Apple IPAD Owner's Thread

[pro96]

Today i am trying mlb.com for the first time on my pad and works very well to my surprise. Video playback is smooth and clear.
Video quality looks to be from the HD one.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I finally played with an ipad the other day; while I can certainly see the appeal for web browsing or hand-held games, I thought it a no-go for e-books. My reason: the form factor and weight compared with my kindle. The kindle is just comfortable in the hands for a long time, I didn't get that sense holding the ipad. It felt bulky, and a bit heavy.

I didn't like how some of the apps, like the NY Times one, had fixed font size, and you could not pinch and zoom like in the browser. And what was it with some of the apps that initially opened in a small window the size of an ipod touch screen?

But for portable web browsing, yeah, no doubt, very nice. And the machine was fast. Very responsive.

that said, I'll still wait for a good Android tablet. Using the ipad reinforced my criticism of the over-sized ipod touch in terms of icon only screen when not using an app.

 

[TheForce]

Mike- the ipad compared to Kindle has many quirks I've discovered, because it does so much more than the Kindle.

I think it will be much better for me when it can do multiple apps in "multitasking" like I do with my cell phone.

The small screen opening is because those apps are ipod screen size and have not yet been updated to include the ipad features including the full screen size. ipad OS does have a 2x button you can activate which works very well on everything I used it on here. The other issue is many ipod only apps don't auto screen rotate properly either.

The NYT is a free app. That's what I loaded and while the print seems fine for my eyes, it is one that does not have zoom.

As for the weight, I agree that holding it for long periods is tiresome. I use the Apple case which doubles as a stand and usually prop it up on my lap with that accessory. Therefore, using in on the legs propped up, I can use it for hours and my butt gets tired sitting before my
arms. What you didn't complain about, because you didn't try it, is the ipad is not as good as Kindle in bright sunlight for reading.

The bottom line is, combined with my cell phone, I can easily travel and do much more with the ipad / cell phone combo than had I bought the Kindle. I pay more, I get to do much much more. At home it is what I grab to go out by the pool for a few hours. The lack of flash has caused some inconvenience, but I use a virtual desktop to my PC and access those sites that way. Since having the ipad, I have not taken my laptop out.

Beyond multitasking, I would like to see true file access and a true printer driver for the ipad. I guess flash support would be too much to ask. It is low on my list though. Would have been nice for the BP live feed site.

 

[lparsons21]

The NYT app does have a way of enlarging the font in the story, but not on the opening page. In the upper right corner is a button with a couple of T's in it, tap that and you can change the font size.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Mike- the ipad compared to Kindle has many quirks I've discovered, because it does so much more than the Kindle.

I think it will be much better for me when it can do multiple apps in "multitasking" like I do with my cell phone.

The small screen opening is because those apps are ipod screen size and have not yet been updated to include the ipad features including the full screen size. ipad OS does have a 2x button you can activate which works very well on everything I used it on here. The other issue is many ipod only apps don't auto screen rotate properly either.

The NYT is a free app. That's what I loaded and while the print seems fine for my eyes, it is one that does not have zoom.

As for the weight, I agree that holding it for long periods is tiresome. I use the Apple case which doubles as a stand and usually prop it up on my lap with that accessory. Therefore, using in on the legs propped up, I can use it for hours and my butt gets tired sitting before my
arms. What you didn't complain about, because you didn't try it, is the ipad is not as good as Kindle in bright sunlight for reading.

The bottom line is, combined with my cell phone, I can easily travel and do much more with the ipad / cell phone combo than had I bought the Kindle. I pay more, I get to do much much more. At home it is what I grab to go out by the pool for a few hours. The lack of flash has caused some inconvenience, but I use a virtual desktop to my PC and access those sites that way. Since having the ipad, I have not taken my laptop out.

Beyond multitasking, I would like to see true file access and a true printer driver for the ipad. I guess flash support would be too much to ask. It is low on my list though. Would have been nice for the BP live feed site.

I would never recommend that somebody buy the ipad BECAUSE of the ebook reader. Its not bad; just the device is heavy and has a form factor that does not fit in the hands the way the kindle and the other dedicated ebook readers do. Plus it does not have buttons right where your hands sit when holding a kindle, which makes it so easy to change pages. BUT it was not designed to be primarily an ebook reader; it is a portable internet device, and at that, it is quite interesting; I can certainly see why you like it.

 

[TheForce]

Mike- the ipad doesn't need the buttons because it is touch sensitive on the screen. From what I see, and please understand I'm not a big reader of books but probably more than most people. (avg 2 per month) the main advantage the Kindle and similar readers have over the ipad is the screen in bright sunlight. What I like about the ipad is the ability to do audio books when I want. When the multitask OS gets here I may be able to play a game while listening to an audiobook. Or read a book while listening to music.

Hey, some of you all have been following my complaint about the printing apps on the Ipad. Well yesterday I was fooling around and realized that when I have a web page I desire to print out, If I select the page, copy it and then paste it into an email body and send it to myself, I can then print it out easily. Kind of an easy work around to print stuff you can copy and paste.

