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Why I gave away my iPad – to my wife
August 11, 2010 | 5:13 pm
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By Paul Biba
Well, after using the iPad for several months I finally decided that I really didn’t like it much and passed it on to my wife. For the following reasons:
1. It makes a lousy ereader. The machine is far too heavy to hold for any length of time. It is also very slippery which means that you have to read with it in a case, which, in turn, just adds to its bulk and weight. Also, while I have no trouble reading for extended periods from my iPhone, the iPad has just too much glare for prolonged use. I get sick of reading black text on a white background to cut the glare. More: its pretty much useless outside (I use my Kindle there); I’ll never buy books from the iBookstore and I rarely read comics – at least electronically.
2. No multi-tasking. It’s a real pain to have to stop streaming audio or video to check email. I don’t have to do this on my iPhone with iOS4. This really limits the iPad to one thing at a time. I got fed up with that on the iPhone (it almost made me switch platforms) and I don’t want to go through all that pain again with the iPad.
3. My laptop is much more versatile. My main desktop machine is a 17″ MacBook Pro, which I can carry around. Even better, I have a MacBook Air that weighs almost nothing and is far more useful than the iPad – bigger screen too. Either machine really makes the iPad redundant.
4. My iPhone 4 can do everything the iPad can do. I keep reaching for the small multi-tasking machine in place of the iPad. Except for some specialty stuff (like reading comics and magazines) I am content with the more useful iPhone. I can even tether my Air to it when I’m out and about when I want to. Tethering between the iPhone and the Air works like a charm and makes carrying around an iPad not very useful.
I really want to like the iPad, but I guess having an iPhone and a really light laptop does make the machine redundant. When iOS4 comes out for the iPad it will solve the multi-tasking problem, but I don’t think it will be enough to bring me back to the machine.
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Comments:
Wow, this is big news !
Frankly I find this hard to believe.
Sometimes the ipad’s glare gets annoying and it is a little too big. (By the way, you can reverse the color scheme for reading ebooks). Is there anything about the Kindle’s interface which you prefer? Is it just the form factor or the software or performance?
Finally, for me, the big advantage of having a multipurpose device was being able to read RSS feeds, see color PDFs and access Stanza’s ebook distributions. The big downer for me was itunes (which I loathe).
It’s certainly true that whether a device meets your need depends on what other devices you have.If you have several devices already, I can see how a single purpose device would be sufficient. But for me, I needed a mulipurpose device.
I prefer the Kindle in almost all ways: it’s light, can easily be put in my messenger bag or coat pocket, can be read outside, incredible battery life, etc.
Can’t wait for my Kindle 3 to arrive.
I’m not surprised. One of the things remarkable about the ipad is how quickly these got into people’s hands before word of mouth could spread about the actual usefulness of the device. Essentially we had millions of early adopters. I was an early adopter of the original eeepc, and it proved disappointing. I’m expecting a lot of people will discover this with their ipad as well.
As to the kindle, form factor (light and relatively rugged), cheap connectivity, and lack of distraction makes it more likely I’d take it with me for reading rather than a netbook.
After playing with the iPad at the Apple Store several times now, I’ve found I like it better in theory than in practice. My big issue is your reason 1: I just think it’s too heavy for what I want to do with it, which is read books and comics.
I would love a big, full color screen, and it would make reading PDF documents much easier as well. But I think I’ll keep waiting for some future model that’s considerably lighter.
I’m going to disagree. I love the iPad. I’ll agree with the glare issue and it is a bit heavy, but it is not heavier than a hard cover book. It’s small size makes it seem heavier because it is denser than a paper book of similar size and thickness.
I have found that I use the iPad a lot while reading and surfing in bed, it is much easier to use than my
MacBook Pro.
I also purchased an AirVideo app and I think the iPad will be seen as much more usefull when it becomes an extension of your home computer. I am able to watch all of the movies on my big computer on the iPad, I just wish someone will come out with a decent picture viewer that will stream iPhoto pictures to the iPad.
I concede that a lot of the potential for the iPad is not being utilized correctly by Apple. If they would let it compete with their MacBooks it would be a much more useful product. The iPad needs better browsers, USB ports, print capabilities, File Folders, export views, dual monitor capabilities, fully integrated Microsoft Office app, etc.
I have been using touch screen tablets for video mixing since 2003. They are Windows based and run probably better than an Ipad despite being years old. Apple advertised the Ipad like it just invented the format. Gotta give them credit though. Most people think this is brand new.
I love my ipad – have several hundred books on it right now, streams video and TV shows from several of the computers in the house, I can read it fairly well outside when cooking, I pretty much have given up on the laptop that I used to keep in the bedroom. To be honest, I also have not turned on several of the ebook readers that I have in the house since I got it,
Multitasking for the iPad is coming later this year, and as for the LCD, I can read hour after hour off it. May Jane enjoy the gift! David
Cases aren’t heavy – and if you get the Marware Marsport case, it even has a repositionable hand-strap which makes holding the iPad even easier.
As for the glare issue, that’s easily solved with the application of a $10 antiglare protective film (which you really should put on the iPad and iPhone, anyways, in order to protect their screens).
The iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard and the Marware case is a great laptop replacement (I only take the MacBook out now if I have to edit photos on-site) and a great e-reader. It’s puzzling to me why you wouldn’t bother to find the appropriate case and anti-glare screen coating for your iPad before ditching it.
Your wife is a very lucky woman. I love my iPad. The killer app for me has been magazines – especially foreign ones that would cost a fortune at the newsstand if I could even find them!
