Apple iPad (Wi-Fi) Review

Many folks are just calling the iPad a giant iPod touch, but those people are most likely saying that without using one. Apple isn’t kidding when they say it’s a magical device, and I’m not being paid to say that. I pre-ordered an iPad like everyone else and got it on Saturday. What do I think of the device? Is it an Amazon Kindle killer? Find out after the break.

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The iPad is a tablet computer (or mobile device) with a 10-inch multi-touch glass screen that runs iPhone OS, the same operating system you’ll find on an iPhone and iPod touch. It doesn’t run the full Mac OS X operating system like on your iMac or MacBook, which is really not optimized for a touchscreen. It is available in three different memory capacities. The base 16GB model sells for $499, 32GB for $599, and 64GB for $699. These models only connect to Wi-Fi wireless networks (802.11a/b/g/n). If you want 3G connectivity, add $130 to those prices, plus the pay-as-you-go plans from AT&T.

I’ve used every iPhone since the original, and the first iPod touch, so the iPad felt very much at home for me. When you turn on the iPad, you see a simple “swipe to unlock” screen. Swipe the arrow and the icons for all your applications fly into place. The dock runs along the bottom and can hold up to 6 applications, while the 11 pages of apps (short for applications) hold 20 apps. Consider the dock a “quick launch bar” for your favorite apps.

The LED-backlit 10-inch screen is the biggest thing on the device (it also tends to be a huge fingerprint magnet), no keyboard or other buttons with the exception of the home button (we’ll get to this later). On the top is the sleep/wake (on/off) button, a headphone jack, and a microphone. On the bottom is the 30-pin Apple dock connector and a speaker. On the right side of the iPad is a screen rotation lock, and volume rocker. Since the iPad has an accelerometer just like an iPhone or iPod touch, the screen can be used in portrait or landscape modes. However, when you’re laying down in bed, the screen will rotate to landscape mode, making it difficult to read. The screen rotation lock fixes this by locking the orientation of the device.

I was surprised with how heavy it was after unboxing it on Saturday. The Amazon Kindle weighs in at 10.2 ounces while the iPad weighs 1.5 pounds, more than double. A peek at the iFixit teardown of the iPad shows that nearly the entire contents of the iPad is taken over by a large lithium-ion battery.

Now let’s get to the heart of the iPad, the iPhone OS. The simple design of the OS makes the iPad super easy and simple to use. Launch an application by tapping it, close it by hitting the home button at the bottom or side (depending on how you’re holding it) of the device. With this simplistic approach, the operating system doesn’t offer multitasking so you won’t be able to run more than one app at once. Want to run Pandora in the background while surfing the web? You can’t do it.

So if you’ve ever used an iPhone or iPod touch, you’ll find the applications you’re used to. Apple includes applications for calendar, contacts, notes, Google Maps, videos, YouTube, iTunes Store, the App Store, Safari, Mail, Photos, and iPod. More apps can be downloaded or purchased on the device through the aforementioned App Store, which offers over 150,000 iPhone apps and about 3,000 iPad-specific apps.

Those built-in applications have been entirely redesigned for the larger screen. The Mail application has a two-pane view for viewing email messages on the right side with your inbox along the left in landscape mode. This happens to work out great, your left hand scrolls through your inbox and your right hand can scroll through the message. The Contacts and Calendar also have a similar two-pane view available. The iPod application even resembles a mini version of iTunes.

The iPad can run most of the iPhone or iPod touch apps you might already own. If they haven’t yet been updated for the iPad (in a universal version compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad or just iPad-specific versions), you can run them in 1x or 2x mode. 1x runs them at the size of an iPhone screen on the iPad, and 2x pixel-doubles or scales them to fit the screen. It isn’t the best way to run your apps, but it will work for the time being as developers gear up for their new versions. Apps with iPad-sized graphics look a lot better on the device and take advantage of the extra screen real estate. There are a few great examples of the new apps below.

