It was mostly an accident, me playing with a shiny new iPad Saturday morning. Well, maybe half-accidental. Would you believe, one-third? The tip of Tom Thumb’s smaller thumb? [/maxwellsmart]
Anyway, lesson learned: Never get a haircut without first eating breakfast.
Let me explain.
Today was the every-third-Saturday haircut, and by the time I got there I was starving. Three cups of coffee will keep you full until lunch — but two cups, I found, last until exactly 10:30. New plan: Stop for lunch on the way home. Panera sounded good, and they have some new salmon-thing Melissa’s been craving.
Pulled into The Shoppes* at Briargate, forgetting that the Apple Store is practically right next door to Panera. Honest. But since I was there already, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to step inside and just look. My first impression of the iPad wasn’t too great, but the more I thought about it, the more sense the OS, GUI, and form factor all made. So I’d planned on pre-ordering one of the 3G models that came out yesterday. But then we got whacked with an unexpected tax bill (our old accountant is so fired, his pants still smell of sulfur), and my iPad got demoted to the Later List.
Really, it’s not like I was going to buy one today — Amex would have said yes, but at the end of the month the checking account would have said no, no, no.
Picked it up, and the first thing I noticed is that for a tiny device, it’s quite a bit bigger than I expected. Hefty, too. But not, I think, too much so. Although for curling up in bed with a good ebook, you might prefer something closer to Kindle-size. But obviously I haven’t bed-tested it yet — they look at you funny at the Apple Store when you bring in a binky.
As MacBook Pro, iPhone, and iPod owners have come to expect, the build quality is outstanding. The reveals… well, they reveal very little. There’s no flex in the thing, no rattles, no squeaks. If you don’t drop it, and replace the battery every 18-36 months, there’s no reason you shouldn’t get years of use out of a single iPad.
Although I expect you’ll be more likely to hand down the old one to the kids, and upgrade to newer models every year or two. That’s my plan, anyway.
The interface works just like an iPhone or an iPod Touch — but with more Gee Whizzes and Ooh Pretties, thanks to that lickable screen** and a speedy processor. I know the iPad won’t have multitasking until the new 4.0 OS comes out next fall, but switching between apps was so fast, it didn’t take much longer — or maybe less time — than using COMMAND-TAB (ALT-TAB for you poor Windows victims) to task-switch on your laptop or desktop. The thing just moves.
The first web page I pulled up was, of course, PJTV. Loaded fast. Rendered fast. Videos just played — and in glorious HD. Slate, one of the first professional webzines, looks and feels like this is what it was meant to be, when Michael Kinsley and Bill Gates launched it 15 years ago. The New Yorker ought to just give up print next month, and hand out iPads with each lifetime subscription. Yes, yes — I know there’s no Flash support. But do you complain when you go out to a romantic dinner with your honey, and the waiter doesn’t jab you in the eye every time you try and look at the menu?
The apps I played with were just like my iPhone apps, only bigger and funner. And faster. The built-in apps, the ones you’ll probably use most, are just plain cool. Address book, calendar, web browser — this is what personal computing should have been all along, if the vision and the technology had both been available. This pad, this slate, this thingy, is the future, or very close to it — and still just 24 ounces of shiny glass and high-strength metal.
The keyboard is… small. But in landscape orientation, very usable. I did my usual keyboard test — one line of “Now is the time for every man to come to the aid of his country” and another line of “Now is the time for every man to come to the aid of his party.” The result? The first line started coming out as, “Nowisthetime…” My right thumb (my “spacebar thumb”) wanted to strike just south of the virtual key. I adjusted, and nailed the second line without having to think about it much. With practice, it ought to become quite natural. You could hammer out something the length of this review without too much problem, but you’ll want an external keyboard for anything much longer.
The iPad is just a yummy, yummy device. But is it good enough to replace your laptop? Ever since upgrading to a Mac Pro with Apple’s candylicious 24-inch LED backlit screen, I’m back to doing most of my work on the desktop machine. It’s just too pretty (and too fast!) to let lay idle. Mostly what I do on the MacBook is surf and email — and sometimes blog. I think the iPad can handle all that — and with an all-day battery, to boot.
And on travel? Forget it. The laptop stays home.
My laptop bag holds one six-pound MacBook. And one largish, 60-watt power adapter. And an extra-long power cable, just in case. A network cable. A spare battery. A CF/SD card reader. And the bag itself is big enough to accommodate an even bigger laptop with more stuff. (There’s a dearth of decent airport-scanner friendly 13-inch laptop bags.)
In the future? I’ll save 4.5 pounds by replacing the laptop with an iPad. The big power adapter stays home, and in its place is a tiny little ten-watt thing, not much bigger than an earbud case. No network cable, since I’ll have 3G on board. Instead of the CF card reader, a tiny USB dongle. On overnight trips or non-working vacations, I’ll make do with the virtual keyboard. Longer, work trips, I’ll bring along the tiny bluetooth keyboard, and a dock. No extra battery to carry, no network cable (since I’ll have the 3G iPad). And a much smaller bag.
Hell, having written this up, I’d like to get started right away. Sure, there’s that tax bill to pay… but the credit cards are all zeroed out. A few hundred bucks on just one of them for a couple months couldn’t hurt too much…
Lesson learned: Don’t go to the Apple Store without your emergency MasterCard.
Oh, and the haircut looks great. Just a lot more expensive than I expected.
*There’s a surprising amount of Olde English history in Ye Olde Northern Colorado Springs.
**The iPad screen has much greater resolution than the Sony Trinitron VGA monitor I shelled out $600 for — back in 1994. In constant dollars, the iPad’s quite a bit cheaper, and weighs somewhat less than 20 pounds.
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