iPad: Can Be Pretty Damn Productive On it

I finally got the opportunity to get out a bit this weekend with the iPad in tow. What’s my impression of it so far?

First, I want to say guilty as charged. I’m an Apple fan. That doesn’t mean I subscribe to the party line, to borrow a political term. I’m not a hardliner. I like the concept of “it just works” that Apple is making their elegant mobile products around. And I want to mention that I’m not hot on Apple TV just yet.

Second, I’m a mobile fan. I like Android and what it brings to the market. I don’t hate Google and I’m happy about what it did in China no matter what they reasons are.

So, finally the iPad. I counted down the days and hours until morning of April 3rd when I went early to wait in line, got my hand stamped by an Apple employee to indicate that I preordered, and even wowed Apple’s workers who had not seen a working iPad until that morning.

Since then, I’ve been busy and I did get to play with the iPad a bit here and there. And on weekends, I have been getting visitors and they’re usually the ones playing with it. I’m a gracious host.

So this past weekend, I finally had the time to go out and take the iPad for a mobile trial for hours at a time. At first, I was a bit shy about taking it out in public. I’ve not seen it in public and I don’t want to appear that I’m showing off.

So I said screw it and took it out while I was at a Starbucks. I logged into the AT&T hotspot, check my FB and mail updates, and the next time I knew, a hour had passed while I hacked away on a paper.

In a word: Seemless. In a few more words, it just works.

I took a break and watched a video I uploaded featuring the actors from the Simpsons being interviewed with Homer entertaining the audience.

Then I went back to do more work. All the way, I didn’t have to worry about battery life, space on the smallish table I was using, or that the iPad doesn’t offer multi-tasking.

I like to point out that the lack of true multitasking is what makes the battery life last so long and possibly contribute to the distraction free environment that allowed me to be so productive over weekend.

I like what I see coming out for the iPhone 4.0 but until then I’m not going to worry about that. I’ll get into the other aspects of the iPad use in future posts.