Should you get an iPad? The following is an email I wrote a friend on the subject:
MY TECH SETUP
- Single (shitty) monitor, older hand-me-down Dell desktop setup at home, suitable for office work/browsing but in a really poor location for getting work done, especially considering my
- Dual monitor, 2-year old Dell desktop setup at work, essentially perfect environment for getting office work done;
- 15.4” hand-me-down Dell laptop, which while decent and expensive 3 years ago, doesn’t fit my needs now (slow, relatively heavy, oversize/qualified for casual gaming);
- PS3 on a 40” LCD TV, very satisfactory for non-casual gaming and digital TV/movie-watching;
- BB World 8830 (2007) which is (barely) suitable for making calls, SMS or quick, non-urgent emails;
- 32 GB iPod Touch (current gen) which suits 99% of my next-gen smartphone needs (especially when in a wi-fi zone), except for making calls;
- 64 GB first-gen iPad, received partly as a gift.
Of these items, the home Dell desktop and the iPad get used so much more by my fiancée that she might as well be described as their primary user. However, since the iPad she doesn’t use the desktop much anymore, and she does have her own 14” ASUS laptop from late 2008 (albeit starting to show its age).
MY UPCOMING TECH PURCHASES IN LIGHT OF THE ABOVE
- The upcoming iPhone dropping this fall (September?), to combine the BB and iPod touch effectively;
- A 13.3” Sandy Bridge MacBook Air, which should drop this month with OSX Lion (though I probably won’t be able to pull the trigger until August waiting on reviews and some other stuff to settle).WHAT DOES ALL OF THESE BULLSHITS MEANWell, the general gist of the above is that I think any savvy tech purchase requires a macro view for context.
WOMEN AND THE iPAD
As a general rule, based on experience with my mother and fiancée, if you are a girl or non-tech person in general you will love the iPad because:
- It’s easy to use without making you feel like a stupid idiot the whole time;
- It’s fun to use pretty much every time you pick it up;
- It’s a fantastic content-consumption device;
- It’s great for non-work typing (social media/communication) and doesn’t require (or admittedly allow much for) touch-typing skills;
- You can watch TV/movies cheaply or for free without needing a (tech) guy to put files onto it.
- You cannot control very much about how it works therefore you don’t have to worry too much about how it works, and therefore
- It just works and was obviously made for non-tech people to regularly use;
- A (tech) guy probably bought it for you anyway after some deliberation so it’s unlikely you’re agonizing over much of anything.
The question(s) for (tech) guys is a bit different though.
HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO A SMARTPHONE
In order to answer this, we have to acknowledge that there are basically 3 tiers of smartphones:
- Old and Busted (most BBs, high-end Nokias, old-to-very-old formely “premium” smartphones) which have the advantage of being relatively cheap and replaceable;
- New Hotness (iPhone 4, all state-of-the-art Android phones such as Samsung’s Galaxy Series, all Windows Phone 7 phones, no BBs in this category);
- Anything between Old & Busted and New Hotness; basically aging/increasingly dated ‘New Hotness’ smartphones (any Apple/Android product pre-iPhone 4, BB Torch).
If you have a New Hotness smartphone, the iPad is (only) a bigger version of that phone, minus the phone part. If your phone is not an iPhone, then the iPad is considerably less fiddly in terms of ekeing out optimum performance and has way better apps than your phone does and probably always will. It can play basically any media file you can throw at it, and anything it doesn’t is easy to convert. It has a ~10” screen which is great for viewing web content (except Flash, which has HTML5 as an increasingly common alternative) and playing games which range from browser-level complexity to PSN/XBLA-levels of near-hardcore console intensity. It does basically everything your phone does, but bigger and usually easier, with possibly more hard drive space as well.
If you have anything but a New Hotness smartphone, the iPad is better than your phone in every way. Bigger, better, easier, more space, everything.
HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO A LAPTOP
I’ll assume you’re well aware of the difference between a laptop and a netbook. The iPad is basically the thing that has killed the need for a netbook (or low-midrange) ultrathin laptop for most people. They have a similar price-point and usage model except the iPad clearly wins on performance and versatility as it is designed for its role instead of being a hacked-together solution.
If you have a spare Bluetooth keyboard and a case-stand/dock (or else get a keyboard dock) it can replace a netbook (or cheap, school laptop) in most academic usage scenarios while being more versatile for times where a traditional netbook/laptop is cumbersome/unusable. You can also use a stylus to take notes “by hand” digitally which is an increasingly popular (and thus developing) use as well. Currently it is possible to use it for work-related word processing but it is not as good at multitasking as a traditional laptop. Some people like this as it allows one to focus better. Either way, the OS is constantly being upgraded so this experience will continue to improve.
When used as a hand-held device, it is a different feel from typing at a computer. It is a more intimate and immersive interface. It is closer to using a large New Hotness smartphone than it is a laptop, with a more comfortable reading distance and less weight. Gaming (such as it is) is closer to a handheld console (Nintendo DS comes to mind) than it is a laptop.
Some of my associates at work regularly use iPads in lieu of laptops when possible including legal courtrooms/depositions successfully. It has competent file management applications and documents are increasingly digital in many workplaces. It is a device with work applications.
OVERALL
The iPad is definitely a bridge device, and is admittedly rarely sufficient to completely replace any other tech item in itself. However, if you don’t have a thin-and-light laptop, or a New Hotness smartphone it can replace one or the other of those- because if you didn’t have one already, you weren’t the kind of person who needed the full experience of either device (but would appreciate what the iPad can contribute to either experience).
Overall it can only completely overtake an iPod Touch without question. Downside is, it’s not as portable and almost useless for solo car trips or the gym, but that’s what smartphones are for… Upside is a bigger screen and way, way longer battery life (7-10 hours constant use browsing/movie watching/gaming).
Myself, I wasn’t originally planning on getting an iPad until the third generation (hopefully having a bit better resolution screen). However an opportunity came up to get one. Overall I have no real regrets, but in my case the thing is always being used by someone in the house. It starts up so fast and is a fixture of the main living area so it’s always handy. We also use it with a Bluetooth speaker to blast web/satellite radio on the deck or in the kitchen, although my iPod Touch can do that too.
