Not typically a fan of extended warranties, we do make an exception: AppleCare. And that’s because had we not invested in AppleCare in the past, we would have been royally screwed. This, contrary to the Apple-products-are-rock-solid belief that many, including Shawn Blanc, share:

For the record, I bought AppleCare once. It was for my first Mac; a 12-inch PowerBook. I never needed AppleCare for that Mac, nor have I needed AppleCare for any other Apple computer or device I’ve owned since then.

Shawn’s an Apple enthusiast, so we can assume he’s owned his fare share of Apple devices. Still, our own experience has made AppleCare invaluable, as we can’t even remember every time some Apple device needed this or that fixed/replaced. But, off the top of our head:

• Our iPod Mini needed replacement after the battery stopped, well, charging.
• The RAM in our 17″ Powerbook needed to be replaced after the computer stopped booting.
• The logic board in our 17″ Powerbook needed to be replaced after the screen developed random, horizontal lines.
• Our iPhone 3GS needed replacing after it stopped turning on.
• The RAM in out 17″ MacBook Pro needed to be replaced after the computer stopped booting.
• The logic board on our 17″ MacBook Pro needed to be replaced after the computer stopped booting.
• The battery on our 17″ MacBook Pro needed to be replaced after it exploded.¹
• Our TimeCapsule’s hard drive died and needed to be replaced.

It’s not even that we beat up on our hardware – we’re actually quite anal about our equipment staying in a pretty pristine condition. And again, this is just off the top of our head, as we’re fairly certain that we brought our 17″ monsters into a local Apple Store more than this in order to get stuff fixed. Between these problems and those our friends/family have encountered over the last several years, we consider AppleCare a pretty good deal, as we’re well ahead in what we otherwise would have paid on getting things fixed outside of the basic Apple warranty.

Mind you, this isn’t to say that Apple quality sucks (because we still consider Apple gear better than competing products), merely that any sufficiently complex technological device is bound to have problems. We’re just on the opposite end of the spectrum than Shawn, who has apparently been very lucky with his Apple gear.² We’ve had no problems with our more recent Apple purchases (Mac Mini, iPhone 4, iPad, and iPad 2), but three out of four are different beasts compared to traditional Apple computers. If anything, we’d recommend AppleCare for any traditional Apple computer purchase, but may be hesitant to recommend it for Apple mobile devices.

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A little over half a year ago, we reported on our experience using an iPad as our go-to computing device, after an iPad replaced our MacBook Pro. That wasn’t the first time we addressed the issue of the iPad being a tethered device, but it framed the issue with real-world experience in mind:

Right now, the iPad is a great travel companion, but if we were to go on a major trip lasting several months, we’d question whether not having any backups during that time-frame, or missing a key iOS update, is something we could live with.

We actually brought up a tethering fix over a year ago, when we talked about how some people might still need a computer for certain tasks, even though the iPad would be a fit device for most people:

What Apple should do to address the backup issue is roll out over-the-air syncing, either at the local level with the Apple Time Capsule, or via the cloud with a an enhanced Mobile Me service. A cloud-based iTunes solution would be perfect, allowing you to keep all your media files on Apple’s servers, and choose which ones to stream or copy to the iPad directly.

With Apple’s iOS 5 reveal, our concerns regarding tethering have finally been addressed with an upcoming software upgrade. It’s an important move for Apple, because with the roll-out of iOS 5 and iCloud, Apple is effectively acknowledging that the iPad is not designed to be just an extension of the Mac, but can indeed replace a PC for those who don’t require PC-specific functionality. Since the vast majority of PC-users have simple requirements that can either be met with an out-of-box iPad (or with the addition of a couple apps from the AppStore), the iPad will now become a true PC replacement for the general populace, no reservations required.

At this stage, there’s little reason not to recommend the iPad for the general populace, particularly for those who are computer illiterate and could benefit from an intuitive device that they won’t “mess up” by playing with. The iPad was already a great seller before, and accused of crushing netbook and even notebook sales, but now it’s positioned to truly dominate the market.

