Ben Mook
OK, so I find myself in the uncharted territory of being an early adopter, having plunked down a decent amount of money to take ownership of the new iPad, the latest marvel out of Cupertino, Calif.
Whether it was compact discs, DVDs, high-def TVs or any number of things, I usually take a wait-and-see approach. Even though HD DVD lost the format war to Blu Ray, for example, I still haven’t taken the plunge on that due to a nagging suspicion something else will be coming down the road. I don’t want to have to convert my movie collection again until that is settled.
Also, I still don’t have an iPhone, or any other kind of smart phone. As much as I would love to have one, I couldn’t justify the monthly cellular usage charge associated with them.
Being in need of a new computer, however, something to augment my aging Dell desktop, I had been very much on the fence about whether that should be an iPad. The criticisms that it was nothing more than a huge iPhone or iPod Touch were irrelevant because I had neither. For me it boiled down to a cheapie laptop or the iPad.
Now that I opted to go the tablet route I can say it has lived up to, or exceeded, what I thought going into it.
It’s easy to use, fast and will no doubt keep me busy for months to come ferreting out all the latest apps and tips and tricks that will come to light. Newspapers and magazines optimized for reading on the iPad are, I think, good enough to at least consider subscribing.
I have a feeling I have just scratched the surface for what is already out there and what will surely be coming in the near future. I stuck to mainly free and low-cost apps to kind of get my feet wet with the whole process. The first day or so I added Weather Channel, Pandora, Yelp, Dragon Dictation. TV.com joined my contingent of news sources (AP, BBC, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, among others).
I even ponied up for the relatively pricey Pages app from Mac, which is the word processing program designed for the iPad. It works very well, too. The virtual keyboard takes some getting used to, but the keys are a decent size and you eventually find a rhythm or make the best of the tried-but-true, hunt-and-peck method.
I have to say I don’t have any regrets being an early adopter. I’ve steeled myself to the fact that at some point I will see iPads at lower prices with beefed up stats. But I’m happy with what this machine does for me right now, and I think this will let me weather any early-adopter guilt.
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