So, back when the iPad came out, I had already committed myself to getting one. I’ve been without an Apple product for too long, and I was ready to buy into whatever they were offering. When the iPad was announced, I was very excited, because it really engendered everything that I’ve been wanting in a device. Without going into the long rambling explanation, I’ll just say that I wanted it as a media consumption device.
When I bought it, the first day it came out, I was quite excited! Now that I’ve been using it for a full month and a couple of days, I’m still excited. I’ve used it pretty much how I envisioned that I would, but there are some things that have changed. Now that we got Julie one as well, I’m helping her fit it into her daily routine.
I’ll start off by saying that most of the hours I’ve put into using it have been as an ebook reader. I’ve read 5 full length books on the Amazon Kindle app and I’ve been quite pleased with the quality of the experience. I’ve been somewhat underwhelmed with the quality of the ebooks, just as I complained about the quality of in-print books. One book had page numbers scattered in the text and didn’t have the correct formatting for every paragraph (painful when reading conversations when both speakers are lumped into one line of text). The other books have had all sorts of random artifacts, such as words that would have been split when in print, still have a space in the middle of the word, or footnotes are several page flips away from the actual notification. I am honestly not happy with paying $9 for a book that is of this poor quality. I had the same feeling about in-print books, and that was what fueled my desire for some ebooks. I thought that without the print process, maybe the editors wouldn’t screw up as much. I was sadly mistaken. I’ll continue to read ebooks, but I’ll gripe about paying so much for low quality media, simply because there isn’t another game in town.
The second thing that I want to mention is that one of the things that I had thought I would be doing is watching more video, streaming or loaded. Because of that, I picked out the 64GB version of the iPad, thinking that I could load a bunch of TV, movies and music. Well, now that I’ve been using it, frequently, I have to say that I’ve watched almost no video on it. During the first week, I played with it, but what I found was that in the living room, with my laptop, I was less likely to watch the iPad than just toss a video on my second monitor while I played WoW or web surfed. The second big point that I noticed was that without headphones, watching video can really annoy a spouse. With that in mind, I have a master plan! I’ve been looking at getting a nice set of Bluetooth headphones to use with both my iPad and my phone. When Julie and I get a house, I’m not going to have my nerd-nest set up in the living room, so I want a way to continue my normal activities of surfing and videoing while Julie watches CSI or something like that.
My third thought is that I don’t miss flash at all. Streaming video is something that annoys me on news pages, and I don’t spend hours browsing youTube (there’s an app for that, anyway), so really, there is nothing that I’m missing out on. Maybe I’m the only person on the Internet that doesn’t think video is the coolest thing since sliced bread, but I would rather read my news than listen to it (I do love my NPR and BBC news apps). Yeah, I can’t watch some porn sites on my iPad, but then again, I don’t watch them on my computer, either, so no big loss (:
The final mention is about Julie and how she’s been using her iPad. We’ve only had it for a couple of days, but she’s already purchased a bunch of country music (bleh) and used it to listen to music while in the shower (I do that, too). Right now, she’s still more likely to have her laptop out in the living room, but I think once she gets comfortable with the lighter iPad, she’ll want to use it more and more for as much as she can. It won’t replace anything, but it will be a nice addition to use for those light tasks.
Over all, I’ve had a very positive experience, and I think the purchase was totally worth it. As I’ve said before, no one really NEEDS an iPad, but if you have one, you’ll find that it easily slides into your life and you will find uses for it. Good job, Apple!
Posted via email from Tim Robichaux’s Site
