iPad, week 2: Life is good

Really not much to report from iPad-land. Life is good.

The iPad has basically replaced my smaller Windows laptop. I tote that laptop around the house and use it wherever I need to surf the web. I stopped using it so that I could give the MacBook a fair evaluation... and now that the iPad is here, I don't want to use it. Pretty much everything I used to do on that laptop can be done on the iPad. And the iPad is way smaller, lighter, easier to tote around, easier to type on one-handed or balance on my lap when I'm feeding my baby or putting her to sleep (which is one of the main times I am on a computer for non-work reasons). And it has way better battery life.

Oddly, I've even started using the iPad to read books and magazines -- something that I could do on my laptop, but just didn't/don't. As best I can explain it, there is something more natural about flipping through a book or magazine with my hands (just like I do with the physical version), rather than my mouse. I know it shouldn't matter, but it does.

So, I definitely love the tablet concept. Whether or not the iPad is the best tablet option remains to be seen. There are some things that bug me about it, for sure. I mentioned some in my first post on it.

I've also found that the various screen "gestures," much like the ones on the MacBook's trackpad, are not very easy or intuitive for me. For example, a four-finger swipe is supposed to switch between applications. I have maybe a 25% success rate with it. Sometimes it works perfectly the first time, sometimes I have to do a few swipes before the iPad switches to the next app, sometimes I try it a couple of times and it doesn't work at all and I end up going back to the Home screen to switch to another app.

Speaking of the Home screen, I don't like that apps are scattered all over it in no apparent order. Yes, I can reorder them, but I'd prefer to have them sorted alphabetically to start with, so that I don't have to rearrange things whenever I install a new app. This is annoyance of mine on Windows 8 too, by the way, but there, the saving grace is that I can easily get into the screen where I can search for an app by name (I just have to hit the Windows key and start typing). On the iPad, getting to the search screen requires that awkward three-finger app-switching-swipe gesture that I'm not always able to do successfully.

Of course, no technology is perfect, but I'm still anxiously awaiting the arrival of my Surface RT to see how it stacks up.