Why I Love my iPad

Two months ago, I didn't have an iPad.

Two months ago, I didn't know I couldn't live without one.

That's a picture of my iPad on the left there.  It has an orange cover because ING Direct Bank (where I'm a director) gave all their directors an iPad for receiving board information and of course ING Direct's colour is orange.  I had been planning to buy one the next day, so this was a very welcome suprise.  And the content management system we're using for board material is definitely a winner.

The stimulus for me to finally buy an iPad was an upcoming five-week trip to India: I wanted to stay in touch and I wanted to store the thousands of photos I expected to take there, but I didn't want to lug around my regular laptop.  It felt like the right time to join the iPad tribe!

The iPad delivered everything I'd hoped for and more. In fact, I'm smitten. Let me take a note from Elizabeth Barret's famous sonnet "How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways".  I'll list things that thrill me about my iPad.  It's hard to put these in order, because they are all important to me.

1. The iPad screen is absolutely gorgeous.  The picture displays are vibrant.  After I transferred my photos to my computer for storage and manipulation, it really brought home just how great the iPad screen is.  Compared to the iPad, the photos looked washed out on my computer.  They all looked in need of a bit of Photoshop juice to spike the brightness and colour.  
2. The touch screen is, of course, totally addictive.  In a previous post, I described how much I like the Kindle.  I find myself touching the Kindle screen these days in the futile hope that it will respond to my fingers! I heard an anecdote about a young child of three who was fiddling on his father's computer.  When he touched the screen, nothing happened.  "Daddy, this computer is broken".  This device is forming the expectations of this new generation.  It won't be many years before the mouse will look as antiquated as the old DOS command line, or a rotary dial phone.
3. The iPad's size is marvellous.  It fits in my purse.  It's always there for doing practical things like taking notes, or indulging in games.  I might feel this way about an iPhone, but I'm too cheap to pay the data charges - it's nice to be able to do everything on WiFi.
4. The iPad turns on instantly!  On my laptop, I turn it on when I come downstairs in the morning.  Then I go and make my breakfast while it chugs along getting started.  Halfway through my preparations, I go and click on the browser to bring it up.  When I've finished making my breakfast, everything is (finally) ready for me.  As I become accustomed (or addicted) to my iPad, this clunky behaviour makes me more and more frustrated.
5. I love the apps.  I've always been devoted to the game Boggle, and I love playing its equivalent Word Seek app.  A couple of my grandchildren are fascinated by this game as well.  Another granddaughter loves the Oven Break game, and my sister-in-law and I are enamoured of friendly Talking Tom Cat.  There's still lots to explore here.
6.  The cunning magnetic foldable cover/stand for the iPad makes me smile every time I use it.  What a clever innovation!

There are a couple of disappointments with my iPad.  There are places in my house where I can't get WiFi connection on the iPad; I do get WiFi on my laptop in those same places.   Cleaerly, there's room for improvement in the WiFi's reception.  And I sure wish the battery lasted longer.  The cord is too short to comfortably use the iPad while it's plugged in.  But these are minor blemishes on a wonderful new companion.