Most of the day it stands on an arc stand on my bedside table showing off photos, but I can pick it up, browse the web, read choice NYT articles, check Twitter/FB or catch up on email.
It's an iPad, the 16Gb WiFi model, and it is unnecessary. That being said, I like the direction this class of device is going. My previous tablet was made by Siemens and ran Windows CE! Quite old school with it's Compact Flash WiFi card.
I am posting here from my Delta flight going back east for a few days. It's ideal for these ridiculously cramped seats. I took my company Dell m1330 as well - quite indispensable for "real" work like Outlook/PowerPoint/Office, RASing into the network, etc. Gartenberg may be able to pull that off, but not me. Typepad, if your listening, I need a proper blog posting app for iPad, or perhaps my brethren over in Windows Live Writer could fill the gap. Posting on the Typed web site from this is painful and incomplete (can't seem to add hyperlinks).
Typing is slow on this, maybe half the speed or less. I didn't buy one of those cases/stands that enables me to view/type on an angle yet, so I am one handed typing most of the time. Right now I have my ZuneHD propping it up.
I have my Zune with me as well because I have a ZunePass and I can't get that content on the iPad. Ideally I should just be streaming my library from zune.net, but this doesn't support Silvelight. And and and.....
The iPad has it's limitations. I also can't seem to connect to my other computers, so even when I am home I can't point it to all of my music, photos and videos and say "just deal with it." If you want photos, videos or music on this you can either buy it from iTunes, or side sync it with a cable. No WiFi sync either. I forgot how retro iTunes is after using the Zune software. Ouch.
A few days with the iPad led me to this YASIMH (yet another screen in my house) rule - screens should not have their own disconnected databases. That goes for PCs, consoles, TVs, photo frames, tablets, phones, etc. In 2010 we can do better - can you imagine if you had one PC with some of your email, and another PC in the house with the other part? Sounds kind of nuts, so why do we put up with it for photos, music, videos, etc,?
It gets worse when the screens create content, not just output content. Much worse. Once you put a camera on the screen you now need all of that original content flow somewhere central, otherwise you'll get islands of memories everywhere. When I download a song here, it just needs to show up there - period. No cables, just pure air. Why not?
One final benefit of the iPad is that it keeps my work mail on another machine. Creating a little distance, a little buffer, is a good thing. Remember, Thoreau's house was in the woods, but it was still pretty close to town.
Any suggestions on cases and apps?
After my old (not too old – two years?) Linksys router up and died on me for no reason I had to swap back to my backup Buffalo 802.11g. It’s a fair unit but once you get used to 802.11n speeds it is a noticeable lag to go back. Plus. the 802.11g routers don’t seem to have the range of the 802.11n and I was clearly on the edge of my network in several places around the house.
Ah well , yes another extended absence. At least this time I have a decent excuse.