Loving my iPad

Well it’s been over a month now and I have to say it… I love my iPad.

This morning I was waiting in line at the DMV to renew my license. When I got there the line wrapped all the way around the building. So, I dutifully found my place at the back of the line and pulled out my iPad. For the next 40 minutes, while standing in broad daylight, I read the first five chapters of “Moby Dick”.

Yes Virginia, there is a readable screen in the daylight on the iPad.

It was great. Before I knew it I was at the front of the line being given a number to, you guessed it, wait in a different line.

No problem. Out came the trusty iPad, once again. Reading commenced, once again. And once again the time just flew by. With the minor interruption of one DMV employee who wanted a demonstration of the iPad and a brief discussion of what’s possible on it. She was thinking about getting a Kindle, but once she saw the broader usefulness off the iPad she was converted. I imagine she’ll have her iPad by the end of the week.

Yes, there are shortcomings on the device currently. It’s still frustrating that there’s no printing from the device. But Steve Jobs sent an email out to someone yesterday assuring them that printing is coming to the iPad. So I can wait. It is also frustrating that there is no way to pull a Word Doc, or PPT or Excel file from a USB thumb drive. This would be very useful in the field when someone throws you a last minute file to edit and you have no WiFi signal, or additional computer on hand to send the file from. Perhaps this will be corrected in the future too? We’ll see.

But aside from some, “If A happens when I’m in B, then I can’t accomplish C” scenarios the iPad lives up to my expectations and exceeds them in most respects. And those ABC scenarios are not daily occurrences for me, and can usually be avoided with enough careful planning ahead of time.

Anyone else out there with an iPad with some thoughts to share?