I’ve been using my iPad for about a day now and thought it would be good to capture my initial thoughts. The model I am reviewing is the WiFi 32GB unit.
The iPad Unboxed
The first challenge in reviewing the iPad is to determine what perspective to review it from. Do I review it as an entertainment device? A social media/communication tool? A business tool to replace laptops? Or perhaps a general purpose computer?
Certainly reviewing it as a general purpose computer is not the right approach. The iPad can do a lot of things, but it certainly can’t do many typical computing tasks given the user interface, device connectivity, lack of exposed file system, and limited storage. In fact, the tablet PC and iPad have a way to go before they fully replace desktop computers and laptops.
But as a business tool and laptop replacement is certainly an interesting to angle to look at the device from. I spend a mind-numbing number of my weekly hours in meetings. During those times, what I need from my laptop is the ability to email, instant message, web surf, and take notes. The iPad can do all of these. And in fact, I purchased the iPad with this in mind and have high hopes for it as a laptop replacement for much of my work day. But since I haven’t had a chance to use the iPad yet at work, I’m going to save that for another day. This leaves us looking at the iPad as an entertainment device and communication tool, so this is where I will focus my review today. Along the way, I think it will also be useful to consider how the iPad and iPhone complement one another (if in fact they).
Looking at the media features of the iPad, we have the usual iPhone options like music, video, audio books, podcasts, and e-books. In the case of music and audio books, there is little to distinguish the iPad over the iPhone. In fact, I think most folks are likely to continue using their iPhones/iPods as their audio media device of choice for the convenience factor and, at least for iPhones, they tend to be taken everywhere. Things get more interesting in the video arena with the iPad having both a larger display and new ways to get video to the device (as compared to the iPhone/iPod).
iPod Player on iPad
Viewing videos on the iPhone has never been a pleasure, but the iPad is a different story. The iPad display is very nice and does a fine job displaying movies and shows downloaded to the device or purchased from the iTunes store. Videos are reasonably sharp and nicely sized — though you should expect letterbox on wide screen media since the iPad display format is 4×3.
Video on the iPad
The prices of movies and TV shows in the iTunes store are still too high as they have been for AppleTV viewers for some time. Worse still are the draconian terms of rentals with the rental period limited to a maximum of 30 days and 24 hours to complete your viewing after first play. With terms like that, I just can’t see wasting money on iTunes videos. You can also buy the videos at prices from $10-$15.
Storage is also likely to be an issue on 16GB and 32GB iPads since videos consume a lot of space. In no time at all, I’d nearly filled my 32GB iPad with all manner of video podcasts (iTunes U!) and movies. Just think of going on vacation and trying to store enough media for a two week trip. Can you say 64GB upgrade? Or perhaps there is another way…
The new and interesting way to watch video on the iPad is to stream it using Netflix or ABC Player (and surely more streaming sources are on the way). Yes, the iPhone has always had YouTube and so does the iPad. But these new streaming apps are much more interesting to me than YouTube since I can watch full length shows now (though not necessarily recent ones when it comes to Netflix).
Netflix Streaming
Quality-wise, video quality is good from Netflix unless you are like me and downloading tons of videos in iTunes through your crappy 1.5Mbps DSL line. In this case, Netflix struggles to get enough bandwidth and the experience is no fun at all. Annoyingly, iTunes doesn’t give you a way to easily pause all downloads, so you have to select them one-by-one to pause them all.
Video streaming with better bandwidth and/or less congestion produces videos with some pixelation and artifacts. It is far from perfect but certainly at a quality I can live with. If you are heading out on vacation, there’s no need to load up on videos. Instead, you just need to ensure you have access to decent WiFi or a mobile broadband router (e.g. the Verizon MiFi).
My experience with the ABC Player was similar to that of Netflix — except with commercial interruptions. The video quality was comparable (maybe a little better) and there’s a selection of recent programs like Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, Modern Family, and others. I’m not much of an ABC fan, but I can see lots of folks using these streaming capabilities for private viewing in families having living room TV conflicts (Apple’s dream come true). Hopefully, Hulu and other streaming apps are just around the corner.
One of the other media categories I’m interested in is the old print media: newspapers, magazines, and books. I’m already a happy Kindle user but can see a lot of potential for the iPad as a Kindle replacement. In fact, the Kindle app for iPad is one of the first applications I picked up (free on iTunes). With it, I was quickly and happily reading all of my Amazon book content. Keep in mind though that newspaper and subscriptions are not supported by the Kindle app for iPad.