Another killer app is GoodReader – no more printing out PDFs of documents I need to read for work.
All good points, however if you jailbreak your iPad, you can install Backgrounder app from cydia, it basically enables you to multitask, even my iPod 1st generation can handle 3 apps at a time. check out cydia, cheers
Glare is a non-issue as soon as you put a matte screen protector on. You don’t lose sharpness but the screen gets a bit of the texture or graininess of paper. Fingerprints are also a lot less visible.
A stock Apple device is just a plain dumb(take an Apple TV for eg., it should be considered extinct by now).
Jailbreak to unlock their potential and you can discover the wonders that these things can do.
Try VLC from cydia. beats’em all.
Circuitous+Activator+SBSettings means i never have to touch the damn home button. Pure bliss. All controls through touchscreen gestures and you also get multitasking.
Much better than double/triple/quadruple-click-to-death the lone solitary home button.
Ipad is, in my opinion, the best tablet device out there right now. Only just remember to jailbreak it.
On behalf of your wife, I say: “Gee, thanks.”
Long form reading is best on the Kindle, but I have enjoyed having Amazon’s multi-media books on the iPad and also being able to view colored illustrations in cookbooks and others. The killer app for me is Publishers Weekly. It is $4.99 per month but well worth it to me for the book reviews. This is still way cheaper than getting it any other way.
Really interesting – I’ve been trying to figure out how the iPad would fit into my daily routine when I have my iPhone and my laptop (and I also have a Netbook when I need a laptop capability without the heavy backpack). I’m not sure I need the extra device but I had thought that reading eBooks would be a much better experience…but perhaps I need to go for something more easy on the eyeballs. Sounds like there are quite a few hacks to get round the issues that made you decide to give it away – would be nice if they were just in the device you bought in the first place!
In our family we now have three iPads and only one laptop any more, and it’s been sitting on the landing almost untouched for more than a month. In my company we have 17 iPads and the tech survey carried out on the 30th July came back showing all but one user suggested surrendering back their laptops. I have to say I have never once, not even once, wished for multitasking. To me it is a techy person’s things. It would add nothing except the knowledge that it multitasks. My 18yo son brings it to school and reads on his bed for hours on it. My wife also reads on it for hours on end. Personally I don’t miss my laptop because the iPad does everything the laptop did for me except faster, simpler and in a more relaxed way.
Each to his own I guess.
Count me as a techy person, but multitasking is essential for me. I’ve got an iPhone 3gs, and ios4 only sort of has multitasking, not good enough to solve the issues I have (which admittedly, are pretty techy.)
An iPad is not a Kindle replacement for me because of the weight and the screen, and it’s not a laptop replacement for me because of a lack of printing support, no USB port, and iTunes, which was fine back in the early days of the iPod but is just crufty now. If Microsoft had produced the iPad, all anybody would be talking about is how they had crippled it with such lousy interface software.
Like so many other pieces of hardware or software, iPad love or not-love is a matter of personal taste.
Yet from Paul’s article and from the comments it generated, it’s clear that buying an iPad is either a win-win or a “whim-whim” situation …
If you love it, keep it; if you don’t love it, give it to your spouse.
In either case, the numbers are impressive:
–Within the first 80 days, 3 million iPads were sold
(which is one iPad sold every 2.3 seconds)
–End of 2010 projection: almost 13 million will be sold
–End of 2012 projection: 100 million units will be sold.
Now if Apple will make three basic improvements to the iPad, such as
1) a hi-res screen (like the one on the iPhone),
2) an OS that allows multi-tasking (ala iPhone), and
3) drop the price a bit
– I wonder how much higher these projected sales numbers might rise.
–MP
Source:
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/20/isuppli-boosts-ipad-sales-estimates-through-2012-to-nearly-100-million/
Sherri – there are printing solutions for the iPad, from apps to simply emailing the file in question to an account on another machine and then printing from that. I try to live my life in as paperless a fashion as possible and have for years, so this isn’t an issue for me, but there is a solution.
As to the multi-tasking not being enough for you – nonsense. I’m a hypertechnical person in a hypertechnical industry, and what iOS 4 offers *with multi-tasking-enabled apps* is more than Good Enough for me.
One of the main reasons I switched from Slackware Linux to the Mac back in 2003 was the fact that OSX is built upon FreeBSD, and I’ve been a *NIX-head for more than 25 years, barely touching Windows at all. If I can get my work done on an iPad, so can you.
Roland – I’m delighted you love your iPad. No need to dismiss my issues as nonsense to justify your choice.
Michael – it’s not that I disagree specifically with anything you say but … you can say these things about any new device just coming to the market. If only it had this … if only it had that .. technology has limits and they are overcome over time. It is patently obvious that these functions will come when processing power is developed to handle them. Apple chose, correctly in my opinion not to slow and handicap the iPad by throwing everything at the processor immediately. They chose instead to omit the elements that strangle it like multitasking, flash etc etc etc. But it is as certain as the sun coming up tomorrow that additional functions (hopefully not flash) will arrive as soon as processing power allows them to operate smoothly and efficiently. Apple have been extremely successful at making these choices in the past and I am happy with whenever they arrive because I don’t want them to nobble my iPad and result in a jittering, stuttering iPad.
Well said Roland.
Howard, I was observing not criticizing. I should have added that I love my iPad just the way it is. The iPad is marvelous for what it can do right now. And it just gets better. Many of the new apps — released daily, at low prices — increase the iPad’s functionality, and improve on something already great.