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Life with the iPad has gone really, really well. Performance is great, size is great, screen is really nice, the lack of Flash hasn’t hurt me at all…and then it happened. We started researching new cars and for the first time since owning the iPad and it became very difficult to do without Flash.

I get it, I’ve been an OS X user for 8 or 9 years now and I know what the Flash player can do. The CPU goes up, the fans kick in, and the performance goes down. I’ve been there many times. But even if the world decided to make html5 a killer Flash replacement it would not change over night. I would like to make the decision on running Flash or not. It ends up that I do want the “complete” web experience and good or bad, Flash is a part of that.

It’s a shame that Apple didn’t take the approach or working with Adobe to improve the Flash experience instead of an outright ban. Maybe all of that past Windows preference by Adobe had something to do with it. Steve has made his position clear I guess, but tonight was the first time that i had to use something other than my iPad to use the web and that is unfortunate.

So here we are, a little more than a month after the release of the wifi iPad models and it’s still going strong for me. Since the release on 4/3 I have tried to use the iPad for my only computer at home and I’ve been (mostly) successful. After using the iPad exclusively for a couple of weeks I handed my MacBook Pro over to my wife and I haven’t had any regrets. Whether the iPad will work exclusively for you is an individual decision, but I thought I would post some of the things that work well, and some that need a little more work.  One thing that really surprised me – I apparently need Flash a lot less than I thought I did.  I don’t think I have run in to a single issue in the past month where the lack of Flash has caused me a problem.

The good:

• The battery life is amazing
• The size and weight work out really well
• The screen is beautiful, sharp, and bright
• The on screen keyboard is way better than I better than I expected
• Apps written for the iPad look very nice

The other:

• No wireless sync, so you have to activate and occasionally connect to a computer.  This is why I said “mostly” above.  You still need a computer to activate.
• The screen is a magnet for finger prints. The good news is you only see them when the screen is off or dark.
• iBooks has set the standard for how to turn a page. Now go make that work for the built in calendar and contacts applications. All developers should implement this, I don’t want to hit a next button to turn a page again.
• No alarm. I know, I complained about this before, but it really makes no sense that this is not included with this thing. I know there are third party alarms available, but you have to have them running (which I do) but if that alarm app crashes for unknown reasons overnight you are going to be late for work. Trust me, I speak from experience on this one.
• I still want a customizable home screen so that I can display a clock with an alarm, the current weather, the forecast, and maybe a news feed or 2. Call it nightstand mode.  Is that so much to ask?

Overall I do enjoy using the iPad. As someone who has been in the IT field for almost 26 years I did not think this was going to work for me. But I was wrong and the iPad has worked out just fine. But, and here is the important part, I still ace access to another computer if i need to access a little heavier lifting, like Skype. Other than that I am full time iPad. I think my next move is the 3G model so I can stop using the Verizon mifi when away from wifi, but you can’t find one anywhere.

It’s funny, but giving my MacBook Pro to my wife was a huge upgrade from her older G4 PowerBook, so she was immediately happy with the additional performance. But guess what she reaches for when she wants to use a computer? Correct, the same thing my youngest daughter reaches for, my iPad. I think the wireless thin client – I mean, the wireless tablet – I mean, the wireless iPad, could push the whole “home server” market a little further, but the safer bet is probably that the iPad makes for an excellent thin client for cloud computer.

You have to give Apple credit for one thing at least – they certainly know how to get press coverage when they want to announce something.  I won’t get in to all of the specs since you can go read about them here, but I have been asked about the iPad enough that I thought I would just put together a quick post with some of my thoughts.

For all of you uber-geeks out there this may not be for you.  You wanted power – lot’s of power – in a small package.  You wanted something like a MacBook Pro screen without the rest of the computer.  You probably wanted it to run OS X.  You wanted full support for Flash.  You wanted a camera in the front for video conferencing and a camera on the back so that you could take pictures.  You wanted GPS.  You wanted an OLED screen.  You wanted multitasking.  You probably expected all of this with 4+ hours of battery life.  AT&T?!  Are you kidding me?  No wonder you are so upset about this thing.  And what’s with the name?  Even my wife thinks this thing is stupid.

But there is a different demographic that Apple is aware of and they don’t care about most of that stuff.  They love what their iPod Touch can do and they just wish it had a larger screen.  Maybe they would have liked to have the Touch but the screen was just too small (trust me, hit 40 and reading small screens starts to get interesting).  They would be happy reading their “newspaper” online with this thing.  eBooks?  Sure, why not?  It’s not open like Android.  They don’t care.  Truly they don’t.  They don’t understand vendor lock-in and they really don’t care as long as it does the things that they want it to do.

