One month with an iPad; some thoughts

I’m two days shy of my first month with my 32GB 3G/WiFi iPad, and it’s time that I take a moment and jot down my thoughts about it so far.

On band­width.
Frankly I’m rather sur­prised at my band­width usage. My iPad is with me every­where, every day. I use it to keep in touch with my team­mates at Empire Aven­ue, update per­son­al email, and surf for con­tent for my blogs.

Admit­tedly, I do try and find free WiFi spots first to con­nect to first, but fail­ing that, I’ve switched to 3G  to hook up. And with this daily use, I’ve still only used ¹⁄₂ of my 250mb band­width allocation.

True, I’m not doing a lot of stream­ing video, nor using Skype to con­duct VOIP calls (when I can avoid it), but still, I thought I was using more.

On usab­il­ity.
One week after acquir­ing my iPad, I bought an Apple bluetooth key­board. I do a lot of writ­ing, and while the touch pad key­board is func­tion­al, I find typ­ing on it less prefer­able than using a real key­board that provides tact­ile feed­back, is not phys­ic­ally attached to the screen, doesn’t take up screen realestate, and is a bit lar­ger than the onscreen keyboard.

When writ­ing, I often use my Gor­illa Pod tri­pod as an iPad stand. Since the tri­pod is always with me any­way, it seems redund­ant to get a ‘spe­cial stand’. This also lets me adjust the angle to avoid glare, and adjust the dis­tance from the key­board — some­thing Apple’s iPad key­board dock doesn’t allow.

Bat­tery life is great. I rarely get below 50%, and have to make a con­scious effort to get it below 20%. It does take a while to fully charge back up — I usu­ally leave it overnight.

On func­tion­al­ity I.
The iPad doesn’t replace a com­puter, not even a net­book. It comes close in many ways, but for me, it can’t. This has to do with the iPad’s inab­il­ity to multi-task (cur­rently, though I believe there’s an update in the pipe that may enable multi-tasking).

For many things this isn’t a prob­lem, until I need to switch out of one applic­a­tion into to col­lect new data, look up a ref­er­ence, or do a bit of research. Clos­ing out of the app. and launch­ing the new one is old­school, and slow. Much prefer the abil­ity to just switch to the oth­er app, and back again.

And, since I do a lot of my work online, hav­ing mul­tiple online applic­a­tions run­ning at once is my nor­mal state of operation.

I *want* the iPad to replace my laptop/netbook, but so far, it can’t.

On Func­tion­al­ity II.
iPad is really a whole new class of device, one that’s geared for cas­u­al con­tent cre­ation and media con­sump­tion. With a real key­board, it’s great for tak­ing notes in meet­ings. With the large bright screen, it’s also great to dis­play pho­tos / videos and present­a­tions in small groups. It’s also an awe­some per­son­al media centre; much bet­ter to watch a movie on than an iPhone 🙂

On applic­a­tions
Actu­ally, I’m not going to write about apps today. There are so many good ones out there, and so many dif­fer­ent needs that a dis­cus­sion of the apps I use is fod­der for a future post. And I don’t think I’ve giv­en the apps out there a fair chance yet. So, if there’s some­thing you’d like me to take a look at on the iPad, let me know, and I’ll see if I can take a look at them. And yes, there will be a future post on my iPad apps. Stay tuned.

This post of is one of many I pub­lish weekly at the Future Shop Techb­log. Read more of my stuff here.