The [iPad Thread] is coming soon to a Verizon Wireless retail store near you

Rothgarr

I love typing on the iPad so long as I don't have to type numbers/symbols, etc. I'm hoping that they allow for additional layouts with the next update. For example, I'd happily give up the screen real estate to have a row of numbers above the qwerty letters and being able to hold shift to have the numbers change to symbols just like a real keyboard. Maybe even have a few user-defineable keys.

Big Dookie

elevature wrote: »

Big Dookie wrote: »

InkSplat wrote: »

So, I'm really leaning towards picking up an iPad, but the last real question I have is in regards to the input.

For those of you who use it as a primary internet device, how convenient is it to actually make forum posts and such on? That's my big concern. I like sitting on the couch and being able to make posts, which aren't always short. And since that's mainly the role I'd be filling with the iPad, if it isn't going to be comfortable doing that, I should probably just go for the Air instead.

The 3g on the iPad is one of the big draws for me over the Air, as I don't have an iPhone, and using it out and about would be nice. In those situations I'd plan on having the wireless keyboard to use, but when I'm at home, it doesn't seem very feasible to sit the iPad in my lap and somehow manage to use the keyboard at the same time.

Is it just something you kind of adapt to, or would I likely need to totally revamp my surfing habits with the iPad?

I'll be honest, I don't make nearly as many posts when I'm using my iPad. The virtual keyboard works fairly well, and I'm still surprised at how fast I can type on it, but it still can't compare to an actual physical keyboard. Special characters and certain punctuation especially can slow your typing to a crawl on the virtual keyboard. So in my case, it's usable, but I've definitely had to adjust some of my browsing habits (some for better, some for worse). If you like to sit in your living room and also expect to do a lot of typing, I honestly would not recommend the iPad. That's just my personal opinion, and others may be much faster on the virtual keyboard than I am so they might disagree. For what it's worth, I'm making this post on an iPad right now, and though it didn't take me an unreasonably long time, I still feel like it would have gone much faster on a laptop.

The solution is to get a bluetooth keyboard. I am currently posting using my iPad and bluetooth keyboard and it works perfectly. I've been using this setup a whole lot lately and it serves my needs perfectly, in terms of browsing, posting, emailing, etc. It's much easier to type on than the virutal keyboard, and the Apple keyboards are tiny and light and perfectly portable, if you are worried about needing to do work on the road. I'd imagine that an iPad and one of these keyboards is still lighter than an Air, and definitely cheaper, so if you don't need the extra functionality of a full computer I think this would work quite well.

Right, and I do have a BT keyboard actually, but if I'm just sitting in my recliner browsing the internet, I don't want to have to pull out the keyboard every time. If I did, what would be the point of the iPad anyway?

elevature

Big Dookie wrote: »

elevature wrote: »

Big Dookie wrote: »

InkSplat wrote: »

So, I'm really leaning towards picking up an iPad, but the last real question I have is in regards to the input.

For those of you who use it as a primary internet device, how convenient is it to actually make forum posts and such on? That's my big concern. I like sitting on the couch and being able to make posts, which aren't always short. And since that's mainly the role I'd be filling with the iPad, if it isn't going to be comfortable doing that, I should probably just go for the Air instead.

The 3g on the iPad is one of the big draws for me over the Air, as I don't have an iPhone, and using it out and about would be nice. In those situations I'd plan on having the wireless keyboard to use, but when I'm at home, it doesn't seem very feasible to sit the iPad in my lap and somehow manage to use the keyboard at the same time.

Is it just something you kind of adapt to, or would I likely need to totally revamp my surfing habits with the iPad?

I'll be honest, I don't make nearly as many posts when I'm using my iPad. The virtual keyboard works fairly well, and I'm still surprised at how fast I can type on it, but it still can't compare to an actual physical keyboard. Special characters and certain punctuation especially can slow your typing to a crawl on the virtual keyboard. So in my case, it's usable, but I've definitely had to adjust some of my browsing habits (some for better, some for worse). If you like to sit in your living room and also expect to do a lot of typing, I honestly would not recommend the iPad. That's just my personal opinion, and others may be much faster on the virtual keyboard than I am so they might disagree. For what it's worth, I'm making this post on an iPad right now, and though it didn't take me an unreasonably long time, I still feel like it would have gone much faster on a laptop.

