iPad Review: iPad contest reminder

Remember you have until April 30 to submit your EnSight or EnSight CFd created image or animation for a chance to win an iPad. By the way all entries also receive a Starbucks $5 coffee card. So how can you go wrong?

What about an iPad review? Well we sat down Friday and this weekend and took a long look at an iPad and have some observations to share with you.

Executive summary: iPads are sweet. The large display (compared to iPhones and iPod Touch) makes them more compelling. Even though I have a MacBook laptop and an iPhone, I'm now trying to figure out how to justify buying one. For ibooks and as an alternative to a netbook, skipping on a Kindle, instead of a DS or Gameboy or some other handheld computer game, or for playing a Neflix instant view movie. Come to think of it there's plenty of uses for it. Budget beware. However, there are some issues that I hope are resolved so that I can enjoy it even more. Read on for details.

Books

iBooks are nice. I don't already have a Kindle and its now guaranteed that I never will. I might someday buy an e-book from Amazon for reading on my (future) iPad but I won't bother with their hardware device. I suspect even Amazon employees would agree. And I suspect they don't likely care as long as people keep buying books in paper or e-book form from them, even on the iPad. Using Apple's iBookstore was easy and there are plenty of free books there to explore the education and literature you may not have enjoyed already. Moby Dick, Jane Austin series, and all the others from the Gutenberg project are here for free to download and enjoy. No more paper books for me either. How quaint they'll seem in a few years.

Keynote

I'm a Keynote guy. I have to share my presentations in pdf or PowerPoint format with my colleagues, but I know that my Keynote presentations look better and the application is more natural than futzing with Powerpoint. So I was eager to try out Keynote on the iPad. Let me just say it was disappointing. That's mostly okay because if I travel I'm not likely to travel without my laptop where Keynote works great. And I can rehearse my presentation of Keynote on the plane with my iPad. But I won't be presenting with it, until Apple updates the software. The main problems are summarized here in a TUAW article. Unfortunately I had to experience these problems and then a friend pointed me to the article. So for now, don't buy a iPad in order to give a presentation next week. And Apple.... I consider my $9.99 payment for Keynote on iPad as a down payment on the version you plan to upgrade us all to.

Apparently Pages and Numbers also suffer like Keynote. Too bad because I'm big into Pages as well. Fortunately I haven't wasted any money on iPad Pages yet.

Games

Games are just darned fun. Some games that grew old on my iPhone are again enjoyable thanks to the larger screen. My 10 year old son Connor declared the iPad "awesome" and that's from a kid who is daily using his dad's old original iPhone as an iPod. He's now saving his money for one. We are spoiled in my family, everyone of the four of us has an iPhone or old iPhone or iPod, so we can't wait to try out the Scrabble application with the iPad where you use virtual tiles on your iPod/iPhone and the iPad works as the central game board. Sounds just like the Jetsons or Star Wars. We'll eat meal pills if Apple gets around to working on food. iEat or iMeal.

Projectors

Here like with Keynote I was disappointed. Because when I connect a projector via the docking cable, I would like to see either the whole screen or a "presenter mode" kind of screen on the projected screen and see a "presenter's view" on the iPad. That just doesn't happen. The iPad will become basically brain dead, showing a way to go forward or backward in a Keynote presentation or turn on a virtual laser pointer. But it doesn't show my presenter notes in Keynote. And in many applications it doesn't show anything at all on the iPad, relying entirely on the projected screen. And worst of all on some applications you just don't see anything. Now, stop and think about what happens on a laptop or a netbook when you connect and projector and you immediately notice the difference. The iPad is not going to be a collaboration/presentation tool until this gets fixed.

Google Docs viewed with Memeo Connect

Memeo gives me on my MacBook Pro laptop a way to view and edit my Google docs even when I'm not connected to the internet. Nice. So I was eager to try it out on the iPad version. My experience was that it worked but was so slow that it seemed to be awkward to use. I love the concept of being able to view my Google Docs while traveling, this would be nice for use on the plane. So I'm reserving judgement while I get more experience with Memeo Connect.

Okay so I've tested out the iPad and given you some more thoughts on the device. Will I buy one, sure, definitely, eventually, some time in 2010. But I'll also be thinking of it more like a Kindle/Game Machine than anything related to my work or presentation side of my life until Apple addresses the Keynote issues. And that's after only a few hours playing with it.

Again, the iPad is awesome. And worthy of your image or animation submission to win a free one.

Who wants it?