iPad an Ipad review

[EowynCarter]

sadly, there is absolutely no way you can judge typing on an ipad in a few minutes.. or even a hour.. especially not in a store setting. you have to take it home. get comfortable with it. try it out for days.. weeks. it's learning a whole new keyboard, a new layout, a new arrangement, and obviously a new surface.

Really ? It took me a few minutes to get how to type with my cellphone.... I didn't need a few days to be able to type, of figure out any magic tricks.
I expected the larger iPad screen to make the experience better, ah well...

[scottjl]

never be so quick to judge.. you might miss out on some good things in life..

[EowynCarter]

Did I juged quicky ? Not really. I try. And couldn't even type a message on mobileread.
Hardware's there is pretty good, but the software is missing the something that could make typing on the iPad an enjoyable experience.
Like switching languages. Where is that option ? Somewhere probably.
Why don't the spell cheeking proposes you correction(s), rather than enforce then ?

That's sad, because for the rest, it goes around nicely. I did very few mistypes.

[scottjl]

switching languages is in the settings, which you didn't explore. you can set up multiple keyboards and then switch between them easily.

the spell checker does propose corrections as well.

as i said, you need to spend more than just a few minutes to explore, set-up, and learn before making quick judgments.

[VictoriaP]

Originally Posted by scottjl

sadly, there is absolutely no way you can judge typing on an ipad in a few minutes.. or even a hour.. especially not in a store setting. you have to take it home. get comfortable with it. try it out for days.. weeks. it's learning a whole new keyboard, a new layout, a new arrangement, and obviously a new surface.

anyone who says "i tried it for 5 minutes and i [loved|hated] it!" is just full of crap. i'm not saying you'll reverse your opinion in a week. but it's just not the kind of thing you can judge that quickly. you will learn muscle memory. you will learn shortcuts. you will learn to trust the auto-correction, and the auto-correction will learn your vocabulary. none of that can be accomplished in a few minutes.

Eowyn, I know it sounds odd, but Scott's right on this one. It **seems** like there shouldn't be a learning curve with the iPad keyboard--after all, most of us have been touch typing for our entire adult lives at a minimum--but there really is a pretty dramatic difference between using the virtual keyboard and a regular one. Without direct physical feedback to guide you, it takes a certain amount of eye-hand coordination at first to get the right keys every time. Things like apostrophes will drive you nuts at first, because they're not where you expect them to be. Learning to edit on the touchscreen is an adventure in and of itself, because as you said, it's not necessarily an intuitive process to select a word, line, or paragraph. Using an iPad for more than just consumption means teaching yourself an entirely new way of doing things.

The first week I had mine, I HATED the keyboard. I hemmed and hawed about returning it. By the second week, I used it for surfing, but writing anything longer than a few lines was almost painful. Then I got fast with multi-finger one-handed typing (I still do this a lot with short posts). Eventually, I started forcing myself to use full touch typing, but I still had to watch the keys. Now, a couple of months into it, I can take my eyes off the keys about half the time and hit the right keys without constant mistakes--though it certainly helps to keep the iPad at the same angle each time or I'll find my hands drifting off into typos. LOL

There are still times I will pull out the Bluetooth keyboard even for short stuff, because let's face it, I have almost thirty years of touch typing behind me. With that kind of experience, it's probably always going to be easier to use a real keyboard. But I never expected to be able to use the virtual keyboard as much as I do, and the more practice I get on it, the easier it becomes.

In my experience though, the autocorrect sucks most of the time. I can't decide whether I lose more or less time with it on, because I often have to go back and correct for its mistakes. I can't wait until we can opt to add our own words to the dictionary they're using.

[athlonkmf]

If i'm standing in astore, with a table below my waste, I wouldn't be able to type at half the speed, even if it was my own logitech ergonomic keyboard...

Astor switching languages... Once you know how to do it, it seems os logical, at you wonder why other os don't use the same trick... Just tap the globe on the keyboard....

[kjk]

Originally Posted by athlonkmf

Astor switching languages... Once you know how to do it, it seems os logical, at you wonder why other os don't use the same trick... Just tap the globe on the keyboard....

Right, but you do have to activate another language keyboard in Settings to get the globe...Mine has English and Japanese-very easy to switch.

[scottjl]

right.. which is why i said you need to take some time and explore the settings. something people rarely do when checking out a demo unit in the store. last week when i was with my friend and we briefly looked at the demo ipads, the things were a mess. icons scattered all over, settings a mess, apps full of rubbish. apple would do well to reset them nightly if they don't. also a reason to actually download and browse the user guide. as others have pointed out there's a few tips and tricks in there.

[VictoriaP]

Originally Posted by scottjl

right.. which is why i said you need to take some time and explore the settings. something people rarely do when checking out a demo unit in the store. last week when i was with my friend and we briefly looked at the demo ipads, the things were a mess. icons scattered all over, settings a mess, apps full of rubbish. apple would do well to reset them nightly if they don't. also a reason to actually download and browse the user guide. as others have pointed out there's a few tips and tricks in there.

Heck, some of us don't explore the settings on the iPads we've used for months, never mind a few minutes' demo in the store. My husband was complaining the other day about not having a tab key for moving from one field to the next on a form. He hadn't noticed the Previous and Next buttons on the top left side of the keyboard.

