*Okay, relatively PC-free. I was at work, and since there is no app for our Circulation software, it was required that I use our Circulation PCs for library business.

Our library recently acquired an Apple iPad for testing compatibility with our downloadable e-books, audiobooks, and music. This is my review of my experiences thus far with the iPad.



The iPad model we got was the $499 base model, with 16GB of storage and wi-fi connectivity. Since this is for testing usability and compatibility, and we don't want to pay AT&T for another, too-expensive data plan.

The iPad is essentially an over-sized iPod Touch, also an Apple product. Both have touch screens, accelerometers, the iPhone Operating system (iPhone OS) and wi-fi connectivity. For those with failing eyesight (or just can't see as well as you used to), the iPad may well be worth your money, at least more so than an iPod Touch. That being said, there are a few shortcomings that I'll get into in a bit.

For starters, when you take the shiny, new Precious out of the box and attempt to turn it on, you are greeted with a screen that graphically (no words!) tells you that you MUST plug it up to a computer and sync it with iTunes, which you MUST have installed on that computer to even use the iPad. So, if you have an aversion to iTunes and its Digital Restrictions Management scheme, don't buy an iPad.

However, once it's all synced up and registered with Apple, it's a pretty nice device if all you want to do is waste time. Don't get me wrong, it's a great media consumption device, but has very limited use as a productivity device. For starters, the keyboard is my major hangup. I wouldn't dare to attempt to write a blog post with it, because to get to special characters, like %&$*^#, you have to press two extra buttons, and then press another button to get back to the alphabet. It's also frustrating when trying to enter complex passwords on a secure site.

The touch screen on the iPad is excellent, exceeding my expectations, which I must admit were limited to the experiences I've had with credit card readers and cell phones, and the occasional Nintendo DS. The screen is very sensitive, but not so much so that you end up clicking something you don't want to click. Scrolling is very smooth, but does require that you keep consistent pressure while dragging your finger(s). Pinching two fingers together on the screen zooms in and spreading them zooms out, which is very handy in map applications where you might desire a street-level view over a city- or state-wide view. Dragging a single finger left or right across the screen will scroll left or right in an application, or between screens to show different apps.


So now we move on to the media consumption aspect of the iPad. One of the first things that struck me as odd right off the bat is the fact that there is a YouTube app right on the home screen. With all the brouhaha lately between Steve Jobs and Adobe, and the fact that the iPhone OS won't support Flash, I was quite surprised to see that there. Clicking on it takes you out to YouTube, where of course you can watch any non-flash video. The few I looked at were of lower quality but watchable, so until content creators & browser manufacturers get into supporting the new HTML5 video codecs, this loss of quality will be the norm rather than the exception. I must also add here that there are apps that will take you to sites that will play high-definition video, but again, those videos are not flash-based.


Now on to the apps. Some of these apps are great, others, not so much. Since the iPad shares the iPhone OS with the iPhone, it is only natural for the developers to port iPhone apps to the iPad. Therein lies a major problem with those apps: they were created and optimized for the 3.5" (diagonal) screen on the iPhone. When in standard '1x' mode, the app looks just like it would on an iPhone, complete with the border, look and feel of being on an iPhone. When you push the 2x button in the lower right corner, you get a low-res, pixelated mess. Now, the developers did provide a feature called "scaling up," but the net effect is to downgrade the experience to the point that you feel like you are back in the 8-bit graphics days -- fuzzy, pixelated graphics & text like those seen here in the game World Class Track Meet.

The text is grainy and difficult to look at for very long, and any graphics are very low-res, looking very much like the picture above. For a device with the ability to render high-quality graphics and HD Video, I expected a much better experience.

I'm testing this iPad for use in our library, so I have to look at it as both an end-user and a system administrator. As an end-user, all I can say is I want one bad enough to have to wipe the drool off my chin. As a system administrator, however, it is a total nightmare. Since it is so new to the market, there are no apps for locking the machine down. Maybe I'm a little old-skool, but this device does have the ability to log on to a network, and it has no means of keeping a user from changing the device's settings, something that could prove troublesome in the event of theft. Hey Steve, how about giving us sysadmins some love?

That being said, there are apps you can use to control what media is stored on the iPad, but what good is that if you can't stop a user from changing the settings and/or deleting media and apps from the iPad? Additionally, since there are no external data ports to hook up an external hard drive, there's no way to re-image an iPad like you can with a standard PC or laptop. If there are any libraries out there using the iPad already, I'd love to hear from you and discuss what steps you've taken to secure your iPads, media and apps.

In conclusion, I'd have to say that I wouldn't want one for anything but traveling on vacation, where I'd have to do a minimum of typing. For that reason, I can't justify spending the money on one personally, even for the base model. I like a device that can multi-task, something else the iPad can't do, and has a keyboard that I can use without having to press six buttons to type one character. Am I old for wanting this? Yes, I guess I am, but I like what I like, and I can spend $500 on a fully-functional netbook or laptop, and run Linux or (gasp!) Windows.

So if you are in the market for a very nice, time-wasting video device, e-reader, or basic game platform, and have the money to spend, get an iPad. If you have to manage content and/or user access, need a keyboard that is easy to use, or simply don't like iTunes, don't get an iPad. The choice is really up to you, and you will really want to think about your intended use before you make that choice.