Playing with the iPad 2

So, I've had my iPad 2 for about a week now.

I know a number of people who want to know if it can become their principle computing device, so I thought I'd share some thoughts so far.

First off, to get the obvious out of the way, it's absolutely beautiful and a complete joy to use. It's bright, responsive and the battery life is making my Android phone look very sad.

However, all these looks needs some depth... nothing going on upstairs is not good.

Not Good. 

Good. 

So, I've run through some common computing needs, and identified solutions to obvious issues in the way iPad works. And I'm going to tell you what they are because I am a generous type...

• Calendar, Contacts, Mail- the first thing I did was set up my Outlook for work and Gmail for home. This was a breeze to do and works perfectly out of the box- with one massive exception. First, the good. Calendar via Exchange with my work outlook is flawless using the native iPad calendar, with options to push or time data sync. As I also use this calendar for my Android phone and don't use gCal or anything else any more, this is a really integrated system. Mail is perfect with both Outlook and Gmail through the native Mail app. I believe that there's a Gmail app, but I haven't bothered with it, as the native interface for Mail works just fine. I can choose to view either or both sets of mailboxes at once. Contacts has not been so smooth, but this is a Google/Android issue- whilst Outlook can see all my work contacts for emailing just fine, it has taken some considerable effort to get my Google contacts sorted. iPad can integrate them really easily via Google contacts using its Exchange sync process. They can also be imported via iTunes if you so choose. However, Google Contacts and my Android phonebook were not on speaking terms and even now are refusing to sync. I ended up having to export, backup, modify and import vCard files all over the place. Note that this has nothing to do with the iPad- trying to get the contacts into iPad just highlgihted that Google Contact Sync is shit. And I mean really shit- google "Contact Sync Android error" and see the pages of unresolved issues. Still. Never mind- I now have iPad talking to Google Contacts and most of my phone book is intact...
• Tasks- tasks won't easily come out of Outlook because of weird server license issues. But that's fine because Outlook task management is crap any way, so I'm using toodledo instead and the iPad app for this is fab, plus the Android app is also fab, and they all sync beautifully. Yay for them. 
• Office files- one of the main ways most people justify buying the iPad is "it'll be great for work". Only true if you can access Office files, however! Well, if you only need to view them, see below for file storage, sharing and viewing, because reading Office files is a pretty "out of the box" feature for the iPad, no expensive apps required. If you want to edit them, then of the plethora of options available, my picks would be:
• iWorks apps- Pages, Numbers and Keynote...and
• Quickoffice Pro HD
• The iWorks apps set you back £6.99 each, whilst Quickoffice is £13.99 and one of the most pricey apps you'll ever buy. On the other hand, that's Office for fourteen quid so I'm not moaning. iWorks offers an unbeatable user experience for creating documents, but it struggles with tricksy Office formatting such as combined table cells, and made a bunch of my leson plans look HORRIBLE. Quickoffice is the solution if you are editing existing Office documents, and looks almost as nice as iWorks, but the Apple apps are the most fun and intuitive for creating from scratch. 
• Easy file storage and sharing: Apple don't like files. At least, that'd be my first thought seeing as there's no easy way to get the damn things on to the iPad, even via iTunes. However, you can choose any or all of  SugarSync/Dropbox/Box.net- take your pick of your favourite, as they all have integrated apps available, and in the case of both Dropbox and Box.net, Pages, Numbers and Keynote can talk to them via webDAV and Quickoffice can talk to them all through witchcraft. They also add "file sharing" tabs to iTunes which makes getting files on board much easier all round. 
• Notes, organisation and more file storage: I must mention Evernote here. I could write a whole blog entry on the awesomeness of Evernote. It's a cloud based note system that supports text notes, audio notes, images, clipped webpages, pdfs,etc. with very powerful search features. You can embed any kind of files into notes and use it as a pretty efficient storage system, there's no storage limit and its text recognition makes even photos and handwritten scans searchable and indexable. Plus it has  a really nice iPad app for free  AND an app that lets you create quizzes out of notes. The motto is "remember everything" and it is my indispensable aide memoire, and is also web accessible, has a desktop app with more functions (such as powerful encryption) and there's an Androids app so I can have it on my phone. 
• Web browsing and file downloading: The native Safari browser is great, and the iOS5 update that adds tabbed browsing will make it even better. For 95% of your (non Flash) web browsing, it's perfect. But- and it's a big but- iPad doesn't like file downloading. Oh no siree! For this, I turned to GoodReader. Costing £2.99, it adds so much functionality, it's a must. It began life as a pdf reader, but the developer must be on crack, because the updated functions are astounding. It can read pretty much anything. ANYTHING. And that means it makes an awesome "view all" tool. But, most importantly, it has a robust file management system that integrates with all the above mentioned cloud services, anything on the iPad, any wifi accessible nearby computers and the internet itself. This means it makes for a very good file downloader, player and manager. It's like Windows explorer but less flaky. Awesome. 
• Printing: I admit, I've not tried this yet. But, in theory iPad can AirPrint to HP compatible printers. But nobody owns one, so there are a couple of options. Most printer manufacturers offer a free app for their printers that lets the iPad print to network enabled printers of the correct type, or PrintCentral is a brand-agnostic app that should make network printing easy. 

