iPad: That Thing People Won’t Shut Up About

I have been reading a lot about Apple’s much ballyhooed contraption the iPad.  And yes, I bought one.  Here is my non-douche review of it.

Part One: The Thing Itself

When you first see it, you go holy crap it’s enormous.  Yes, it’s a big awesomer iPod Touch.  It’s a little too heavy to read like a paperback with one hand so you’ll probably be best off propping it up on your leg or holding it with both hands or putting it on a table.  It comes loaded with about what you’d expect: a movie player, iTunes, safari, notes, a calender, contacts, youtube, mail, photo app, and maps.  You can change both the background and the lock screen–on the iPhone you can only change the lock screen and the background stays black–so I like that.  There’s no camera, which is stupid, but whatevs.  There’s also no third-party multitasking which is a legitimate annoyance for some but a discussion of that would start to sound douchey so I’ll just say it and move on. It has a long battery life (like ten hours of actually using it) and the speakers sound kind of shitty but about how you’d expect.  The app store is cool but you have to be careful because a lot of the apps on it are for the iPhone and look really small in the center of your screen or can be blown up to full size but crappy resolution.  Stay away from that B.S.

Part Two: How To Use It

So far I’ve watched movies, streamed TV shows, read a free book I downloaded from the iBooks store (some old ones are free), updated obnoxious things ABOUT the iPad on facebook, read news articles, looked at pictures, attempted sudoku, zoomed in really far on a map of my house, wrote a note, chatted on gchat, and streamed music from Pandora.  It’s great for everything but chatting online.  Typing on the iPad is actually better than you would think it is, but chatting means you’re typing in short bursts and then waiting for a response, whereas typing on an iPad is more of a slow-and-steady endeavor.  I’ll do it when I don’t have a computer handy, but it’s annoying.

Don’t get the 3G.  It’ll be expensive and you probably already have, if not an iPhone, than another smart phone.  If you don’t, get an iPhone too.  I don’t know how you get around without GPS in your daily life, because I would probably perish.  Wifi iPad is the way to go.  Also, this can’t be your only computer.  Why?  Well it’s not a computer.  It’s alllllmost a computer, but it’s not.  In order to use it, you need to plug it into iTunes first, and then transfer all your music, your movies, your photos, your documents, etc from your computer onto your iPad.  So if you give your non-computer using grandparents an iPad, you’re going to have to set it up for them and bring your linked laptop over to their place all the time.  The iPad is really meant to be a secondary device.  Because IT. IS. A. TOY.

Part Three: Do You Want One?

Yes.  It is Ender’s desk.  You want to live in the future, don’t you!?

Part Four: Do You Need One?

No.

Part Five: If I Have One, What Is the Best Way to Impress People With It?

Take it out somewhere in a public place and read a book on it.  When someone inevitably says “oh excuse me, is that an iPad?” say “Why yes!  Yes it is!”  Quit what you’re doing and demonstrate skimming through photos and especially pinching open and closed a photo album.  Have a photo album in mind that makes you look cool.  I use pictures from my trip to Africa.  Always have an internet page open to the New York Times because it looks great on the iPad but also makes you look literate and classy in case they want to see how safari works.  The iPad has a gyrosphinctor (I don’t know what it’s really called) that allows it to know which way is up so if you hand it to someone be sure that the image flips around where they can see it and be impressed.

So those are the most important things I could think of to write about.  If you have any more questions, google iPad and then read a real review of it.