However, there is already an alternative app for books on the iPad — it is iBooks from Apple. Using it, there is a decent collection of paid and free books (though far fewer than on the Kindle). Prices are comparable to the Kindle for “hardbacks” and recent bestsellers now that Amazon has been forced to raise prices by publishers. Titles ranged from $14.99 for bestsellers down to $2.99 for the back catalog stuff. Note that the many free classics produced by the efforts of volunteers at Project Gutenberg are available for free via the iBook Store (that’s 30,000 titles and counting).
iBook Store
The book viewing experience using the Apple app versus the Kindle (or even Kindle app) is not much different. The Apple book viewer doesn’t support notes like the Kindle does but it does have a built in dictionary, variable type sizes, and book search. Presentation and formatting on the iPad is marginally superior to the Kindle app software; however, this is largely due to the usual Apple UI polish. Slow page turns that Kindle users are accustomed to are a thing of the past both with the iBook viewer and the Kindle software application.
iBooks
Regarding viewability on the Kindle display as compared to the iPad, I didn’t really find much of a difference in normal lighting conditions. However, outdoors is a different story and does not favor the iPad. Text is still viewable but less easily so. And wearing polarized sunglasses is not possible at all since they make it nearly impossible to view the display. Once nice touch of the Apple book viewer is the ability to vary the display brightness from right in the app.
Of course, the iPad is much larger than a Kindle and makes for a larger viewing area (at least when compared to the Kindle 2). It is also of higher resolution, color, and has the ability to display graphs and pictures that are difficult or impossible to read on the Kindle. But this comes at a cost in that the iPad is much heavier than a Kindle and a little harder to hold like a book. Even the larger Kindle DX weighs in at half the weight of the iPad.
One notable omission on the iPad that I find annoying in comparison to the Kindle is the ability to easily store PDFs. On the Kindle hardware, one can easily convert and store PDFs. On the iPad, PDFs can only be viewed from the web browser, email, or some 3rd party apps. And storing PDFs for later viewing offline is only possible using apps like GoodReader ($0.99 in the App Store).
On books, I think book junkies have a win-win here. You have choice of books from either Apple or Amazon and I think that is a good thing. Given Amazon’s likely desire to see books on many platforms, you can argue in favor of Amazon as the purchase vehicle for maximum device portability. However, neither vendor has shown a willingness to relax DRM restrictions so true media portability is still not here.
For magazines and newspapers, I think there will be a clear winner on iPad v. Kindle in favor of Apple.
Magazines and newspapers on the Kindle are functional and there is a pretty good selection (especially for newspapers). But the Kindle newspaper viewing experience is book-like and lacks the newspaper metaphor preferred by users of apps like the New York Times Reader (on PCs) or even real newspapers.
The iPad has some very interesting potential to replicate and enhance the traditional newspaper and magazine viewing experience. The new Wall Street Journal application is excellent. It feels like a newspaper — without the newsprint getting on your hands and clothes and without dealing with lousy newspaper delivery service. Price-wise though, it ain’t cheap at $17.29 a month. The New York Times is set to follow with their own full feature newspaper app in the future. For now, NYT readers have an abridged version to read for free.
The Wall Street Journal
A few magazines on the iPad have begun to crop up and look nothing like the plain, dreary magazines on the Kindle. These magazines are in color and have lots of interaction potential. There isn’t much there yet (aside from a couple like Time & PopSci) but no doubt some interesting new magazine forms are on the way from publishers like Condé Nast (Wired Magazine and others). Like newspapers, pricing is on the high side — especially compared to the dirt cheap magazine print subscriptions you can get these days. So long as Apple and publishers restrain their greed, then we should see some nice digital magazines coming to iPad.
Oddly, neither newspaper or magazine subscriptions are integrated into the iTunes/iBooks store in a consistent fashion. The WSJ subscription transaction is entirely conducted through the app. Magazines are purchased through the App Store an issue-at-a-time. Clearly there is more work for Apple to do here to make things a bit more standard and consistent. However, some experimentation is probably a good thing at this point to see what works and what doesn’t before Apple dictates formats, models, etc.
I’ve got much more to say about the iPad but am running short of time this evening. Over the next couple of days, I’ll continue my look at the iPad by examining:
- the omission of printer support
- the complementary interplay between iPad and iPhone
- single-purpose applications for FB, Twitter, etc. versus those same services via the browser (i.e. ditching the specialized apps)
- email clients
- the web browsing experience
- social media functions as compared to the iPhone
- multitasking
- keyboards
- business-like apps such as Pages, Numbers, OmniGraffle, Evernote, etc.
But to wrap things up, I’ll finish with my impressions on stability and battery life.
Regarding stability, I did encounter issues from time-to-time with a variety of applications. Safari crashed regularly. Other 3rd party apps crashed occasionally. And I even had the iPad reboot in the middle of a desktop sync. In this respect, the iPad is a disappointment though it certainly isn’t a surprise to see stability issues given rushed product cycles these days.
On battery life, my expectations have been exceeded. We’ve all come to expect less-than-stellar battery capacity for most portable devices. The iPad is surprisingly well-powered. I got 15 hours of battery life while streaming, surfing, and downloading. Perhaps Apple’s new custom processor is what makes the difference here. Recharge time wasn’t great at 3-4 hours from 10% to full charge. However, battery life is excellent so I’m not too bothered (yet) by the long recharge cycle.
Until next time, happy iPad-ing!
P.S. I’ve posted a bunch of iPad pictures and screenshots to my Flickr account.