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Michael Gartenberg clarifies Steve Jobs’ statement that the iPad is a post-PC device by pointing out that whether the iPad is tethered or not is missing the point:

The iPad and other devices are not here to displace the PC (by which I mean all personal computers, whether they’re Macs or PCs running Windows). In fact, post PC means after PC, a new generation of products that build on the PC. What it doesn’t mean is sans PC, that is, without PC. The personal computer will no doubt be with us for a very long time… but that doesn’t mean we’re not in the post-PC world.

Gartenberg is technically correct, as our three-year Latin study attests (we didn’t fail). But it’s certainly a fair interpretation that after can imply a world without its predecessor. The United States came after the British colonies in America. Homo sapiens came after Homo erectus. The year 2010 came after the year 2009. Sometimes there’s crossover, where what comes after exists in parallel with its predecessor, even though the newer creation becomes the entity with primary focus. The iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS. Windows Vista and Windows XP. MMA and Jeet Kun Do.

What most people critical of the “iPad as a post-PC device” statement are taking exception with is the first interpretation of post. They say that the iPad can’t replace the PC because it’s a tethered device that requires a PC.¹ Gartenberg, on the other hand, is following the second interpretation, in which the iPad merely exists in parallel to the PC, serving a generalist role. Again, Gartenberg is correct here, but the iPad could replace the PC, relegating the PC to extreme niche environments. Our own use experiment is a testament to this, as is every example of non-computer users adopting the iPad for web surfing, e-mail, etc.

Ultimately, the iPad is a function of the software available for it. No one can deny that the iPhone has become more useful as a device after the AppStore went live, compared to its 2007 incarnation. As more apps are developed, more apps for niche uses have emerged, which helps explain how artists are developing all sorts of creations exclusively on iOS devices². So while PCs may still retain overarching capabilities because they are “open” and more widely developed for, there is no reason that the iPad can’t fulfill the needs of most every person seeking to use a computer. About the only solid counter-argument is that PCs have more raw horsepower, so for niche roles requiring extreme amounts of CPU cycles and RAM, PCs will still be relied upon. (Remember when that applied to mainframes?)

It wasn’t long ago that people gawked at the idea that the iPad could run games built on the Unreal engine, but here we are. The tablet form factor doesn’t mean that powerful hardware can’t live under the hood, and the gap between what we do on a PC and what we do on the iPad is ever closing.

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We’ve already written about our iPad serving as a Mac replacement for most tasks, but there’s still a misconception out there that the iPad can’t do work, which is akin to the iPad not being a suitable device for creating content. The latest perpetuation of this myth comes courtesy of TUAW.

What the iPad does not do well is work. Yes, you can get work done when the need arises, but the iPad was not designed for day-to-day business. It is, at its heart, a netbook with the core demands of light computing and connectivity guiding its use. If you want multitasking, multiple windows, professional software suites and so forth, then you want a proper computer running a full-featured OS. You want a laptop or desktop, not a pocket or tablet device, even if you still need mobility.

None of these “reasons” support the claim that the iPad can’t do work. This fallacy here is that one needs multiple windows and professional software suites in order for most people to get productive work done, and further, that the iPad is merely a netbook (a notion dismissed many times), lacks multitasking, nor runs a “full-featured” OS. (The idea that iOS is not full-featured because it’s derived from OS X is akin to saying that OS X is not full-featured because it, too, is derived from a pre-existing OS. iOS may not be as customizable as OS X, but that does not make it un-full-featured.)

Just as easily, we can throw claims out there that notebooks can’t do real work because they are too large, have inadequate battery life, and don’t have 3G capabilities built in.

There are distinct reasons that some people might want a MacBook Air over an iPad, and vice versa. It comes down to software availability and work environment, not abstract notions of the tools people used to get work done in the past.

