Whee, what a precious birthday present! Thanks to my loved family members.
More than two weeks into the iPad experience I feel it is not the convenience many tout it to be. That may be entirely a function of my usage pattern, more interactive and sharing than merely consumptive, which the iPad seems to be geared for. My main complaint is the iPad disappoints at some of the things its pocket-size sibling the iPhone 3GS does effortlessly - with the "same" iOS 3.2 - like play self-produced MP4 videos and sync Notes to Mail on the MacBook Pro.
iPad does few things faster and in style
Apps feel spacious yet familiar and, um, a little iPhoney. Except, the brilliant Flipboard on iPad
Flipboard really adds beauty to browsing Twitter messages. No, I won't go into the facebook walled corporate garden. In the current Flipboard app you can remove that blue FB square, too, without first logging in.
Tweets on Flipboard look like a newsmagazine. Importance by layout and typography.
A tweet goes with what its author really wants to show.
If there are responses or retweets, they fill the rightmost column. Looking at twitter text and clicking-through now feels so 2009.
iPad misses one mark: social connectedness
Amazed by the ease of access to shared information I thought of sharing my experience at home by showing the pad as it happened. Fine. Another way to share did not work out so far, simply leaving the pad behind like an open newspaper ready for family members to read what I was reading, or move on to their own preferences. Being for personal phone use, iOS is not going to let me leave my filters on Flipboard so my family can read channels I follow. This would mean keeping the account log-in open and anyone could read direct mails and impersonate me by posting.
There is no log-out. To remove my account access I have to remove the Flipboard app. Of course every time they force me to do that, they earn another measly single rating star. ;-)
Soft keys jamming
Yes, you can reply to Twitter inside Flipboard, but expect to delete mis-tweets as you are prone to hit the Enter-turned-Send key when using Backspace. There is so much space for a distinct Send button, why cram it on the keyboard, Flipboard?
Autocorrection atrocity
Apple's iOS 3.2.3 introduces autocorrection which takes a while to highlight a word like "Flipboard" and with the next keystroke removes it before I realize what is about to happen. Even worse when using Twitter for iPhone and it tries to autocorrect a shortened link, wiping it in a flash. Disabled in disgust.
Apps like Twitter for iPad
Twitter for iPad works "almost as expected" but are different enough to throw you off if you know the iPhone version (insert).
The User Interface for Twitter for iPad behaves about 30% different from its iPhone sibling, enough to get stuck and raise ire when using it on the iPad. Twitter app developers, call it something else, please, the two do not compare. On the iPad, for example, you cannot draft a message, leave the app to fetch a link and return to complete it. You cannot copy from a Twitter Direct Mail or open a DM'ed hyperlink. That sucks. More than on the iPhone, it is back to Twitter Web interface and keeping multiple apps for tweeting to fill each other's gaps.
Oh, and Twitter for iPad fails in family sharing, too, because it has no log out, yet auto-log-in. Good feature only for personal devices, like with Twitter for iPhone (was Tweetie II).
Miscellaneous
Audio circuit on the iPad sounds a tad clearer than iPhone 3GS but not up to an external USB audio device like Edirol UA-4FX. Tested with same song at 256kb/s, each device set to same subjective sound level, all equalization off and plugging around the headphones.
While iPhone syncs its notes with my main Macbook Pro, the notes from iPad do not appear in Mail. Fail.
No software is perfect, so we keep hoping this gets adressed in a future upgrade. Let's keep adding to the wishlist in the user forums. See you there.
What if I followed my own advice
My father was right in saying decades ago never to buy a new car model in its first year - too much teething trouble. Not much seems to have changed, despite rapidly accelerated development cycles. The observation keeps repeating with consumer electronics no one dreamed of way back when.
If as a customer you do not like paying premium for bling, then turning reluctant beta-tester, stay away from first-year new products like iPad. On the other hand, if you don't mind the hassle and enjoy showing off a little...
Blog about it, or reply right here. Thank you for reading.
Recent Comments