OK, I have mine, do you have yours?
I'm actually posting right now on it with a Bluetooth keyboard. It's fine, although I keep reaching for a mouse rather than touching the screen. I may get used to it.
There's been plenty reviews already, and for the most part, the glow is real. This little device is simply amazing. Impossibly thin, vibrant, UFB touch response, smart, well designed and not a rough edge to be seen. It's completely polished. That does not mean, however, that it is without places for improvement - and in some places, pretty mighty. But since it'd be nothing but utterly expected for Perk to create another glowing review, I'll stick predominatly to my challenges with it.
It's clear that the 'pad has been tested quite a bit, but has not yet undergone the brutal scrutiny of lots of different types of users. I get the feeling that it works *perfectly* for exactly what Steveo wanted to do with it. There are places that it seems there's been less design time, or less emphasis.
A couple points that I've not seen reviewed yet that deserve note: I am immediately impressed that, although there is no notion of a menu system, shortcut keys work on the bluetooth keyboard. Cut, copy, paste even undo work exactly as expected - in fact I had done a bit of that here and then realized that I'd done it ... it was that seamless. Across the board, the naturalness and inevitablity of what I should do next seem apparent and easily accessible. It's clear that an incredibly huge effort went into making this device simply work the way that I'd expect ... even when I don't know what yet to expect. Another great point is the notion of saved state. The app system must have a nice and easy, quick way to save the state of an app, because I can go in and out and I'm not always right where I was, but I may be really close. The degree to which state is saved is completely variable and seems to be bound to the app, not the OS. For example, using Pages I was placed right back exactly where I was. Bento is a reboot. I think we'll see more of this state behavior as apps improve and gather feedback. I also think that, since the rumors now seem pretty clear that multitasking will be part of OS4 there's not too long we need to wait. Current estimates are this summer with the release of the refreshed phone. On the other hand, this web site will be gone and my post will be poofed if I switch out to another app, so I daren't quit now
My challenges today are not with the device, they are with implementation of apps. There are lots of bugs to be worked out across the board, but nothing is showstopping (although having tried streaming from ABC 5 times now and getting booted within the first moment of a show is clearly show stopping. Looking forward to them getting their act together).
First, most heinous offense goes to Pages, Keynote and Numbers. Wonderful implementations that are a great first shot and plenty room to grow. But the document mechanism is pure hell. I'm not talking about opening/saving/closing etc - i'm talking about importing and exporting. So: You've got this file in MS Word you want to be able to edit on your iPad? You fire up iTunes, go to Apps, scroll down to Shared Documents, select Pages, click Add, find the document you want "shared." It then goes into a repository on the iPad that, when you click open, import and select it, it becomes available in Pages. Once there it's great. Then you export, and you can select Word or PDF and you retrieve it in the same way via iTunes. Which, BTW is no longer anywhere near an appropriate or accurate name. It should be, iDoEverythingSortawell. There should be a better way to deal with documents, which leads to heinous offense #2.
Heinous offense #2 is even more unforgivable than heinous offense 1. It can be argued that this is a brand new interface - that no one has written an app like Pages for finger interface on a tiny portable before ... and you'd be right. Not entirely excusable but I'll go with it. No, this is far worse. I have a 60G account with MobileMe. Our client files are on Mobile Me. You would think that I could open, edit and save documents right to there with the 'pad ... you'd be wrong. In fact, you'd even be wrong if you assumed that there was an iPad app for mobile me yet - thje Apple store folks tell me it's coming, not to worry - but on day one FFS this really should have been addressed. I'll betcha that a lot of folks like me are going to go, "WTF is MM for if I can't access it and use my cloud hard drive on my cloudish portable? They really need to wake up on that one.
Citrix Receiver: Buggy. Badly. I'm sure this will get worked out, but it has problems with fingertips==button presses, I think it gets stuck and I need to reboot it ... keyboard interface is kind of whacky. I can give them some time as well - they'll work it out, but it was a bit frustrating today. On the plus side, once our cloud machines were pumping out an instance response was, incredibly, faster than my desktop. f'reals. Side by side testing mates - iPad rendered quicker. Now that could be that I'm viewing it on a 30" monitor that has to scale everything and has larger screen size... but still, that makes for a really impressive demo on the 'pad.
ABC: Doods. If you're going to have a service to stream stuff, you should make sure it works. Has AT&T taught people nothing about being unprepared?
WinAdmin: Horrible. HORRIBLE mouse interpretation. This little app is supposed to be an RDP client. Well, it shows the screen ... but the mouse should track my finger. Doesn't. Touch, it passes a click through and places the mouse (there). Don't waste your 8.99. It also seemed slow and clunky. Probably going to pony up for either the WYSE or Teleport and see how they do, although I think I'll let the nich decant for a bit before I plunk down any more. There'll be more like me that feed the developers back and they'll sort it out.
iPhone Apps: it's a 50-50. Minesweeper: reasonable. Monster Pinball: unplayable and bugged out. In all cases, having the little iPhone app in the middle or squared up a size is kind of funky. I'll hang out and wait for the iPad version, thanks.
Native games: Purchased Top Gun, Scrabble, Mondo Solitaire and Labyrinth HD as demos of the playability on the little thing. Top gun: loads of potential, a little funky. Great graphics refresh, fun, but I'm dead certain I look like a moron waving the box around. Solitaire: good and playable - however the slowish emphasis on card movement animation makes the game feel droopy and outdated. Speed it up guys. Scrabble: great to look at, excellent concept with the local peer-to-peer mode. Buggy - it bombed on us several times - but this as well will work out. I already received updates for both TopGun and Scrabble today - you know they're going to be on this for a while. Labyrinth: WELL DONE GUYS. Played excellently, was a great example of the 'pad's accellerometer and general game play. Love it.
NetFlix: Man, you just can't go wrong here. I started streaming Conan the Barbarian moments after I had finished syncing my pad for the first time. Movie started in about 5 seconds, ZERO HICCUPS. Looked awesome. Great stuff.
Popular Science, Time Magazine: Going to have to get used to digital media and everyone's impression of how I should use it. A little funky, but I think it needs time.
News sources: USA Today: WELL DONE. Now, go get better writers, editors and reporters. NPR: Nice, if slightly pedestrian. Worked flawlessly. BBC News: Predictably British, but nice interface. AP News: What, exactly, were they thinking here? Perhaps the most prolific of services reduced to a bulletin board style layout that actually makes finding the news I want tougher? Guys. You're killing me.
Accuweather: Gentleman. Don't reinvent the wheel. Creating a new interface that does not adhere to any standards of usage by any system I've used todayu does not make your app more "cool." Makes it more worthy of the trash bin.
OK, I could go on for a long time (as if I haven't) but you get the drift. Is it worth the money? HELL YA. It's a great device and will replace a lot of notebook usage. Will replace a lot of iPhone apps as well. Magical, yes. The best web browsing experience ever? Well, if I had Flash that'd be true. Other than flash, it's almost like rediscovering an old friend. Overall, the device is magical and amazing. It'll redefine what consumers want from portables, that's for damn sure. I'll post in a week or so after I've really put it to use in real life. Looking forward to seeing how it grows.
/p
