the Apple iPad

[Clanwolfer]

Ha! Saturday delivery at 9:10 AM! All you people who stood in line at an Apple Store for hours suck!   

[JCC]

Sorry to slightly derail the thread... Does anyone know if the Netflix app works (or ever will work) for the iPod Touch/iPhone?

[JCC]

Sorry to slightly derail the thread... Does anyone know if the Netflix app works (or ever will work) for the iPod Touch/iPhone?

Found my own answer.

I hope they'll do an Android app eventually too.

[CeeKay]

Sorry to slightly derail the thread... Does anyone know if the Netflix app works (or ever will work) for the iPod Touch/iPhone?

Found my own answer.

Netflix available to me while I'm at work... that could be bad 

[DarkEL]

Lucky.... 9:45am and still waiting for mine... 

[The Grue]

Ha! Saturday delivery at 9:10 AM! All you people who stood in line at an Apple Store for hours suck!   

No impressions?

[Clanwolfer]

Lucky.... 9:45am and still waiting for mine... 

Typing isn't bad at all on this thing.  GT forum formatting is a little off though (background stuff, nothing major).

[Clanwolfer]

Ha! Saturday delivery at 9:10 AM! All you people who stood in line at an Apple Store for hours suck!   

No impressions?

Still playing with it.  Posting from it now in fact. 

Quick hits:
Hardware is solid. Great screen and it feels much faster than the phones, even the 3GS.

Safari and Mail are hugely improved by added screen real estate.  I can see iPad mail as a serious, work-ready replacement to the 2nd laptop or net book I usually run at my desk for email.

Pixel doubled iPhone apps are a mixed bag. Byline sucks, and text in general looks bad. We Rule looks good but has a bug where building won't work. Other apps are okay though.

Native apps:
Netflix: Hell. Fucking. Yes. This is a system seller right here.
ABC: Meh. App is great, video looks good, just no shows I follow there.
Pandora is much more usable, but no background running cuts down on real usefulness.
Implode XL is fantastic.
Air Hockey is good but the framerate is a little low. Sure they'll fix it but I'll wait for that.
IBooks and Kindle - first impressions both good but I need more real reading time to review.
TweetDeck looks fantastic with the extra screen space.
Evernote is hugely improved.
Labyrinth 2 is still ridiculous fun.
NYTimes is very promising but again I need more serious read time.
     

[Clanwolfer]

Maps on the full screen is also a big winner. If they add turn by turn and voice to it, Garmin and Co want to start worrying.

[The Grue]

Maps on the full screen is also a big winner. If they add turn by turn and voice to it, Garmin and Co want to start worrying.

There's no GPS in the thing, though, right?

Edit - Turns out that it can guide you based either on WiFi hotspots or cell towers (for the 3G model).  I wouldn't want to rely on those for directions.

[Clanwolfer]

Dragon dictation seems to work fine as well.  I might just speak to the forums now instead of typing.

[Clanwolfer]

Maps on the full screen is also a big winner. If they add turn by turn and voice to it, Garmin and Co want to start worrying.

There's no GPS in the thing, though, right?

There sure is. Had me down to the correct block in seconds.

[leo8877]

Maps on the full screen is also a big winner. If they add turn by turn and voice to it, Garmin and Co want to start worrying.

There's no GPS in the thing, though, right?

There sure is. Had me down to the correct block in seconds.

All of the reviews are saying there's no GPS in the non-3G versions.

[Clanwolfer]

Maps on the full screen is also a big winner. If they add turn by turn and voice to it, Garmin and Co want to start worrying.

There's no GPS in the thing, though, right?

There sure is. Had me down to the correct block in seconds.

All of the reviews are saying there's no GPS in the non-3G versions.

You may be right - it could be using my IP. Let me try without WiFi on.

Edit: Ah-hah, you're right - it uses the WiFi (though to a surprising degree of accuracy) - when I turn the connection off, the little pulsating 'GPS dot' turns gray.  They just used the same visual style as the iPhone for the GPS location, so I assumed.  Still, the 3G one should have it, so I stand by my original point that this thing, once it has a real GPS chip, will be a serious competitor to a dedicated GPS.

