iPad Experience

Was in a rather fancy hotel, The Inn At Penn, in Philadelphia. I was there because JS has a conference there so me and JJ tagged along for the free hotel to make it a road trip. The hotel is so fancy that it gives you an iPad to use in each room, free of charge, and hence my first iPad experience.

 Do I like it?

Hrm... Can't really say... I found that a lot of the interface isn't really that user-friendly but I m not sure if that's an iPad issue or if it's the issue of the specific iPad version of the websites. I was trying to look for attractions and stuff to do in the city but it was hard as hell. Took forever to find an ATM machine. Actually, we failed to find ATM machine (partly because google map failed to give us any useful location but the interface also played a part into the time spent). We ended up going down and asked the receptionist and that took us a grand total of 30sec. Sometimes, old school is a much better method that the oh-so-good technology.

 I also found browsing relatively slow, compared to a regular laptop, but just slightly slower compared to, say, a netbook. I m not very patient when it comes to that so it irritated me a little. But then, the page I was trying to view had quite a bit of images on it. Maybe that was why it took longer than I would like.

My very limited experience wasn't all negative tho. For instance, I love the typing ability of the iPad. A few of my recent post are a result of it. I probably wouldn't have the time to retract and type all these after I got back home. Not that it can totally replace the old keyboard cos I found that I make more typo and have to backspace and correct myself a lot. Having said that, it is definitely much much better than typing with my android. And I also suspect that it's related to the fact that I m not too used to the iPad. I bet I can type much better if I have an iPad to play with from time to time.

Given my very limited experience, would I spend a few hundred bucks to buy an iPad for its ease to blog? Most likely not. I mean, I m pretty sure it can do more than blog but I personally don't have a real need for it. I could totally use a couple hundred bucks somewhere else.