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Despite the number of initial downloads, it appears that magazine “subscriptions” on the iPad aren’t drawing nearly the number of people that publishers thought they would. But a lot of this has to do with how magazines on the iPad are implemented, which only a handful of publishers are doing well.

First, a lot of people don’t want to download each new issue individually. And, when they buy a subscription in advance, they expect a discount, to the point where the digital magazine is cheaper than the print magazine. Two, they want to be notified when a new issue is available, instead of having to remember to check manually.

Second, several iPad-based magazines are little more than PDF versions of the print magazines. It’s fine that these magazines don’t have additional content, but manually zooming in on sections just to get readable text is a pain; minimal reformatting should be done on these magazines such that the smaller form factor of the iPad isn’t an obstacle.

Beyond the implementation, there are still many magazines (particularly those targeting niche audiences) that may do very well on the iPad but that simply aren’t available digitally yet. Larger publications also need to realize that they’re competing with free; the iPad is more than a magazine browser, so why load up a celebrity-gossip magazine when you can just load up Perez Hilton on the web instead? Look at where magazines are still typical fare: in waiting rooms, at the grocery store, and in bookstores. Usually, customers in these locations don’t have computers readily available; who brings their iPad to the grocery-store checkout line? Point is, the audience may be similar, but the setting for reading the magazine isn’t.

What it comes down to is doing more than just porting an analog publication to a digital format. The reality is that many magazines simply won’t survive the transition to the iPad, or any mobile electronics device, because the audience for that magazine is negligible in a world where the internet is becomes more ubiquitous. Other magazines will fare fine, even if it means tweaking how the magazine is formatted and priced, because the content of the magazine is more unique, and of a greater quality, than what you’d find on the web. In some ways, the future of digital magazines is much the same as the future of print magazines, only with the former, the web is an even larger competitor.

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Just over a year ago we addressed the suggestion of a Mac AppStore, effectively saying, “it won’t happen.” But now that the release of the OS X AppStore is imminent, let’s address some of our earlier points.

…why would developers let Apple take a cut in software sales, when they’ve been selling their products fine via traditional means for years now?

The key word here is “fine,” and Apple’s wager is that “fine” is merely subjective, using the success of the iOS AppStore to tell developers that increased exposure will make up for lost revenue due to Apple’s cut of sales. In other words, the unstated promise by Apple is if developers continue to sell their apps at the same price, only in the AppStore instead of independently, they’ll sell at least as many copies of their product as they did before, and will likely sell more. In fact, it’s a fair bet that developers can even lower prices in the AppStore and still make out better than before. The iOS AppStore is a solid testament to sales growth due to more sales linked to lower prices (i.e. the “sweet spot” of AppStore pricing).

[Apple will] want to approve the code for included applications just as they do for iPhone programs… developers will abandon ship the moment Apple looks to be heavy-handed.

Most AppStore kinks have been worked out in the last year, indicated by the release of even the official Google Voice app. So with Apple review guidelines better defined, it’s unlikely there’ll be too much strife between Apple and developers. Of course, this still means that many applications will never find their way into the AppStore, like the venerable Transmission and other peer-to-peer file-sharing applications. Only on the Mac, there’s no need for a jailbreak, or Cydia; power users already know where to go for non-Apple-sanctioned programs.

…the App Store’s primary selling force is impulse buys for casual software… With software generally priced well over $20 [for OS X apps], there’s much less impulse buying and far more consideration made before an application is purchased.

Two things will address this, one being the likely decrease in price for the average app listed in the AppStore, and two, a general move by casual users to devices like the iPad, which still has a solid casual user-base. In other words, Apple has positioned Macs as a more serious platform for enterprise work tasks, rather than a use-everywhere generic computing device; Macs are less likely to be used for casual pursuits now that the iOS user-base is as vast as it is. The average Mac AppStore browser, then, is generally someone in the market for a very specific type of application, who doesn’t want to browse the web and search through Google in order to find the solution to a problem. This user is willing to pay a bit of a premium over an iOS app in order to have a desktop-friendly, one-click-to-buy solution.

