My iPad – first impressions!

I got my iPad that I was lusting for since I saw Steve Jobs make his keynote in Jan this year.

1. The keyboard is awesome. For good measure and based on my experience from my iPhone, I had asked for the keyboard dock as well but it looks like I might not be using too much of it since I am typing this post off my iPad and it’s incredibly responsive.

2. The app store does not work at all. I am hoping with the International launch this issue will be resolved, even my old iPhone apps don’t get installed on this. This is a big letdown for now but since it’s gate controlled by Apple, it will have to wait for now.

3. The iPad for me right now is only a pretty web browser and an email device.

4. The iPhone 3 update brought with it the ability to cut/copy/paste so my old issues from my 2008  iPhone days with this are resolved for now.

5. File types such as zip etc. were not recognized on my iPad. PDF of course is also built-in natively into Mac OSX so it will work. It had worked even on my iPhone.

6. Enough things have been said on the iPad minimalistic design approach which is Apple philosophy as even Jack Sculley had remarked about this as one of Steve’s main strengths from the 80’s in his presentation talk at a TiE forum I attended some months back.

The iPad is a style statement – period. No questions asked.

7. I have the Wi-Fi only version since I had to look at the real value the 3G version had to offer in India. The 3G case is what I gave as my verdict but my cousin who bought this for me did not find the 3G version at the Apple store at Leawood in Kansas last week. I spoke to their store rep as well who confirmed a waiting list for the 3G version and I did not want to lose this opportunity to procure it legit without paying duty on it.

8. 3G card for the iPad is a micro card so I have to tweak the BSNL data card for 3G and there is no guarantee it will work with HSDPA connectivity. Also, the base issues of using this device in a market where it has not been officially launched yet remain such as lack of 3G, lack of the App store access which limits the usage of the device whose real power is in it’s apps aka my iPhone.

9. There is no file system here as well in virtual access terms though the iPad runs the stripped down version of the Mac OSX.

10. YouTube videos run flawlessly on my iPad.

11. Obviously no Flash after Steve Jobs made his intentions public here. This means even my wordpress photo upload did not work in addition to Flash enabled websites so I had to switch back to my desktop to upload the pics of my iPad. So, HTML5, here we come!

12. The iPhone 4.0 update should resolve many issues of the current iPad including the famous ‘multi tasking’ feature or lack of it right now on the iPad but it is a revolutionary device alright. Magical – not sure.

13. Learning for me was minimal since the user interface is a copy/paste of my iPhone of yesteryears!

14. I tried to download the famous iBooks amazon kindle killer app every which way but to no avail. Apple chopped me off saying I am in a country where I can’t download it’s apps – even the free ones. Well, this is legit for now since they also are busy tying up with publishers to make the iBooks app a real kindle killer. Let’s see. Till then, my amazon kindle is going strong and this iPad will not be my kindle replacement.

15. The color on the iPad is amazing – in Steve Jobs’ words. It uses LED-backlit with In-Plane Switching (IPS) found on LCD TV’s than on notebooks. It is also really sharp with the oleophobic coating to prevent hand grease/is fingerprint resistant and the capacitive touch screen multi touch technology making it really immersive. Yes, even this screen has the accelerometer so it switches from landscape to potrait.

Overall, I am happy! This is a very addictive device.