iPad: first 2 weeks

If the Motorola flip phone let you be Captain Kirk, the iPad turns you into Captain Picard, receiving a report in your ready room off the bridge. It's more futuristic in daily use than I expected. A bit over two weeks ago, I got one (wifi only), and took it on the road -- longhaul flights to the Pacific and back.

The verdict: OK, this thing is awesome. I love it. I have grown inordinately attached to it in a very short time. It's not perfect, but for what I most use it for, it's great.

Web: Fantastic. So much nicer for casual sofa browing than a laptop. My laptop usually is driving a big monitor on my desk at home. Not only is it a pain to unhook it just because I want to browse from the sofa, but even opening it and waiting for it to wake up, then logging on, etc., now seems like a real chore. The immediacy of the iPad is striking.

Psuedo-Web Content: Even better. By this I mean online "magazines" and such that have dedicated "apps". The Wired app, for example, is beautiful. They really got it right for a tablet-based magazine. Great touches include side-scrolling to get from article to article, but vertical scrolling to page through once inside an article. Also some interactive animated bits and such. Just ideal. Another example: the bbc news app. Pretty basic still but already superior to reading the BBC news site via the browser (which in itself is perfectly fine). It changes its layout whether you're in portrait or landscape, has intuitive scrolling through stories and topics, very easy to read the major stories. Not ground-breaking, just nicely done.

Book Reading: Excellent. I've been skeptical of e-books. I do still prefer physical ones, but given that, the iPad is a great alternative. Travelling is the perfect use case. I finished two books and started a third while on a single trip. There's no way I would have lugged three physical books along on the trip with me. I've got books via apple's bookstore and via amazon. Amazon's iPad Kindle app works well. Apple's book app is even better. A lot of little details, even things that seem cheesy at first -- the animation for page-turning -- actually make a subtle but powerful difference that is noticeable when I go back to using the Kindle app. The Apple reading is slightly more immersive. And, predictably, the integration with the book store is much smoother. Not to slight the Kindle app -- I gladly use it as it gives me access to all of Amazon's e-catalog in addition to Apple's.

Movies: Fantastic. And renting movies works really well for business trips. Watching movies on this thing is great. I watched a variety of movies. It's 720p HD, but I couldn't tell the difference between normal quality and HD movies. The normal ones looked great. I watched a normal rental from apple, an HD rental from apple, and a DVD I'd ripped myself and re-encoded down to about 1.7GB -- erring on the side of higher quality. I also tried some I'd done at much lower quality (less than half the size), and they were noticeably poor, but the other one was great. (I don't remember the settings, but was something along the lines of 2-pass encoding with avg bitrate a bit over 2000).

Games: have only tried one game, Need For Speed: Shift, and it is really fun. It's a turn-the-pad-to-steer racing game. Lot of potential on this, although I'm not much of a handheld gamer and probably won't be buying many games (maybe chess).

Photos: Beautiful. Photos look great. I just wish I could get an iPad version of Adobed Lightroom (one of my all-time favorite pieces of software). Not for library management, but for basic image editing, the iPad would be great. Multitouch is a natural for cropping, rotating, and adjusting sliders (moreso than the mouse).

Maps: Wow! It's hard to imagine google maps on any other device after this. Not being able to touch-zoom/scroll a map now makes normal computers seem really clumsy and crippled.

Battery Life: Super good. Exceeds expectations. Haven't run it all the way down yet, but have gone 8 & 9 hours with time left. Should exceed 10 hours in normal use. This is excellent for a plane trip with no power adapter -- watch several movies and read a book.

What's bad? OK, typing is awful. It would be good if I couldn't type, and had to hunt & peck with 2 fingers. But I can type, quite well, with ten fingers. And typing means you rest your fingers on the keys. Which doesn't work with the iPad currently, since touching is the same as typing. So you have to hover your fingers in the air above the keypad. You can get a docking or wireless keyboard for it. Don't expect to get much mileage out of typing directly on it. Also, it does get a bit heavy in the hand for reading especially. Usually not an issue as it's lap (or chest-) based, but sometimes noticeable.

Overall: it's great. Amazing content-consumption device. And could be really good for certain types of content-creation, just not typing-based ones. A side-effect of iPad use is that I am now totally spoiled for multitouch functionality. I really want my desktop computers to have this as well, so at any moment I can reach up and start manipulating things "directly" with my fingertips. Someday soon, I suspect. (Imagine a 27" iMac with multitouch glass over that beautiful LED-backlit monitor.)

Accessories:
(1) I got a slipcase (Tuff-Luv iPad Veggie Leather Pull-Tab Case), which works well. I like it, despite the idiotic ring device used to affix the strap. A bit of velcro would've been in order here. Aside from that, does just want I need it to do.
(2) I put a Zagg Invisible Shield screen cover over the front. It worked great for a while. Even the small bubbles, which I didn't notice on install, went away after 2-3 days, just like the instructions said would happen. But near the end of my second week travelling, the edges began to separate in a few places -- almost curling up a bit. Not sure if it was the change in climates and humidity levels and/or the extended a/c use in the hotel room, but it shouldn't have happened. One corner curled up completely and I had to smooth it back down. That looks bad now. The screen part is still good, and looks quite clear and all, but I'm not entirely happy with the ratty look at the corner now.
(3) VersaCharger minisync charger+airplane adapter+etc. worked fine charging the iPad on the plane.
(4) Not really an iPad accessory per se, but used Sennheiser PXC 450 noise-cancelling headphones extensively on various flights. Overall, quite good. Best pair I've had, and I've gone through Sony (a while ago), and cheap JVCs. Sound quality on these is by far the best. My only complaint is that they take a lot of power to drive. Volume can be a bit low in some cases. Could use an inline headphone amp maybe.
(5) Definitely not an iPad accessory, but deserves special mention for being great: Tom Bihn "checkpoint flyer" carryon bag. I love it. Got a "slip" folder to tuck inside. Perfect variety of pockets, excellent laptop solution (too big for iPad, but still worked well), just great to travel with. Very easy. Heartily recommended.

U-S-A: songs for the cup

The biggest disadvantage the US has heading into the world cup is the lack of a rousing chant. "U-S-A! U-S-A!" is as moronic and uninspiring as it is tedious. It's not that US sports fans lack an affinity for music. Students at fall football games chant ("this is our school fight song/and we don't know the words"). University pep bands feed the manic energy inside packed basketball fieldhouses. NBA and NHL arena sound systems have blasted snippets from Gary Glitter to The Fratellis. None of these quite work for soccer, though. For that, we have to turn to baseball. Were the late 70s the golden era of singing in baseball stadiums? The alka-seltzer jingle might not work, but "kiss him good bye" definitely would (yes, Steam's "na na na na/na na na na/hey hey hey/goodbye").