 

[pro96]

Dang, did the 3.2.1 update and now my Ipad is not jailbroken LOL
Downgrading back to 3.2 right now.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Mike- the ipad doesn't need the buttons because it is touch sensitive on the screen.

I understand that, its no different than any other ebook on a PDA or WinMo, or Android, in that sense. I just dind the positioning of the buttons on the kindle to be very much designed with hands in mind; the ergonomics are perfect, so you can read for hours.

And the e-ink screen, while not touch sensitive (indeed, when I first got it my brain kept thinking it had to be a touch screen), is what makes it so wonderful outside in bright sunshine.

 

[pro96]

Wow watta mess trying to downgrade an IPAD, when you try with itunes it will give you a 3154 error which wont let ya.

There is a way around it by editing the hosts file @ windows\systems32\drivers\etc then it will allow the downgrade to go thru. Just in case you needed to do so

 

[lakebum431]

Dang, did the 3.2.1 update and now my Ipad is not jailbroken LOL
Downgrading back to 3.2 right now.

What is different in 3.2.1? I just checked and I'm on 3.2.

 

[pro96]

What is different in 3.2.1? I just checked and I'm on 3.2.

WiFi improvements and other minor ones..

 

[pro96]

One note also for those who do the downgrade restore, it will not boot back on with a windows based pc. With MAC based it will.

For me was no prob caz my Dell Laptop is hackintoshed too hehe

 

[TheForce]

I upgraded last Friday and I did have some problems using itunes on my Dell laptop ( win XP). Now when I connect ipad via USB the Dell crashes to Blue screen of Death. With text saying a new driver is at fault. The Dell runs fine as long as I don't connect the ipad. The sync never did work right and seemed to take forever for 16 Gb on the ipad. Fact is I have never done a full itunes backup since buying the ipad.

I installed itunes on my Vista 64 computer. It recognizes the ipad just fine and will sync and fully back everything up in a little over an hour.

So far other than the Dell crash I have observed no changes. ipad works as good as it always has. If there is a wifi improvement it is very very subtle.

 

[TheForce]

Found a new ap. Called Flipboard. Do a search for it on your ipad's ap store. It's free!

The flipboard is like an RSS aggregator on steroids for all news on the internet. It appears like a magazine that you customize to your liking. The magazine has images and video in a brief portion of the story with a link to expand to the full story. It is lightning fast and you flip the pages like ipad ebooks. touch an article and it expands to full page and may have video and other images you can manipulate.
As I said you can customize Flipboards table of contents, adding sections of content, like politics, science and technology, Religion, food and cooking, movies, etc.

It appears there are no ads for Flipboard so I don't understand it's biusiness model but this seems about as good as it gets for browsing through your favorite news subjects. I like it so much I put it on the dashboard on my ipad.

 

[mraif]

Found a new ap. Called Flipboard. Do a search for it on your ipad's ap store. It's free!

The flipboard is like an RSS aggregator on steroids for all news on the internet. It appears like a magazine that you customize to your liking. The magazine has images and video in a brief portion of the story with a link to expand to the full story. It is lightning fast and you flip the pages like ipad ebooks. touch an article and it expands to full page and may have video and other images you can manipulate.
As I said you can customize Flipboards table of contents, adding sections of content, like politics, science and technology, Religion, food and cooking, movies, etc.

It appears there are no ads for Flipboard so I don't understand it's biusiness model but this seems about as good as it gets for browsing through your favorite news subjects. I like it so much I put it on the dashboard on my ipad.

Facebook looks really cool on it, too!

 

[TheForce]

Hate to admit this but I signed up for the facebook just to see what you were talking about. I wasn't impressed so I deleted it. Can you be more specific as to what you found compelling about Facebook on Flipboard? Didn't try Twitter.

What I noticed, without needing to sign up on these services, there are comments related to the news item aggregated from Facebook / Twitter on the right hand side of the page. That is interesting.

I'd like to get rid of the Facebook and Twitter boxes on the table of contents page but it doesn't allow you to do that.

 

[lparsons21]

I just got a new to me app for my iPad. Mobile Mouse ($2.99). Very slick remote controller for a Windows or Mac computer. I use it with my HTPC and it is much nicer than horsing around with a mouse/keyboard combo. Take a look at the website for some screen shots.

http://mobilmouse.com

 

[pro96]

I installed Ifile and now I can read my external HDD/USB Drive/SD card via the camera port. Really cool when traveling and need a HDD full of .mkv movies

 

[TheForce]

How do you make the connection? Do you use the existing USB cable fir sync or do you use the accessory camera software and port adapter? If you are connecting to the port as you said, are the only files available media files or do you see the entire drive's file collection?

I have a tiny spy camera that saves video to avi and wondered if that will work with the system you use.

 

[pro96]

How do you make the connection? Do you use the existing USB cable fir sync or do you use the accessory camera software and port adapter? If you are connecting to the port as you said, are the only files available media files or do you see the entire drive's file collection?

I have a tiny spy camera that saves video to avi and wondered if that will work with the system you use.

just use the camera kit as pictured

and hookup a normal usb cable to it and using Ifile app plus I believe its gotta be jailbroken to werk