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The "Delivered iPad" and Impressions Thread
- Thread starter 3Pedals6Speeds
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HQ on a device which has mono speakers
But hey,headphones sound should be good but only if You use a HQ headset!
HQ on a device which has mono speakers
But hey,headphones sound should be good but only if You use a HQ headset!
They are stereo. Plus, you can still hear distoriton through a single speaker.
Anyone around Evanston IL got their's yet? UPS guy usually shows up around 11:30 and that was two very slow hours ago.
im in aurora, ive got nothing yet
Many different impressions...
I spent spent over an hour today demoing the iPad at the Manhattan 14th store and came away with a few impressions. Here are as many as I can remember...
Form Factor. The hardware build is gorgeous. The device feels SO solid and indestructible in your hands, it's not to be believed. All the controls along the edges are rock-solid. The fact that the back is curved is actually an asset: if you leave the device on a flat surface, like a table, that curved back allows you to easily slip your fingers underneath the back and pick the iPad up with one hand. You can't pull this off with the Air or the 13" MacBook Pro. Even the thickness doesn't seem overwhelming. I have a booq attache bag for my 17" MBP, and I think I could easily slip the iPad in one of the pockets.
The only downside to the current build is the weight. If you aren't bench pressing regularly, you're going to have a problem holding it out in front of you when you're standing (or even sitting) if it's not resting on anything. All those videos of people with it on their lap, answering emails or watching movies—there's a reason they were shot that way.
And believe it or not, I never ONCE thought about the bezel—either it being too small or too large. It's exactly right. Really.
The Screen. Sorry, but yes, it's horribly reflective; and yes, sorry again, it picks up fingerprints faster than the streets of New York inherit litter. The good news is that all you have to do is wipe the screen on your shirt, or a pants leg, and presto it's as good as new.
Orientation Feature. Yes, it's incredible. Flip it any which way and it immediately responds. The main downside is that in certain applications the controls are slightly different. (I think Pages, for instance.)
The Keyboard. I can't NOT talk about this. Even in landscape, this is NOT a touch-type keyboard. If you can (and are used to) typing over 50 wpm, forget it. If you're a hot-shot iPhone typist, you might be able to generate some decent speed; for in comparison to the iPhone, thumb and one-finger typing is much faster and easier. But you just cannot get the QWERTY experience that you benefit from when on a hardware keyboard. I'm not sure why…whether it's the spacing, or that you're typing on a screen, or that the sensitivity algorithm doesn't have enough play. But it just doesn't cut it. If you're a writer, plan on getting the external keyboard. Then you'll need a case for both, and other gear as well, so you might as well buy an Air instead.
And another odd thing: the keyboard, when it pops up, often takes up too much space on the screen, to the detriment of you seeing enough of the window above where you're typing your content.
And as many have pointed out, you canNOT type on the screen keyboard if the device is lying flat on a table. Because of the rounded back, your iPad will immediately feel like a boat at sea, rocking every which way.
Graphics. The graphics part of the device was particularly surprising. Apps I thought would suck were beautiful, and vice versa.
The basic rule of thumb is this: if it's native-Apple, you'll see gorgeous graphics, no matter how much you zoom in. Preferences, Pages, Numbers, iBooks, Mail, Calendar…beautiful beyond belief.
But that's where the smooth ride ends. ANY 3rd-party app that hasn't been correctly rescaled to the higher resolution absolutely sucks in full screen mode. Your only option? Tap the "1x" to return to iPhone resolution; and then you're stuck staring at a little box in the middle of a field of black.
I was appalled to see the New York Times app. There has been so much hype about this one! It looks like crap; it's the same app as on the iPhone! Hilariously, I jumped to Safari, pulled up The New Yorker, and all the fonts resized beautiful, no matter how much I zoomed in.
Then there's OmniGroup, my favorite software company company for the Mac. (I've already started a couple of flame wars over in their forums over this stuff.) One of their biggest selling apps, OmniFocus, was actually on all the iPads I saw in the store (as a demo). But it was the iPhone low-resolution port! They are selling a $49.95 iPad app of their beautiful graphics app called OmniGraffle, but so far no one has given me the word on whether or not they upscaled the resolution to match the iPad's.
There were MANY, MANY more third party apps on the iPad demos in the store that were mere ports from their iPhone cousins. Jump to full-screen mode, and it's like you're back on a Commodore 64. Ugh.
Speaking of resolution, do you know the iPad's PPI (pixels per inch) is? 132. In comparison, the iPhone's PPI is 163.
And that means HD movies, especially when you fill the screen with them (remove the letterboxing), show slight artifacts. :-(
As far as YouTube goes…well, it seems that its default launch mode puts the video box in the top left quadrant of the iPad, with the other 3/4 of the screen filled with commends and related videos. Good move, considering when you full-screen YouTube videos, artifacts cripple every object edge in sight.
