Scott and I got in line early Saturday morning at Best Buy in Kalamazoo to be the first to get the new Apple iPad. I bought the 16GB model, Scott bought the 32GB model. We waited from 3:30am to 10:30am, for the line to queue up, and for the shop to open. There were about 30 of us when the doors finally opened and nobody was sure how many iPads Best Buy got in their shipment. The common consensus was a box of 16, 1 for display, 15 for sale. At 10am the manager at Best Buy came out with a pile of differently colored papers and asked everyone in line which model they would like. The pile of paper was more than 15, it looked like a significant pile of paper. Apple shipped our Best Buy a box of 50! Both Scott and I bought our iPads and we also bought the case-enclosure for the devices to protect them.

We rushed home, I unboxed my iPad and was surprised at how simple and uncomplicated the container was. The iPad was sitting atop a charging cable and it’s little mini power ‘bricklet’ and that was it. The documentation was just a pamphlet with advisories for not exposing it to water, so on and so forth. I pressed the button and my iPad displayed a simple graphic, iTunes icon with an arrow coming from the 30-pin connector – simple message: Connect me to iTunes. I went upstairs, plugged it in and in maybe 2 minutes had the device registered, all I needed was my Apple Store ID and Password. The device came fully charged, no need to let it sleep and charge to 100%, that was a very nice touch.

I couldn’t resist playing with it. Of course I blunder forward without reading any manuals or ‘looking stuff up online’, I have a general idea of how the device was supposed to work, the general logical progression that one would expect. I was bolstered by my experiences with my First Generation iPod Touch and Scott’s iPhone 3G. Getting started with the iPad was an absolute pleasure. I had two major things that I needed to try, the first was to see if I could display comic book pages on the device because for me that is the iPad’s Killer App. The second was to check out iBooks and see if Apple honored their rumored commitment to Project Gutenberg. I quickly downloaded the Marvel App, the iBooks app, and ComicPad, which was a free app for reading comic book files.

The device itself is a masterwork in design. Everything is where it is and makes sense. The system interface and responsiveness is exactly what I imagined it to be. The ‘Pro’ column is rich and varied and this device is definitely worth the $499.00 pricetag. The ‘Cons’ were few and far between and were mostly due to me not reading the manuals and blundering along. I will state it clearly and upfront that this device is EXACTLY what I imagined and it has performed PERFECTLY. When I complain, it has nothing at all to do with the hardware of my iPad or the iPhone OS 3.2 Operating System, they are excellent.

Here are my issues:

• iBooks, finding Project Gutenberg files was annoying. I had to SEARCH for ‘project gutenberg’ in order to find the library. PG needs to be featured more prominently in the iBooks store, Apple.
• ComicPad, This is a version 1.0 App so I give it a pass about this gripe, but adding files was a pain (totally impossible for John Doe Averageuser) and of the files I added, some were CBR, but really CBZ. Even renaming the file extensions only partially worked and adding comic book files was an adventure in hunt-and-peck and did-it-take.
• Photos, once I tore open the CBZ files and took out their jpg guts, adding them to the Photos app in my iPad was only partially successful, sorting the images was a headache. Dragging all my photos from my Macs HD into iPhoto and establishing the sort there fixed my gripe.
• The Marvel App, Random selection and Tasters-Choice approach is ANNOYING. I love Fantastic Four, and I’d buy a series pass for it if I could, but all you have is stuff from 1997? GET ON WITH IT!
• iPhone/iPod Touch Apps are easy to install and use in the iPad, but their lack of understanding when it comes to the bigger screen real-estate is worth a gripe, there is a button you can use to zoom the app to fill the screen, but the resolution in the App doesn’t get re-rendered, so it looks blocky and tacky. It’s a new device, Apps are trying to catch up, and at least there is a way to access the classic apps, which makes this gripe rather an aesthetic one than a real honest one.

Surprises:

• The weight of my iPad and it’s shape make it very easy to carry around. It’s between a trade paperback and a hardcover book. Since I have no problems carrying books, carrying my iPad, as an issue, isn’t even on the map.
• The iBooks system, once you learn it, is wonderful. It keeps your last position in each book – that’s a feature that even real physical books suck at, but the iBooks brings it off with aplomb.
• The Marvel App, The display makes their comic books pop, the saturated colors, the beauty the detail, it was absolute candy for the eyes. Reading Comics with Marvel App is a pleasure.
• Battery Life is surprisingly good. Last night, after a whole day of hard use I was down to 32% battery! This is delightful. Many people are complaining that iPad’s won’t charge unless they are plugged into a very-high-voltage USB port. I don’t find this a problem, it came with it’s preferred charging equipment.
• Wow Factor: When people see me using my iPad, they stop and ask for a demonstration. This is both gratifying and a little annoying. Once this device becomes widely available then people will likely get one of their own.
• StreamToMe App – After playing with my iPad for a while it struck me that I could only browse videos that I had either stored on the device or found using Netflix or YouTube. I have a pseudo-media-server running off my little Mac Mini at home, essentially a giant ‘Pig’ drive loaded with videos. How can I access those using my Wifi, quickly without having to futz around with copying files and possibly running out of space on my iPad? A brief browse of the App Store and I found StreamToMe, which was on sale for $2.99, it came with a free server-side bit of software that I run on my Mac Mini. I tell the server what folders I want to share over Wifi, and it sits quietly in my menubar minding it’s own business. I start the app on my iPad and I can browse Runner with wild abandon, browsing file folders and opening any video – no matter the video type. I can’t express how much of an EPIC WIN this is, the ability to store my library of videos and movies on cheap storage and not have to occupy my iPad’s limited 16GB storage space. All for $2.99.
• Dragon Dictate for iPad – I haven’t found much use for it yet, but so far it’s neat to play with. I can start Dragon Dictate (free, wow, really? Yes!) I can sit back, hit the record button and talk at my iPad. When I’m done I touch the screen again and it captures my words and makes them into text with 95% or better accuracy! Totally bowled over!

Overall, my experience with my Apple iPad has been just as advertised, it’s magical. It performs wonderfully and I have absolutely no buyers remorse. I strongly recommend that anyone who is looking for an entry-level computer device give this iPad a serious look, it’s that good.