Thoughts on the iPad four days in

So its been a few days with the iPad in my possession. A few thoughts.

The keyboard is better than I expected it to be and I've changed my mind as to its' usefulness. It's certainly better than the iPhone keyboard in terms of room and ease of use but not quite a regular keyboard. I still find the awkward placement of punctuation a problem but it hasn't stopped me from getting work done. Overall a good compromise. And there will always be compromises.

The gaming experience is infinitely better. I always found the small screen on the iPhone a hindrance for involved games like Sims. I can't wait to see how EA translates the experience. Or other games I play with some frequency – Eliss and Monopoly being the most eagerly awaited. Real Racing is incredibly lifelike. The speakers manage to vibrate the device in your hand and it's quite realistic.

My favorite applications so far are: NYT (news), BBC (news), Flight Control (game), GoodReader (PDF reader), the Weather Channel app, and Cool Hunting (blogzine). Each of these apps have translated the experience in an appropriate and engaging manner. Reuters is also great but I find the layout a little awkward. More on that and Cool Hunting in the next post.

I know that the iPad is about entertainment but I find myself working on it more. Part of the reason is I have so much reading that I need to do and I do enjoy reading on it. But also because I find the experience more interesting than with my desktop. As I mentioned before, I was looking forward to the reduced distractions of my laptop and desktop. If you are like me, you are emailing, IMing, writing, surfing all at once. I have been in multitask land for so long working on the iPad almost feels backward. But I enjoy not having the system alerts over this, that and the other thing. It's like 'Full Screen' in the Mac version of Pages, basically taking away all the noise of the system. As someone best put it, and I will source it later, is the device transforms itself in a way that the iPhone does not. When you run an app, it takes over the entire large screen. You are focused. It is great.

Update – source found: Tidbits writer Adam Engst said "In contrast, the iPad becomes the app you're using. That's part of the magic."

I have been working in Pages and Numbers these last few days. Keep in mind that I have been using these applications as my work apps for months now; they replace Office 75% of the time. I find the iPad versions very intuitive, familiar and quick. In Pages, I like the isolation the device allows. It's very much like writing on a notepad, which I'm sure is intentional. Most of the functions are just a couple taps away. But you can really just write.

Numbers has a much more steep learning curve, thanks to pretty complex touch commands. I have had to check out help and see how to do basic things like make columns wider or even select the entire column. The feature I thought I would like most – specialized keyboards for data entry – I find annoying. Having multiple keyboards for data entry functions is great but it can be slow moving from one to the next. I'd really like a way to put the functions I use most on one page. Right now it really can take a lot of taps and trial and error to get cells to do what you want.

The more I spend time with the iPad, the more I understand what Apple is trying to do. The tagline is – the most magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price. When I watched the launch Jobs presentation, it annoyed me how often each speaker said 'magical' or some other hyperbole. It just didn't seem that big of a deal since so many of us are familiar with the iPhone/iPod Touch, warts and all. But it's really one of those things you just need to experience in person. I think it's starting to grow into that tagline a lot better than I expected.

-- Post From My iPad (edited on the MacBook)