Welcome, iPad, but Mac, don’t go away just yet…

Welcome, iPad, but Mac, don’t go away just yet…

The Mac has influenced my life for more than 25 years. I’m a “Mac person,” how would a first generation iPad fit in?

Ordering an iPad was a gut decision. The only logical aspect was deciding to forego 3G, since most of my computer use outside the home is in places that provide wifi internet access, and I can tether my laptop to my phone to reach the internet in emergencies. And 32GB seemed more than adequate considering that I don’t expect to need much room for video or music.

Now I’ve spent my first month of life with the iPad. What’s it been used for? Has it enhanced my life enough to justify the cost? Has it replaced my trusty MacBook?

I think I’ve given it a pretty good workout.

Over the past thirty days I’ve written a couple of short articles and lots of email, surfed the web and emailed links to family and friends, live-chatted with Apple tech support, ordered parts for my lawnmower, watched some movie trailers and TED Talks, opened a Netflix account, read my daily Apple news fix at macintouch.com, followed the daily news on a variety of websites, read parts of a book from my Kindle account, downloaded and read electronic editions of US News, loaded music and blogs via iTunes, checked in on FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn, downloaded and installed a couple dozen apps, transferred files via Drop Box and iDisk, printed a few documents while on my home network, looked at pictures in MobileMe Gallery and Picasa, made wifi connections at restaurants, coffee shops, airports, bars, an auto repair shop and the press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center. And on occasion, I’ve used MobileMe’s “Find My iPhone” to see if Linda (my wife) was in the area.

Right now the iPad is resting, sitting happily behind me, pretending to be a radio, playing jazz from New Orleans via WWOZ, as it was when I came in from the car. (It sounds pretty good and is loud enough… I know it could be better if I just plugged in some speakers, and I knew that I could be listening on my desktop Mac, but that’s not the point of this story.)

It’s too easy to compare the iPad to a Mac, and there to find problems. But the iPad brings something quite different. It is “available” when its big brother computers aren’t. It doesn’t add weight or complexity to travel. It can live with papers in a briefcase or in the glove compartment. It sits comfortably on my lap or on the steering wheel or on the seat-back tray in an airplane. The concept of using the “best available screen” is making more sense every day.

I only had a few days of iPad experience before heading off to Las Vegas for an annual convention, and once I arrived I needed to do some troubleshooting. That was when I discovered that access to the iPad Guide was only a link - not a durable copy stored in the iPad, and therefore not much help for troubleshooting connection problems. A very helpful Apple support person tried to email the PDF to me - I'd know later if it worked (it didn’t). Eventually I discovered “GoodReader,” an app/document reader for PDFs, which can retrieve downloaded documents from email or the web and hold them for later viewing without an internet connection.

The built-in note pad turned out to be useful for taking quick notes, although I quickly discovered the pitfalls of typing on the on-screen keyboard. The Pages app, while more powerful, didn’t seem to flow easily for my ad-hoc writing. Eventually I emailed my notes to my desktop Mac where I could use familiar editing tools.

Here are some other early impressions:

The UI and Managing Files

Managing files is pretty simple as long as you think "sync" (via iTunes) instead of copy, move, download, etc. Mail and the Safari browser provide a button to send links via email. Otherwise, some file transfer actions are possible using tools like Air Sharing and Drop Box, and iDisk/MobileMe and iWork. It looks like this will be a very active area for new apps and peripheral products, like the newly announced Air Stash, a wifi connected SD card reader.

Safari has become the new Finder. Most files now live in the cloud, hiding behind aliases/short cuts disguised as web pages. No more working one’s way up and down and sideways through nested folders.

The iPad isn’t a Mac… at least not until the MacOS morphs into a touch-driven user interface. Say goodbye to the desktop metaphor. Click and drag has become tap and hope. And it’s amazing how easy the transition has been.

