iPad first report

[foghat]

Would love to see some pictures of ibooks. Also curious how/if it handles collections.

[leebase]

A repeat of my one first impressions:

Ok, my first impressions of the iPad as a reader.

Stanza and kindle for iphone both loaded on the iPad. So we have our answer as to whether Apple would block other readers. The iPhone apps worked fine, but when you "screen doubled" to fill the screen, the text was fuzzy. To bad, so sad for Stanza. Lexcycle said that no Stanza for the iPad was currently being developed.

However, Kindle for the iPad and the Apple iBook app are available and I downloaded both.

My first reaction was "this hurts my eyes like reading on a computer". I love reading on my iphone and did not get my iPad primarily as a reader. So I was bummed but not dismayed. However, I turned down the brightness and enlarged the font, and found the reading to be much more like reading a book as far as my eyes were concerned. There is glare on the screen that may be a problem depending on the light in the room. I haven't read for hours yet, so I'll get back on that subject.

The iPad has some heft to it. No worse than a hard back book. You'll probably want to find a reading position that doesn't have you holding the device solely in your hands. I read laying down a lot, and just rest the iPad on my belly.

The color in the Winnie the Pooh illustrations was nice. I'm not often reading books with illustrations at all, but certainly the iPad's support of color is a good thing.

I tried the free USA Today, NY Times and Wall Street Journal apps. I loved them all. Very nice for reading. The free Yahoo Entertainment app (kind of like E! Magazine) was nice too. It has a comics section with several of my favorite: Dilbert, Foxtrot, B.C. Since I stopped our subscription to the newspaper some time ago, I've missed my comics. The Yahoo app doesn't let you zoom in on the comics and doesn't fill the screen with them, so that's a bit of a bummer. There's a free Marvel Comics reader but I haven't tried it yet. I'm not much of a comic book reader.

The internet is fast and responsive as well. No flash support, of course, but that's not a big part of my use of the internet. Your mileage may very. For "couch surfing" and "bed surfing" -- the iPad is a huge improvement over the iphone. I would have typed this post from my iPad, but it's not nearly as nice as having a keyboard for writing long posts. Short posts are fine.

I like the Apple app better than the kindle app. It's not THAT much better. I'll probably read my kindle books via the kindle app. Having that whispersync is a great feature for reading the same book on both the iphone and the ipad -- and always being able to pick up where I left off no matter which device I use.

I'm fairly sure that I'll prefer the iPad to physical books -- indoors anyway. I'm not so sure that I'll end up preferring it over my iphone for books of text.

Lee

[MsAstoria]

Originally Posted by leebase

A repeat of my one first impressions:

Ok, my first impressions of the iPad as a reader.

I'm fairly sure that I'll prefer the iPad to physical books -- indoors anyway. I'm not so sure that I'll end up preferring it over my iphone for books of text.

Lee

Thanks, Lee
Can't wait to get my Ipad later on this month since I am purchasing one with 3G. Will be nice to have when we are on the road vacationing this summer in campgrounds and while visiting my Mom where I have NO internet access! I won't mind at all paying for internet at needed instead of a multi year contract with my cell phone server!

Joyce