First Impressions

I had no preconceptions when I took it out of the box last night but I thought it was heavier than I expected. It is definitely a noticeable weight in my shoulder bag, but it's not as heavy as my PowerBook and can easily see taking the iPad in to work with me everyday. I would not consider taking my PowerBook unless I was forced to.

This morning, when I dropped by my parent's place (the iPad was delivered there) my Mom mentioned that she was surprised that the FedEx delivery man knew it was an iPad. I told here that Apple is selling 1M iPads a month (Apple announced 3M in 80 days) so the FedEx delivery men were quite aware of the contents of the medium-sized boxes they were delivering.

I took the iPad to work today and activated it (in the future, the idea of connecting a portable computer to another computer to "activate" the first will seem quaint) via iTunes. I then proceeded to download all the free apps from my previous post (about 500MB).

Sitting at my desk and holding the iPad on my lap, I noticed that my wrist was getting sore and I had to consciously set it down (having to cross my legs to create a "stand" on my lap or leave it on the table and lean over it.

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At work, one of my colleague's first impressions was, "It's smaller than I remember it from the store/on TV". I suggested that perhaps the store had put a security frame around it and he said no.

Later that evening, when I showed it to my brother, he said exactly the same thing-- that the iPad was smaller than expected.

There seems to be a perceptual disconnect between the size of the iPad as seen on TV or in a store and then seen in person, in a familiar setting.

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Yesterday, my boss asked me whether I would buy an iPad for myself, I told him I couldn't conceive of a use for it. The next day I had a better response-- I would buy an iPad when either Photoshop Elements or Lightroom were available on it so I could use it for my photography; currently, the primary use of my PowerBook.

The biggest annoyance I had (through no fault of the iPad) was having to re-connect to the campus-wide network after the iPad powered down; to re-establish network connectivity required logging in with a login and password EVERY TIME!

The departmental network only covers two floors of the building but the devices are added as static addresses (with a unique login and password) and the so connection has persistence.

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Currently, my carrying case is the large, padded manila envelope that apple shipped my 3G SIM in and I wrap the iPad in a small towel (which I carry with me anyway, ever since I learned of Towel Day) before inserting it in the envelope.

I am intrigued by a line of slipcases made by Waterfield.