The place I occasionally turn up and do some work at has decided that the iPad is going to replace desktop computers for the majority of employees – well, some of the management thinks this... the IT department are slowly dying inside. To this rather strange end they have bought a couple of iPad's and loaned them out to us so we can play with them for a few weeks and test them out. In fact, I'm writing this blog on one although I will have to email the document to myself and edit it on a proper computer.
Now, lots of people on the net have reviewed them and for the most part the reviews are good. My first impressions where certainly on the side of giddy. I do like Apple stuff. I use a Mac for music and I have a MacBook for sitting in the garden and piddling about on. Ok, it does have some serious uses as well but he majority of the time I'm just mucking about on it. I like the way you can more or less rely on a Mac to work properly – it's not as good at being a multi-functional device as a PC but it is more trustworthy. I used to use a PC for music and I can't tell you the amount of times I lost work because the dam thing decided it had a headache and needed to go for a lie down. I still use PC's for some tasks and that's fine. I can cope. Frequently they can't but I can...
But the iPad. Well. It looks lovely, it has a great minimal design by Jony Ive (he used to call himself Jonathan Ive but as his designs have become more minimal, so has his name... penis). You turn the iPad on and it sits there steadfastly refusing to do anything interesting and demanding an iTunes connection like a stubborn child. Ok. No problem. Like a lot of people I use iTunes for my music library and for synching my iPhone. So, once connected and registered, it's time to load some apps. iPhone apps work, don't they? Great! Got loads of them... Except once on the iPad they look awful. Big, blocky and clunky. Not very Apple is it? You can zoom them down but then you just have a big black screen with a tiny app in a box in the middle. Poo. The only one that looks decent is Doodle Jump but, as I mentioned on Twitter recently, playing it on an iPad is like trying to steer an iron goat through soup.
So I went and downloaded a bunch of HD apps, as they call them. These are fairly plentiful already and they don't disappoint. The interfaces are lovely and intuitive, mostly. The range of stuff is good and the official Apple apps like Pages, Keynote and the iBooks book store thing are very well designed if a little limited in functionality. The trouble is that if you hold the iPad for any length of time, you'll get arm ache. It's quite heavy... If you rest it on your knee then you can type and read for longer but the typing isn't as fast as a laptop and the reading isn't as easy on the eye as a proper e-reader. Having trouble figuring out what it's for... but I do quite like it.
You can't easily connect it to a corporate network. You can't print from it - yet. You can't do much apart from marvel at the shininess of it and pretend you're in Star Trek. The only way to feel more like you're in Star Trek would be to put on a red sweatshirt and shoot yourself. Much cheaper than buying an iPad...
I'm not overly impressed. It's quite a nice toy but until some of the shortcomings of it are fixed (it is only the first attempt, remember) it is just a toy. For people with more money than sense – although don't knock these people... The early adopters will make sure Apple keep building strange gadgets like this. It's not going to replace desktop computers in the office. It won't replace laptops. It won't replace smart phones. It might replace your digital photo frame... Music apps on it are no better than iPhone ones. Games are quite cool but not particularly better than on the iPhone (yet). Business apps are too limited. Email and web browsing is good but not as good as a laptop.
I'm still going to find it really hard to give it back... It's so shiny!
Also, it's too expensive. You can get a decent laptop for the same price. I can see it coming into it's own in a year or two – like the iPhone – but until then save your money. Or give it to me and I'll send you an iPhone and a pair of binoculars.
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