Some first impressions after using the phone for a few hours:

- The display is really amazing. Text is so sharp, I can see all my icons in my folders.

- I don’t have any issues with the reception dropping when using it in my left hand like some of the blogs are reporting. I was able to reproduce the issue intermittently, dropping 1-2 bars. Also no issue with the screen.

- The build quality is excellent. I like the weight of the phone. It feels a lot more polished than the 3GS.

- Background app streaming is working just fine, was able to keep pandora running while checking my emails.

- Phone is very snappy and responsive, probably due to the 512 MB of ram.

- Have not been able to take much pictures or video yet, but I’ll have a review of that separately.

The other constant with camera phone pics is they generally suck.  I looked at the new Sprint EVO’s camera pics and videos the other day and I commented to Pat Sun that was not impressed at all. Camera phones continue to push megapixels over sensor quality which has lead to larger pictures with the same crappy quality. I don’t need to be able to zoom further into crap if the over all image is crap to begin with. That’s why Steve Jobs hit it on the head today with the new 5MP camera phone built into the iPhone 4.  This sample pic from the Apple iPhone page made me say wow.   Supposedly the picture is straight out of the iPhone 4 with no editing.  They didn’t go for more megapixels, they went for a higher quality sensor.  Finally, someone got it right and the whole world will see camera phone pictures in a better light.

Image Source:  Apple.com iPhone 4 Gallery

Pre-launch

I have to admit, before the iPad announcement I was pretty excited about the possibilities of an Apple Tablet.  After the iPad announcement, my excitement was a bit tempered.  I wasn’t sure Apple had delivered the goods with their first foray into the tablet market.  But after reading a few initial hands on reviews, I was cautiously optimistic.  Going into launch day, I had decided I would buy it, use it for a few weeks, then if I didn’t find it useful I would resell it. I can tell you now that I’m not going to get rid of this thing any time soon.

Day to Day Use

For the past few days at home, I’ve been exclusively using the iPad and leaving my laptop tethered to my monitor in my room. The iPad really works in the home environment because you can quick access to your email, web, or apps while you’re doing other things in the house. While I was prepping some chicken thighs for roasting the other day, I was able use the epicurious app to look a baking temperature and time frame in order to cook the chicken through. Using it on the couch while watching TV is a particularly enjoyable experience as you can pick it up at any point and look up the TV Guide on the Yahoo! Entertainment app or just surf the web during commercials.

The web browsing experience is phenomenal on the iPad. When I heard Steve Jobs talking about how great it was to have the “internet in your hands” I thought it was a bunch of BS. You really don’t understand this point until you try it for yourself. The device is a bit slower rendering the whole webpage than a Macbook Pro but the responsiveness of the zooming and scrolling is amazing. You maybe browsing the same websites as you do on a laptop but the experience is markedly different.

Now you might argue that a laptop can do all these things and more. The one advantage the iPad has over netbooks and laptops is the instant on that you get from it coupled with the battery life. There really is no reason to worry about your battery life on the iPad on a day to day basis. One charge will last you 12 hours so you never need to plug it in during the day. Just set it to charge each night and you don’t need to worry. The instant on allows you to do quick look ups of information and turn it quickly back off.

The Apps

As good as the hardware and the iPad interface is, we all know it’s all about the apps. The development of 3rd party apps is really what’s going to drive the innovation on the iPad and give it uses that Apple never could have thought of on their own. On that note, these are a few of the apps that I’ve found myself using on a regular basis.

Netflix – The netflix instant streaming function has really increased the value of a netflix account. With that comes the netflix app which allows you to watch movies and tv shows that netflix has on instant streaming. I’ve been watching 30 Rock and documentaries.

New York Times – This app has gotten the most “Wow” reactions from friends. Not because it’s flashy, but because it reproduces the look and feel of the print version so well. Everytime I load this app I feel rewarded. The photos coupled with the great articles just make the experience immersive.

TweetDeck – They still need to work out some kinks in this app but they’ve done a good job incorporating the iPad UI and functionality into this twitter client.

Kindle – I had already invested in a few Kindle books before the iPad came out so I’ve continued using it over the iBooks application that Apple released. This may change as companies learn how to fully leverage the iBooks app with color and interactive books. But for now, the Kindle app is a must. I’ve already read more books in the past few weeks on the iPad than I have in the past 2 years.

AirVideo – Since I have a lot of videos that I’ve made over the years, not all of them can fit on my 16 GB iPad. AirVideo fixes this problem quite elegantly. I can now stream my videos and movies over the network from my laptop to my iPad.

