
Notes on my first iPad experiences in a blog post - glower
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2010/04/03/myIpadIsHere.html
======
dgallagher
I'm writing this post on an iPad.

It's a very nice device. Noticeably heavier than a kindle 2. Typing on this is
a breeze, but not as accurate as with a keyboard. Write now I'm typing about
as fast as I can on a normal keyboard (landscape mode). Making several typos
here and there, but it's nice to do short messages with. I won't correct typos
in the next paragraph.

No PDF support but ere are some programs that support is. Noticablt GoodReader
which has drop box support.

"the above should have read" No PDF support but there are some programs that
support it. Noticeably GoodReader which has drop box support.

If you type slower on it, it's more accurate. Think in the 20-30 WPM range.

Netflix on it, wow. Really cool. The screen on it is gorgeous. Everything
looks really good, except upscaled iPhone apps. Most of those are muddy
looking. For example, Fieldrunners for iPad looks a zillion times crisper than
the iPhone version upscaled.

Some media (an iTunes movie I bought, some games) don't have very good volume.
Other things are loud and clear, so there's some rough edges here and there.

Scrolling in this hacker news text entry box is annoying. Similar to using it
with an iPhone. It needs a scroll bar (likely Safaris fault).

Overall it's about as intuitive as an iPhone with a few new things here and
there to learn. It's really fun to consume content on it, particularly books
and websites. Im not sure I would want to create much on it. Creative apps
will have to have very intuitive, easy, automated UI's to make creation easy.
Part of me wants to see TextMate ported to it, but another part of me thinks
that's a horrible idea. Maybe with an external keyboard...

I can see a lot of people buying one of these and using it more than their
laptop/desktop. Really, if you didn't have to sync the iPad with iTunes, you
could forgo using a desktop entirely. Not an option for techies or hackers,
but few people fall into that category.

It has gotten easier to type on since starting this post. Definitely try one
out. This is some very cool tech.

------
Locke1689
_BTW, I thought I should mention that my netbook has no trouble with AVI
files. It runs VLC, an open source app that plays anything as long as it isn't
DRM'd (and some stuff that is DRM'd)._

I really hate this. It seems to me like people really don't understand
audio/video encoding and compression. After putting in patches to ffmpeg I
found an appreciation for the capabilities and limitations of the software.
For example, the reason why his netbook probably isn't able to play 720p H.264
is probably because it doesn't have an integrated hardware decoder chip. The
iPad does. After seeing the kind of nasty things that people do with video
formats I don't really blame Apple for limiting the video decoder. FFmpeg, for
example, is perfectly willing to package AVC/H.264 video and AAC audio into an
avi container in complete violation of the specification.

It's not like Apple leaves the user no choice, either. Quicktime 7 is capable
of transcoding almost everything I've found to AVC/H.264 in an MPEG4
container.

I'm not claiming I'm an expert on signal processing, but it always seems like
the people who know the least are screaming the loudest.

~~~
AndrewDucker
People don't care. If they have an AVI file then they want to watch it. If
their netbook plays it, but their iPad doesn't then they're going to blame the
iPad for not managing to do something that open source software can manage.

~~~
robotron
And what is the problem with that?

------
lurch_mojoff
Boy, just when I thought Dave Winer's ramblings can't get any less coherent he
does this. This stream of consciousness stuff is certainly not working for
him.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
What are you talking about it? It made perfect sense to me. Bathtub monkey
sausage.

------
philwelch
To convert any video source (including AVI and--don't tell anyone!--DVD's) to
MPEG4/H.264 to play on the iPad or some other device, you can use HandBrake:
<http://handbrake.fr/>

------
jsz0
My first big surprise of the iPad is how good the keyboard is in landscape
mode. Without doing a proper typing test I feel like I'm probably at 50+ wpm
already.

------
larrykubin
Really? This is the first review I've seen that claims the iPad is difficult
to use. It's really not very hard to buy the Big Lebowski from the iTunes
store for 9.99, rent it for 2.99, or to stream it from Netflix. I'd much
rather do these things than load biglebowski.avi from a disk.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
You'd rather pay again than watch existing content you already bought? Is this
just video or is it not worth your time to rip CDs or import live FLACs
either?

His point about .avis is interesting. At first I thought he was playing dumb,
but on second thoughts why should people understand that file A is part of
Apple's blessed ecosystem and file B isn't.

It's basically the same reason I don't have an Apple TV (though my friends
with them have "hacked" them in some manner to allow this). And I've never
figured out why I can't even find a good step-by-step guide for getting mpeg-4
part 2 video plus mp3 audio in an .avi container onto my iPod. It can play the
video and audio if presented in the right manner and I understand that
remuxing might be required but it appears everyone just gives up and re-
encodes.

~~~
GHFigs
_You'd rather pay again than watch existing content you already bought?_

Where did anybody _buy_ movies in AVI format?