The solution is to get a bluetooth keyboard. I am currently posting using my iPad and bluetooth keyboard and it works perfectly. I've been using this setup a whole lot lately and it serves my needs perfectly, in terms of browsing, posting, emailing, etc. It's much easier to type on than the virutal keyboard, and the Apple keyboards are tiny and light and perfectly portable, if you are worried about needing to do work on the road. I'd imagine that an iPad and one of these keyboards is still lighter than an Air, and definitely cheaper, so if you don't need the extra functionality of a full computer I think this would work quite well.

Right, and I do have a BT keyboard actually, but if I'm just sitting in my recliner browsing the internet, I don't want to have to pull out the keyboard every time. If I did, what would be the point of the iPad anyway?

It depends on what you are typing. Something short is fine with the virtual keyboard, but if it's longer, you pull out the real keyboard. If you keep it nearby it's not a huge hassle to grab it, and if you keep it paired and keep bluetooth turned on on the iPad there's no extra setup. And even with the keyboard, the iPad is still lighter and smaller than a laptop.

Big Dookie

Definitely. I guess that's what I meant earlier when I talked about changing my browsing habits when using the iPad. Where I once would have typed out a long forum post, now I keep it fairly short since I'm not as fast on the iPad virtual keyboard. For pure browsing and media consumption, theres no doubt that the iPad is king of the hill. However, I've tried typing longer documents while sitting in the couch using both a laptop and an iPad with BT keyboard, and I honestly still prefer the laptop for that specific kind of task. That's just me though, I know some people can type like a banshee on the virtual keyboard. I can still type probably 40-50 words a minute, but when you're pounding out a 4000 word document, that doesn't really cut it for me.

desperaterobots

So this has been bugging me for a while. If I'm browsing the forums or a website and I get a push notificaction from my IM app, when Icome back to Safari after opening the IM app, the page will often, but not always, reload. The same happens if Safari opens a new tab after clicking a link. When i go back to the original page, it will often reload.

Being on 3G, the reload can be slow and I'm mindful of the data this is going to be chewing up. Why does this happen, and is there any work around?

Monoxide

desperaterobots wrote: »

So this has been bugging me for a while. If I'm browsing the forums or a website and I get a push notificaction from my IM app, when Icome back to Safari after opening the IM app, the page will often, but not always, reload. The same happens if Safari opens a new tab after clicking a link. When i go back to the original page, it will often reload.

Being on 3G, the reload can be slow and I'm mindful of the data this is going to be chewing up. Why does this happen, and is there any work around?

This happens because the pages you were viewing are being released from RAM to make room for the other things you're doing -- loading an IM app, or creating a new tab. Rather than cache these previous versions after releasing them from RAM, Safari opts to just reload the tab.

There's no workaround for this if you're hell-bent on using Safari, but alternative browsers like iCab Mobile give you the option to re-load the offline version instead, and will actually never clear out tabs for you unless you allow it to in the settings. There are drawbacks to this -- because there is a RAM limitation in play, if you open too many tabs, the browser will crash once it hits the memory limit. However, they've recently added automatic memory/tab management as an option, and I'd recommend using it, because it works pretty well.

Personally though, I can't think of any reason someone would want to use Safari over iCab. I can't recommend it enough. It gives you a full tab bar for desktop-style tabbing, file download support (which you can then upload to DropBox or connect via FTP to retrieve your files), custom user-agent strings, offline-version caching, and more. It's a really powerful browser, and still uses the same WebKit engine that Safari is using anyway.

ben0207

desperaterobots wrote: »

Shit, i had no 'idea' about that 'apostrophe' trick. That saves so much tiiiiime! 'hooray'!

One of my neatest 3G iPad moments was being interstate and not sure i boarded the right tram, so i pulled up maps and watched my little blue dot travel along the screen until I was sure i was going in the right direction.

You can use the ipad to type on the couch, but you most likely wouldn't, because it can be really awkward. But with a bluetooth apple keyboard and a little stand, its pretty awesome for input. The only hassle is having to reach for the screen to edit, it just isn't as accurate or fast as a mouse.

Heres another thing i done drawn in Brushes. I love that app.

Holy shit!

Rothgarr

Desperate, that illustration is amazing.

InkSplat

Monoxide wrote:

desperaterobots wrote:

So this has been bugging me for a while. If I'm browsing the forums or a website and I get a push notificaction from my IM app, when Icome back to Safari after opening the IM app, the page will often, but not always, reload. The same happens if Safari opens a new tab after clicking a link. When i go back to the original page, it will often reload.