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We should warn you that iPad-specific apps are fairly expensive, sometimes double or triple the cost of their smaller counterparts. The OS also takes advantage of the Apple A4 1GHz processor inside every iPad. Apps launch quickly and intensive 3D games look amazing on the device. Browsing the web using Safari is fairly snappy. Pinching to zoom in is fast and seems very natural.

There is no Flash support. The vast majority of websites on the internet use Flash to display video and even entire websites. Hulu, for example, allows you to play TV shows and movies on your computer using Flash. Apple believes there is a better alternative called HTML5, which some, but not all sites are adopting. Playing back video and swiping through your favorite photos is really where the large screen shines. Due to the fairly wide viewing angle of the IPS (in-plane switching) display, it is also easy to see from the sides if multiple people are looking at it.

There is also no user-accessible file system for managing documents between apps. The only way you can get apps into Keynote, Pages, or iWork (sold separately) is to drag them into their respective categories in iTunes. It needs some sort of USB drive mode that developers can access to retrieve files.

I was skeptical about the on-screen virtual keyboard until I actually tried it. The key sizes in portrait mode are somewhat designed for two-finger typing, but in landscape mode are large enough to accurately type using both hands. The iPad also has the latest Bluetooth 2.1 spec for connecting to Bluetooth keyboards. Apple sells both a wireless keyboard and keyboard dock that are compatible with the iPad which we recommend if you’re planning on typing out long documents on the device. You can also use any Bluetooth wireless keyboard if you don’t want to shell out the cash for the Apple version.

As an e-reader, the iPad is a strong contender to the Amazon Kindle. Amazon even offers a free Kindle application compatible with the iPad in the App Store. Apple’s offering, iBooks, only offers around 60,000 titles at the moment, while Amazon’s store has over half a million. If you already own ePub-formatted books, you can drag them into iTunes (required to sync the device) and read them without any problems. If you have eBooks that aren’t in the ePub format, you can convert them using software like Calibre. We have tried both methods and they work without a hitch.

Reading on the iPad is a much different experience than on a Kindle, which uses an e-ink technology screen. Many readers praise the Kindle’s screen because it is easy to read outdoors, but you can’t read it in the dark without some form of lighting. While the iPad’s backlit screen may contribute to eyestrain for some, it does allow for reading in the dark and to an extent in the sunlight. In the iBooks app, you can conveniently adjust brightness and text font/size for this reason. Like the Kindle, the iPad can also read books aloud using VoiceOver, Apple’s text-to-speech technology. We tested this feature and it worked seamlessly on the copy of Winnie-the-Pooh included with iBooks.

We haven’t finished testing battery life, but Apple’s estimate of 10 hours seems to be fairly accurate. Despite that, it depends on if you’re playing intensive games or playing movies continuously. Even after using an iPad for a little over half a day, we still had about 50-percent battery life remaining. Audio quality through Bluetooth and wired headphones is excellent. It should be noted that for a $500 and up device, the iPad does not include a set of Apple earbuds.

I urge all of you reading this, including the skeptics, to go out and try an iPad yourself at an Apple Store. The larger screen changes the entire user experience and will only get better with more advanced applications. It won’t replace a full-fledged laptop yet, and while many were hoping for an integrated camera and some are disappointed by the lack of Adobe Flash support, I think we can expect a camera in version two and Flash support to either come in some form or a faster, widespread adoption of newer web technologies.

In conclusion, we believe that the iPad is for those who are interested in the prospects of the device and also for those who do very basic tasks on their computer, like web browsing, sending emails, and watching videos. The iPad also seems to be a strong contender to the netbook, with applications available like the iWork suite to type documents, create spreadsheets or presentations, content consumption applications from Netflix and ABC, and amazing games that take advantage of the touch experience.

The iPad is available in Apple retail and online stores today, and 3G-capable models will be available later this month.

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