Day 3: I spent two more days installing and testing apps, and getting used to working on the iPad. It still remains fun, but I’m also sensing it will be great for research and writing tasks.
Disclaimers: I’m using the Wi-Fi only model, 32 gb, and so far have not installed any pictures, music, or movies. I plan to use it mainly for web surfing, reading matter, and writing. So it’s less an entertainment medium for me than a portable research tool. (I am fortunate to have very fast Wi-Fi, which is essential for this model.)
Case: the Apple case arrived, and it’s made a difference in how I work with the Pad. Before the case, I carried it about gingerly, terrified that it would fall and break. The case is light but sturdy, and it lets me configure the Pad as either a slant-top reader-writer or a stand-up viewer. Watch a Netflix instant film, stand it up. Reading books or articles, lay it down. Close it up, and the Pad is safe from scratches, dust, or spills. At airports, the TSA treats it as a smart phone; you don’t have to remove it from your bag for scanning.
Orientation: most of the time I use Landscape, because it resembles a laptop screen. But Portrait is handy for reading, resembling a full book or magazine page. Most of the iPhone apps require Portrait, and the 2x enlargement is not bad, but the iPad app is preferable.
Surfing: before the Pad, I spent hours each day reading news sites, checking on weather, paying bills, social networking, and the inevitable e-mail. Now I tend to postpone that discourse until the evening, when the Yankee games come on, and I have 3-4 hours of watching a very intermittent sport while indulging in frequent bouts of surf. Cricket fans may find such a diversion essential, plus one may look up other games or player bios if one is a cricket obsessive. (Baseball runs April to November; in the fireplace months, we spend evenings with music or radio.)
Notes: that doesn’t feel like time-wasting; instead I save bookmarks or write notes, reminders, and tasks to myself and others. Nearly every app lets me mark places or write comments that are either saved in the app or exported, usually via e-mail. Some of the apps are better than their Web versions. Wikipanion (free) has a left pane that shows an article’s contents and also categories. If you start with a name, like Robert E. Lee, the category list shows articles on Confederacy, Virginia, monuments, Civil War, and so on. Perhaps I could do such free-associating myself, but late in a tied game, it’s helpful to have the assistance. (We’ve had a flap over here; the governor of Virginia declared April to be Confederate History Month and left out any mention of slavery. He has since apologized and emended his declaration.)
Typing: with more practice, I am getting better on the virtual keyboard. With the slant-top case placed on a table or lapboard, there’s a consistent angle that makes touch-typing more possible. The keys are sensitive and I tend to droop my outer fingers, causing many typos. (Minor annoyances; having to change keyboards for numbers, symbols, punctuation, and capitals. I’ll probably just type lower-case english and edit on a lap/desktop later.) I may well spring for an external keyboard, and then typing should be easier.
Apps: the writing apps I’ve tried include Notes, Note Taker Lite, Dragon Dictation, EasyWriter Pro, and WriteRoom. The first two are for task lists, and NTL is hand-writing only, but remarkably good at saving cursive, much faster than typing. Dragon Dictation is surprisingly accurate, if you speak slowly and carefully in Standard Received Pronunciation, which in the USA doesn’t exist. EWP is a good way to knock out e-mail on the iPhone; typing in iPad Mail is easier and simpler. I’d say the same about WriteRoom; the full-screen environment is not so great with a keyboard visible under it. Again, an external keyboard might help there.
Pages: I’ve had some peeks at Pages and think it will be the writing app I use most often. It’s my preferred word processor (after Scrivener), and I’ll be able to outline by using the Style box and picking Headline 1, 2, or 3. There’s also a Tab button; the easiest way to set outline levels. And the Pad version of Pages has a Share command, which allows export in Pages, Word, or PDF formats. No RTF, but you can do that in your standard version of Pages.
NewReader: this popular and free app helps you to transfer files from servers, mail attachments, and web downloads. It promises to offer file storage and management, and also PDF reading and annotation. I haven’t tested it yet. As I previously noted, the Pad version of Safari also has a built-in PDF reader.
Multitasking: that’s what I miss the most. If you’re reading a text and want to annotate it, that function must be in the app. Otherwise, you must close one app and open another. The apps retain your places, but you don’t see them side by side. I bet you anything that multitasking will arrive in time, as it did for the iPhone.
Scrivener: so I will join the crowd that’s urging it: Scrivener would be a smash hit on the iPad. There’s room for a Binder pane as well as two horizontal or vertical Editing panes. The Inspector might have to be a floating pane; Pages uses that for its Inspector. But a virtual keyboard eats up valuable screen space; it would be much easier to work with the physical keyboard. Third-party boards may be light and flexible, unlike Apple’s current version.
Bottom line: for an early model, the iPad performs beautifully right out of the box. It will improve down the line, but I’m not sorry that I bought this first edition. It’s already proven useful to me as reader, researcher, and writer. Did I mention that the battery runs all day, that it puts out no heat, is completely silent, and easily slips into a briefcase? Often I just keep it open beside me when working at my iMac. The iPad helps me quickly fact-check or find a quotation, faster than the Safari browser installed in my iMac.
PS: hundreds of new iPad apps are arriving each day. Many are updates of iPhone apps, but others are completely new. I’m hoping that the iTunes interface will soon have a major revision. It’s very hard to find serious working tools amid all the clutter of games. Most of what I download comes from the Productivity and Reference categories.