iPad Reaction from Facebook & Twitter

I really want to write a full iPad review for this week’s Kibbles & Bytes. But I have to be honest–my thoughts are biased in favor of “I love it! It’s amazing! This is both a new kind of computing and the future of computing!”

I’ve yet to see someone who isn’t impressed with iPad when they start using it–even the dyed-in-the-wool iPad doubters and Apple haters. It’s a simple and very, very well-built device. It feels solid in the hand, like it will last a long time.

And I will emphatically say that iPad isn’t just a “big iPod touch,” because now iPod touch seems more like “just a small iPad.” And it’s excellent to be able to use certain touch-based apps on a larger screen.

I admit that iPad seems to be made just for me, as I have long desired an affordable handheld digital reader that can access the Internet at any time. I’m a reading junkie. There is a lot of web-based content and content wrapped in PDFs that I’d like to read, but simply don’t enjoy reading on my computer. I’m in front of a traditional computer enough. iPad puts that content into my hands. For me, it’s far more comfortable to read a handheld device with traditional font sizes than text from a computer. So far, iPad helps me focus more on the content I’m reading– with better information retention–than reading on a regular Mac.

But iPad obviously offers much more than an easy and enjoyable way to read digital material. It’s a blob of digital clay. As many have said, make of it what you will.

Finally, one of the most interesting things about iPad is how it raises existential questions about technology in a certain group of reviewers. iPad leads people down a path of questioning from “Who is this device for? and “How can I use it?” to “Do I really need or want more technology in my life? If so, why?”

Here are some new iPad reviews that are thought-provoking and cover all the bases:

*TidBITS:* “Why the iPad Is a Blank Slate, and Why That’s Important.”:http://db.tidbits.com/article/11152

*Daringfireball.net:* “The iPad.”:http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/the_ipad

*Arstechnica.com:* “Full Review.”:http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2010/04/ipad-review.ars

*New York Times:* “The iPad in the Eyes of the Digerati.”:http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/the-ipad-in-the-eyes-of-the-digerati/

My initial reactions to the iPad are almost all positive; I see areas for improvement but using the iPad is just a pleasurable experience. I’ve been taking it to meetings and drew quite a crowd when I was down at the State House today for some meetings.

In preparation for my trip abroad, I have set up some applications that you might find useful. The first was “IM+”:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/im/id296246130?mt=8 ($9.99; link opens iTunes) which is an integrated instant messaging application. It has some awesome features, including an integrated web browser and will handle just about all of the instant messaging accounts. It has one bug that is pretty annoying, though–it will not work with Apple’s Jabber server and legacy SSL. I am hoping they fix that soon, but I have a work around with “BeeJive”:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beejiveim-with-push/id291720439?mt=8 ($9.99; link opens iTunes).

Setting up VPN to get into the Small Dog internal network was very simple and is quite stable. I used another application called “Desktop Connect”:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/desktop-connect/id364907570?mt=8 ($11.99; link opens iTunes) to activate VNC so I can log into my main computer which I will leave at the office. This means I can grab a file or look at my keychain.

Mail is faster than the mail client on the Mac for some things like filing mail, however, the lack of a junk filter and support for rules makes maintenance more difficult. The unified mail client that is coming in the fall with iPhone OS 4.0 will also be useful.

There is so much I love about the iPad that I do not have time to talk about it all, but I will be updating this adventure in computing from China and when I return. I believe that having the iPad on the 18-hour flight will make it shorter and I am confident that for email, web and of course, the China train schedule application I downloaded, it is going to be a perfect traveling tool.

Recently my good friend “Andrea”:http://learnedon.com purchased a new MacBook Pro. It was fairly easy for her to migrate data from the old Mac to the new one, which one important exception: her Daylite contacts couldn’t be accessed on the new machine. Fortunately, she still had the old Mac, and was able to access Daylite contacts on that machine. But how to get the contacts over to the new machine? vCards to the rescue!

vCards are electronic versions of old-fashioned Rolodex cards. They provide the fastest way to import contacts into your Mac’s Address Book app, or to share your Address Book contacts with friends, family, or colleagues. vCards contain basic contact information (such as name, address, phone, and email). They can also contain information such as including URLs, photos, or logos.

The vCard format works cross-platform with many contacts programs, including Microsoft Outlook and Gmail, making it easy to exchange contacts with people who don’t use Address Book in Mac OS X.

Apple recently published a Pro tip about vCards and address book that is worth sharing:

To export a vCard from Address Book on your Mac, just highlight the contact and drag it to your desktop or directly into an email. (The file icon even looks like a Rolodex card.) To import a vCard into Address Book, drag the card-shaped icon into your open Address Book application or onto the Address Book icon in your Dock or Applications folder. Address Book opens (if not already open) and asks you to verify the import. Click Import to have Mac OS X store the vCard’s contact information in Address Book.

Share contacts by dragging vCards to and from Address Book.

Want to export more than one contact from Address Book? Just Command-click to select multiple contacts, and drag them to the desktop or into an email. This method collects all the highlighted contacts in a single vCard file. (Note that although Address Book allows you to export multiple contacts in a single file, Microsoft Outlook only lets you import a single contact per file.)

When you drag this combined vCard into Address Book, all the contacts are added at once as separate Address Book contacts. So with vCards and Address Book, it’s as easy to share a large group of names as it is to share a single contact.

Back to Andrea and the Daylite dilemma. We that discovered Daylite can export contacts as vCards. From there it was a simple matter of exporting all the Daylite contacts as a group vCard, which she simply emailed to herself. On the new MacBook Pro, she simply double clicked on the group vCard, and added all her Daylite contacts to her Mac’s Address Book. She could then sync those contacts with her iPhone.

*Random Facebook, Twitter and newsletter winners!*
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Of course, many thanks to all of you who read our newsletters every week. We haven’t forgotten you–we’re pulling a random subscriber from Kibbles & Bytes to win as well.

We’ll be announcing the winners in our 4/30 issue of Kibbles & Bytes. Good luck!

_Dear Friends,_

I got my iPad on Saturday at the launch and Small Dog Electronics sold out of our initial stock at our S. Burlington store within 26 minutes of store opening. We have since replenished stock and currently have inventory in both of our retail locations. I’ve been taking the time to get used to my new friend and have decided to travel to China on Sunday with only my iPad. I will not be taking a computer with me. It feels a little bit like taking a brand new motorcycle on a cross country trip.

I have been getting samples of cases for the iPad from our suppliers and we have chosen a design for a neoprene sleeve as well as some very nice leather cases. I have been testing one of the samples and we have made some refinements that I will discuss with the factory when I visit next week. I hope to have these new Hammerhead products very soon.

I grabbed one of the Apple Bluetooth keyboards to take with me on the trip, and downloaded some interesting applications and some books from the iBook store and also from Amazon’s Kindle store. I have also bought Pages and Numbers for the iPad so I can work on documents and of course, downloaded MLB 2010 so I can keep track of the Cubbies. Check out more of my initial reactions below.

Hapy and I have a series of bets for things like hand washing the others car or plane tix and game tickets depending upon how the Cubs and the Giants do. Betting money with Hapy is sort of meaningless since we are partners at Small Dog; it is sort of like taking money out of one pocket and putting into another. Today, I had to wear a Lakers Jersey because the Lakers had a better record than the Celtics, for example. (But then again, I do have the picture of Hapy wearing Celtics garb after the championship a couple of years ago.)