So I bought an ipad

[nasomi]

Well then, I bought an iPad 32gb over the weekend. It's neat, sorta.

I'll be honest I don't particularly like apple products. It's an endless bitch to get anything to work properly, rarely if ever "just works" like their old slogan used to be, especially when it comes to forms of multimedia.

I opened my box before even leaving the parking lot. I was pretty stoked. I turned it on, and it said "Please connect to itunes". Well, I didn't have my laptop with me. So I was out of luck, I had to wait until I got home, install itunes, and jump through a few hoops to get it going.

Then there's the apps. There's a ton, but god help you if you have a short attention span, $1-4 a piece racks up quickly, they'll have you nickle and dimed to death in no time.

The lack of email notification is kind of annoying, the extreme restriction on files you can play is annoying as well. The itunes player is flat out ugly. They could have done a LOT better with that one. The fact that the only way to play checkers without ads all over the place is having to pay money? Same with solitaire, mahong, or any other game. This is quite annoying. These are the most basic and fundamental games that have been free on every other device for the past 10 years.

iBooks works pretty well, has a nice ui, and plenty of features. The touch screen is impressively responsive. Nightstand app makes it great on the nightstand, and doesn't have ads all over the place.

In the end I'll probably give it to my mother and buy a 3g version to use as a gps. How accurate is the gps system on the 3g versions?

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

Good to hear from you. You’ll find a whole bunch of iPad enthusiasts in this Forum who are only too willing to help other iPad owners and to hear of their experiences. Don’t be afraid to post any questions you may have or use the ‘Search’ button near the top of the Forum web page. I usually find I discover one new interesting and useful piece of information about my iPad every day - and often not even what I was looking for!!

Sorry to hear of your initial disappointment - yes, the (initial) requirement to sync with iTunes can be, well, frustrating. I think it was done - perhaps with the benefit of hindsight - misguidedly. I said a few choice words myself when I saw what I had to do too. The upside was that it set up all my email accounts, contacts etc so I was immediately 'good to go' on email as soon as I'd done the initial sync with iTunes.

When you say 'lack of email notification' I wasn't 100% clear what you meant (but it's very early in the morning here, so I'm probably just still half asleep). I get the iPad's native Mail app to check my email every 15 minutes and, if there are any new messages, the Mail app icon gets a little 'callout' indicating the number of messages I've got - and the iPad 'beeps' too - even if it's switched into standby/sleep mode - which I think is pretty neat!

Yes - the cost of apps can build up but if you compare the cost of some of them with their desktop counterparts they're a pretty good deal. I use the iPad's iWorks suite most of the time - Pages, Numbers and Keynote and, while accepting they're definitely a stripped down version of the desktop product, they're certainly very much cheaper.

I have GPS on my 3G iPad. I was impressed by (a) the ability of the iPad GPS to operate indoors (I have a regular Garmin GPS that won't) and (b) its accuracy - typically (estimated from the Maps app) to a few metres. When its operating it displays a blue circle around your position on the map and the size of that circle appears to indicate the usual GPS HDOP (horizontal dilution of precision) - so we're talking 3-10 metres.

GPS can be accessed by other iPad apps too, so I have the (very reasonably priced) TuneIn Internet radio app and this uses GPS to (optionally) display a list of 'local' radio stations determined by reference to GPS - neat!

I think we've all sort of had reservations about the iPad at one time or another. I've learnt not to expect it to be a laptop - it's not. It's like buying a regular saloon and then complaining about its off-road performance. If you want an off-road vehicle you purchase a 4x4. The iPad, I think, was intended to fill a perceived 'gap' in the market. I find I use it now for about 80-90% of the tasks that I used to carry out on my laptop. It has a great battery life, it's ultra-portable, instant-on and instant-off, great resolution and responsive screen.

Hope to hear from you soon with your thoughts about the iPad.

Have fun and enjoy your iPad

Tim
Scotland

 

[nasomi]

I have gmail, it syncs every 15min, supposedly, but I most certainly do not get notifications, for whatever reason. Not the end of the world.

iPad GPS is assisted gps, so it will work in places that normal gps's that rely exclusively on satalites, will not. That's a big thing, however when I use the wireless gps i have on mine, it identify's me being at my neighbors house.

I didn't buy an ipad to use it, I bought it to own one. If, by chance, I find a use for it along the way, all the better. I htink going into it with that expectation has eased the blow. It is what it is. I'm sure i'll find a use for it now and again, but I don't use a laptop either. I'm either @work, where i have my multi-display desk, @home, where my home office is, and my general base of opporations. Without a use for a laptop, finding a real use for an ipad is difficult, but who knows, something might pop up.