…while a Mac App Store won’t be a vehicle for generating the types of sales that the iPhone App Store is, it could still be a great distribution model. Rather than having it be Apple-endorsed, however, a more realistic approach would be to have a third-party developer, ideally one that’s pro-open-source, create a framework for distribution ala Valve’s Steam.

Since we wrote this, two important things happened. One, Steam was released for OS X to see good success, and Bodega was released to test the concept of an all-application AppStore. It’s no surprise that Apple has taken notice of these two ventures, and with the success of the iOS AppStore for both iPhone/Touch apps, and for iPad apps, an OS X AppStore now makes sense.

We still don’t see the Mac AppStore matching the sales of the iOS AppStore. Either way, the success of the Mac AppStore may very well portend the future of the platform as far as casual users go: if the Mac AppStore fails in light of iOS growth, then Apple has a clear sign as to where to push future investment monies. If the Mac AppStore outdoes our expectations, however, then Apple has plenty of reason to continue pushing lower-end MacBooks at the expense of more powerful iOS devices.

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There are better technologies for businesses these days than relying on desktop PCs and Microsoft Windows, at least as far as most tasks are concerned. Marco Ament spoke about the issues surrounding adoption of ChromeOS, but the same goes for the iPad, or even Macs in general. Simply put, the immediate strain on the current year’s budget becomes an argument against such an IT revolution.

That’s why that PC on your banker’s desk is probably running Windows 2000, an 11-year-old platform: because it’s extraordinarily expensive to update it, and the current system works acceptably without any massive, one-time expenditures on this year’s budget.

The same is true in Shady Land, where finding a modern computer appliance warrants a “Eureka!” The reality is that Shady Land computing is abysmal: computers run operating systems that have already surpassed Microsoft’s “end of life” date, and where the base word processing application is three versions old. Database queries are done on a daily basis using what amounts to a VAX back-end, and there is no consolidated attempt to streamline this access. Why? Not only are there cost issues like in big-business enterprises, but here we have to deal with “lowest cost” bids that get us little bang for our buck.

And then there’s the issue of perceived longevity:

In the context of replacing business software platforms, longevity is a major requirement. For Chrome OS to be considered by any reasonably large business, their IT decision-makers are going to want to know that Chrome OS is going to be around and supported by Google many years from now.

At least as far as Apple is concerned, there are small waves being made in Shady Land to adopt Apple computers to support certain functions, even though the mainstay computer remains a Microsoft Windows machine. As Apple’s future is now more certain than it was back when OS X was released, IT managers should be able to lean on Apple products more now, yet there’s still resistance. Resistance likely linked to cost.

But when it comes to a platform like ChromeOS, or even something more solidly defined in the consumer space like the iPad (which can easily manage most tasks a typical Operator needs to perform in the office), the resistance from IT managers is fierce. For one, will the platform be around long-term? And two, how can security issues pertaining to the cloud ever be juggled?

That second question is a huge issue, because even if there was a guarantee that ChromeOS and iOS will be around for a long time to come, and requisite apps are available, Shady Land will never rely on a platform solution that stores data in the cloud, or even pulls updates from a server wirelessly. In fact, unless enterprise customers can roll out updates through their own servers instead of directly through Apple, and on a wired connection, it’s likely that Shady Land will never see these types of devices adopted.

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Lately, all the Apple talk has been around the MacBook Air’s ability to serve as one’s primary computer, but we say that’s not going far enough. When the iPad was released, we embarked on a revolutionary experiment: replace our 17″ MacBook Pro with a 3G iPad, and see if the much smaller, sleeker device had the oomph to serve our needs.

Of course, there’s a mandatory disclaimer behind this experiment:

1. We bought the 64GB iPad in an effort to alleviate as many storage concerns as possible.
   
   
2. A Mac Mini server was purchased alongside the iPad to further address storage concerns for our media, and to serve as a means to update and backup our iOS devices. (As a bonus, the Mini, in lieu of an Apple TV, acts as our media server; the Mini is generally headless, though we use our 46″ LCD television as an output device when watching Internet-based video in our living room.)
   