[CeeKay]

Maps on the full screen is also a big winner. If they add turn by turn and voice to it, Garmin and Co want to start worrying.

There's no GPS in the thing, though, right?

There sure is. Had me down to the correct block in seconds.

All of the reviews are saying there's no GPS in the non-3G versions.

sounds just like the iPhone, no real GPS in the first gen but once you get to the 3G versions it's there.

[Clanwolfer]

I also can't emphasize enough how damn good this screen looks.  If you play with one at an Apple store, try the 'water droplets' background.

Tried USA Today app and it's pretty good - though I pretty much only read the NYT so I'll stick with that app mostly.

[The Grue]

I think I have finally broken down and decided I want one, but I think I want to go with the 3G as I would rather pay $30 a month and have Internet in most places I go, rather than be restricted to just WiFi, which I find is actually hard to track down.

[msduncan]

I am so angry right now.   I ordered in the first damn minute it was available.   I was one of the first shipments out of China.    I've been sitting in Kentucky since Tuesday....and yet today I got NO MOVEMENT... NO NOTHING.   It's still freakin sitting in Kentucky.     I would have gone and lined up at the damn store if I had thought that SUCKAGE UPS would be incompetent enough to not get my package delivered today.
 

[CeeKay]

and yet today I got NO MOVEMENT... NO NOTHING.

there's pills you can get for that 

[wonderpug]

How are UI animations with the bigger screen size?  Sliding pages left and right, and zooming into and out of apps still look as smooth as the iPhone?

[Zero]

I am so angry right now.   I ordered in the first damn minute it was available.   I was one of the first shipments out of China.    I've been sitting in Kentucky since Tuesday....and yet today I got NO MOVEMENT... NO NOTHING.   It's still freakin sitting in Kentucky.     I would have gone and lined up at the damn store if I had thought that SUCKAGE UPS would be incompetent enough to not get my package delivered today.
 

I have one sitting in Kentucky and a few hours ago turned to out for delivery to Redmond WA....the other one per UPS said it was in China, and then about 3 hours ago all of the sudden said out for delivery to Phoenix AZ.  I was cursing UPS...but if I get them today...I will thank Apple, not UPS

Don't lose hope yet.

[DarkEL]

I am so angry right now.   I ordered in the first damn minute it was available.   I was one of the first shipments out of China.    I've been sitting in Kentucky since Tuesday....and yet today I got NO MOVEMENT... NO NOTHING.   It's still freakin sitting in Kentucky.     I would have gone and lined up at the damn store if I had thought that SUCKAGE UPS would be incompetent enough to not get my package delivered today.
 

I have one sitting in Kentucky and a few hours ago turned to out for delivery to Redmond WA....the other one per UPS said it was in China, and then about 3 hours ago all of the sudden said out for delivery to Phoenix AZ.  I was cursing UPS...but if I get them today...I will thank Apple, not UPS

Don't lose hope yet.

Agreed. I've seen the weirdest UPS updates ever while tracking mine but it just arrived about 20 minutes ago..

Still waiting for this first sync to finish before I start using it though..

[Clanwolfer]

How are UI animations with the bigger screen size?  Sliding pages left and right, and zooming into and out of apps still look as smooth as the iPhone?

Smoother, actually - I can't tell 100% if it's just the shiny-new-toy-ness, the fact that it has a desktop background, or what, but the overall UI is incredibly slick.  Smooth animations except for a couple of third-party apps that have had framerate problems in the past.

I mentioned it in the games thread, but the Plants vs. Zombies pricing is insane. I played the iPhone version doubled up for about ten minutes - it looks damn good on the iPad screen, and they'd have to be adding a hell of a lot of content to make anything more than a couple of bucks for the higher-res art seem reasonable.  I'm chalking that up to the iPad store being new and the devs experimenting with price points.

[Clanwolfer]

I will also say this - forums look GOOD on the iPad, though some of the dark themes have background glitches. The iPhone was always just a BIT too narrow to do OO or GT to my satisfaction - but portrait mode on iPad is fantastic.