Being on 3G, the reload can be slow and I'm mindful of the data this is going to be chewing up. Why does this happen, and is there any work around?

This happens because the pages you were viewing are being released from RAM to make room for the other things you're doing -- loading an IM app, or creating a new tab. Rather than cache these previous versions after releasing them from RAM, Safari opts to just reload the tab.

There's no workaround for this if you're hell-bent on using Safari, but alternative browsers like iCab Mobile give you the option to re-load the offline version instead, and will actually never clear out tabs for you unless you allow it to in the settings. There are drawbacks to this -- because there is a RAM limitation in play, if you open too many tabs, the browser will crash once it hits the memory limit. However, they've recently added automatic memory/tab management as an option, and I'd recommend using it, because it works pretty well.

Personally though, I can't think of any reason someone would want to use Safari over iCab. I can't recommend it enough. It gives you a full tab bar for desktop-style tabbing, file download support (which you can then upload to DropBox or connect via FTP to retrieve your files), custom user-agent strings, offline-version caching, and more. It's a really powerful browser, and still uses the same WebKit engine that Safari is using anyway.

Where are the options for auto management of memory/tabs? I just grabbed icab thanks to this post, but can't actually find that particular option.

Edit: holy shit is the scroll-pad awesome for forum browsing.

Monoxide

InkSplat wrote: »

Monoxide wrote:

desperaterobots wrote:

So this has been bugging me for a while. If I'm browsing the forums or a website and I get a push notificaction from my IM app, when Icome back to Safari after opening the IM app, the page will often, but not always, reload. The same happens if Safari opens a new tab after clicking a link. When i go back to the original page, it will often reload.

Being on 3G, the reload can be slow and I'm mindful of the data this is going to be chewing up. Why does this happen, and is there any work around?

This happens because the pages you were viewing are being released from RAM to make room for the other things you're doing -- loading an IM app, or creating a new tab. Rather than cache these previous versions after releasing them from RAM, Safari opts to just reload the tab.

There's no workaround for this if you're hell-bent on using Safari, but alternative browsers like iCab Mobile give you the option to re-load the offline version instead, and will actually never clear out tabs for you unless you allow it to in the settings. There are drawbacks to this -- because there is a RAM limitation in play, if you open too many tabs, the browser will crash once it hits the memory limit. However, they've recently added automatic memory/tab management as an option, and I'd recommend using it, because it works pretty well.

Personally though, I can't think of any reason someone would want to use Safari over iCab. I can't recommend it enough. It gives you a full tab bar for desktop-style tabbing, file download support (which you can then upload to DropBox or connect via FTP to retrieve your files), custom user-agent strings, offline-version caching, and more. It's a really powerful browser, and still uses the same WebKit engine that Safari is using anyway.

Where are the options for auto management of memory/tabs? I just grabbed icab thanks to this post, but can't actually find that particular option.

Edit: holy shit is the scroll-pad awesome for forum browsing.

They're in the iCab section of the actual Settings.app, not in iCab itself. I have no idea why they split them between both places. There are two options for automatic memory management, one is to display a small, unobtrusive warning bar at the bottom of the screen on low memory, the other is to automatically close tabs as necessary. I have both enabled just so I'm aware of when tabs might be killed off to prevent a mem. allocation crash, but I've never really had it kill something I wouldn't have closed myself anyway.

InkSplat

Found it, thanks. That is definitely a strange choice of option placement though.

desperaterobots

Yeah i got icab too. This is heaps better than safari. Hooray!

Ampix

I'm doubting if I should get iCab. I already have Atomic Browser, which has almost all the functions that iCab has, but sometimes it bugs out when I click links and try to open them in the background (specifically, the button on these forums that goes to the newest unread post), sometimes the popup that lets you choose what you want to do with the link (open it, open it in new tab, open it in new background tab etc.) doesn't show up, and I have to click it several times. How does this work in iCab?

Also, Atomic Browser has the ugliest icon. I hate having it in my dock.

Monoxide

Ampix wrote: »

I'm doubting if I should get iCab. I already have Atomic Browser, which has almost all the functions that iCab has, but sometimes it bugs out when I click links and try to open them in the background (specifically, the button on these forums that goes to the newest unread post), sometimes the popup that lets you choose what you want to do with the link (open it, open it in new tab, open it in new background tab etc.) doesn't show up, and I have to click it several times. How does this work in iCab?