But once again, the Apple apps—iPhoto, iTunes, iPod, Pages—all look incredible. Take a Pages text document, for instance, at full screen. Zoom in 200%, and the fonts are still perfect. NO artifacts.
Speed. OK, yes, most everything is fast. Opening apps, switching from one home screen to another, turning pages in an iBook, rotating the device to a different orientation. But browsing on the Web wasn't as fast as I expected.
And I found one absolute stinker among my speed tests: GoogleMaps. I had my 2G iPhone right next to me, both my iPhone and the iPad (and I tried this test with several) on the SAME Apple Store wi-fi network, and both devices were displaying the exact same map of Manhattan right around the 14th Store (same range of blocks). When I flicked the map on the iPhone over one screen toward Chelsea, the iPhone rewrote the entire map in under 2 seconds. When I did the same thing on the iPad, it took 30-45 seconds to rewrite the map.
I tried this test over and over again with different iPads, different parts of Manhattan, different zoom levels, all the while maintaining a parallel test on the iPhone—same result. GoogleMaps on the iPad absolutely sucks. You're gonna need a 5G or fiber optic connection if you want to see this app rewrite screens in a timely fashion. And you can't make the argument that "Oh, you were in a store, so the wi-fi network was overloaded," since my almost 3-year old 2G iPhone was hanging in there just fine with its quick rewrites (1-2 seconds or less). All tests were done in basic map mode—no satellite, terrain, or traffic overlays involved.
There's a reasonable response to this criticism, I suppose, in that the iPad has more pixels to write; but that's kind of a lame excuse, especially for an app we've grown to depend on.
Pages. It may sound odd to single out this one app for feedback, but Apple has done a very intelligent job rewriting it. They've really changed around the Inspector and control over the layout of the pages. Many things I thought wouldn't be there, I eventually did find: like double-spacing. Setting up headers and footers is a breeze. Likewise, newspaper columns. Using the Ruler for moving tab stops and indents was MUCH easier than on the Mac version. Granted, it's a "stripped-down" version of the Mac Pages, but it's beautifully done, with some very smart and progressive thinking toward new and much more efficient UI.
File Structure. OK, here we have a bit of a problem. Aside from iPhoto, which has a ribbon at the top allowing you to easily switch between Photos, Events, Faces, etc., it appears that Pages and Numbers are only capable of showing you a single horizontal listing of your documents streaming off to the right to infinity. Maybe I'm missing something here. What if there are 100 Pages documents. Do I have to scroll ALL the way through them?
There doesn't appear to be a folder/file/list structure anywhere, except in Mail, Safari (bookmarks), and a styles drop-down menu in Pages.
Export/Import. How to import and export? We know sync to iTunes on your Mac is required for many, many types of data transfer that you'll want and need. And yes, Pages allows you to email as Pages, Word, or PDF. But I didn't see any option for iDisk, which greatly disappointed me. I suppose DropBox will come along to fill the gap?
Needless to say, hundreds of people were leaving the 14th Street store with iPads, most of them happy as clams.
I left the store empty-handed.
I spent spent over an hour today demoing the iPad at the Manhattan 14th store and came away with a few impressions. Here are as many as I can remember...
Form Factor. The hardware build is gorgeous. The device feels SO solid and indestructible in your hands, it's not to be believed. All the controls along the edges are rock-solid. The fact that the back is curved is actually an asset: if you leave the device on a flat surface, like a table, that curved back allows you to easily slip your fingers underneath the back and pick the iPad up with one hand. You can't pull this off with the Air or the 13" MacBook Pro. Even the thickness doesn't seem overwhelming. I have a booq attache bag for my 17" MBP, and I think I could easily slip the iPad in one of the pockets.
The only downside to the current build is the weight. If you aren't bench pressing regularly, you're going to have a problem holding it out in front of you when you're standing (or even sitting) if it's not resting on anything. All those videos of people with it on their lap, answering emails or watching movies—there's a reason they were shot that way.
And believe it or not, I never ONCE thought about the bezel—either it being too small or too large. It's exactly right. Really.
The Screen. Sorry, but yes, it's horribly reflective; and yes, sorry again, it picks up fingerprints faster than the streets of New York inherit litter. The good news is that all you have to do is wipe the screen on your shirt, or a pants leg, and presto it's as good as new.
Orientation Feature. Yes, it's incredible. Flip it any which way and it immediately responds. The main downside is that in certain applications the controls are slightly different. (I think Pages, for instance.)
