On the road with an iPad

I’ve had the iPad for about a week now. I’m still amazed with it and all the fun I’m having with it. It feels like a totally new experience to interface with the web and interact with people. Granted, most of that web and interaction is a Twitter client and Safari, but the multi-touch interface and the “closeness” of the interaction (holding it on my lap) just make this feel a new experience.
I’m drafting this on Pages on the iPad. I’ll port this to my blog using a cut and paste into the dashboard, then will touch it up and add links using the dashboard on a PC.
We took a trip last week. I intentionally did not bring my laptop as I wanted to use the iPad as a prime device and didn’t want to have the option of falling back on a PC. Lack of multi-tasking is still obvious, which after this coming week and the iOS4 upgrade should not be an issue. App developers can also fix this by opening up the app with the same view in the same location where it was ended. It amazes me that some apps still don’t do this.
Lack of Flash is still an issue. I also was traveling with my Android phone which supports basic flash and on a few instances grabbed the Android and opened up the URL that was not available on then iPad. Over time, if Apple has it’s druthers, flash video may be phased out on mainstream websites (and replaced with YouTube?), but other sites that rely on flash will require a flash supporting device. I missed my yahoo chess!
(the irony of this with Apple and Google going at each other like cats and dogs makes me chuckle)
Using outdoors is also difficult. My wife and I went to a park to do some reading. I had downloaded a few e-books (using e Kindle app as we like to share books). She pulled out her Kindle and I pulled out the iPad. The very first thing I noticed is that I couldn’t see jack. The iPad in portrait mode can not be viewed while wearing polarized sunglasses (opposite from the iPhone which is fine in portrait but unusable in landscape). Just for a comparison, my Android is visible in both portrait and landscape. Even in landscape mode it is difficult, so I ditched the sunglasses, but still found myself squinting to view even on maximum brightness. After an hour I had a headache from squinting and the overall brightness outside as I was not wearing my sunglasses.
The battery life is phenomenal. I only charged when it was convenient. Even now I’m working on a charge from the hotel over 24 hours ago after using moderately yesterday surfing the web in the airport and reading e-books on the plane.
Pages is great. I can actually edit, format, and move around in a full size document. I can read (and edit) Pages documents and Word documents with ease. I have used Numbers as well and for a tablet it is a very functional spreadsheet app. Starting from scratch to create a useable spreadsheet is a slow process, but opening up one from e-mail and making quick edits works quite well. I had a pretty through loan calculator that I had created with Numbers on my Mac which was quite easy to use on the iPad to change values and observe results.
So I’m still happy with my purchase. I’m loving the iPad.
Next post … Later this week … My Android vs. iPhone experiences.