Okay, so I’ve had my iPad for over a week now (yes, always an early adopter.) I premise this post with a few things. First, I already have many other Apple products including a Macbook Pro, a MacAir, various iPod versions and the like. I also have the first edition of the Kindle that I have adored for many years now.
I bought the iPad for one reason: to ensure that I get my daily cardio done. No, seriously – that’s why I bought it. A good friend of mine and I decided to embark on a sort of adventure in fitness. The theory: we both HAVE to check email and do our social media comment marketing daily, so if we could also get some cardio in at the same time, would we actually stick to our fitness plan. The way I see it, if I had an easier way to thoughtfully and easily dig into my email while on a machine, I wouldn’t have an excuse not to get it done. My iPhone was too small and heavy to really write long emails, and a laptop set up wasn’t possible because of the arms on my elliptical trainer at home. So, we challenged each other to test if the iPad was an answer to this.
The results: yes. So far, I, Amanda Vega have been able to complete cardio while also working pretty easily with my iPad. You can read more about this adventure on our blog IHateCardio.com.
Anyway, so for what MY purposes were, the iPad rocks. As for the rest, I’m not sure that for a power user/buyer like myself, the iPad replaces anything I already have. For instance, while I love the way faster turning of pages in books on the iPad (I’m a speed reader,) I do not like the backlit technology over the liquid page technology of the Kindle. My eyes were more tired for sure reading on the iPad. Additionally, I found way less available books, and the ones I had purchased on my Kindle to then test drive on the iPad cost almost double on iPad.
Secondly, the connectivity is a bit challenging. When I was at the airport I attempted to connect to the wifi and download my email prior to my flight. It was a no go. I was sad. And to test whether it was the iPad or the wifi, I pulled out my MacAir and connected quickly and easily. An answer to this was brought to my attention by another user of the iPad who had tethered his phone to his iPad to get his connection. But, do you really want to have to do that?
As for my apps and the like, they work seamlessly and just like my iPhone. My experience with Words is certainly more fun – though my friend Akira Hirai is still beating me over and over.
I did download a movie using Netflix and also participated in a webinar with my iPad in the first week -both went really well. The vivid color and big screen was really great.
I have to say I was a bit disappointed that a case didn’t come with the iPad like it did with my Kindle.
And the biggest praise I have of the iPad is the battery life. After two hours of use with multiple apps and songs and the like, I still had over 90% batter left. For all of you that are iPhone users, you know how shocking this was. If only my iPhone could last this long.
My husband thinks that the iPad will work well for him in traveling. He doesn’t juggle too many documents and gets about 1,000 less emails a day than I do. So for that type of user that doesn’t already have a great traveling laptop, the iPad may be a great solution.
But for me overall, while I love my new toy, I can’t say that it changed my world, or made me more productive professionally. It did, however, make me get my cardio done almost everyday!
Anyone else have thoughts?