The Keyboard. I can't NOT talk about this. Even in landscape, this is NOT a touch-type keyboard. If you can (and are used to) typing over 50 wpm, forget it. If you're a hot-shot iPhone typist, you might be able to generate some decent speed; for in comparison to the iPhone, thumb and one-finger typing is much faster and easier. But you just cannot get the QWERTY experience that you benefit from when on a hardware keyboard. I'm not sure why…whether it's the spacing, or that you're typing on a screen, or that the sensitivity algorithm doesn't have enough play. But it just doesn't cut it. If you're a writer, plan on getting the external keyboard. Then you'll need a case for both, and other gear as well, so you might as well buy an Air instead.
And another odd thing: the keyboard, when it pops up, often takes up too much space on the screen, to the detriment of you seeing enough of the window above where you're typing your content.
And as many have pointed out, you canNOT type on the screen keyboard if the device is lying flat on a table. Because of the rounded back, your iPad will immediately feel like a boat at sea, rocking every which way.
Graphics. The graphics part of the device was particularly surprising. Apps I thought would suck were beautiful, and vice versa.
The basic rule of thumb is this: if it's native-Apple, you'll see gorgeous graphics, no matter how much you zoom in. Preferences, Pages, Numbers, iBooks, Mail, Calendar…beautiful beyond belief.
But that's where the smooth ride ends. ANY 3rd-party app that hasn't been correctly rescaled to the higher resolution absolutely sucks in full screen mode. Your only option? Tap the "1x" to return to iPhone resolution; and then you're stuck staring at a little box in the middle of a field of black.
I was appalled to see the New York Times app. There has been so much hype about this one! It looks like crap; it's the same app as on the iPhone! Hilariously, I jumped to Safari, pulled up The New Yorker, and all the fonts resized beautiful, no matter how much I zoomed in.
Then there's OmniGroup, my favorite software company company for the Mac. (I've already started a couple of flame wars over in their forums over this stuff.) One of their biggest selling apps, OmniFocus, was actually on all the iPads I saw in the store (as a demo). But it was the iPhone low-resolution port! They are selling a $49.95 iPad app of their beautiful graphics app called OmniGraffle, but so far no one has given me the word on whether or not they upscaled the resolution to match the iPad's.
There were MANY, MANY more third party apps on the iPad demos in the store that were mere ports from their iPhone cousins. Jump to full-screen mode, and it's like you're back on a Commodore 64. Ugh.
Speaking of resolution, do you know the iPad's PPI (pixels per inch) is? 132. In comparison, the iPhone's PPI is 163.
And that means HD movies, especially when you fill the screen with them (remove the letterboxing), show slight artifacts. :-(
As far as YouTube goes…well, it seems that its default launch mode puts the video box in the top left quadrant of the iPad, with the other 3/4 of the screen filled with commends and related videos. Good move, considering when you full-screen YouTube videos, artifacts cripple every object edge in sight.
But once again, the Apple apps—iPhoto, iTunes, iPod, Pages—all look incredible. Take a Pages text document, for instance, at full screen. Zoom in 200%, and the fonts are still perfect. NO artifacts.
Speed. OK, yes, most everything is fast. Opening apps, switching from one home screen to another, turning pages in an iBook, rotating the device to a different orientation. But browsing on the Web wasn't as fast as I expected.
And I found one absolute stinker among my speed tests: GoogleMaps. I had my 2G iPhone right next to me, both my iPhone and the iPad (and I tried this test with several) on the SAME Apple Store wi-fi network, and both devices were displaying the exact same map of Manhattan right around the 14th Store (same range of blocks). When I flicked the map on the iPhone over one screen toward Chelsea, the iPhone rewrote the entire map in under 2 seconds. When I did the same thing on the iPad, it took 30-45 seconds to rewrite the map.
I tried this test over and over again with different iPads, different parts of Manhattan, different zoom levels, all the while maintaining a parallel test on the iPhone—same result. GoogleMaps on the iPad absolutely sucks. You're gonna need a 5G or fiber optic connection if you want to see this app rewrite screens in a timely fashion. And you can't make the argument that "Oh, you were in a store, so the wi-fi network was overloaded," since my almost 3-year old 2G iPhone was hanging in there just fine with its quick rewrites (1-2 seconds or less). All tests were done in basic map mode—no satellite, terrain, or traffic overlays involved.
There's a reasonable response to this criticism, I suppose, in that the iPad has more pixels to write; but that's kind of a lame excuse, especially for an app we've grown to depend on.
Pages. It may sound odd to single out this one app for feedback, but Apple has done a very intelligent job rewriting it. They've really changed around the Inspector and control over the layout of the pages. Many things I thought wouldn't be there, I eventually did find: like double-spacing. Setting up headers and footers is a breeze. Likewise, newspaper columns. Using the Ruler for moving tab stops and indents was MUCH easier than on the Mac version. Granted, it's a "stripped-down" version of the Mac Pages, but it's beautifully done, with some very smart and progressive thinking toward new and much more efficient UI.
