A quick iPad review

Apple iPad (iPad 2)

As it happens all the four things I don’t like about my Apple iPad manifested themselves within a few minutes of each other today and they also helped to highlight what a cool little device it is, so I figured it was time for a quick review.

The Apple iPad has replaced a great many items in my house, or it would have if I owned them. It has replaced the TV guide, a number of cookbooks, the weather report on TV, the laptop on the couch for looking up stuff on Wikipedia and so on. It has not replaced the laptop for viewing movies, simply because at 16 GB it has too little storage. (Maybe if I could stream stuff off a wireless media server, but I’ve too little need for such a beast.)

Maybe it would or would not replace a smart phone, but a smart phone only really comes into place when you have a need for an expensive subscription, which I don’t. I don’t even have a mobile phone subscription, and my land line subscription is increasingly becoming an artifact from olden times, like those 19th century irons people used to collect in the 1970s—I never call anybody and I use Skype when I do.

So there you have a limited lay-out of my private electronics needs.

The actual reason I own an iPad is for my business. I use it as device to test websites on and I use it as a note taking tool. I still use a paper notebook for important and private notes (less easy to hack and doesn’t break down as easily), but everything else goes onto the iPad and then Dropbox. I also use the iPad to carry my portfolio around. If I were a graphics artist it would probably be too small for this (although it might be a good back-up?).

If I didn’t already own one for my business, I’d get one (or something like it) for private use.

Which brings me to the irritants, one plus three.

The big downside of the Apple iPad (and presumably unique to this brand) is that it is very much what people call a ‘walled garden’. The device is a gateway to a store for software and media. It comes with a couple of relatively useful applications, but if you want anything more you have to head to the iTunes store. Apple makes very much sure that all software must be offered via their store. You may offer software for free, but as a developer you still have to jump through all of Apple’s hoops. One thing that makes it so your application won’t get through Apple’s vetting process is if your application allows other applications to bypass Apple’s vetting process. The result is that the free (as in free of cost) software ecosystem on the iPad isn’t nearly as rich as it could be. (For comparison, most of the software I use on my business PC is FOSS.)

For a cheapskate like me who doesn’t mind wasting hours of his time looking for free offerings this is still a problem but can be a minor one. For all normal people though, if you want the iPad for your home, consider getting a credit card first so that you can give Apple more money (they take a percentage off the top for apps sold through their store).

The three minor irritants:

• The (rather expensive) power cable breaks down in no time (and the non-replaceable battery deteriorates pretty quickly, so you need that cable).
• Apple backs up the contents of your iPad to one (and only one!) computer and if the hard disk of your computer crashes (as happened to me the other day) it will delete everything on your iPad the next time you try and synchronize it with that one PC!
• The (also rather expensive and optional) cover develops a looseness over time. Since the cover doubles as an off-switch, this means you can drain your battery without noticing it (you’ll believe the iPad is sleeping when it’s not).

I won’t say the iPad (or tablets like it) are indispensable, but they are pretty nifty. They are as light and easy to handle as a not-too-heavy magazine and are exactly for that reason a drop-in replacement mostly for magazines (assuming you have Wifi and can get the content online).

I find note-taking to work very well once you’ve installed the right applications. I use MoApp’s myTexts Lite for texts and neuNotes for anything involving drawing. There are undoubtedly better note-taking apps, but the Lite version of myTexts already comes pretty close and in fact has some pretty nifty features which you would hope all note app producers would copy, such as a much improved keyboard.

Apple’s model is one of razors and blades, except that they charge a premium for both (because they can). One would hope they’d fix the minor irritants in later versions of the iPad, though from what I’ve seen so far they haven’t bothered.

This of course brings us to the following question. If you are not a web developer who simply needs the Apple iPad, would you buy something else?

(This is still a draft because I need to get back to work. I’ll iron out the typos later.)

Rating by brankl: 4 stars