I missed the Undo and Redo buttons myself though, and those are pretty large keys to just not notice.... LOL

Guess I should go read the manual to see what else I've missed!

[scottjl]

i'm pretty good with technology, having used it quite a long time (my first tablet was stone). i do take the time to go through the manuals a few weeks after i've bought the devices and there is usually a few little tidbits i manage to pick up. don't let the size fool you. the iphone manual is scaled to fit on the phone, and the same for the ipad. and there is a lot of white space as well. they really are a breeze to get through in a few hours.

it seems all iOS devices always have a link in safari to their on-line html guides, but here are links to the PDF manuals:

iPad
iOS 4.0 guide (covers all hardware models)
iOS 3.x guide
iPod Touch 4.0 guide

You can find other manuals at http://support.apple.com/manuals/#

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by VictoriaP

Eowyn, I know it sounds odd, but Scott's right on this one. It **seems** like there shouldn't be a learning curve with the iPad keyboard--after all, most of us have been touch typing for our entire adult lives at a minimum--but there really is a pretty dramatic difference between using the virtual keyboard and a regular one. Without direct physical feedback to guide you, it takes a certain amount of eye-hand coordination at first to get the right keys every time. Things like apostrophes will drive you nuts at first, because they're not where you expect them to be. Learning to edit on the touchscreen is an adventure in and of itself, because as you said, it's not necessarily an intuitive process to select a word, line, or paragraph. Using an iPad for more than just consumption means teaching yourself an entirely new way of doing things.

The first week I had mine, I HATED the keyboard. I hemmed and hawed about returning it. By the second week, I used it for surfing, but writing anything longer than a few lines was almost painful. Then I got fast with multi-finger one-handed typing (I still do this a lot with short posts). Eventually, I started forcing myself to use full touch typing, but I still had to watch the keys. Now, a couple of months into it, I can take my eyes off the keys about half the time and hit the right keys without constant mistakes--though it certainly helps to keep the iPad at the same angle each time or I'll find my hands drifting off into typos. LOL

There are still times I will pull out the Bluetooth keyboard even for short stuff, because let's face it, I have almost thirty years of touch typing behind me. With that kind of experience, it's probably always going to be easier to use a real keyboard. But I never expected to be able to use the virtual keyboard as much as I do, and the more practice I get on it, the easier it becomes.

In my experience though, the autocorrect sucks most of the time. I can't decide whether I lose more or less time with it on, because I often have to go back and correct for its mistakes. I can't wait until we can opt to add our own words to the dictionary they're using.

I totally agree, autocorrection sucks big time (kind of glad to hear, that it's not an issue with German, but in other languages as well).
What I really don't get (didn't get it on iPhone either): Why doesn't the unit learn? Why doesn't it build a user dictionary over time? It permanently suggests the very same nonsense corrections.
And why aren't there any abbreviations? On Pocket PCs (8 years ago!) for example I could define "mgm" and and some touch combo (for example a circle around the text) and Windows CE automatically did insert my name, my address or whatever I've defined.
BlackBerry can do similar.
That's why I still find it laughable, to call iPhone a "BlackBerry Killer".
In general, I find iPad and iPhone seriously lacking "professional toolsets".
A shame, as both in other areas really are great...

[kjk]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

I totally agree, autocorrection sucks big time (kind of glad to hear, that it's not an issue with German, but in other languages as well).
What I really don't get (didn't get it on iPhone either): Why doesn't the unit learn? Why doesn't it build a user dictionary over time?

I'm pretty sure it does learn, just not in every app. I often SMS my wife which train station I'm at, and by now it recognizes the station names before I finish. I'm assuming Apple didn't program in those.

And in fact, this has been tested in the past: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...-new-words.ars

I've not had major issues with auto-correct except when I type japanese words in romaji occasionally.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by kjk

I'm pretty sure it does learn, just not in every app. I often SMS my wife which train station I'm at, and by now it recognizes the station names before I finish. I'm assuming Apple didn't program in those.

And in fact, this has been tested in the past: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...-new-words.ars

I've not had major issues with auto-correct except when I type japanese words in romaji occasionally.

Interesting.
At least in the Mail application, I don't see any learning curve.
Just out of curiosity did a simple experiment.
Wrote a word. iPad did make the correct suggestion. I've manually overruled that suggestion. Next time, it did make the very same suggestion as for the first time (in this case I'm glad, else I'd have a wrong entry in the user dictionary, which I can't correct).

[scottjl]

it does learn. it just doesn't learn it the first time you type in a word. there was a way to add words as well with one of the developer tools. i don't think you can any longer though, been a while since i've looked at the developer tools. you can clear out the custom dictionary by going to settings>general>reset>reset keyboard dictionary

the dictionary is used across all apps that use the keyboard.

from the iOS 4 user's guide (page 168) "You add words to the keyboard dictionary by rejecting words iPhone suggests as you type. Tap a word to reject the correction and add the word to the keyboard dictionary."

personally i've found the auto-correct useful, but i guess it depends on your use and what it's correcting. i believe it will not correct any word that starts with a capital letter (thinking it is a proper noun) or number. it will auto-correct some common mistakes like hte -> the but other words need to be tapped or picked out of a list. auto-correct behavior is a little different from 3.x to 4.x as well.

[TimMason]

Whole new way to enter data : lying on your back in a hammock, holding the pad above your head and typing with your two thumbs. It's still quicker than writing by hand.