IPad opinions?

[Mal]

simongr - wow. You finally got one. Only took 3 (4?) countries and countless hours of searching!!

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, yes I have used an iPad.

 

[simongr]

Not sure I am loving the 2x iPhone to oaf scaling apps - Certainly not facebook but aff isn't too bad.

Keyboard is actually working very well

 

[Mal]

Not sure I am loving the 2x iPhone to oaf scaling apps - Certainly not facebook but aff isn't too bad.

That's been a big complaint from iPad users that apps are harder to use when scaled like that. But there should be a good number of iPad specific apps now (and I believe some companies are re-releasing their iPhone apps as iPad apps to sort out the screen issues).

Do you find that the smudging that occurs affects the screen responsiveness?

 

[simongr]

No issues so far. Once I have some videos to view I will see if the smudging has any impact on overall viewing pleasure.

 

[NM]

Charging seems seems slow (been on charge for 90 mins and only up from the out of the box 80% to 96% - but I guess when the battery bucket is that big it takes a while to fill up

Maybe because you keep using it while you are charging it. Like filling the bath with the plug out

 

[simongr]

Maybe - down at 70% battery already after 4 hours of use including YouTube and email...

 

[samh004]

After reading Winnie-the-Pooh (on iBooks) on the trains through Spain I can see the draw a bigger screen, such as on the iPad, would have.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Maybe - down at 70% battery already after 4 hours of use including YouTube and email...

I'm not very technically minded but my iPad seemed to take a long charge time initially also. Now it is great. We took it in car on 5hour return trip last weekend. Little Shreks watched 3 movies on iTunes and battery was 80% charged at end of trip. I have noticed that using wi-fi decreases battery time. Mine isn't a 3G but my understanding is that this drains the most power.

 

[rtyuiop]

I just took an iPad on it's first trip, and I think it's an excellent travelling companion.

Fits in a airline seat pocket without cutting into leg room too much - screen size is great for video, games, and reading, and speakers are good enough to use as an impromptu stereo in a hotel room!

Danny

 

[serfty]

I'm a little cough about rechargeable batteries.

My modus operandi on all new things like this is to put the brand new device on charge and leave it overnight. )Avoid turning on if possible).

After that as much as possible I like to draw down to ~10% and then fully recharge in one hit before disconnecting.

With this type of regimen, I still use the original battery on several devices, one a 'phone after 33 months.

 

[SimonM]

Took my mother into Domayne at Bundall today so she could get an iPad. She bought the base $629 model. Stocks seemed OK.

The salesman was wearing a pink tutu. And as I advised Mum not to buy the extras pack and just get the machine by itself, he'll be wearing for another week now too.

 

[simongr]

What extra's pack?

So how many iPads in the family now?

 

[SimonM]

They try to get you to buy a pack that has Apple's extended warranty, a screen protector and something else, a sleeve perhaps, for $189. Mum had already said yes, but I suggested it might be overpriced and that she should take a punt on the warranty.

Turns out the sales guy was actually the sales manager and he'd told his team that if they sold an iPad without extras, they had to wear the pink tutu. I'm picking he'll regret having thought of that (or spoken to me ).

So, we're up to two iPads now. Mrs Roopaw's isn't far away, I can feel it in my Amex. The other Roopaw-ette is thinking about it and I'm conflicted between iPad and iPhone 4 for myself.

 

[drewbles]

I ended up caving in and buying an iPad even though I swore they were useless (ok some hands-on time with one convinced me otherwise).

It would appear as though the 16GB 3G model are the rarest of the beasts. It took over 3 weeks for mine to come after ordering. They are slowly catching up with demand, but no one in Melbourne has that model in stock (32 and 64gb are around in some places I believe).

Now I have it, there appears to be a bug that affects some iPads. When the brightness is set to its lowest level, the screen flickers. Bloody annoying in dark/low light conditions where the majority of the screen is white (browsing in Safari). Anyone else noticed this? I'd take it to the Apple store, but they can't swap them out yet (no stock of the 16GB 3G).