The Games

It’s nice to be able to kick back and play a few games on the iPad after a long day at work. People whine about the exclusion of flash in the iPad but I really view flash viable for a few things: advertisements, video and games. The exclusion of ads on your web browsing experience is like having a free ad blocker. Many video sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, CNN, and ESPN have moved over to HTML5 so you can view their content on an iPad. And finally for games you have an even better experience by downloading them straight to the iPad. Here’s a few that I particularly enjoy.

Words With Friends HD – I really don’t understand why the scrabble app didn’t pick up this much steam, maybe because of the initial free, ad supported version of WWF that came out on iPhone and iPod Touch. Regardless, this is fun game that will get you plenty of entertainment.

Geometry Wars Touch – I was pretty obsessed with this game when it came out for Xbox Arcade. The controls are not as precise on the touch but passable. Still gives you multiple modes and hours of play.

Flight Control HD – This was already one of the best games made for iPhone. The iPad version takes it up a notch with multiplayer options and new maps. If you want a similar game but free, look at Harbor Master.

For Work

Lest you think the iPad is just for fun and games, I also bought it to use at work. I regularly have to go out of my office to do help requests. For some requests I may have to assign DHCP static IP address on our DHCP server. Before this would either require me to walk back to my office to assign the IP address, or bring a laptop. The iPad offers a nice solution. I have a Remote Desktop app that allows me to make the necessary changes on the server with out having to go back and forth between my office and theirs. I’m still waiting for Apple to release a ARD app, but VNC is a work around for that right now.

Conclusion

Now after this glowing review you might think that I would say that you have to go out and buy an iPad because it will change your life. I’m actually more of the opinion that the iPad, in it’s current form, is more of a luxury than anywhere close to a necessity. The device itself is great but I don’t believe it’s for everyone. The ultimate goal for Apple is to change this “want” to a “need” and I still think they have a ways to go before that will happen.

For more, take a look at my iPad First Look video

Boot time went from 44 seconds to 38 seconds.  Opening 5 programs at 1 time went from 36 second to 5 seconds.  Opening Aperture 3 went from 28 seconds to 14 seconds.  I’m not sure why boot times didn’t have a huge impact but the major difference is the time in loading applications.  I used to never auto-load apps at login because it’d take so long.  But now I have 5 apps that open at login and it takes about 4 seconds.  Aperture 3 has a much faster response time while editing as well.

As for the DVD drive, they also shipped me a USB enclosure to put my drive in so I can use it when I really need to.  I’ve also enabled Remote Disc on my Macbook Pro so I can use my work iMac to load CDs/DVDs if I need to at work.

So at this point in time, I don’t think SSDs are for everyone.  If you have a laptop and need the storage space and the optical drive, SSDs are still too expensive to replace your one system drive.  I am really looking forward to the future where I can run everything off one SSD and not have to have a separate spinning hard drive for the storage of my user data.  I think it’ll be a few more years til the price of flash memory comes down enough for mainstream adoption to occur.  But if you’re a power user and you want a faster computer, a SSD is probably the best upgrade money can buy at this point in time.

Now that I have the ability to filter through my photos via places in Aperture 3, I’ve compiled some interesting stats.

Total Photos – 31,274
Geotagged Photos – 29,780 (94%)
Geotagged in Texas – 23,754 (63%)
Geotagged in Austin – 18,873 (60%)
Geotagged at UT – 4,806 (15%)
Geotagged at DKR Memorial Stadium – 801 (2.5%)

- I liken the iPad to the 1st Gen iPhone.  If you think back to how the 1st Gen iPhone was and what the 3GS is now, there was a ton of growth both from Apple and from 3rd party developers.  I think the iPad has a ton of room to grow as far as productivity and usability.

- They hit it right on with the price.  $499 entry for this device silenced a lot of the haters.  Usually it’s the innovation and design that drives Apple to sell units but this time it’s going to be the price.

- The iPad won’t replace your computer.  Hell it won’t even replace a laptop.  Unless you own a desktop and have no laptop, I can’t see the iPad replacing my Macbook Pro.  You still have to sync this to a computer to get the full functionality of it.

- The iPad would be amazing for photographers and videographers to bring around to client meetings.  Being able to show your portfolio on this beautiful device would add to the selling of your services.

- I think the hackintosh community will end up making the OS even better for techies to use.  Let the competition begin for who can make the best 3rd party iPad OS.

- The iPad would make a great travel companion.  If you’re going on a trip you can just activate the $30/month 3G plan just for that month then deactivate it when you’re done traveling.  They even offer a SD card reader to dock connector adapter so you can upload your camera’s photos onto your iPad and then onto Flickr.  Probably won’t be able to read RAW files just yet though.

- The Amazon Kindle is in a world of hurt right now.  $260 for a monocrome E-book reader?  Or $499 for something that can do infinitely more.