I'm certainly not talking ill about the device as a whole, just some nuances that, had I been in charge, most certainly would not have made it to production.

 

[tzimisce]

At the risk of repeating information from another thread, this is the difference between a WiFi and WiFi+3G iPad: the WiFi-only iPad, like the original iPhone, does not have GPS (or A-GPS), but rather uses Skyhook, which triangulates from known WiFi base station locations sending out pings to these stations and calculating how long it takes for the signal response to work out your location.

This means it will be very accurate in an urban location with lots of WiFi base stations, and in some instances will be more accurate than satellite GPS because it'll work even when you're surrounded by tall buildings, tree cover or even underground (which degrades satellite GPS navigation.) As you head out into the country where WiFi stations are sparse, its accuracy will decrease or stop altogether.

On the other hand, the iPhone 3 and 4 series, and iPad WiFi+3G all have A-GPS, which is genuine GPS -- plus because it's "assisted", it works even better than regular GPS as it uses other cellular information to obtain your location faster, in addition to regular satellite signals. (By definition, any smartphone with GPS uses A-GPS, for obvious reasons.) Presumably these also have Skyhook, so the GPS on these devices will also work when you're underground, obstructed by tall buildings, etc.

 

[SweetPoison]

I didn't buy an ipad to use it, I bought it to own one. If, by chance, I find a use for it along the way, all the better. .

Interesting view. You must have deep pockets ~ I bet though you will find lots of things you didn't know the iPad could do. You sound very smart!

Welcome to IPF!

 

[Hasty]

Like all gadgets you need to play with it for a while.
Then you'll come to realise just how good it is. Light, portable and instant on with an enormous battery life.
Sure it has it's limitations but there's usually a workaround somewhere.

Just spent some time removing a virus infection from my daughters computer. One of the things the virus did was to disable wireless and change hosts file etc.
iPad was the perfect technicians handbook

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

No viruses on the iPad. Yes - it's only when your Windows PC goes down with an infection that you realise what a great advantage that is. It makes up for a lot of the other frustrations and, as you say, there's usually a workaround.

Good luck with 'disinfecting'

Tim
Scotland

 

[VampiressRN]

I am new to iPad, but it is the best thing I have found to drag around in my backpack on a daily basis. Not too heavy, long battery life, great size with comfortable virtual keyboard, tons of apps, wifi/3G. I am happy so far. It is not my primary computer, but an extension.

I am curious...nasomi...if you could have the perfect portable device, what would it be like?

 

[iPadCharlie]

I didn't buy an ipad to use it, I bought it to own one.

So who are you trying to impress?

 

[nasomi]

I didn't buy an ipad to use it, I bought it to own one.

So who are you trying to impress?

No one, I just like to tinker. Also, I'm wow'd easily. I find something, say "ooo", buy it, and it sits used maybe once or twice. I'm considering even selling my mac mini for that reason. In 3 months, I've used it once. I don't have any friends and limited family, single with 2 kids. Work takes up 60% of my time, kids 30%, and in the remaining 10%, I like to fiddle with gadgets.

In all honesty, I found 2 good uses for it today.

On my way to work, there was a huge accident. I found myself sitting in a stand-still for about an hour. I whipped out my mifi, fired it up, pulled out the ipad, connected to the mifi, and checked facebook, looked at the map thing(which found my location off the mifi's gps somehow?) to see if any alternate routes were possible, and pull traffic conditions(I was impressed it had traffic for small back roads, even if they were all red), check email, and do some web browsing. However my mifi died about 10min in, so I set the wifi router on my phone to start broadcasting, it's slower, but the ipad is pretty low in it's bandwidth consumption.

I could have done all this with my sony vaio p, which weighs in at 1.4lbs, 0.1lb lighter than the ipad, but the resolution is hard on that, and the mouse is tricky. A touch interface was definitely more suitable for what I was tinkering with.

On my way home, I stopped in to see my mother, who watches my kids after school. She offered us dinner, so we sat down and watched the evening news, when I got a words with friends notification. Growing up, my mother, sister, and I played scrabble endlessly, so it was nice, we were trying to figure out words to play. I was also able to check email that she had sent me, watch youtube, etc. On a normal computer, sure you can do real computing, but it's not as quick and easy to get in to do the little stuff as it is on the ipad.

My previous statements were buying it on a saturday, and writing info on a sunday, when sitting at my desk at home toiling around. With some real world exposure, I can see that it does have a place for some people.

The girlfriend mocks it, saying it's nothing more than an ipod touch, and to big, but she has an ipod touch and has made due with it, I think once she lays her hands on it, I might find myself hard pressed to get it back from her.