I think of it kind of like the Nintendo Wii.  The Wii is the least powerful game console out there.  The XBox 360 and the PS3 just crush the Wii’s hardware specs.  The XBox 360 and the PS3 are both capable of doing much more than just games, yet somehow the Wii just keeps chugging along and is one of the most popular game consoles around.  I know a ton of people that have one.  But the serious gamers I know have the XBox 360, PS3, or use a Windows PC.  The Wii is accessible and easily used by the masses.  The interface and controller require very little thought – you can just pick up the controller and play most games.

Personally, I fit more in to the geek category than the non-geek category but I am sure that I will buy one.  I’ll buy it because I love technology and like to think that I occasionally understand where things are headed – and I don’t think this is such a bad product at all.  Just like the iPhone and iTunes before it, the apps and the acceptance will come.  I’m even dumb enough to think that we could still see some changes to it for the launch.  Maybe that camera will show up as well as a new version of the OS that will allow multitasking.  Remember, this is Apple’s chip in this thing so we really don’t know what it can, and cannot do yet.

I’m certainly not right all of the time, and many of the smartest people on the Internet (as well as my wife) seem to think that this one falls short, but I still believe that the iPad will do very well.  I would be surprised if Apple sells less than 2-3 million of them by the end of this year.  And maybe, just maybe, as technology continues to advance and costs come down, Apple will give us some of those MacBook components in a tablet form – including the OS.  Until then, I can see no reason why they would be willing to cannibalize their laptop sales by giving us everything that we really wanted in a tablet.

The iPad is the iPod Touch for an entire generation that has a lot of disposable income and needs reading glasses.  You already know them because they raised you as children and are now showing up on Facebook in droves.

UPDATE: I had a couple additional thoughts and received some thoughts from others that I will add to the bottom of this post.  Thanks to all that have responded to this post.

I’ll set a few of the basics here in the beginning: I have an iPhone 3G (not 3Gs) with over 120 apps of which I probably use 15-20 or so often. I love the thing and use it probably 90% of the time and use my laptop the other 10%.

Right now I have 2 different phones in front of me; the iPhone 3G for personal use, and the Droid that I am testing for work. You definitely don’t have to love Apple or even like them a little, but without the iPhone I doubt we would have seen anything like the Droid for a long time. The Blackberry Curve would still be one of the sexiest phones out there, and that’s not saying much.

Google has really done a nice job with the Android 2.0 operating system. I never used any of the earlier versions, but the Droid comes with 2.0 and I am really impressed. If there is anything that I am not too impressed with when it comes to the Droid it is the hardware itself. Maybe I am just spoiled by (or really used to) the way the iPhone feels when you hold it, but the Droid it a little to square for my taste. I would like to see rounder edges, like the iPhone, but that it just me. I am also not a fan of the slide out keyboard, which is probably what most of you will end up liking the Droid for. I get spoiled by the on screen keyboard on the iPhone and the on screen Droid keyboard works just as well in my opinion. If anything, I found that I made more typos on the on screen Droid keyboard, but the Droid does a better job of suggesting words as you type. I am sure that I would get better with it as I spent more time with it. So Google operating system = excellent, Motorola hardware, stuck in the past.

As an iPhone user you never think that there is anything wrong with the screen – it is beautiful – until you put it next to the Droid. The screen on the Droid is higher resolution and the text is really smooth. Once you see the Droid you realize that Apple really needs to move to a better screen in their next gen phone. The Droid also had better sound to me than the iPhone. I have always felt that the built in speakers on the iPhone were weak and the Droid just basically solidified that for me. Neither are fantastic but the Droid sounds much better to me.

The Droid’s camera is 5MP and the iPhone 3G is something like 2MP I think. Since my 3G doesn’t have the autofocus capabilities of the newer 3Gs it is probably not a fair fight, but the camera on the Droid took decent pictures for me when I tried it out. They still don’t seem as nice as the ones from my cheap Canon camera, but they were not too bad. Oh, and the Droid’s camera has a flash as well, so you can take a picture in your pitch black walk in closet and have it turn out like it was taken during the middle of the day with the sun sining. Really impressive.

The Droid comes with a free navigation app that I used over the weekend. It worked fine. I even took a few wrong turns to see how it would react and the Droid recalculated the route quickly and talked me through the route with turn by turn spoken directions. Not as nice of an app as my Garmin but if I didn’t already have the Garmin I would not have a need for one after getting the Droid.

