So yesterday the G3 ipads came out, available at 5:00pm, and by 5:30 I had mine and was headed home. Now I just have to get used to a whole bunch of new conventions. I’m beginning to get used to the on-screen keyboard, though it’s a bit weird having to switch back and forth between the ABC and the numeric screens. But I’ve run into a few things that I’m wondering about.
First. I can’t for the life if me figure out how to move the &$@)?$& cursor into the middle of a word, which means to fix a mistype in the middle you have to backspace and retype. Drag. But OK, trivial. I actually kinda like the feel of the thing–they put in a tiny click which gives you audible feedback that you’ve hit a key, and it takes a really light touch, so I think it actually feels like I’m typing faster than I am.
But I just found out that there’s a slight glitch with WordPress. I can’t scroll down on my categories list–they don’ t give me a scroll bar, because the convention for scrolling is to stroke the screen, but that moves the whole page. Oh well–if I care enough I can go back to my laptop and edit later. Still, mildly annoying, and whenI’m on the road, I’ll be stuck with just using the categories at the top of the list.
I just realized this has to be the most boring post ever. It’s a good thing all my regulars dropped away when I didn’t post for so long so I’m not running the risk of boring them now! 🙂
Anyway, the 3G is working, at my recliner even. Last night I had to be at the window, but this morning I have a better connection. And I’m listening to music as I type–downloaded some Chopin last night. Which took a VERY long time, so I just left it to carry on and went to bed. The Kindle app works well, though the iBook interface is cooler. And I was able to call my brother using iCall, though he said it was so echo-ey at his end he could barely understand me. Will have to find a fix for that. And I just found the price we pay for the “smart” typing interface–if you want one word, and it thinks you want another, it can be a tussle, with the winner a tossup.
So, my first post from the iPad. Less than fascinating to anyone but me, but that’s what a blog is for–complete self-indulgence. But I’ll try to be more gripping next time. Right now, i’m going to go download some more apps.
Addofio 
PS. I just figured a benefit to posting from the iPad–I can blame all typos and weirdness on the interface glitches!! Cool.
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Congratulations on the new toy. I hope you find it useful. And fun. Nice to be able to do things from your recliner! Nice to have the 3G connection on the road.
Love, Pat
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The big problem right now is persuading myself that I really do have to do something besides mess with the iPad. Using it for work related stuff helps a bit.
You may get a mystery call sometime in the next week or so. It will sound echoey, perhaps to the point of being indecipherable. That will be me, still working on the voice call solution. So far skype seems to have better quality but can’t be used over 3G, and may never according to scuttlebutt. Icall works over 3G, but has terrible quality at the recipient’s end. Nor does either the Bluetooth nor the headset I bought work with the iPad. The search goes on. Why is that part of the allure?
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Indeed, why? It is some inherent perversity involved with geeky pursuits perhaps. Or it may be that the act of Problem Solving with an actual realistic hope of finding a solution is such a relief from all the stuff we can’t do anything about. Or it might just be fun to explore, be adventurous, experimental, on the edge.
I’m glad you’re having fun. I hope it is so useful for work that you can justify having lots of fun with it and get more enjoyment from your work too.
Love, Pat
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I’m not sure it’s going to do much for me in the way of work that I can’t do as well or better on my laptop. Though I did enter data from the field into our database while I was on the spot yesterday. The laptop is too large and heavy to make that convenient , but with the iPad it worked pretty well.
So yesterday I decided to get the wireless keypad, and I have to say I LOVE it. The onscreen keyboard is actually pretty cool–I’m using it now so I can do this from my recliner–but the wireless one has a really nice feel to it and there’s no flipping back and forth to get different sets of keys. Of course I had to use it immediately, so composed some notes for a report we have to get out next week on the iPad with the new keyboard– and then had to figure out how to sync up the iPad Mail with our campus email so I could email it to myself to print it. But now that’s done, it’s easy to export docs.
And I may be getting close to having a solution for voice calls–it’ll just cost money for a decent headset. Maybe, anyway. So far icall is the best bet for voip calls over G3–so the hope is that a good headset, wired or Bluetooth, will solve the echo problem and make it viable. We’ll see. Soon.
Yeah, I’m still having fun. 🙂
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Not boring at all! I’m Jonesing after them, so I’m afraid I scoured every detail, trying to decide whether or not to jump.
Do you have an iPhone? I’m wondering if those glitches (i.e. not being able to move the cursor to the middle of a word) are unique to the iPad.
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See my iPad Update post. There is a way to get into the middle of a word. And something I forgot to put in the post–Pages, the $10 word processor they sell for the iPad, works remarkably well, once you figure out the differences from Word, and it’s easy as pie to export a Pages doc from the ipad as a Word doc or a PDF. There was a seriously pain in the a** issue with it at first, but they’ve fixed that already, which is encouraging for the future.
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