I’ve been using my iPad now for little over a week, I’m even writing part of my blog using it!
It’s a great tool for everyday use, especially if you’re like me, you can’t be without your laptop or phone for more than a few minutes, it solves the gap of being able to lookup something which would normally be too small on my iPhone’s screen or I would forget about it, by the time my laptop has powered up.
It’s excellent for integrating and catching up on social media, largely twitter and facebook, although TweetDeck does crash occasionally and we are waiting for the updated iPad official Twitter app. I’ve been using Facebook.com, rather than the app as it just looks awful, I can’t quite work out Apple’s idea behind the iPhone App mode, it’s not appealing and certainly doesn’t follow Apple’s normally well aesthetically designed software.
I’ve downloaded a few apps, including iBooks and Kindle, although I’ve not purchased any Books yet, I’m not sure I will, as it looks cheaper to buy a paper copy of the book and I would be a lot happier loaning that to a friend!
There are some great games available, I’ve become addicted to Harbour Master (Free) and it’s Flight Ctrl counterpart (£2.99). – My best score so far is 85, I’m not sure how the leading gamer has managed to achieve nearly 2,000 points, some real dedication there!
What I love about the iPad as it’s a good insight into Apple’s great software, without having to pay the Mac price-tag. Now that they have completely re-designed and launched iWorks on the app store, I can sit on the train and create a presentation on the fly and then using the VGA adapter (£25) connect my iPad to a project and present, I can also create spreadsheets and even word-process on the go.
This leads me on to the keyboard [Image], it’s a lot more difficult than the iPhone, it’s too small to use two hands and it’s too big to use your two thumbs, so you have to use one hand or squish your hands together and try to avoid making too many mistakes. – Of course you could always purchase a wireless Bluetooth keyboard.
In addition one of the big let downs of the iPhone and now iPad is lack of Adobe Flash integration, which now seems to be even further away [Image].
I’m looking forward to using my iPad over the next few months and I hope that developers continue to build fantastic apps that continue to help everyday tasks and keep me occupied.
Follow me on Twitter @tkitmike to keep up to date on my review of the iPad