Unfortunately I will not be able to recommend the Droid for work as it does not fully support the Microsoft ActiveSync protocol to connect securely to our Exchange environment, but that was pretty much one of the only negatives that I could find. Remember, the Droid runs version 2.0 so I would expect that we will see some updates addressing the bugs pretty soon. I have heard 12/11 could be one such software update. Oh, and this thing has more ringtones than any other phone that I have used. It was also extremely easy to make any of my music a ringtone as well. Play the song and hit the button to make it your ringtone. Done.

But the strength of the iPhone is its ecosystem – the app store being a huge part of it. “There is an app for that.” Well, the iTunes App Store has over 100,000 apps now, but let’s be honest, how many are actually any good, or useful? For the consumer that is in to the social media thing, they care about a good phone with email, calendar, IM, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Well, a quick look through the Android Market place, which is just a button on the Droid interface, and I found free apps for everything that I just listed and way more. Even found a really nice barcode reader (Shopsavvy) that scanned barcodes and told me where to find the item the cheapest online or near where I was. Location based services is the future baby.

Google has really done a great job with the operating system and Verizon has always been a pretty strong network. I found that the Droid was really quick on the internet using the Verizon EVDO (3G) network and the Droid was able to take advantage of the WiFi in my house for testing as well. I found that the battery life was a little lower than I would like, but some of that may because I can’t put the stupid thing down and I just keep playing with it. Since I have no need for the slide out keyboard I would really like to see an Android 2.0 based device with just an on screen keyboard. That would allow the device to be a little thinner as well. Again, most of you will probably like the slide out keyboard, but the keys were too flat for me – the on screen worked just fine.

So would I recommend the Droid to my friends? Well, let’s look at it like this – the Droid is not an iPhone – I am not going to switch. But, if you have wanted something like an iPhone that has tons of applications, decent sound, WiFi, a beautiful screen, free turn by turn navigation, a real keyboard, is fast, and it runs on the Verizon network – do it. If not the Droid then whatever comes next running Android 2.x. So, yes, I would recommend it to my friends that want to stay with Verizon.

Google is really going to shake up the mobile market. Setting up this phone, since I use gmail, could not have been easier. This should have most of the mobile OS providers more than a little worried. How can a Microsoft or a Nokia sustain their internal development when Google provides something this strong as an open source OS? Does anyone other than Android, Apple, and Blackberry survive?

Additional thoughts:

• One thing I was not able to resolve with the Droid that seemed so simple was that I could not sort my Contacts by last name, first name.  They were always first last.  I prefer them sorted by last name. -1 for Droid.
• The Droid has a removable battery. +1 Droid.
• You can expand the storage on the Droid.  It comes with a 16GB SD memory card but I believe you can use a 32GB card.  +1 Droid.
• Did I even mention the Droid multitasks?  I think this one should get a plus rating but I am sure the tradeoff has to be battery life, so this one will depend on how you choose to use your Droid, but since you at least have the choice I am going to give the Droid +1 here.
• I didn’t even mention the Droid’s default notification sound that goes “Drooooooiiiiiiid.”  I bet it could get old after a while, but I never grew tired of it.  No points for the cool sound though, sorry.
• This one is pure personal preference, but the Blackberry has always had one thing that I wished the iPhone had and now I see that the Droid has it – I wish the iPhone had a LED display somewhere that told you that there was a notification.  The Droid and the Blackberries have a little light in the upper right hand corner that flashes when you have a notification.  Pretty nice when you don’t have your phone with you every second.  The blinking light tells you that you missed something.  I always wanted Apple to “borrow” that one from the Blackberry.  Nice to see that the Droid has taken care of that.

Posted via email from blindsquirrel’s posterous

I’ve been fighting an issue with OS X’s Mail application and it has finally driven us apart. You see, I have a bunch of friends that like to send me email with various jokes in the form of video attachment and the problem is that once I open the email, Mail takes the CPU on my MacBook Pro to the ceiling and the fan kicks in. Eventually the only way to stop it is to force quit Mail and restart it.

But lately even that isn’t taking care of it. I’ve tried rebuilding the mailbox that I use via imap with gmail but that only lasts for a short while. So until I get this one figured out Mail and I are on a break. I have turned to Microsoft Entourage and things seem to be fine. I know many really dislike Entourage, but I’ve had pretty good success with it in the past as I used to use it to connect to an Exchange2003 server with work.

