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Ask HN: Four months since launch: how are you finding the iPad?

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Re: Ask HN: Four months since launch: how are you finding the iPad?

#51

Post by jackowayed »

chrisbolt wrote: post #49
ghshephard wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said Graphite, but I really meant "K3" - the K3 has a $60 cover has support for night reading. http://www.amazon.com/Lighted-Leather-Chocolate-Display-Gene... I went through three (3) night lights on my Kindle(s), and was never happy with any of them. Glare was really annoying, which is tragic if you think about how well the Kindle normally handles (sunlight) Glare. Here's hoping the Amazon Night Light solves it. K…

It's kind of crazy that the cover for a $140 kindle costs $60.

It has a builtin light (and some magic so that the Kindle powers the light), but still, yeah.

I'm looking at getting upsold by $110 on a $139 device. First it was "well, $50 for 3G everywhere forever is probably worth it". Now it's "$60 to keep my now-$189 Kindle nice and to have a light that doesn't suck is probably worth it."

Re: Ask HN: Four months since launch: how are you finding the iPad?

#52

Post by SmokenJoe »

It is brilliant. It is better than a laptop at just about every thing I use it for and has incredible battery life Serious video editing writing and storage are not so easy which will mean I won't get rid of the tower anytime soon but it is well worth the price. The size is a little troublesome though. A smaller benzle would do a world of good. Even with my xxxl hands I type faster on the 4G. Websurfing could be smoother on picture lad end sites but if for reading content it can't be beat.

Re: Ask HN: Four months since launch: how are you finding the iPad?

#53

Post by commieneko »

iksis wrote: post #16

Bought it for reading papers in pdf, does that reasonably well, though there is no good annotation software yet (with smooth ink). Not bad for movies. Cool feel of "100% interface." Completely lacks a viable input method (keyboard too small for touchtyping, too big for thumbs, and the pen apps just aren't there yet); input on the iPhone is far more comfortable.

On the iPad I find the portrait keyboard much better than the landscape keyboard. Not great, or even good, but good enough for simple tasks. I avoid using my iPod Touch for text input at all costs. I expect this is an area where everyone's mileage will vary considerably.

I suspect there is room for improvement via keyboard scaling/tuning for different size hands and input needs. I _really_ wish I could drag and drop my own keys onto the various keyboard layouts...

Re: Ask HN: Four months since launch: how are you finding the iPad?

#54

Post by Flemlord »

Love it. We use it as the primary entertainment (education?) device for our 6-month-old daughter. She'll pay attention to the flash card app whereas she's quickly distracted with paper flash cards. We also have a few sing-along book apps that highlight the words as they are sung. She's just starting to figure out that she can touch it but her fine motor skills aren't quite there yet.

My favorite app is a purple dinosaur that repeats anything you say in a higher-pitched voice. She'll spend ten minutes alternating between making baby sounds then pausing for the dinosaur to repeat them.

Re: Ask HN: Four months since launch: how are you finding the iPad?

#56

Post by spydez »

jackowayed wrote: post #51
chrisbolt wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of crazy that the cover for a $140 kindle costs $60.

It has a builtin light (and some magic so that the Kindle powers the light), but still, yeah. I'm looking at getting upsold by $110 on a $139 device. First it was "well, $50 for 3G everywhere forever is probably worth it". Now it's "$60 to keep my now-$189 Kindle nice and to have a light that doesn't suck is probably worth it."

How do you know this light doesn't suck? So far you're 3 for 3 on sucky lights, and you haven't tried this new one.

If there's a review for the new one that says, "This doesn't suck," then there's probably a review for your previous 3 that says the same thing...

Re: Ask HN: Four months since launch: how are you finding the iPad?

#57

Post by tsycho »

I own my iPad for almost 2 months now, and I still love it.

I use it primarily for email (default app) and reading (Kindle + GoodReader) during my commute to work. I watched a couple of movies on it during some recent long flights, it was a much better experience than watching on my laptop mainly due to the amazing battery life. I also play some games on it - FlightControl, RealSoccer, some Chess app.....but not a lot.

I do not use it at all for photos (due to the pain of copying pics over, and no real use case) or music (my iPhone is much more useful for that).

Strong positives: Great reading device, amazing battery life, very good screen, much lighter than my laptop.

Complaints: Can't do any real work on it (the touch keyboard is a pain), and it could have been a bit more lighter (~0.5 kg ideally)

Re: Ask HN: Four months since launch: how are you finding the iPad?

#58

Post by pragmatic »

ghshephard wrote: post #26

I have read five novels ( Carpe Jugulum, Blackout, The Graveyard Book, Never Let me Go, and the Accidental Time Machine) and and find it far more convenient than my Kindle1/K2 for indoor reading - Ironically the battery is always charged on my iPad (I tend to let the kindle run down) and until the graphite kindle comes out, the ability to read at night is the deal breaker. When I go on vacation though, I expect the K…

I've found this light to be fantastic: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002CMLDT6/ref=noref?ie=UTF...

very adjustable, read hundreds of hours with it, no glare problems.

Re: Ask HN: Four months since launch: how are you finding the iPad?

#59

Post by jsolson »

I'm loving mine. I mostly use it as a reader and a convenient way to get around the web without pulling out my notebook.

Shameless plug: since you mention GoodReader, I'd like to point out that we've written a PDF reader called Folio ~ The PDF Reader, more details about which can be found at http://ballisticpigeon.com/folio, which does an excellent job with technical PDFs. In particular, we do up-front fulltexting of your whole library and let you search across it as well as providing very fast results (with context, highlighting, etc.) inside documents. We do the usual family of things you'd expect (Dropbox and MobileMe integration, integration with iTunes and Mail, etc.), but you can find out more about that on our website.

Bonus: iPhone version (as a universal binary, free upgrade) coming soon.

Re: Ask HN: Four months since launch: how are you finding the iPad?

#60

Post by josefresco »

Have had mine for a month or so. Love my 3G iPad for mobile use as I don't have a modern smartphone.

Haven't synced any photos, music or videos as iTunes is atrocious and I really don't care to deal with it at all (except for OS updates)

App store organization and usability is also atrocious. I I have yet to be able to find games applicable to my pre-school aged kids. The process is completely random now, trial and error which is great when you have an impatient 4 year old and a crying 2 year old.

I've bought 1 app for $0.99. A Craigslist app which I like but it feels silly considering I can browse the same data via the web.

I'm now traveling so I wish I did have some photos and video that I could use to entertain the kids (since I can't find good games!) and also myself as I have no TV late at night.

I expected some dual use for business/sales meetings (I'm a web developer) but have yet to pull it out for that reason.

Also feel kinda douchey telling/showing people about it so that has me concerned as most see it as a very expensive toy (which it is).

Have to say not having Flash has been somewhat of an issue. Also some web apps like Google Analytics don't seem to work at all.

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