on a MacBook Pro) at work. I own a netbook (running Windows 7) that converts into a tablet. My phone is a Motorola Droid. The iPad was my first real experience with Apple’s App Store, though I am of course familiar with the Android Market. I’ve been attracted to the tablet form factor for a while now, but the netbook makes a lousy tablet. It’s too thick, too slow, and the screen needs constant calibrating. Just not a pleasant experience.

Now I’m going to confess something to you. When I got caught up in the hype and purchased my iPad, there was a little voice in the back of my head telling me it was a huge mistake; that it’d be something I’d use for a few days and then get tired of. That I was signing up for a heaping helping of Buyer’s Remorse.

That little voice was wrong (so far). I use the iPad constantly. In fact, it only took a few days for my girlfriend and I to realize sharing an iPad wasn’t going to work, so we’re now a two iPad household.

Let’s start with the problems I’ve encountered. My biggest gripe by far is the lack of Flash; it can be a real pain sometimes when surfing the web. What’s most frustrating is knowing that Apple doesn’t care that its customers are experiencing this frustration and that this particular problem will never be fixed.

Next, if you want to get work done, be warned: the iPad isn’t an office tool (in my opinion, I know others feel differently). I do take mine to the office, but mostly to carry my music on, and to use during my lunch hour. Generally speaking, the iPad is a home (and maybe coffee shop) device. It’s a bit too big to carry around with me all the time. When it comes to getting work done, I’m firmly in the “a laptop or netbook can do everything the iPad can do, only better” camp. Sure, you can plug the iPad into the Keyboard Dock, buy a Bluetooth keyboard (or apparently use the Camera Connection Kit to connect a USB keyboard) but why would you bother with all that when a laptop performs better for doing tasks that require lots of text entry or multiple windows/programs open?

Then there’s the issue of accessories. A naked iPad feels slippery to me; I feel like some kind of case is a must. I have the official Apple case, which is horribly over-priced but wonderfully versatile. The flip cover protects the screen when I jam the iPad into my laptop bag or toss it onto the back seat of my car, and that same flip cover folds back and into a slot to form a wedge-shaped stand that can hold the iPad vertical for watching videos or at a gentle angle for interacting with the device. My girlfriend has a silicone sleeve for hers (the Apple case has become really hard to find); it offers no protection for the screen but the back has a couple of ridges that offer a very secure grip on the iPad.

We bought two of the Apple docks and have never used them; they were a complete waste of money for us. You have to take the iPad out of whatever case you have it in in order to use the dock, and that’s a pain in the neck. A Lego iPad stand would be of more use than the Apple dock. Chargers are over-priced, but at least you can use the iPhone/iPod cables you might already own.

Speaking of charging, let’s talk about the battery. There’s been a lot of complaining about the device not charging on a USB port. It will charge, slowly, once the unit goes to sleep, but realistically plugging it into a wall socket is the most efficient way to charge an iPad. What the complainers don’t tell you, though, is that an iPad will run all day on a single charge. Yes, the battery life is 10 hours but in real-world terms I’ve never run out of a charge over the course of a day. I just plug it in when I go to bed; the charging situation isn’t the problem nay-sayers want to make it.

So the iPad isn’t an office tool; what is it then? I’d call it an entertainment device, I guess. It’s the web at your fingertips in a screen large enough to make reading websites comfortable. Our iPads are always nearby. My girlfriend is one of these crafty types and she’ll often have her iPad beside her while she’s making things, using it to look up bits of info she might need or to take short notes on. There’s always an iPad at hand while we’re watching TV, in case we need to look up something on IMDB or Wikipedia. We’ve used them in the kitchen for checking out new recipes. Basically we carry them around the house constantly.

So it’s great for surfing the web. It’s also a great ebook reader. I can’t compare it to an e-ink device because I’ve never used one of those for any serious length of time. But despite the fact that people insist a back-lit screen hurts your eyes, I haven’t found that to be the case at all. My eyes aren’t as young as they used to be and by bumping up the font size and turning the brightness down, I can read more comfortably than I’ve been able to in years (yes, more comfortably than I read print books). I find the iPad’s screen is much more comfortable to read off of then either my laptop screens or the LCD on my desktop. It’s a beautiful screen (but a smudge magnet; I bought a packet of 12 lint-free cloths for $5 and they do a great job of keeping the screen clear).

We watch a lot of video on our iPads. We’ve got a Netflix account, and I’m fairly hooked on the ABC.com app. If we’re both going to watch the same show, we still plunk ourselves down on the couch in front of the big-screen, but the iPad makes a very nice “personal television.” Plug headphones in and she can watch “Walking With Dinosaurs” (she’s such a nerd) while I’m reading or watching something completely different.

And there’s the app store, of course. I spend way too much time downloading various apps. I find I purchase a lot more from the App Store apps than I do from the Android Market, and I think a lot of that has to do with the size of the iPad. I’ve got a few sketch applications which prove once again I have no talent for drawing. A few music making applications which remind me that I should’ve been a rock star. And of course more games than I really have time to play.

So there’s a lot I do with my iPad and that’s what makes it so useful. After a long day I can flop down on the couch and, on one device, play a game, then watch some TV, then read a book, then plink out some tunes on an electronic keyboard, then look up a tutorial for playing the keyboard, then check to see what’s happening on Twitter and catch up on my RSS feeds. Yes, you can do all of this with a netbook; I’ve done all of this with a netbook. But the ergonomics are completely different with the iPad. It doesn’t feel like a computer because it isn’t a computer. It feels like…well my apologies for sounding cheesy but if feels like something out of science fiction at times. It feels like I’m holding The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or The Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer from Neil Stephenson’sThe Diamond Age.

Now, that all said, a lot of what I love about the iPad comes from it’s shape. I’m still not a fan of Apple’s “Walled Garden” and benevolent (?) dictatorship. I’m still really hoping that one of the upcoming Android tablets is as fast and ergonomic and beautiful as the iPad, and that the Android Market catches up to Apple’s App Store. I’ll switch in a heartbeat if that comes to pass.

But for now, there’s literally nothing like the iPad on the market, and I haven’t had an instant of that Buyer’s Remorse I was worried about. It “feels” like a unique product and I think it’ll be best appreciated by people who find joy in using technology. The iPad is a fun device and not something you’ll need at the office. The smart money is still on waiting for a second generation, or a similar Android device, but I’m not getting any younger and I’ve been waiting for a tablet like this since my days watching Star Trek.

No regrets, at least so far. We’ll see how the hardware holds up over time, and how much remorse I feel when a better, cheaper tablet hits the market.