The Keyboard

The on-screen keyboard requires a light and accurate touch which should favor my "hunt & peck" style, but I’m not as accurate (yet) as I hope to become. Typing errors don’t just mean unwanted characters but also can invoke unwanted commands or double keystrokes. Someone who has lived with the iPhone will probably find these to be familiar yet manageable issues.

Making text corrections is awkward. There are no arrow keys. The main keyboard also lacks numbers, most punctuation marks and “Undo.” (These items are reachable by first tapping the “123” key to bring up a new keyboard).

Cut-copy-paste use the same interesting (strange?) tool that first came to the iPhone. It has a mind of it's own. After a few weeks it still defies most of my efforts to use it.

The spelling corrector also has a mind of its own, illustrated by fighting with me that "Macintouch" should really be "Macintosh" and making other unilateral decisions that require effort to correct.

Printing

Printing was a mystery at first since there weren’t any print commands. Checking the App Store led me to DocPrinter for sending text or spreadsheet files over my local network for printing via a (free) client running on a desktop Mac. It works well and seems less convoluted than syncing via iTunes to access a Mac application for printing. Some day I’d like a more general capability for printing to a network-connected printer.

Wifi Network Access

Wifi connections to local networks have generally worked automatically without problems, and performance seems roughly equivalent to my white MacBook.

The ‘Vegas Convention Center provided the biggest wifi challenge, and also showed me the importance of carrying copies of critical documents, such as the iPad Guide, rather than depending upon a potentially-unusable link.

Service in the pressroom was no problem, with UID & password provided and a very strong signal, but out on the show floor things got ugly. I counted over thirty networks in a single spot in one exhibit hall. Renewing the DHCP lease or “forgetting” a wifi network - both options in the settings menu - didn’t help. I wasn’t alone. Lacking data to the contrary, I expect that the iPad was no worse than many other types of hardware, as many people - including exhibitors - were complaining about WiFi access.

When the wifi connection drops it’s not clear what action to take. … go to the settings app and take control? Or just be patient? A status indicator to indicate what the Pad is doing would be helpful.

The Case

I like the Apple case more and more, despite negatives raised by some early reviewers. It is durable, easy to hold and should help protect against spills. The flap makes an effective side sun shield, as I discovered on my mid-afternoon flight from Las Vegas. Back home, I found that the case supports the iPad in “steering wheel mode” (while parked, of course) and provides a very comfortable hands-free viewing position while using McDonald's wifi, drinking coffee, etc.

Pictures

The iPad provides tools for viewing images from local or online libraries, and for loading image files from a usb-connected card reader or camera. Images that appear on screen can be saved to the built-in “Photos” app by a press & hold action. I think that its greatest role - apart from running slide shows - may be an easy partnership with a digital camera, making it possible to examine and compare images right away, while there still is an opportunity for more shots. I haven’t yet tried to test this notion.

Summary

I’m convinced that the most impressive feature of the iPad so far has been its unobtrusiveness - light, thin, rugged, versatile - which meant that it could almost always be nearby and available.

The touch interface worked especially well for me for email and web browsing. Time will tell whether I can develop adequate typing skills for the on-screen keyboard. I hope so, because accessories such as an auxiliary keyboard can diminish the iPad’s go-anywhere versatility.

Some jobs are over its head. When the time came to prepare this article, I threw in the towel. I emailed all the rough material from the iPad to myself, so that I could consolidate and edit on a bigger screen with more powerful tools. Sadly I am reminded again how much I depend upon MORE (a 20-year old application - now in the public domain - that requires Classic mode or an old PPC Mac for work like this... What a marvelous iPad app that could be!)

The iPad gives me a third option for portable computing. My smartphone (Treo 700p) will go everywhere. The iPad will go whenever I have room. My laptop will go wherever I need its power for software capabilities that don't exist for the iPad, or when I need added connectivity by tethering the Treo.

Saving the best for last, my big win came at the auto repair shop, where I found an online discount coupon that was worth $50 when I showed the iPad to the cashier for validation. How neat is that?