Okay, so my essential apps to create a solid set of functions that make iPad "life-ready" and functional as a main computing tool are:

• QuickOffice
• Pages, Numbers and Keynote
• GoodReader
• Evernote
• Toodledo
• SugarSync (or your Cloud Alternative)
• PrintCentral

Of these, half are free, and only the Office apps are costly.

Here is my collection of "icing" apps that make things even funner:

• Movies and other video: sadly, Netflix does not exist in the UK, BlinkBox is a flash based service that has no app support and Lovefilm are a bunch of jokers where streaming is concerned, so outside the US you are pretty much restricted to putting your own movies onto iPad to watch, or renting/buying  them via iTunes. iPad likes mp4 format movies and has an optimum resolution that iTunes is ready to cater for. It's worth noting that iPad is higher resolution than standard DVD, so HD/Blueray conversions look best. You could fiddle with settings in various players, but the easiest, if not cheapest way of getting movies onto it is still via iTunes. But, let's assume you have *ahem* other sources for films. Like...y'know, all those totally legit DVD rips you spent hours on...or something...Air Video is easily the app to end all apps where video is concerned. I actually have been ripping my DVDs into avi files to free up shelf space. Plus, I have 3GP vid recorded on my phone, stuff from an actual DV camera and purchased online stuff like training vids. Air Video has me covered. Buy the app for £1.99, and download the free server software (Win/Mac) from their website to your desktop full of films. Then, when the app runs, Air Video sees your computer as a server and lets you explore what files you have on there. You can then either:
• Queue up the file for conversion and transfer to iTunes for easy iPad access, or
• "Live convert" and watch it immediately- the server converts it from whatever it is into iPad-ready and streams it live, without pause or stutter, to your iPad. Magic!

More magic even than this...