   
   
3. The iPad is our home computer; we typically use company-owned computers during business hours.
   
   
   
4. We no longer actively develop code, or have other requirements that would limit us to a particular software suite or IDE.

That may sound like a lot of “buts,” yet it makes us a fairly typical computer user. We spend most of our computer time split between surfing the web and writing text, with the rest of our computer use consisting of entertainment (e.g. games and videos) or dabbling in content management/creation. A good chunk of this computing time is done strictly in our house, which means our office, living room, occasionally the kitchen, and when weather permits, our patio. We also like to take our computer on trips, and since we don’t have a business computer for business trips, we take our personal computer along for personal entertainment/tasks.

The disclaimer, realized.

To further allay the concerns some readers have with the four-point disclaimer we noted above, we admit that we played it somewhat safe when embarking on this journey. That is to say, in practice, we could have gone with less purchases as a safety net.

For one, the 64GB iPad was overkill; for many months, we didn’t come close to filling even half of this capacity. This is partially due to the fact that we don’t use our iPad as a music-playing device outside of, say, Pandora, which means we don’t need to use up storage space for a vast mp3 collection. The few mp3s we do maintain, we keep on our iPhone, which, among other things, serves as our iPod.

We do keep movies on our iPad, however. We have a select few reference videos that we’ve ripped and keep synced via iTunes, and before most trips, we rip a couple videos to watch while traveling. The brunt of our storage use is from apps, however, of which games probably take up the most space.

In reality, we could easily get by with a 32GB iPad. The 64GB merely lets us be less disciplined with juggling media. And, when on vacation, when we use the camera connection kit to offload raw images from our digital camera, that extra space can come in handy, as we don’t need to juggle around extra SD cards.

Two, dumping our 17″ MacBook Pro meant we technically had room in our lives for a Mac Mini server, which we’d been considering for some time. The purchase itself was overkill, we admit. For the purpose of acting as an iTunes portal for backing up and syncing our iOS devices, we could just have kept the 17″ MacBook Pro on a shelf and used it specifically for this purpose. So too, could we have purchased many a used Mac for same.

The Mac Mini solution, instead, was made because we desperately wanted to experiment with a media server hooked up to our television. Going the Mini server route was because we didn’t want to deal with external drives, and the server version came with extra storage capacity, which at the time of purchase, made sense since we had well over 500GB of files saved from the last 10+ years of computing. Sadly, a Time Capsule failure (we used the drive networking feature) meant that we lost all our files thanks to not having redundant backups. So by the time we had our iPad in hand, even the capacity of an old MacBook Air would have been sufficient.

The lesson here isn’t just that redundant backups are good, but that for people considering duplicating our iPad experiment, a much less capable Mac can be used if all one wants to do is sync iOS devices with iTunes.

Three, we’re not getting away with running fancy apps on work computers; even in the office, there’s little reason that we couldn’t get away with using an iPad for most computing tasks. We simply clarify as a matter of full disclosure, not because the iPad is incapable of providing the necessary tools for our job.

The add-ons.

While the iPad itself is core to the experience, just as one might purchase peripherals and accessories for a notebook computer, the iPad is not without its complimentary needs.

Let’s start with the most basic of needs for getting new media onto an iPad, as the lack of disc drive is a huge red flag for most people considering an iPad-only lifestyle: in order to get videos onto an iPad, they need to be in iTunes, and in order to get them into iTunes, they need to be downloaded or ripped. The former method doesn’t need much explanation, but the latter requires an optical disc drive. This isn’t an issue for most people who have a Mac or PC for iTunes use, but in our case, about four of five months into our project, we went out and bought a Superdrive for ripping DVDs (since the Mini server doesn’t come with a disc drive). From here, the process is obvious, but since we went the (mostly) headless route, what did we do when the TV was in use, and we wanted to use the Mini?