Oh, and Facebook is no longer recognising Safari on the iPad as a mobile device, so you can use that with normal Facebook (they still haven't gotten an iPad version out yet).

 

[simongr]

I am a bit disappointed with the facebook situation. I used my iPhone for facebook more than the web version as it avoided a lot of the dross. The scaled up iPhone app looks bad (one of the worst scaled up apps I have used).

One app loved by babygr is the "Bubbles" app. Tap the screen to make a bubble appear and tap again to pop it.

 

[NM]

Here is another option that looks like it will be interesting. I like the idea of using it as both a desk and portable system.

 

[simongr]

Not a bad device in a corporate environment - especially telepresence. That would be an interesting addition to comms. It is a little fat compared to the iPad though.

Oh and now 6 days in below are some further thoughts I shared with a colleague about the iPad. The colleague is the CIO of my company in Oz (an Apple fan) who I have ongoing discussions with on the best way to meet my personal requirements and his need to support securely the other 2000 local staff (he really does have his priorities wrong )

---------------

So far the impressions are good. The battery life is as expected, screen and speed are excellent and the keyboard actually works much better than I honestly expected.

I have used it a fair amount so far in meetings when people have sent me through PowerPoint documents and it is easy to review and read the documents.

I am struggling slightly with the iWork apps (pages, numbers, keynote) as editing tools as they lose a massive amount of formatting between the MS documents and the iOS versions.

One thing I am noticing is the differences between iOS 3.x iOS 4.0 – in such a short space of time I have become very used to iOS 4.0 – mostly the quick switching between apps – which is more important now for example when making notes in a meeting whilst reviewing a document during a meeting.

I am testing out a few work related apps including iAnnotate that is useful to mark up PDF documents. What I am trying to find is some app to take typed notes that can be organised – essentially my view is to replace my paper notebook with the iPad. At the moment I am just taking notes in pages and creating a document for each topic. I will be trying something like Bento to see if that is a viable replacement.

I also had a quick look at Executive View as a way to distribute Board/ELT papers. This was primarily out of curiosity as I constantly see at the Board and Audit Committee meetings A4 files of info for each Board member and there has to be a more environmentally friendly way to distribute papers. For example at the March Audit Committee 22 sets of 6 lever arch files of papers were distributed... Although when I casually mentioned this to xx_ he said that he wanted to be able to highlight and mark up documents with a pen so he wont be satisfied with a purely electronic medium – conversely YYY was showing off his iPad at the Board meeting.

I would love to trial syncing to my Corporate email address (or at a minimum getting Google Calendar sync installed on the laptop so I can have my calendar on the iPad) as my plan when I next come to Melbourne is to travel without the laptop on that two day trip. If I was able to sync emails I would certainly give up the laptop and the blackberry in favour of a desktop (which I assume is cheaper) and a personal iPad.

My next challenge is work out how to source a micro sim whilst overseas for local prepaid internet coverage – I am off to NZ for a week on business in early August so that will be a good test (not so sure about India later in the year).

My final task will be to source a pico projector from somewhere so that I can do presentations wherever and whenever (and broadcast movies on the wall when stuck in hotels by myself).

_______________

On that topic - any suggestions for pico projectors?

 

[cove]

I am sitting in Marina Del Rey in California using my IPAD that I bought in OZ.
Really easy for a non techie 60 year old to use as the screen and virtual keyboard are a winner now that my eyesight is very ordinary.

 

[mabu2012]

Got mine 3 days ago. Bought it from the US with the help of VIAddress. It's just a bit overpriced, don''t you think?

Still familiarizing myself with all its wonderful features. I'm so in love with my iPad!

 

[Princess Fiona]

Currently using my Wi-Fi iPad in ZQN with My Zone and it works perfectly. Bought a pre-paid sim from Telecom NZ , also using it for Mac book and iPhone so hopefully no more horror bills from Telstra for data roaming