Spiffy the iPad

Yes, I was one of the 91,000 people who pre-ordered an iPad.  Yes, I was waiting on the front porch on Saturday, April 3 for the UPS truck.  Despite the rain.

Yes, I love Spiffy.  (Come on, I named my iPod Touch Touchie and my T-Mobile G1 Droid, long before Motorola ever got into the Android market.) But he's not without his problems.

The cons:

•  The much-reported wi-fi problem.  I haven't had a real problem connecting so far, but the signal can be pretty weak.  And downloading a webpage can be really sluggish.

•  Unexpected app freezes.  I've run into this with apps that access the Internet, specifically The Weather Channel's TWC Max+.

•  Unexpected app closure.  Really irritating when you're in the middle of a game and you lose all progress.

•  Stupid design flaws like forcing Pages users to type in portrait orientation in order to see the toolbar.  I have very small hands for an adult, and I can't type comfortably or accurately.  Guess Apple expected me to shell out for the keyboard dock.

•  Even more stupid, putting the docking socket on the end, rather than one of the sides.  It's primarily a media consumption device; who wants to watch a 2 hour movie in portrait orientation while in the dock? And don't try to turn the iPad to landscape orientation while in the dock.  It falls over.

The pros:

•  It's gorgeous!  The screen is huge compared to the iPod Touch and iPhone.  It makes viewing everything better, from webpages to photos to e-mail.

•  So far the games I've installed from the iPod look good at 2x size.  Granted, my standards probably aren't as high as a lot of people; I'm very much a casual gamer, and the console I own is the Wii.  But I really like the fact that I don't have to re-purchase games to be able to enjoy them on the iPad.

•  Games are a lot more fun with the bigger space!

•  Battery life is wonderful.  I've used it for e-mail, gaming and surfing the Web for about 2 hours total a day, and I've only had to charge it twice since the 3rd.

•  It's so convenient to have it nearby for a quick lookup on the Web.  The touch interface is really user friendly, rather than having to drag the laptop onto your lap and use the keyboard

•  The speakers are great!  No need to plug in external speakers.

•  It feels very solid in my hands.  I was worried that I'd be nervous carrying it back and forth from school every day, but that stopped after the first day.

•  Both the iBooks and the Kindle Reader apps look really great.  I haven't read for more than about 10 minutes at a time, but I had no problem adjusting to reading on-screen.  I especially liked the Kindle Reader's ability to change the background color to make it a little easier on the eyes.

•  The iTunes app is so much more user friendly than the one on the iPod Touch.  It's much more like the desktop app.

Overall, after 18 days of use, I really like the device.  I'm finding new uses for it each day, and I'm eager to see what the developers come up with to really let the iPad shine.