The iPad, Revisited

When the iPad was first released, early adopters rushed to post their initial impressions.

Now that I’ve been using an iPad for a few months, I think it’s important to come back and provide some more experienced impressions.

Here are the apps I use:

• Daily
  • WSJ (Wall Street Journal). I even bought the subscription, so I don’t have to lug my Kindle around with me.
  • GoodReader, a fantastic PDF viewer that can wirelessly transfer PDFs from my laptop with no extra software.
  • EverNote, a note-taking app that backs up all content to internet servers. This is the centerpiece of my Getting Things Done implementation.
• A few times a week
  • TweetDeck, a Twitter client
  • Kindle
  • xkcd, an online comic with a solid app
  • FeedlerRSS, a front-end for Google Reader, in which I read all the blogs I’ve subscribed to
  • WeatherBug, a slick weather app
  • Safari
• Occasionally
  • X-Comics, a comic book reader and store, which sells single issues of comics for US $1 to $2.
  • Mail

I don’t use the iPod functionality. That’s what my iPod is for, and I don’t want to fill the iPad with music when I could use that storage space for apps and data.

The iPad has replaced my Kindle. I still love the Kindle, but the iPad replaces all of its functions for day-to-day use. I’d prefer a Kindle in other situations, like travel (the Kindle has a longer battery life and its cellphone modem for downloading books costs nothing, depending on where in the world you are).

I encountered the dreaded “Re-enter your password” bug, in which the iPad would periodically lose its wireless internet connection and forget the password. I tried a number of different solutions, to no effect. I ended up removing password protection on my wireless network to solve it.

Nevertheless, I still use my iPad every day. After the first few weeks, my usage dropped drastically, and I barely picked it up for about a month. I then got back into it, especially when I started using GoodReader and the WSJ app. The iPad has turned into a practical device for me.