File Structure. OK, here we have a bit of a problem. Aside from iPhoto, which has a ribbon at the top allowing you to easily switch between Photos, Events, Faces, etc., it appears that Pages and Numbers are only capable of showing you a single horizontal listing of your documents streaming off to the right to infinity. Maybe I'm missing something here. What if there are 100 Pages documents. Do I have to scroll ALL the way through them?
There doesn't appear to be a folder/file/list structure anywhere, except in Mail, Safari (bookmarks), and a styles drop-down menu in Pages.
Export/Import. How to import and export? We know sync to iTunes on your Mac is required for many, many types of data transfer that you'll want and need. And yes, Pages allows you to email as Pages, Word, or PDF. But I didn't see any option for iDisk, which greatly disappointed me. I suppose DropBox will come along to fill the gap?
Needless to say, hundreds of people were leaving the 14th Street store with iPads, most of them happy as clams.
I left the store empty-handed.
LOL I just noticed that. Well I'm in the book so you can stop by.
I'll clean it up here in a minute
Syncing my music right now, bought one earlier this morning at the Apple Store. I'm glad I'm not waiting for it, it's a very nice machine and have a good idea of the device after playing with it for 2-2.5 hours.
Netflix app needs to be updated, the interface can be improved greatly and I hope they just don't leave it like this.
ABC Player is pretty awesome, very clean. Safari is snappy, and overall it's a very interesting device. 3rd party apps make it more interesting. Keynote and Pages are awesome. Was very impressed by both but there is a learning curve to each application. Almost seems like you couldn't do certain things but you just need to play around a little bit.
Twitter apps are crap right now (I'm just waiting for Tweetie).
NetNewsWire is super awesome and so is Instapaper Pro. Interface is built for the iPad. I'm not a gamer so can't speak on that end. I just finished syncing so now it's time to start playing with it again!
Netflix app needs to be updated, the interface can be improved greatly and I hope they just don't leave it like this.
ABC Player is pretty awesome, very clean. Safari is snappy, and overall it's a very interesting device. 3rd party apps make it more interesting. Keynote and Pages are awesome. Was very impressed by both but there is a learning curve to each application. Almost seems like you couldn't do certain things but you just need to play around a little bit.
Twitter apps are crap right now (I'm just waiting for Tweetie).
NetNewsWire is super awesome and so is Instapaper Pro. Interface is built for the iPad. I'm not a gamer so can't speak on that end. I just finished syncing so now it's time to start playing with it again!
I have a guess here. Maybe your phone was pulling the map images form memory (they're cached you know) while the iPad was pulling them through the very overloaded store wifi?
Remember when everyone was yelling at Apple about what a POS Finder had become in OS X? Did they fix it. Hardly. They just spent months and millions developing a thing called "Spotlight". Presumably, as on the iPhone/iPod, if you want to find a file quickly, you just go to the home screen and swipe to the Find window to locate your file via search.
This really is a lame@$$ kludge. Hopefully OS 4 or iWork updates will improve this UI issue.
My first accessory other than the case and camera connection kit, will be a screen protector. The one I have for my iPhone, is finger print proof. It is awsome.
That's I want for this. Anyone know if they make one yet? I don't see one in the apple store yet.
That's I want for this. Anyone know if they make one yet? I don't see one in the apple store yet.
The ipad has landed!!!
Delivered today at 2:40 p.m. in Miami. Fully charged, and now syncing. My 7 year old's first words about it "Wow, that's a big Ipod, how many games can you fit in it?"
Looks amazing, have not yet tried out keyboard or anything else.
I can't believe they didn't "throw-in" the earbuds.
Delivered today at 2:40 p.m. in Miami. Fully charged, and now syncing. My 7 year old's first words about it "Wow, that's a big Ipod, how many games can you fit in it?"
Looks amazing, have not yet tried out keyboard or anything else.
I can't believe they didn't "throw-in" the earbuds.
Whoever said best buy has them and got a whole bunch more than 3 was right. I just got one and they have a whole bunch more. It's nearly 3pm and I still got one. My wife is going to be pissed... LOL... I have the 3g one preordered. It will make one he'll of a mothers day gift! ;-)
That's going to be one big screen protector. I have no doubt that Zagg is working on an InvisibleShield for the iPad. Those things are fantastic.
Who-rahh! Its finally here. Syncing now. Heavier than I thought. Any other minnesotans get theirs?
Syncing now. Heavier than I thought. Any other minnesotans get theirs?
Mine is still synching..
![4486939547_7600f73300_b.jpg]()
I guess I shouldn't have gone crazy on downloading all those free apps.
I guess I shouldn't have gone crazy on downloading all those free apps.