The Wireless Apple iPad Is A Toliet Device At Best

Technology May 5, 2010 39 Comments




So a couple of weeks ago I said that the Apple iPad was one of the best devices I have ever played with and I stand by that and think it is an incredibly slick piece of kit but I felt it was only fair to give it a more balanced review after using it for a couple of weeks. I have carried it with me to meetings, it has followed me around the apartment and I place it beside me when I go to bed giving it every chance to become a crucial part of my daily routine but I have to say my opinion has changed massively since at the end of the first day I had it and reviewed it here on the blog. I know I’ll be accused of flip flopping and changing my mind but I have to be honest and tell you what I really think of the iPad after a couple of weeks use…

The Wow Factor

For the last two weeks I have been stopped everywhere I go by people asking to have a look at it. Setting it on a table during a meeting renders the meeting pretty much pointless as the next hour is spent discussing the merits and general all round brilliance of the device. Waiters regularaily get involved in the conversation and I was once even stopped in the street by a stranger who grabbed the device to get a closer look. These sort of reactions have very little to do with the features on the device and much more to do with the world’s slickest marketing machine at Apple that has hyped this product to another level.

Wireless Version The Biggest Con Ever

Let me get this straight now.The Wireless iPad is only useful for sitting at home on your toilet or lying in bed. This is basically a big iPod touch which I always found to be a useless device anyway and it really is annoying when you are out and about looking for free wireless. Apple releasing this is the biggest con ever and I absolutely 100% implore you not to buy a non 3g Apple iPad. The Wifi version is useless. And if the wifi doesn’t stretch as far as the toilet in your house they are even more useless. Get the 3g version at all costs!

Ebooks Uselss

Sure there is no doubt that the ebooks look snazzy and there have been some great examples of them shown off all over the web but trying to actually read a book on the device is near impossible. Reading just 2 pages of a book will give you the biggest headache you could imagine and I would place a large wager that nobody actually ever reads one full book on this device, not even the Winny The Po book that it comes loaded with. If people think this device is going to save the publishing industry they are sadly mistaken.

I Just Don’t Need This Device

Its real shiny and I love looking through newspapers, videos and food sites on the big shiny screen but even that novelty started to wear off after about a week. I’m on the go all day long and in the second week of owning the device I use it for 5 minutes when I get home from work and for about an hour on a Saturday when reading the Saturday papers. I would use it in bed but the wifi in my aprtment doesn’t reach that far! I might be different to most people in that I spend the evenings working instead of watching television when I would be most likely to play with the iPad so it’s a powerful laptop all the way for me.

Multitasking

I never really used to see what people meant when they were looking for multitasking on the iPhone as I’d just be checking emails and reading the web but without multitasking the iPad is a real pain in the ass to use and that is why I more often than not find myself back on the laptop. We all surf the web in a super fast way now with multiple tabs open. On a laptop I’ll often be watching a video in one tab, while updating Tweetdeck at the same time and writing an email for work but on the iPad I need to do one thing at a time. Some might say having the focus on one task at a time is the way forward but I can tell you for somebody who spends over 14 hours a day on a computer there is nothing more annoying than trying to achieve things really fast on the iPad. It just doesn’t happen.

It’s Not All Bad

I am not going to give up on the iPad immediately. What I do need to do immediately is sell the Wifi version and hope that some hungry fanboy snaps it up because make no mistake, as soon as the 3g version becomes widely available the Wifi version I have becomes 100% obsolete. The 3G version would be at least 5 times more useful and would allow me to work while on the go and I can see some great uses for it but I have to say that for the vast bulk of my computing I will be sticking with a laptop. I think as a leisure device for browsing content and having on the coffee table or for tasks like cooking in the kitchen etc it is certainly useful. The iPad is far more useful than the iPhone but I spend a lot of time on the go and I just can not justify carrying around a laptop which i need for working, an iPhone which I need for making calls and a third device which from what I can tell I need to show shiny videos to clients on. It’s important to remember that this is a first generation device and it will get an awful lot better especially with more apps being built for it but in terms of being a useful device that I can’t live without like my laptop or phone I am really not sold. I left my iPad at home today for the first time and I can see it starting to gather a lot of dust in the future.

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