Also, Atomic Browser has the ugliest icon. I hate having it in my dock.

You can either set the default functionality to open links in a new tab (or open links to a new domain in a new tab), or just hold your finger for half a second on each link to get a modal menu asking what you want to do (open page, open in new tab, open in background tab).

I've never had any problems with it. I bought both Atomic Browser and iCab and I've always preferred iCab.

sterling3763

Do we know when in November iOS 4.2 will be released for the iPad?

InkSplat

So, Flipboard is an awesome little app. If you use Facebook or Twitter, it essentially turns them into online magazines. I really enjoy the change to Facebook, at least. Haven't messed with the Twitter side yet.

ukiyo e

Caved and bought an ipad today. I hate myself so much... but goddamn using it makes me feel tingly.

The good kind of tingly.

Fairchild

They are scheduled to appear in VzW stores tomorrow. I think I'll hold out for an extra two weeks and go for the Samsung Galaxy tablet instead.

Ampix

So, my girlfriend is totally addicted to Plants vs. Zombies HD (which is on sale now, btw) and I was wondering if there is something similar on the store she could try. Nothing too hardcore, just a simple-ish TD game, preferably with zombies. Hell, a clone would probably be best, but I don't think anyone would try to challenge Popcap. It's a pity Popcap doesn't have any other HD games on the store.

Monoxide

Fairchild wrote: »

They are scheduled to appear in VzW stores tomorrow. I think I'll hold out for an extra two weeks and go for the Samsung Galaxy tablet instead.

I'm curious, what advantages would the Galaxy tablet give you over the iPad?

Ziggymon

Monoxide wrote: »

Fairchild wrote: »

They are scheduled to appear in VzW stores tomorrow. I think I'll hold out for an extra two weeks and go for the Samsung Galaxy tablet instead.

I'm curious, what advantages would the Galaxy tablet give you over the iPad?

Im curious too as on paper besides Android 2.2 and cameras, the Galaxy tablet seems more expensive and inferior in specs.

ukiyo e

I have been waiting for an android tablet for months. I was completely fooled by the buzz around CES where everyone was saying that they would have a tablet out by the end of the year. So far there haven't been many decent tablets that have actually hit the market. The Samsung tablet looked promising, but I definitely wanted a larger screen. Then yesterday someone linked me this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEnw0xUUZYM

I just had this epiphany that even if someone put out an android tablet that was comparable in hardware and pricing to the iPad, no one would make an app like this for it. As far as innovative tablet software goes, it's all happening on the iPad right now.

I'm not an apple fanboy. I love my droid incredible. I just don't see anything as good as the iPad hitting the market until at least the middle of next year.

Fairchild

Monoxide wrote: »

I'm curious, what advantages would the Galaxy tablet give you over the iPad?

Android 2.2, 3G, Flash support, more RAM, expandable memory, peripheral ports. And cameras.

Rothgarr

i love music-making apps for iPad.

I'm hoping propellerheads makes a lite version of Reason for ipad.

I have SoundTable and Xenon. But I'm thinking of picking up iSequence.

InkSplat

Ok, so, due to the stupid ToS changes recently, I now have a blank icon with a "waiting..." status under it that I can't delete. How do I get rid of it?

Rothgarr

- Do you get an "X" if you press on the icon for a few seconds?
- Shut it down and restart? By holding the power button down for a few seconds
- Sync?

Just a few ideas that came to mind.

InkSplat

Rothgarr wrote:

- Do you get an "X" if you press on the icon for a few seconds?
- Shut it down and restart? By holding the power button down for a few seconds
- Sync?

Just a few ideas that came to mind.

There wasn't an 'x', but powering it off worked. Huh. Guess I should have tried that before asking. :lol:

The fact that's it didn't have an 'x' though is what nudged me towards asking before experimenting though.

Rothgarr

InkSplat wrote: »

Rothgarr wrote:

- Do you get an "X" if you press on the icon for a few seconds?
- Shut it down and restart? By holding the power button down for a few seconds
- Sync?

Just a few ideas that came to mind.

There wasn't an 'x', but powering it off worked. Huh. Guess I should have tried that before asking. :lol:

The fact that's it didn't have an 'x' though is what nudged me towards asking before experimenting though.

Glad it worked

Now if I could just figure out why my iPad show "1" on my Mail icon where there are zero unread messages...

