A few ramblings on the iPad after 3 days.
My iPad was reserved several weeks ago, Saturday April 4th I went to pick it up as instructed between the hours of 9 and 3. I was a little worried about the pick up as I chose the North Park Mall store by mistake. I felt like the store on Knox would have been less busy and closer to the house. I arrived right at 9 and found myself about 50 people back in the reserved line with another 50 or so in a line without reservations. Apple was well prepared for the big day and had me out the door with iPad by 9:45. Free bottled water, coffee and cheers for each exiting customer helped the time fly by.
Set up was initially very easy. Having an existing iTunes account with Email, Calendar, Contacts, Songs, Video and Apps helped tremendously. Time for bullet points.....
- Apple, shouldn't there be an easier way to upgrade my existing Apps to iPad compatible Apps? I spent several hours searching the App Store for each App I used to see if a new version had been released.
Great Apps for the iPad -
- Calendar - It is fantastic. Love the "List" view.
- Maps, Mail, Safari - I think they are all the same as iPhone but each seems so much better
- TweetDeck, IMDb, USA Today, TFLN - I give them props just for being ready for the iPad, All Good.
- Kindle - I haven't used a Kindle but I can't imagine it being much better than the iPad with a Kindle App. FYI, I prefer the Kindle App over iBooks
- The Weather Channel - the iPad doesn't have a default weather app and I think this might be why. Fantastic 10 Day forecast, Hourly and Radar.
- ESPN XL - Greatness for the sports fan
- Netflix - FAST, so FAST.... ready to watch any Netflix movie in less than a minute
- Photos - they look incredible.... can Apple add an editor?
- Facebook and Gist why don't you have iPad Apps? The sites look great on Safari but Apps would make it so much better.
- It is my early opinion, restaurants that don't have Wi-Fi will lose some business due to the iPad. I have been out in the field the last two days at lunch time. Each time I looked first for a place with Wi-Fi so I could use the iPad while eating. Side note.... I'm learning to eat left handed so I can keep my right hand free for the iPad.
- I'm new to the Numbers App and it looks great but I think a keyboard is going to be needed for data entry.
- FeeddlerRSS App is a good reader for Google RSS Feeds but it doesn't link to the actual article. That should be fixed.
Overall, I really enjoy the new toy. It is way better than my iPhone but I can't imagine attempting such things as creating this blog entry on it. It is much like HD TV. Completely unnecessary but so fantastic to have.
