[Closed] So whose who have bought an Ipad - what do you think ?

It's the best portable device for web surfing, reading magazines and viewing pictures IMO.

I had mine delivered the day before launch date. I haven't touched my laptop since.

OK, it doesn't really do anything that other devices can, but what it does it does very well and is a doddle to use.

Not have any of the claimed Wi-Fi dropping issues either

thanks - i'm not sure whether to buy one or wait for the next version....

any rumours what that might have ?

I had a play on a neighbours one, its like a huge iphone4

judging by incremental additions to the iphone, probably not much. Maybe a better screen, ability to do video calling.

*not dissing, but with each additional version, the iphone improves a very small amount

The eternal Apple conundrum, buy now or wait for the next version which will be slightly "better" (to be fair this applies to others than just Apple)

i've heard a camera will be on the next one - there is a rubber bung in there at the moment

thing is it would only really be useful for skype which i don't really use...

(to be fair this applies to others than just Apple)

actually I think it is far more applicable to apple than others because of the depreciation an apple purchaser has to bear each time they want to incrementally upgrade.

Ive spent £140 on an Android tablet (I like android) thats going to run OS ver 1.5 I really want one running froyo (2.2) but theyre not out yet, however, when they are released I will probably on a bad day have only lost only, say £50-60 on my original purchase when I sell it on s/h, whereas someone going from one £600 version of an iPad to the next will have dropped a lot more cash so needs to be thought about a bit harder.

Depends how close to the cutting edge an apple use wants to be at any one time.

Apple - depreciation ?

Not sure about that - I paid £750 3 years ago for my iMac

I'd still get £500 for it ebay !

Apple gear really holds it's value - I keep toying with buying an ATV box to stream my music and show pics, browse the web etc. They're 189 online if you hunt, yet secondhand on eBay you're still looking at 150 quid!

Ipad is a great bit of kit for coffee table browsing. I'd buy the 3g one and a mifi from 3 though

Sold my MBP and replaced it with an iPad ( I also have a desktop mac).

It's better at everything I need a mobile computer to be mobile for, better at other stuff besides (reading digital content is lots better than on a "proper" computer). Mostly I use it for a reading (I have to do a lot of screen reading for work, this is LOTS better), presentations, photos and the web.

The iPad does have limitations, but if you understand them most can be worked around.

Though I have to say, one thing does annoy me about it at the mo, badly needs a bug fix. If you sync a lot of photos to it (in my case 11k, about 7gig worth once rescaled for it) then after every sync it reboots with an out of memory error. And I've not hit the limit, but apparently even with a big ipad, you can't sync more than 16gb of photos across, it just won't do it.

I don't understand why if it's doing heavy processing on the image DB that's kicking it out of memory, then why isn't this heavy lifting done by iTunes? This is a software issue though, hopefully they'll sort it.

i'm surprised at the pricing of the Dell Streak - if they'd dropped it £50-75 and done some smart marketing they could rape and pillage iPad sales. i'd have had one, seems to be better than the iPad at most things you'd want to do when not at a desk.

Bought my son one for his 18th, it is very very nice, would not splash that sort of money for myself and would question VFM but I don't think many people who have bought these have been disappointed.

I had a go on one in a shop today, even did a surfing stw test, smaller than i imagined it would be but i'm pretty tempted......

Had the "who's the ipad for" discussion in the office, there's basically three reasons to get one:

1) you've got the money to spare and quite like gadgets. (this is most people)
2) You know it does all you need a portable to do, and are aware of its functionality and limits in detail
3) Only computer for someone that just needs web and emails, in a house where someone else has a proper comptuer. (though you then need to set it up in an apple store or with another computer).

I want one as a surfing tool and ebook reader. I used one for an afternoon reading pdf docs and it was so easy no eye strain like on a laptop or monitor.

Yeah it's good for that. I especially like iAnnotate PDF on it - lets me mark up PDF files, soooo useful for going over drafts etc.

Moving files about needs a bit of a different mental model, dropbox and goodreader are pretty much essential for this.

Apple - depreciation ?

just looking very briefly at eBay completed listings and 64Gb 3G units are about £800 new and c.£700 s/h, only a few weeks old.

As soon as a new version is launched those s/h values will fall further still.

I admit the "nearly new" price holds up well when they're very young, but the high initial price is a lot to carry if you're always jumping on the upgrades.

Has anyone given their iPad to an old person to use?

For people who never learnt computing (of any type) at school or work they could be pretty revolutionary.

hmm - went to buy one today but decided not too in the end

you can't get hold of the camera connection kits anywhere - which is one of the things i wanted it for !

CaptJon - my grandmother really liked looking through pictures on it. She didn't try anything else though.

There are some things that are harder than on a desktop, moving files about namely requires a more complex mental model.

E.g. to roundtrip a pdf from my mac, to ipad, annotate it and back again. It's quick and easy, but not simple - if that makes sense?

On my mac:
Run an automator action to send the pdf to my dropbox
On the ipad open drop box app, select pdf "open in" iAnnotate
Mark it up in iAnnotate,
open iAnnotate file manager, select the doc "open in" goodreader
open good reader, copy pdf, connect to dropbox, paste.

It's quick and easy to do, but to a novice user not an obvious workflow.

Is it/would it be easier with a MobileMe subscription?

No, you'd have the same issue round tripping the files through the iDisk app, you'd just substitute that for dropbox. Some apps support dropbox directly though. The issue is apps have ownership of their own files, which is an issue when more than one app wants to access the same file - the above process ends up with copies everywhere (though they could be deleted, but it's desirable for me to have them)

But then someone using it as a computer novice, what would they want to do with it? Browse the web and send emails etc? It's great. Viewing attachments? Great, most filetypes you can view in the browser/mail client. Thing just become trickier when you're creating content.

[i]I had a play on a neighbours one, its like a huge iphone4 [/i]

Iswinger?

you can't get hold of the camera connection kits anywhere - which is one of the things i wanted it for !

There were loads in my local PC world last time I went in.

Ours has been used far more than the laptop it replaced. For web browsing / online tv watching (the tour whilst cooking dinner) / games / entertaining the kids / viewing pics / reading it's grand. It was going to be going with me on the commute but not allowed now it's arrived - if i took it out the house for the day I'd be very unpopular.

We do however have a laptop for when I'm working from home. Good as the ipad is I"m not sure I could live with it as the only computer in the house.

+1 for not using the laptop since we've had one. Great for surfing/reading. Use it at work for reading PDF manuals, useful to have by servers when looking something up (tip - use printer friendly view to look at aspx sites)

Got 75yr old mother in law surfing other day, no chance on an ordinary machine

To be honest bought it as a toy but wouldn't give it back now.

My mum ( a techno cretin in her own words) has got one and loves it. First time she's ever enjoyed using a computer. It's very odd getting emails from her now.

woffle - where was that !!!

Don't confuse the ipad camera connection kit (2 dongles) with the ipod camera connection kit (1 dongle) as it's not compatible.

Tunbridge wells pcworld. That said they've probably been picked clean since by ebay-selling vultures! Could have sworn the Regent St Apple Store had lots in last time I was there too

stoner - which android tablet did you get and what do you think of it? I'm considering the Apad at the moment.

@IA - thanks for the insight.

My Manager brought one back from the States prior to the UK launch so I had a good look and was well impressed with photographs he had put on it from a holiday in Kenya - really good for displaying photos - I bet some apps (games racing types) would also be good - he paid $500 - and he also got a good Belkin bag for it -