another corporate show

For no good reason I decided to get up to the Apple store at 2am this morning. Ok, so getting an iPad was a good idea, but 2am? I’m a night owl anyways.

In short, the iPad was good idea. However, if you already have an iPhone and take your laptop to sync up, consider these time-saving tips:

1. The “Apple” iPad protector gets dirty very easily. Consider an alternative.
2. Update iTunes by running software update; it’s about 100mb (hint: Apple Store’s have free wifi)
3. When prompted, it’s somewhat* safe to click “Setup as new iPad” — you don’t have to restore your iPhone’s backup
4. If you have more than 200 photos and want to start using your iPad “quickly”, don’t sync photos yet. They take a long time to be “optimized”. My sync (2500 photos) took more than an hour.
5. You’ll be prompted to sync your current apps — a no brainer if you want your iPhone apps on the device

*I may end up performing a restore from my iPhone backup. Setting up the iPad as “new” resulted in none of my application settings and preferences being sync’d to the iPad. More on this after I test a few reloads.

Back to my little iPad debut story…

At 2:30a there were 4 cars, until 3am, when one person walked up to the store; thereafter everyone else stopped hiding and started camping at the Apple Store on Knox St. in Dallas. It seemed I was the 2nd arrival, but, the other party didn’t have a reservation so I ended up 1st for the “reservations” line. While the downside was an applicable “dork” label, I was interviewed by several local TV channels and newspapers. Ironically, I don’t watch local TV or read local newspapers.

On to the iPad… and how it rocks…

The first thing I noticed was orientation doesn’t matter — this is awesome because I can just pick it up and use it. The screen swiftly changes to any orientation and there’s a switch to lock it to a specific orientation.

I immediately installed iBooks, Pandora, and NPR — all free apps which looked great. Every app was fast and installed in seconds — almost before I had the chance to touch to start the app. Everything pops into place quickly. After syncing the iPad I quickly went through my routine apps and they were blazing fast and I had no issues.

The glossy screen, which suffers from glare, is still surprisingly legible in broad daylight. It seems as though the focal point of the glass surface is distant enough from the LCD that glares are overlooked. Several people were able to legibly record the screen as I installed various apps and navigated the iPad settings.

Safari is instant and quick as I tested out the various sites which Apple convinced to convert to html5video. Apple has them listed as “iPad-ready websites“. Videos were smooth, no clipping, and no interface issues. Did I say it was fast?

The keyboard was very usable, although it reminded me of my days as a Blackberry user. For some reason it was fairly natural to use my thumbs to type with the keyboard while holding the device in my hand. No problems typing so far.

Now I’m off to the App Store. I’m going to try not to spend more on apps than I paid for the device.

The big problem? No multitasking. If Apple gives the iPad multi-tasking, my “nesspad” is going to be quite the monster.

Minor, notable “little problems”:

• Videos in iTunes don’t have an icon indicating a video and the video opens in a separate Videos application, which unlike iPod, will not play in the background.
• as others have noted, screen smudges are ugly… but not really noticed when using the device
• iPad apps are fairly “expensive”. I think Apple set the bar with their iWork apps and everyone is following suit. Time will tell whether the apps are worth their price.