iPad First Impressions

I'm a little late (almost five days) in the first impressions category, but I thought I'd post these. A colleague and friend got one from, of all people, Woz, because he's a senior docent at the Silicon Valley computer museum.

1. It's heavier than I expected, and felt heavier than the less-than 1Kg advertised weight.

2. Typing is awkward, but, as on the iPhone, Dragon speech recognition works well. I thought that the much-bigger keyboard would make it possible to actually type, but that's not the ideal interaction. I haven't tried a bluetooth keyboard.

3. No problems with wireless, or anything else, for that matter.

I think it's neat, but for me, it would be a toy, and wouldn't replace a computer. That's why I got the netbook. It's not a workhorse, but it will replace a computer on my upcoming trip. We'll see how that goes. If it goes well, I'll keep it.

So what would the iPad be good for? It would be an ideal infocenter in a car. It could serve as a head unit for music, and as a great GPS (screen is large), but what it would need is much, much more voice interaction. In fact, that's my single favorite feature on the iPhone 3Gs (voice dialing).

Oh, you can watch movies on it, but this whole streaming/cloud thing is not appealing to me for long movies. Also, I need closed captioning/subtitles.