© Joe Hallett 2010

Welcome, iPad, but Mac, don’t go away just yet…

The Mac has influenced my life for more than 25 years. I’m a “Mac person,” how would a first generation iPad fit in?

Ordering an iPad was a gut decision. The only logical aspect was deciding to forego 3G, since most of my computer use outside the home is in places that provide wifi internet access, and I can tether my laptop to my phone to reach the internet in emergencies. And 32GB seemed more than adequate considering that I don’t expect to need much room for video or music.

Now I’ve spent my first month of life with the iPad. What’s it been used for? Has it enhanced my life enough to justify the cost? Has it replaced my trusty MacBook?

I think I’ve given it a pretty good workout.

Over the past thirty days I’ve written a couple of short articles and lots of email, surfed the web and emailed links to family and friends, live-chatted with Apple tech support, ordered parts for my lawnmower, watched some movie trailers and TED Talks, opened a Netflix account, read my daily Apple news fix at macintouch.com, followed the daily news on a variety of websites, read parts of a book from my Kindle account, downloaded and read electronic editions of US News, loaded music and blogs via iTunes, checked in on FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn, downloaded and installed a couple dozen apps, transferred files via Drop Box and iDisk, printed a few documents while on my home network, looked at pictures in MobileMe Gallery and Picasa, made wifi connections at restaurants, coffee shops, airports, bars, an auto repair shop and the press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center. And on occasion, I’ve used MobileMe’s “Find My iPhone” to see if Linda (my wife) was in the area.

Right now the iPad is resting, sitting happily behind me, pretending to be a radio, playing jazz from New Orleans via WWOZ, as it was when I came in from the car. (It sounds pretty good and is loud enough… I know it could be better if I just plugged in some speakers, and I knew that I could be listening on my desktop Mac, but that’s not the point of this story.)

It’s too easy to compare the iPad to a Mac, and there to find problems. But the iPad brings something quite different. It is “available” when its big brother computers aren’t. It doesn’t add weight or complexity to travel. It can live with papers in a briefcase or in the glove compartment. It sits comfortably on my lap or on the steering wheel or on the seat-back tray in an airplane. The concept of using the “best available screen” is making more sense every day.

I only had a few days of iPad experience before heading off to Las Vegas for an annual convention, and once I arrived I needed to do some troubleshooting. That was when I discovered that access to the iPad Guide was only a link - not a durable copy stored in the iPad, and therefore not much help for troubleshooting connection problems. A very helpful Apple support person tried to email the PDF to me - I'd know later if it worked (it didn’t). Eventually I discovered “GoodReader,” an app/document reader for PDFs, which can retrieve downloaded documents from email or the web and hold them for later viewing without an internet connection.

The built-in note pad turned out to be useful for taking quick notes, although I quickly discovered the pitfalls of typing on the on-screen keyboard. The Pages app, while more powerful, didn’t seem to flow easily for my ad-hoc writing. Eventually I emailed my notes to my desktop Mac where I could use familiar editing tools.

Here are some other early impressions:

The UI and Managing Files

Managing files is pretty simple as long as you think "sync" (via iTunes) instead of copy, move, download, etc. Mail and the Safari browser provide a button to send links via email. Otherwise, some file transfer actions are possible using tools like Air Sharing and Drop Box, and iDisk/MobileMe and iWork. It looks like this will be a very active area for new apps and peripheral products, like the newly announced Air Stash, a wifi connected SD card reader.

Safari has become the new Finder. Most files now live in the cloud, hiding behind aliases/short cuts disguised as web pages. No more working one’s way up and down and sideways through nested folders.

The iPad isn’t a Mac… at least not until the MacOS morphs into a touch-driven user interface. Say goodbye to the desktop metaphor. Click and drag has become tap and hope. And it’s amazing how easy the transition has been.

