Geek of all Trades

1 week with an iPad2: My thoughts

So it’s been 1 week (give or take a few hours) since I got my iPad2, so I thought it about time I shared some further thoughts about it. Let me start by saying, god-damn I love freakin’ love the iPad2.

If you are an Apple hate, then you don’t know what you are missing. And no, I am not a ‘fanboi’ merely an enthusiast of excellent technical engineering and capability.

So, first off, Internet browsing: Safari browser included in iOS is speedy and renders pages very well in both portrait and landscape modes. There is still some ‘checkerboarding’ (showing a grid of small grey and white squares while the page loads) but only on pages with large amounts of content and only for a split second.

Once the page is loaded, the RAM of the iPad2 (a figure currently unknown) can handle having 9 Safari windows open at once, and very quickly switch between any of the windows without re-loading the webpage being displayed (something the iPad1 was not always capable of doing).

There are two main Apps not included in the pre-installed iOS that I have been making use of this week;

Garageband - a fantastic App and a steal at £3.99, making music becomes easy and fun. Drums are my favourite, but the guitar and bass works really well. The piano can be adjusted to show more notes or a double-organ style screen, and the pressure-sensor is good enough to be able to change a note based on how hard you hit the screen. Being able to record tracks piece by piece and layer them up then export them to your iTunes library and/or share them with others is a neat feature too. Defiinately worth it, just for the fun of hitting the crash symbol and bass drum alone!

Adobe Ideas (free version) - a pretty decent painting/drawing app, though features are limited to one type of brush, 1 layer (+1 photo layer), a decent colour palate but you can’t save your own selected colours to it and no ‘eye dropper’ tool to select a colour already on the canvas makes it hard to find the exact same colour later on. I managed to knock up a few drawings on it, though not with the best of ease, it’s very different to drawing with a pencil or even using a drawing tablet. You can purchase to unlock more layers for use but there are probably better Apps out there and I continue my search to find one.

Have also been using the official Twitter app, and I like it better than the full-on Twitter site I have to say! Viewing any weblinks within the app means no switching between Safari and Twitter, and the interface is nice and clean making good use of gestures/multiple finger taps for things such as opening profiles, and switching between Timeline and Weblinks.

What else…… the built-in cameras do a decent enough job. They are by no means high-spec, and the light level can really affect the pictures. No auto-focus on either camera means some apps for iphone can’t be used, I tried to test some Augmented Reality apps and was dissapointed to find I just got error messages. Oh well.

The screen really picks up on dirt and finger swipes. Cleaning it is easy, and the marks are not noticeable while you are using the pad, but once it’s switched off you can really see the marks.

Hence why I bought a Apple (Blue) Smart cover. Yes OK, it was probably £35 that I didn’t need to spend when a much cheaper unofficial cover would suffice, but in the interest of, well, being interested, I went for it anyway. The magnetic-on feature is really good, cover just snaps on in a second and is perfectly aligned to protect the pad every time. Cleans the screen really well and works great as a stand, also makes hold the pad easier too!

Overall I am majorly happy with my iPad2, it has very quickly become an ingrained part of my ‘online life’ and it much easier, quicker and more convenient than booting up my PC every time I want to use something better than the crummy 3G web on my phone.