Monoxide

Rothgarr wrote: »

InkSplat wrote: »

Rothgarr wrote:

- Do you get an "X" if you press on the icon for a few seconds?
- Shut it down and restart? By holding the power button down for a few seconds
- Sync?

Just a few ideas that came to mind.

There wasn't an 'x', but powering it off worked. Huh. Guess I should have tried that before asking. :lol:

The fact that's it didn't have an 'x' though is what nudged me towards asking before experimenting though.

Glad it worked

Now if I could just figure out why my iPad show "1" on my Mail icon where there are zero unread messages...

I've noticed I frequently get Mail messages showing up 'late' on the iPad when I've already received that mail on the iPhone or on the gmail web interface. Like, I'll get an email notification and a (1) on the iPad from an email that I already read seven hours ago, and it shows up unread way down in the list. This is with gmail set up as push/exchange on both the iPhone and the iPad.

it's annoying

EclecticGroove

So I just picked one of these up as well. My old tablet PC broke and there's really nothing out that wows me to replace it. And I realized I haven't done much in the way of art or sketching on it in some time, so picked up the pad for basic quick e-mail/web use and other incidentals.

After having used it for a bit over a week I'm finding it hard to find anything else worthwhile to do with it aside from that. I have not ventured into jailbreaking it yet, which I'm sure at least opens up the possibilities.

But some lingering thoughts/observations.

How in the name of all that's been created since like 1990 or so did they get this thing out the door with that version of saffari? It makes me want to pull my teeth out. I wish I could jut drop in firefox but so far there's nothing close to what I would call a full browser experience there yet. Atomic is acceptable, but still far from perfect.

Getting files onto it... I hate itunes, I hate it's interface and pretty much everything about it. Forcing you to jump through hoops on that without jailbreaking it or relying on 3rd party applications is horrible. I really wish you could just set up a common directory on the device that all programs would scan for usable files, then just dump things in as a standard USB disk.


That aside, it's pretty, it runs smooth, I've only had a couple hiccoughs with it so far, but nothing major. While it won't play super high def video t does work well for that... provided you spend the time to convert what you have to codecs it supports or dedicate another system to do it on the fly and stream it... but that's related to the stupid itunes tie in restriction.

I used the netflix app on travel which was very nice. Battery life seems to be good as well. I have only taken a precursory look around the app store, I just wish everything had a free demo to check out, as many of the user ratings seem worthless.

Fairchild

"How in the name of all that's been created since like 1990 or so did they get this thing out the door with that version of saffari?"

Let's be honest, the Ipad was rushed out to the marketplace as a reaction to the sudden popularity of netbooks and ebook readers, two products which Steve Jobs had openly scorned a couple of years earlier rather than as a strong, full-featured tablet device. Lots of other corners were cut, too.

EclecticGroove

Eh, other than what I listed above it seems to be solid enough as a device. It won't do wonders as it's not even a netbook, but as a portable media display it's pretty nice.

I just hope more mature updates/offerings for it will come out so I don't have to bother jailbreaking it to get a full featured device.

Sharp10r

I don't know if anyone else cares, but when Sprint CEO said iPad was helping Overdrive sales, I wanted to capture the cost of the different data plans over time to decide personally if I wanted to get one with 3G built in. I need to add a stand-alone 3G mobile hotspot for comparison too, but here's what I have so far!

InkSplat

So, there are lots of ways to stream to an iPad, but are there any apps that let you stram from it? Like, is there any way to turn it into a media server for a ps3 to connect to or anything like that?

DeathPrawn

If you jailbreak, you can set it up to run as a Firefly media server (the protocol used for iTunes Library Sharing)

Toldo

iOS 4.2 has gone gold. Multitasking, here we come!

Monoxide

Toldo wrote: »

iOS 4.2 has gone gold. Multitasking, here we come!

installing now. hoping it fixes some app crashes that happened with betas 1, 2 and 3, but they probably just need to be updated.

Toldo

Monoxide wrote: »

Toldo wrote: »

iOS 4.2 has gone gold. Multitasking, here we come!

installing now. hoping it fixes some app crashes that happened with betas 1, 2 and 3, but they probably just need to be updated.

Are you one of the good people who didn't jailbreak, by the way?

Monoxide

I'm a registered developer, if that's what you mean

I have had my iPad jailbroken prior to 4.2, though

ben0207

iPad 4.2 is badass by the way. Folders and Multitasking = amazing. Can't believe it didn't get the 4.0 update way back when.