Yes, yes, I know, there are thousands of these out there already. But I know that before I made my big purchase, I read around to hear from real people about their experiences. So here’s mine.

First: the specs.

The iPad: 32 GB, wifi-only model. Shiny, new, and slightly intimidating.

The contender: Me, Marian Firke. 18 years old, buying the iPad as my graduation gift. Relatively well-versed in technology, but certainly no expert, and (I think this is important) NOT the owner of an iPhone OR an iPod touch.

That means that I’m not someone primed for this interface. I’m not someone who’s been using the tiny little tap keyboard for months, and I haven’t already gone through all of the apps in the store. (Therefore, everything I can do I have learned with the iPad; there’s no carry-over knowledge from the other 2 devices.)

Initial reactions: In very quick succession…

The author, contemplating an article she has just read in the HuffPost app.

“Oooh. Shiny.”

“OMG free apps!”

“I am going to BREAK this thing…”

While it is definitely a substantial device with a little bit of weight to it, there is also something very fragile about it. I’ve heard so many horror stories about people dropping their iPad on the second day and just shattering them. This is what prompted me to quickly invest in a case and a sleeve. (Reviews for that are posted on Amazon. I go by the moniker “Aimée” on Amazon. Excuse any typos you might see–I wrote those on the iPad, and typing on it isn’t my forté just yet–more on that later.)

I can’t say it enough: if you’re going to plunk down $500+ on this device, you need to know that the $50 or so you’ll spend on your case(s) is WELL worth it. It’s partly psychological, I’m sure, but with the speck case on I feel much more secure while using the device.

Likes:

• iPod that stays on while you browse through other applications, Safari, etc. This isn’t the case with other players, such as Pandora.
• eBooks are beautiful in the iBooks app. The interface is much nicer than other readers such as the Kindle. (The annoying black-to-white flashing that happens when you turn pages on the Kindle is one of the biggest strikes against the device in my opinion.) The page-turn is fluid and pretty, and the text is attractive. I can’t speak for the quality of images, etc in eBooks just yet–but on balance, I like the reader a lot.
• News apps. More than anything else, I am using my iPad to learn more about what’s happening in the world around me. While I really appreciate the BBC’s reporting, I find their website very difficult to read on my laptop. (I don’t know if it’s because I find it cluttered or simply because the distance isn’t great for reading, but I can’t stand reading online news on my laptop.) Other great apps include NYT and HuffPost. I am eating this baby up.

At this point, I feel compelled to point out, as a smart lady once said, that the iPad is a lot like the mirror of Erised, and that you absolutely find in it what you want to. I am not interested in games; therefore, I can’t speak to their quality on the iPad. Individual interests (and therefore the apps that individual users choose to install) are the single biggest factor in the functionality of the iPad.

Dislikes:

• Mail seems to be somewhat buggy. I have been able to set up one of my accounts successfully, but when I go through all of the steps to set up my second account, it seems to freeze/get stuck in a “verifying” stage. (And no, I’m not entering my info wrong! Everything is entered exactly as it is on my MacBook.)
• Touch is less sensitive than I was expecting. Links will often take multiple clicks to open, etc.
• Typing is such. A. Drag. When the iPhone was first coming out, I was in the process of getting a new phone. I chose a Blackberry over the iPhone because I found typing on the tiny keyboard without the aid of raised keys to be completely impossible. The iPad is slightly better, but still awkward. In portrait mode, I’m able to type slowly but accurately. However, you’re stuck with hunting-and-pecking that way. In landscape mode, it’s tricky. The keys are large enough that you’d like to type normally, but it’s just a little too cramped to do so well. It’s hard to type quickly and accurately. Now, I know lots of people who have no trouble at all on the iPad OR the iPhone, so this could just be a Marian-has-no-hand-eye-coordination thing, but I think it’s worth pointing out. I tend to prefer using apps of websites rather than navigating TO websites because it’s so much easier to tap than to type.

One last note to students:

I bought the iPad with the hopes of using it as a functional device for taking notes. I prefer to store notes digitally, but I study Chemistry and it’s damn near impossible to type/insert Lewis Structures or chemical equations quickly and efficiently while typing on a laptop. With the help of a stylus designed for the capacitive screen, apps such as “Penultimate” become useful digital notebooks. (I also recommend the free app “Ideas” by Adobe for sketching and doodling.) BUT, writing with the stylus is neither neat nor easy. There is clearly a learning curve and my ability to write on the iPad is getting better. But it’s nowhere near as easy as, say, writing on a paper pad with a regular pen. The most obvious difficulty is, of course, the fact that you can’t put your hand down. (Even with a feature turned on that’s designed to prevent the heel of your hand from creating marks on the page, they’re still there.)

I’m confident that I’ll be able to use the iPad when I start at Swarthmore next fall, but it’s going to take some practice. Unlike the rest of the iPad’s smooth interface, trying to write by hand is not intuitive or easy. This is largely by design, since Steve Jobs hates styluses.

It's a winner!

Digitally yours,

Marian

Tagged as: apple, geek, geekery, ipad, mac, technology, web