• Books: if it's a pdf, you'll already be able to read it with GoodReader as mentioned above. However, most eBooks are in EPUB or MOBI format. The big two, iBooks and Kindle apps, pretty much refuse to see any books not acquired via their respective stores. So, if you acquired your eBook collection through other sources, you'll have to be a bit clever. The best method I've found is to install Stanza, which is a powerful reading tool that accesses various bookstores itself, but also allows for drag and drop in iTunes, so can happily cope with your collection. It likes EPUB best, so if you're a kindle user you'll need to convert any files- but if you're a Kindle user you should already have Calibre on your desktop (if not, go get it. NOW!). This will allow you to convert your book files to whatever format is best. A note though- Calibre can recognise that you have iTunes and mount it as a device to pass files to. However, it cannot tell that you have an ePub reader, so will encode your books as pdf files. This is okay, but they are larger files than ePub, so you may wish to convert and move them manually if you are planning to put a lot of books on the iPad. Or, you could just read on your Kindle.
• Music: You have iTunes and the iPod app. Seriously. Don't fuck around with anything else for your own collection. If you are a free cloud music fan, you're shit out of luck in a lot of cases, as Grooveshark, We7 and Deezer all use Flash, and Grooveshark is banned from Apple devices after EMI won an injunction against them. If you don't mind paying, Spotify is available as an app, I think- I could find an iPhone one but the iPad ones were-odd. You can put your own music into SugarSync and stream it if you wish, and the iOS5 update in Sept/Oct promise streaming from iCloud, but that will again be linked to your personal collection. There are streaming radio apps such as lastfm, but I am not a fan of these so haven't explored them. 
• News and current affairs: Media consumption is the name of the game of iPad, and there are a couple of really nice ways to stay abreast of your interests. I'm not a huge rss feed aggregation fan- I'm too lazy to set all that shit up, so I like easy options. I went with:
• BBC News app- aggregates main stories in a lovely interface and has live News24 available over wifi too. 
• Pulse- a customisable app which feeds the news you choose into itself. It looks very like the BBC app in its tiles story approach- I suspect the same team worked on both apps. I chose the "preset" pages for Fun, Tech and Games plus News, and that does me fine. 
• News360- a really nice way to view the news as a moving tableaux of images which you can zoom into and read. Needs a little setting up unless you enjoy USA-centric news. 
• Guardian Eyewitness- an image that captures a day. It's a very cool way to look poncey about your current affairs. 
• Times Online- I'm trying out their online free trial. It's okay, but none of the iPad optimised newspapers have really grabbed my attention. 
• TV: There's not a whole lot of TV streaming options in the UK right now, but both iPlayer and 4OD offer great catch up services. And they are both free!
• Reference: I've added yell.com for a quick lookup of local numbers and businesses, and Discover for a truly awesome research tool, as it turns wikipedia into a magazine style experience. Really impressive, a must have free app.
• Social: get Skype and Friendly  for Facebook onto your iPad to keep in touch with folks.

An that's it so far. I've avoided too many paid for apps right now, while I get into the iPad experience, but I have a bunch of apps listed in Evernote ready to go once I feel a little more flush. I can say without a doubt that the iPad can do all I need on a daily basis, and with occasional access to a desktop, it has me covered.

Plus, everything is just more awesome. AWESOME I TELL YOU!


Update: 

A weekend of work and the following issues came up- and were resolved...kind of...

• Sending and receiving attachments on email. GoodReader and Quickoffice had this pretty solidly covered and SugarSync/Dropbox don't seem to mind either.
• Downloading files- I mentioned that GoodReader can handle this end of things. Perhaps even better is iCab, a really nice browser that adds a bunch of functionality. Three main things drew me to it-
• it has very well implemented tabbed browsing
• it has a set of "module" buttons which add all sorts of functions including my essential "clip to Evernote" feature that I have been missing.
• it has proper downloading! 
• General file management- I have already mentioned that file management can be handled via GoodReader very easily. Indeed, with this and sugarasync, you're covered. However, you can make a case for having something like FileApp, which allows you to have a windows-like file structure that it can manage for you. It talks with all the other apps I am using and there's a somewhat clunky wifi drag and drop file transfer feature. I does allow you to get all the disparate files your apps are storing into one place, but with caveats. Firstly, there seems to be no way to *move* a file- instead you get a copy, which then means deletions of existing files. I may be doing this wrong but it seems weird. Secondly, with a pdf file I used as a test to see how it coped with GoodReader, it lost all of the bookmarks I'd put in place. Poor. I also cannot see how to create folders within it, which seems like a key feature, so I think I'm not getting it right, but the documentation is almost non existent. On the plus, it opens zip folders. And it's free.