New ipad

[pacwind3]

Well, I got one this morning. Only waited in line for about an hour. I'll let you all know what I think as I continue to use it.

[smorris]

I played with a tablet a couple years ago and it seemed to be a solution in search of a problem. I'd be interested in your assessment.

[jussi]

Which model did you get?

[Mr__Bill]

Just in case you might be tempted to look inside it..... Pic




Bill

[pacwind3]

So far I really like it. Typing is still much fasternthen on my iPhone, but slower then a real keyboard. I planned to get an external keyboard as this will be my only computer downstairs. One hit I felt it took was: I had to get it home and plug it into my compuert before being able to start it. Hardly makes it become a stand alone machine, but not the end of the earth or anything. Battery life is amazing, we've been on it for well over 4.5 hours and I am still at 63% so it seems like that ten hour battery life will be real.
The speed is really nice, loads apps quick. Movies to entertain the kids will be great. I admit I am a lover of apple products so I could be biased, but since I used iTunes for all my music and movie purchases anyway, this very much fell in line with my current computing practices.

[pacwind3]

Oh, and as to he question that's been posed: could it replace a laptop? Almost. Can a motorcycle replace a car? Sure, till you need to haul a car seat. The reality is, it just depends on what you want to do with it. Need sketch up? Then this wont workmfor you at this time. Just going to surf, play games, email and movies and such? Then this is your machine.

[jussi]

Aside from the cool factor do u think it has anything over a netbook? Which also couldn't replace a full laptop.

[germdoc]

I already have an iPhone and desktops at home and work. The only real purpose of this for me would be as an eBook reader and to watch movies on the go.

As this device won't run GarageBand, I really don't have a need for it. (I'm scheming for a MacBook Pro in the near future if I have money left over after the move...) If someone came up with a great music creation program, I'd be interested.

[aggrex]

I checked out the Ipad tonight and I like the size and weight. Great for surfing the internet as long as you got WiFi. There was plenty of people looking and I could have easily made a purchase but my netbook had a few advantages over the Ipad besides the price. The biggest Ipad negative for me was the Ipad's inability to play videos from CNBC. I read somewhere that the Ipad cannot play flash-type video. The salesperson stated that the 3G version will debut later this month but will not have phone capability. I hope the other "tablets" coming to market can address these issues for me.

[germdoc]

The WiFi thing sounds great in theory but one of my pet peeves is having to pay for WiFi everywhere you go.

I traveled extensively last week and was disappointed at all the places one could not get free WiFi--airports, subway trains, expensive hotels, coffeeshops, etc. I HATE getting nickel and dimed on things like this, so if I got one I'd probably spring for 3G just so I wouldn't have to pay for WiFi.

BTW, this is one area where Europe and Israel, for example, have us beat--much wider access to free WiFi.

[crokett]

Isn't flash pretty basic? Why can't the iPad do flash?

[gerti]

Isn't flash pretty basic? Why can't the iPad do flash?

Flash is proprietary (Adobe) and the implementation is very buggy and really drains the battery in a hurry. I know that whenever I visit a Flash-based site my laptop's fans start screaming... Sometimes even on static pages with no animation.

Anyway because of the above Steve Jobs, doesn't like Flash, and pushes hard for everyone to adopt HTML5 which is an open standard and has similar capabilities than Flash.

[pacwind3]

I don't know if I could say that it has anything "over" a net book. I had a net book last year and sold it to my sister for her to take to some college classes. The ipad certainly is lighter then a net book.
The hangup with the ipad is you can only get apps, and only through apple. You can't load programs on it, like sketchup, or something like that.
The flip side of the app thing: they are pretty cheap. You can get pages from apple (the word processor) for the ipad for only $10, the same goes for numbers (spreadsheet). Try to find a copy of excel for $10.
Again, I'd have to say I don't see it as a replacement for laptops, but it is a really nice light, portable substitute. BTW, I am typing up this message on my bluetooth keyboard synched to the ipad. That works really sweet.

[vaking]

Anyway because of the above Steve Jobs, doesn't like Flash, and pushes hard for everyone to adopt HTML5 which is an open standard and has similar capabilities than Flash.

I dislike flash and consider it almost useless. I routinely disable it on computers that I use, so lack of flash for me is not a big deal. But Steve Jobs pushing everyone to adopt an open standard - that is a good one.

[jussi]

Isn't flash pretty basic? Why can't the iPad do flash?

Because Steve said so.

Which sucks because I would love to use it on my iphone. I can jail break it but it's a bit of a hassle for me.