iPad: Here and Back…

About a week and a half ago, I stood in line for about an hour and a half waiting for an iPad at the local Apple Store. I brought it home and Mrs. Digitante was very excited, as was I.

Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out and I’m going to share with you why. First though, let me tell you that this is my opinion of why it didn’t work for ME. However, it may fit your needs great and I already know of a number of people who have an iPad and love it and are spending many hundreds of dollars buying apps and accessories for it.

The Pros:

• The screen is amazing. You really haven’t ever seen a screen that is this crisp and pleasant to look at.
• It is super fast. Granted it can only run one application at a time, but I never had to wait for anything other than webpages to load.
• Simplicity is the name of the game. One button on the device, little icons on the screen, and minimal options to change are all Apple hallmarks. There really isn’t much thinking or learning involved.

The Cons:

• Lack of Flash video. Honestly, I didn’t think this would be a huge deal, but the problem is that it ruined my flow of work. I enjoyed reading Twitter on the iPad, but during a reading session, I would come across at least one or two videos that I wanted to watch, but wasn’t allowed to. This means that I had to mark the tweet as a favorite, get on my laptop later, and then watch the video. It just wasn’t convenient.
• Basic staples such as a file system are missing. I purchased an eBook in pdf format on my laptop and put it in my Dropbox because I knew there was a Dropbox app for the iPad. I was sorely disappointed when I found that I couldn’t just save the pdf to my iPad and open it with the default pdf program. Instead, I had to purchase an app that would allow me to access the files in my Dropbox app and open it in the pdf reading app. I only knew this because I know other techies that have had to do this. Otherwise, I would have been stuck. For all the simplicity Apple loves, this simple task was really complicated.
• The iPad costs $500. Over the last week and a half, I’ve tried to come up with $500 worth of usage scenarios and I just can’t do it. If this thing was $300, I wouldn’t have even thought twice about buying it, but $500 really makes me hesitate.

So after a couple of days of both me and Mrs. Digitante playing with it, I asked her what she thought. We were on exactly opposite ends of the spectrum but came to the same conclusion: it was more than she needed and it was less than I wanted so we decided to eat the $50 restocking fee and return it.

When I say “it was more than she needed” she was looking for an eReader like the Kindle. Having all the apps and other features weren’t appealing to her and really over complicated it for her. When I say “it was less than I wanted” I wanted to be able to pick up a device and have it do everything I required. Type a reply to a  Wordpress forum post? Nope, no text boxes were editable. Watch video linked in Twitter? Nope, sorry, Flash doesn’t work. Install any number of applications that I wanted? Nope, only what Apple approves through the App Store using their clandestine and inconsistent rules.

Will I miss it? Most likely not. It’s been sitting in our bedroom, unused, for the last three days. Normally I get all giddy and can’t put gadgets down, but this thing turned old hat very quick.

Did you buy an iPad? What was your opinion? Let me know what you think of the iPad, even if you don’t have one.