OK - here I am almost one week in with the iPad (16Gb Wifi) and a few general thoughts on usage.
Dock or not?
As expected, using a touchscreen positioned like a regular monitor is tiring and inefficient. The iPad dock is great for use with an external keyboard, but without some kind of pointing device, any on screen UI interaction is a pain. In hindsight, I probably didn’t need to buy the dock. Keeping your arm elevated for this kind of use is really really tiring (or maybe I need to go to the gym more often).
External keyboard?
The onscreen keyboard in landscape mode is shockingly good. To the point that much of my daily note taking and text input is now done via this keyboard. The portrait mode keyboard is also pretty usable, but not as comfortable to use.
For whatever reason, my old white Apple bluetooth keyboard refuses to pair with the iPad, but it’s been through a lot so I’ll check that out in more detail later. In any case, if I’m going to imagine a workday with the iPad as my primary device, I’ll want to invest in a newer keyboard since this one won’t fit in my computer bag.
eInk vs LCD
As was mentioned by many, the iPad in bright sunlight is a non-starter. You either see reflections or fingerprints. It’s not meant for the beach. That said, even when the screen is horribly covered in fingerprints, they disappear the moment the backlighting comes on.
Au naturel or covered up?
The Apple sleeve or equivalent is a must-have. The slight inclination provided by the back flap when inserted into the catch makes it perfect for working on a flat surface, and posing it on the shorter side is ideal for presenting slide shows or watching video content with the iPad on a tabletop. Using the iPad “naked” or with a simple protective casing provokes the issues of hand fatigue that all of the pundits were complaining about. With the sleeve, it’s usually sitting on my lap or on the table. Even for reading, just like a hardcover book, the bottom is posed on something and the hand is just for keeping vertical which isn’t tiring at all.
Where does it fit in my daily life?
Having an adjunct autonomous screen next to the computer is exceedingly useful in ways that I hadn’t appreciated. It’s hard to explain, but having my mail always open on another screen and interacting directly without changing context on the computer is really useful. In addition, it’s perfect for keeping reference material available while working on the computer. Working through some Cocoa and Ruby tutorials based on ePubs purchased from The Pragmatic Bookshelf is a charm.
Also when working through some problems, having Colloquy open beside the computer is a better fit than cmd-tabbing constantly.
It’s become the preferred device for my daily commute in the train. Much better experience than the limited screen size of the iPhone and lighter and easier to cope with than the MacBook. Mail, news, books, TV shows, films…it’s the perfect public transportation commuting accessory.
At home, I keep up with the news and play light games like Scrabble and Pinball HD.
For the moment iTunes media like podcasts remain synced to the iPhone since it’s more convenient with the headphones, but I have loaded a number of iTunes University videos and other video podcasts on the iPad.
Portrait or Landscape?
I find that long document reading like books and Instapaper and such works best in portrait mode. Bite-sized information like Twitter and NetNewsWire really benefit from having the context and navigation options onscreen in the left column while in landscape mode.
The ultimate thin client?
My original predictions about use as a thin client may have been slightly premature. There’s going to be a shakedown in this area, finding the best way to marry the capacitive touchscreen with the precision requirements of a traditional desktop OS. So far, I find that the approach taken by Wyse PocketCloud with the precision mouse works very well, but keyboard input lags a lot. The Citrix Receiver works better for reacting to keyboard input, but the lack of the precision mousing make it difficult. Their implementation of the iPhone as a trackpad is genius, but not as smooth as some other remote trackpad products like Air Mouse Pro (which I highly recommend). One difference is that with a product like Air Mouse, you tend to be holding the iPhone in one hand and navigating with the other. With Citrix, you’re more likely to have the iPhone lying on it’s back where the curved surface makes it wobbly. Maybe the new iPhone design will correct this…
I expect to see refinements coming along rapidly from both companies. Other than these two, most of the VNC & RDP clients are pretty rough and not worth buying. I’m still in sticker shock with all of my recent App purchases, so I haven’t yet tried out some of the more expensive ones like iTeleport. Oddly, nobody has yet come up with one that can access the native OS X Screen Sharing without having to activate the traditional VNC option with a single password for the computer. At least I haven’t found one yet. Bonjour auto-discovery is hit and miss and mostly missing which is too bad where most environments are using DHCP without fixed reservations for anything other than servers.