[Clanwolfer]

Another nice little feature I hadn't seen before - you have the option to set your lock screen image and your desktop background separately (though it doesn't look like you can do a diff. background for each of your app pages yet).

[msduncan]

Some guy in my town had the same status problem that I did, but his just showed up.    My faith is restored and I'm waiting with hope again.

[msduncan]

My official iPad case just arrived via FedEx.     

Now if I only had something to put inside it.....

[Devil]

Got it and so far, it works as expected.

Netflix streaming is GREAT!

[Nth Power]

Exciting to hear the good impressions!  It's going to be a long month waiting for the 3G version...

[Vidiot]

Got to the Apple Store around 930, waiting in the reservation like for <10 minutes.  The other line was pretty long, but it was moving.  Local news was interviewing people for a fluff piece.  Played around for a minute and then picked up my 32GB.  They kept asking me "What are you going to use it for?"  I wanted to ask if they were trying to talk me out of it, instead I just said "uhh web and stuff.. yeah apps too."  Somehow got out of the store without the whole place cheering for me like they were for most people.

It is now syncing, photos are taking a while to convert.  I had to kick the fans on high on my poor MBP, the cpu was up to 172F.

[Vidiot]

Hmm typing on this thing isn't nearly as bad as I feared. I definitely wouldn't want to use it for real productivity though.

[leo8877]

I thought there'd be more buzz here today...are you guys not impressed with your devices?  I don't have one, I just thought the thread would be off the charts today.

[Vidiot]

Too busy playing with it. It is like when no one talks at dinner.

[Clanwolfer]

I thought there'd be more buzz here today...are you guys not impressed with your devices?  I don't have one, I just thought the thread would be off the charts today.

Yeah, pretty much busy screwing around with it. Netflix on demand on this thing is just wicked.

[Daehawk]

I still think this April's fool would be a great idea

[CeeKay]

I thought there'd be more buzz here today...are you guys not impressed with your devices?  I don't have one, I just thought the thread would be off the charts today.

they may say it ok, but u bet they're busy crying in disappointment 

[SkyLander]

I thought there'd be more buzz here today...are you guys not impressed with your devices?  I don't have one, I just thought the thread would be off the charts today.

they may say it ok, but u bet they're busy crying in disappointment 

I played with it in the Apple store. Typing kind of felt weird but it is something you could get used to. It felt like a big iPhone to me. Besides the office stuff I didn't really see anything that my iPhone couldn't already do. I did feel they wasted a shitload of space sticking with just icons on the front I really don't understand why we couldn't have widgets or something on the front. RSS feed type things and have the bottom or half of the screen used for launching apps. It's bigger this shouldn't have the restrictions of the iPhone.

[ravenvii]

I thought there'd be more buzz here today...are you guys not impressed with your devices?  I don't have one, I just thought the thread would be off the charts today.

they may say it ok, but u bet they're busy crying in disappointment 

I played with it in the Apple store. Typing kind of felt weird but it is something you could get used to. It felt like a big iPhone to me. Besides the office stuff I didn't really see anything that my iPhone couldn't already do. I did feel they wasted a shitload of space sticking with just icons on the front I really don't understand why we couldn't have widgets or something on the front. RSS feed type things and have the bottom or half of the screen used for launching apps. It's bigger this shouldn't have the restrictions of the iPhone.

I agree, but to be fair, this is only version 3.2. I have a feeling they just updated OS 3.0 slightly so it works with the iPad. The really good stuff will come with 4.0.

[ravenvii]

I just tried the Marvel app. It's amazing. How it handles comics is just perfect.

Too bad I'm not too big a fan of Marvel properties. I really hope Dark Horse and Image Comics will do an app!

[CeeKay]

I just tried the Marvel app. It's amazing. How it handles comics is just perfect.

Too bad I'm not too big a fan of Marvel properties. I really hope Dark Horse and Image Comics will do an app!

add in DC and that'll be a big reason for me to get an iPad; it's not like I collect them for value anyways.