Obtaining the iPad

On April 3rd, I ventured out at a very early (for me anyways) 6am to try and snatch an Apple iPad on launch day. The Apple Stores in Orlando were no doubt going to be packed, and without a prior reservation, it was first come first serve for me. Since the day before I had been keeping track of the crowds via Twitter, and decided to take a chance at the local Best Buy. Rumors were that there would only be 15 per store, but when we arrived I ended up being 4th in line at around 7am. The manager came out shortly thereafter and told us they were expecting over 60, but the truck was just leaving the airport. No problem though, the iPads arrived and I grabbed a 32GB for myself along with a case.

Hardware

After opening the box, I was surprised at both how thin the iPad is, and that it was slight heavier than I expected. The weight isn't a problem, but it definitely weighs more than it looks. As mentioned, I bought the Apple iPad case which is very slim and has a folder-type look which protects the screen when not in use. Speaking of the screen, this thing is bright and crisp. It was actually better looking than I had expected, and it was a nice change to look at a big screen instead of squinting with my iPhone. There's really not much to say about the hardware without getting into a bunch of technical jabber, but for real-world testing, the iPad is very responsive, battery life is amazing, and unlike my Netbook - it does not generate much heat.

This is the wi-fi only model, which for me is fine because I'm almost always near a wi-fi network, and I really have no desire to pay AT&T even more money for 3G. With that said, some have said that the wi-fi can be flaky, but in my own use I experienced no issues at all with the wi-fi.

Integrated Apps

Lets be honest, with the iPhone and iPad it really is about the apps. Obviously 3rd party apps are huge, but I want to start off with some of the integrated apps such as Calendar, Contacts, Mail, etc.

The cool thing about these apps is they are designed to look like real items. Calendar for instance looks like a day planner even with the details of ripped paper at the top. It's a little thing, but it adds to the visual experience. Calendar has a layout that is just about perfect. You can change views to day, week, month, and list, and depending on if you are holding it in landscape or portrait mode, it will adjust the interface. There isn't any ground-breaking features here, but it does what it is supposed to, and it does it well.

The Contact app looks much like a real address book, and just as Calendar, it is well laid out and offers a complete solution to keeping your contacts organized.  Mail is nice that it changes depending on what orientation the iPad is.  Holding it in landscape gives you the wider view, so you have clear view of the inbox and preview window.  As with the others, it is nearly identical in features to the iPhone version, but with a much better interface.

The Maps app is especially neat.  Although it is only using wi-fi to triangulate your position, it does a very good job of it.  All the functions of the iPhone counterpart is there, but there is just so much more detail on this screen.  GPS would certainly be a huge plus, but mapping out a trip really couldn’t be much easier.

Photos look equally stunning, and it has the ability to show as a slideshow.  Browsing through galleries and photos with multi-touch is really nice and I have had a great time showing off pictures to family and friends with it.  Any of the pictures you have can be synced with MobileMe, e-mailed, or used as a wallpaper. 

Other apps include the iPod, but if you use an iPod or iPhone, there really isn’t much to describe here.  Just be assured all the integrated apps work very well.  The only downside though is unlike the iPhone, widgets such as weather, stocks, calculator, etc. are not included on the iPad.  Not really a big deal as there are plenty of 3rd party apps to do this, but it would have been nice to include.

Well that wraps up part 1 of my review, and next up we will talk about Safari and some of the 3rd party apps available.