notANON

I was out shopping with the family at the mall today and quickly ducked into the Mac Store (not the same as the Apple Store). There were only three people in the whole store and they were all clustered at the three iPads that were displayed in the middle of the store. There was an older woman, a store employee and an off-duty cop. About as diverse as it gets. The employee backed off and I picked up the one in the middle.

I was surprised at how heavy it was. I was expecting it to be much lighter. I noticed they were set atop these custom stands. My first act with the iPad was to set it flat on the table. To my surprise, the wifi signal didn’t even flinch. From all I’ve heard, I expected just looking at it to kill the signal strength. I’m guessing this is another over-sensationalized problem that isn’t quite as bad as it was made out to be.

Next I picked it back up and started thumbing around with the apps. I don’t care for how much space is wasted by the icons on the screen. It seems that you have the same amount of icon space as you would for an iPod Touch. I’m not sure if this is a setting or if there is some other reason but my initial though is that it looks stupid to have tiny little icons with tons of space around them.

After the initial shock of the tiny icons, I decided to press one of them. To my surprise a tiny-sized app popped up. Don’t ask me what I was expecting for apps that have not been updated for the iPad but this was certainly not it. I’ll be damned if I’m going to run around with a gigantic iPod Touch with a beautiful screen that can only display most of the apps I care about at the same size as my current iPod Touch. What about the 2x button you say? What a joke. I haven’t seen pixelation that bad since my Atari 2600. Sorry, until all the app providers are on board, that’s a major show stopper for me. I’m really surprised that so many people can overlook this issue.

When the iPad was first announced, I was ready to buy it immediately. It looked like the perfect little computer to have around the living room and kitchen. Now that I have seen it however, I still think it has a lot of potential but more so as a niche device. Maybe it would be perfect for a professional photographer proofing with his clients or for an elderly person who’s eyesight isn’t good enough for an iPod Touch. It will be interesting to see what niches the iPad carves for itself but at the current price, it’s going to be a hard sell for a lot of potential buyers. The bottom model is more expensive than most netbooks and the top model is nearly $1,000 if you have to pay tax or shipping.

When the price drops and Tech21 releases an iBand shock absorbing frame for it, I’ll take another look at it.