This is obviously going to be a completely biased review of the new IPad since I sold my Kindle to buy it, but I couldn’t help myself see how many more hits I get by titling it the way I did.
Today I woke up excited to get to the Apple store and purchase the new IPad. I stood in line for about 30 minutes while my turn came up, when it finally did, the worker was very attentive and almost made me believe the apple care plan was worth it. She asked me if I’d had a chance to try it out. When I said, “It’s just a big IPhone, isn’t it?” she acted if I kicker her in the face. She was like, “No! don’t say that! It’s way more.” I’d later realize that she was kind of right.
I came home and plugged it into my MacBook Pro. ITunes alerted me that I needed to update to the latest version. About one hour later, I was finally up and running. It seems you can’t even start it up to the home screen unless you go through this step. The first thing you’ll want to do when you start it is sync it up to your ITunes. You’ll see a screen that asks you if you want to use your IPhone’s data to sync it up or start it up as new. I selected “start up as new” and I suggest you do the same because I was surprised to see that all of your IPhone application don’t work the way you would expect on your IPad. Apps made for your IPhone will display at the same resolution on your IPad, which means you’ll see a lot of black surrounding your little app in the middle – not good. This means that you’ll start looking for IPad versions of the same app as soon as you see how nasty it looks when you try and scale it up. Another thing that you might notice is that the apps are a little more expensive. I believe companies think if your buying apps this early in the IPad game, you have a little money to spend, whatever, they’re probably right, and I’ve spent $25 dollars in apps today to prove it.
When you’re done syncing, you’ll want to start playing with it, but wait! You’ll need to get your Wi-Fi password to get your IPad working to it’s full potential. This part really frustrated me, connecting to my network was not cut and dry. It took several attempts. I realize that everyone’s network is different but I would be curious to see if I’m not the only one to have these troubles. However, now that I’ve got it successfully set up, my IPhone hasn’t been able to connect. Perhaps I’ve exceeded my wireless connections?
So once I was on, my next stop was the apple store. One of the first apps you’ll see in the featured section is IWorks. I believe it’s a group of apps that contains a word processor (Pages) and some other apps that allow you to prepare presentations. I don’t believe the IPad will replace your computer for things like this. I suggest you restrain from buying these types of apps until you get a little more familiar with the key board. Like I said before, be prepared to pay a little more of some of your favorite apps.
I’ve had a chance to play with my new toy for a few hours now and I’m liking what I see. Is it worth the money? I think so. You see, there are certain apps that I believe are better served from this screen. Will it replace your IPhone? I think not, although that thought did cross my mind. Like I said before, most of the apps I use are better served on this new resolution. Will it replace the computer? Definitely not! Or at least, definitely not right now!
VS KINDLE
IPad wins hands down. My new IPad is years ahead of the Kindle, and no one can argue with that. I almost felt bad for the poor girl who ended up buying my old kindle, but I’m glad she did. Apple put out a Kindle reader and that pretty much put the nail in the coffin. Now to tell you the truth, I only bought one Kindle book. The main reason why I bought these two products was for their PDF support. Kindle allowed me to view them, but it’s lack of the zoom feature really bugged me sometimes. Especially when the PDF resolution wasn’t as great as I would have wanted. The native PDF support on the IPad doesn’t allow me to save my spot but I was able to find an app that did.
VS MACBOOK
The real question is, will this ( I say “this” because I’m actually writing this part of the post on it. ) IPad revolutionize the way we compute, like Steve Jobs said it would? I’m afraid to say this, but it just might. My first thought was that there was no way to replace the key board. I mean, we need to feel the keys if we wanted to really get rid of it, but I’m very surprised at how fast I’ve been able get through this. It is something you have to get use to.
That being said, my MacBook Pro has now become obsolete for a lot of what I’ve used it for in the past. Come to think about it, my Iphone has become obsolete for somethings as well. But the fact of the matter is, developers like me need a mouse and it will take a long time for it to be replaced by all eight fingers. Obviously, the computing power of an IPad is about a fraction of what my laptop can do but my grandma could care less, and really, it’s the consumer who uses the computer for casual things like email that really benefit from products like this.
THE CONCLUSION
This is a developers blog and the IPad is my tool. I’d like to leave you with a few apps that are essential to somebody like me.
Discussion
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