The Keyboard

The on-screen keyboard requires a light and accurate touch which should favor my "hunt & peck" style, but I’m not as accurate (yet) as I hope to become. Typing errors don’t just mean unwanted characters but also can invoke unwanted commands or double keystrokes. Someone who has lived with the iPhone will probably find these to be familiar yet manageable issues.

Making text corrections is awkward. There are no arrow keys. The main keyboard also lacks numbers, most punctuation marks and “Undo.” (These items are reachable by first tapping the “123” key to bring up a new keyboard).

Cut-copy-paste use the same interesting (strange?) tool that first came to the iPhone. It has a mind of it's own. After a few weeks it still defies most of my efforts to use it.

The spelling corrector also has a mind of its own, illustrated by fighting with me that "Macintouch" should really be "Macintosh" and making other unilateral decisions that require effort to correct.

Printing

Printing was a mystery at first since there weren’t any print commands. Checking the App Store led me to DocPrinter for sending text or spreadsheet files over my local network for printing via a (free) client running on a desktop Mac. It works well and seems less convoluted than syncing via iTunes to access a Mac application for printing. Some day I’d like a more general capability for printing to a network-connected printer.

Wifi Network Access

Wifi connections to local networks have generally worked automatically without problems, and performance seems roughly equivalent to my white MacBook.

The ‘Vegas Convention Center provided the biggest wifi challenge, and also showed me the importance of carrying copies of critical documents, such as the iPad Guide, rather than depending upon a potentially-unusable link.

Service in the pressroom was no problem, with UID & password provided and a very strong signal, but out on the show floor things got ugly. I counted over thirty networks in a single spot in one exhibit hall. Renewing the DHCP lease or “forgetting” a wifi network - both options in the settings menu - didn’t help. I wasn’t alone. Lacking data to the contrary, I expect that the iPad was no worse than many other types of hardware, as many people - including exhibitors - were complaining about WiFi access.

When the wifi connection drops it’s not clear what action to take. … go to the settings app and take control? Or just be patient? A status indicator to indicate what the Pad is doing would be helpful.

The Case

I like the Apple case more and more, despite negatives raised by some early reviewers. It is durable, easy to hold and should help protect against spills. The flap makes an effective side sun shield, as I discovered on my mid-afternoon flight from Las Vegas. Back home, I found that the case supports the iPad in “steering wheel mode” (while parked, of course) and provides a very comfortable hands-free viewing position while using McDonald's wifi, drinking coffee, etc.

Pictures

The iPad provides tools for viewing images from local or online libraries, and for loading image files from a usb-connected card reader or camera. Images that appear on screen can be saved to the built-in “Photos” app by a press & hold action. I think that its greatest role - apart from running slide shows - may be an easy partnership with a digital camera, making it possible to examine and compare images right away, while there still is an opportunity for more shots. I haven’t yet tried to test this notion.

Summary

I’m convinced that the most impressive feature of the iPad so far has been its unobtrusiveness - light, thin, rugged, versatile - which meant that it could almost always be nearby and available.

The touch interface worked especially well for me for email and web browsing. Time will tell whether I can develop adequate typing skills for the on-screen keyboard. I hope so, because accessories such as an auxiliary keyboard can diminish the iPad’s go-anywhere versatility.

Some jobs are over its head. When the time came to prepare this article, I threw in the towel. I emailed all the rough material from the iPad to myself, so that I could consolidate and edit on a bigger screen with more powerful tools. Sadly I am reminded again how much I depend upon MORE (a 20-year old application - now in the public domain - that requires Classic mode or an old PPC Mac for work like this... What a marvelous iPad app that could be!)

The iPad gives me a third option for portable computing. My smartphone (Treo 700p) will go everywhere. The iPad will go whenever I have room. My laptop will go wherever I need its power for software capabilities that don't exist for the iPad, or when I need added connectivity by tethering the Treo.

Saving the best for last, my big win came at the auto repair shop, where I found an online discount coupon that was worth $50 when I showed the iPad to the cashier for validation. How neat is that?



© Joe Hallett 2010