I have an iPad

Yes I do. I’ve had it for about five days now, just about long enough to get to know it and find some decent apps.

As an interaction designer I need to have an iPad, well that was my justification and it is true, but actually I just really wanted one. I decided that I couldn’t live without one when I was trying to read an article on the sofa on my MacBook pro. I suddenly pictured myself curled up with an iPad in my hand, instead of a hot heavy MacBook on my lap.

So now I have one, what do I think of it?

Unboxing it was a pleasure of course, as is the custom with a shiny new apple product, and the iPad is beautifully designed. Actually, It makes my iPhone look a bit cheap in comparison. It feels exactly the right size, and it’s slightly lighter than I thought it might be, but it’s still a little too heavy to hold comfortably for very long. The best position seems to be reclining a bit with the iPad resting on your legs. It’s also perfect for reading in bed of course or just resting on a table top… as you can probably tell, I’m finding it hard to put down.

Touch on the smooth glossy screen is pleasing and feels natural and intuitive to me, it’s much the same as an iPhone. I’ve been caught out a few times by things that don’t look ‘tappable’ (clickable) so I’m now following the assumption that everything can be tapped before I go hunting in settings and menus.

I didn’t expect typing on the iPad to be as easy or comfortable as it is. It keeps up well and the autocorrect does a good job of adding punctuation and picking up typos. It may well make me lazy though! I’m writing this post on it and I’m probably about as quick and accurate as I would be on a regular keyboard, and other than gaining a bit more screen I can’t see the need for an additional keyboard.

As I’m planning to use my iPad for reading, finding a good RSS reader that syncs with google reader was a priority. Not only that but it needed to have a nice icon too, and most of them don’t. I’m a designer, don’t judge me! My Times is my chosen app (for now at least), it’s everything I want except it requires a connection to work. I’ve made a few other selective app choices but I don’t really feel the need to fill the iPad with apps, browsing the Internet with Safari is more than good enough on most sites. I’ll post about my favourite apps soon. They all have nice icons.

In 5 days there’s only been one occasion where I’ve missed something because the iPad doesn’t support flash. Even Youtube videos play in Safari (the new made over Youtube player is a vast improvement on the old one too).

I have one gripe, the styling of the native apps is heavily based on the metaphor of real life objects. Especially details like the little torn off pieces of paper in the corner of a notepad. In real life if little pieces of paper are left behind I pick them off, so this really bothers me! But as Marco Arment writes in a post called Overdoing the Interface Metaphor, this extends further than aesthetics, when you mimic real life objects you’re not only replicating their advantages you’re also replicating their failings. I much prefer the minimal look of apps like Helvetinote, I’d love the option to delete all the native apps and replace them with my own choices.

The more I use the iPad the more I discover that it isn’t as limited as I expected, there’s at least a workaround for most things I need to do, except actually working. But then I didn’t buy it to work on.