Back to the internets to see if I can find the solution.

The main reason I had a jailbroken iPod Touch is because I really liked the game Five Dice.  Five Dice is an excellent version of the old dice game called Yahtzee.  I was hoping that the developer would bring it to the App store once version 2.0 of the software was out and they came through.

This is not the exact same game that was available for free if you were jailbroken.  This version has a lot more polish and the graphics are very professional.  The game play is very smooth and the little touches of animation are pretty slick.  Another big difference is that the game is no longer free – it costs $3.99.

I’m sure there will be people that enjoyed the jailbroken version complaining about the costs, but I think it is definitely worth the few bucks it costs.  The game is every bit as polished as any other professionally developed game and I see no issue with the developers getting paid for their work. 3.99 – what’s that – a cup of fancy coffee or a pack of cigarettes?

Hopefully they will make a ton of money from this little application and put some of it back in to the game to provide over the air multi player capability.  That would be pretty cool.

If you grew up playing the game Yahtzee you should take a chance and spend the few bucks it costs to try it out.  It’s definitely worth it.

In infrastructure we face outages of systems at any time.  When people can’t get to their applications, data, or email one of the most important things we can do is to communicate openly and honestly with them until the issue is resolved.  People tend to be a little more understanding of the issue if they at least have some idea of what is going on.

Seeing Apple start to communicate on the recent MobileMe issues is a great start and I hope they start to be more open with any system issues they are facing to help keep everyone more current with information.

I realized a mistake I have been making with purchasing applications from the iTunes App store and the iPhone.  I thought it would work like this:

• Purchase an application from iTunes and it would then sync with the phone – check.
• Check for updates to purchased applications with iTunes and have those updated applications sync to the phone – check.
• Purchase an application using the iPhone and have it sync back to iTunes – check.  Well, that’s how I thought it worked once.

Continued from Part 1…

Thankfully I was able to get her phone operational again by holding down the button at the top edge of the phone until it asked me if I wanted to power it off.  I powered it off and back on again and all seemed fine, but I lost just a tiny bit of confidence at that point in time, kind of like when a car has an issue and you never quite trust it again.  It happened to me a few more times that night – some times it would let me power it off and some times I would have to hold that top button and the button on the front at the same time until the phone reset itself.  More recently none of those tricks seemed to work and I had to do the top and front button reset dance numerous times before the phone finally came to life.  That one was really scary.

I am not a stranger to computers and failure.  I am in my 22nd year in infrastructure and see bugs all of the time.  But this one hurt a little somewhere deep inside because, like many, I had fallen in to the fuzzy, happy world where Apple would never, ever make mistakes like this.  And this was just one little piece of the issues that would rock my happy little Apple world and slap me right back in to reality, where you remember that these are things engineered, designed, coded, and tested by humans.  Humans are imperfect and make mistakes, and now the entire world knows that Apple makes them as well – Activation, 2.0, MobileMe,  Welcome to the real world Apple.  That’s a lot of things happening at the same time that should have been avoided.  It will be interesting to see if Apple learns anything from this.  Scaling is hard.  Enterprises are hard.

The 2.0 software and the App store are an amazing example of systems and integration.  But they are not perfect.  I have applications crash on me all the time.  I actually blame Apple for most of these as I don’t believe any application’s crash should be able to take down the phone’s OS, but it sure seems like that happens a lot.  Those apps that just crash back to the icon screen I believe are probably the developer’s issue to resolve, but the rest should sit firmly on Apple’s shoulders.  If you are running applications from the App store I would encourage you to check for any updates daily.  The developers seem to be working hard to get any bugs eliminated and I have seen a ton of updates to applications over the last 2 weeks.

I don’t know if Apple has a beta program for these developers and their testers, but they need to get one in place if it doesn’t exist.  Right now we, the people, are Apple’s beta testers and that would bother me a little less if I hadn’t paid 10 bucks for that privilege on my Touch and if Apple would have just stated that initially.  Let’s be honest, Apple still would have picked up thousands and thousands of people that would be willing to test their software – and probably pay for the privilege.  But, no application crash should ever take down the entire phone.  Period.  

It’s probably a good thing that Apple is out of iPhones all over the country or this could be a bigger black eye than it already is.  It will be interesting to see how many people stay up late at night clicking that Check Now button in iTunes when the next release rolls around.  Apple, we need 2.0.1 or 2.1 or what ever you are going to call it, soon.

What do you think, will you be cautious the next time Apple releases something or will you move ahead as you normally do because it is the next great thing from Apple?