It's the iPad

So I got an ipad ten days ago...this is a REALLY nifty device...going to change personal computing as we know.

What makes it different: you DO NOT interact with the operating system. Ever. This means you can't actually look at files qua files. Only as things you manipulate via applications...so when you "save an image" from Safari, it is actually copied directly into the "iphoto" application's storage and knowledge...no "find a folder, supply a name, click save, go to iphoto, open/import, find the folder, click the file". Anytime you need to enter text, you tap the field to do that in, the virtual kbd pops up, you type away...

What it does NOT do: well, it does not let me make these blog entries--the blog body text is entered in a javascript widget, not a regular text field, so ipad cannot see the thing, thus no kbd, no typing, no nothing...well, you can enter the title, and the label tags below...but that's it.

This is really bad--this device is ideal for a blog-on-the-go, and it can't be done.

What is really cool: last friday I saw a Tesla car just outside my office bldg, at lunchtime. Decided I needed to send my wife a text msg about it, I don't have my phone (just the ipad), how am I going to do it? when I got to the cafe with wifi, got logged in, looked online for help on this, it says "grab this free ipad app" by clicking on a link which takes me right to the app store, I click again to install it, that takes a few seconds, then tiny bit of setup and I can send a msg. Fabulous!

I actually bought the ipad app for Bento, as well as the G5 version, so I could see about converting my filemaker databases over to something I could sync with the ipad (had been thinking about having them on my android phone, but this is going to be better...once I can get the pictures incorporated (non-trivial: I have about 2000 images in those databases I want on the ipad).

Still...I love this gadget.