Enter iTeleport, a fantastic VNC client for all iOS devices. iTeleport is what we use both at home and on-the-go to access our Mini. It’s what we use to manage iTunes and sync devices, as well as running, say, RipIt for adding media to iTunes. Basically, if the TV is in use, we use iTeleport to simulate our Mini’s monitor, so we can do what we need to in order to support our iOS devices (e.g. managing peer-to-peer clients like Transmission, and basic iPhoto management tasks). If you have a Mac you’re using for iTunes that already has a monitor, then you don’t need a iTeleport, but it’s still a handy utility regardless.

Another obvious hurdle out-of-box was the lack of a physical keyboard. We didn’t anticipate that the software keyboard would be as useable as it is (it’s remarkably good once you’re used to it), but for longer writing sessions, we knew we’d want a physical keyboard, too. For us, the Apple bluetooth keyboard fits the bill. It’s only slightly taller than the iPad itself, which is about perfect for sitting on our lap while we type away, and it’s not too large to take along when we’re traveling. We use the basic iPad dock for propping the iPad up in portrait mode for when we type, and this works splendidly in most environments. Per our earlier post, setup time is quick and easy, too.

We don’t keep the iPad in a case, though when not in use, we pop it in a Saddleback sleeve so it doesn’t get beaten up in our satchel. Thus far, we’ve found no immediate need for the six-foot power extension cable that Apple sells, though we can picture a need for it in certain environments.

With this three-piece office ensemble (iPad, dock, and keyboard), and iTeleport, we’re perfectly able to perform most every task we need to at home and on the road.

The changing of the lifestyle.

The biggest difference with our computer use after going iPad-only is that traveling is more enjoyable. Schlepping around our 17″ MacBook Pro was a pain in the ass, but with how much smaller and lighter the iPad is, we’ve downsized our briefcase considerably. And, since we have the option of leaving the keyboard and dock at home, we can travel even lighter on short trips when we don’t expect to have much time for writing.

This easier ability to take our iPad on the road means we take it with us more often than we did our MacBook. (Mind you, we keep mentioning our old 17″ MacBook Pro, but the same held true for the 15″ MacBook Pro we had before it.) We wouldn’t have considered taking a notebook computer along on a camping trip, or most day trips, but the iPad is a great travel companion.

And with a battery life of some 10 hours, we don’t even worry about packing a power cord along for most day trips, either. The small footprint of the iPad also means it enters our kitchen more often, say, for looking up recipes. (And yes, it’s great for surfing the web from the shitter, too.)

But perhaps the biggest advantage to the iPad other than the small footprint is the 3G capability. Many have said they’ve heard people regretting a non-3G iPad purchase, but never someone regretting spending the extra money on 3G capability. For the extra dime, the option of 3G access is great, especially since 3G users aren’t on a contract, and can opt-in one month at a time.

About the only downside for new iPad buyers regarding 3G is that the unlimited data plan is no longer available. Since we use wifi at home and at Starbucks, the first couple months of use meant that we didn’t use that much 3G data, so we briefly dropped down to a lower plan. Given our use pattern, however, we occasionally spike: during a couple days of heavy 3G use when we were away from home and had no free wifi available, we burned through the capped data plan, and had to jump back to the unlimited plan. (We could have doubled up on the capped plan, but at that rate, why bother?) Maybe that’s not a huge problem for most people’s use, and arguably doubling-up on a capped plan may suit most people’s needs when such spikes happen, but it’s still something worth noting.

The surfing of the web.

Most people we talk to about going iPad-only bring up Flash as soon as internet use is mentioned. We consider this practically a dead issue and won’t rehash the anti-Flash sentiments in detail, but regardless of what sites are still using it today, the fact remains that Flash eats battery life like nothing else, and every mobile implementation of Flash offers a poor experience. With HTML5 being supported by most sites (like YouTube), it won’t be long before Flash is a footnote in web history, much like the blink tag of yesteryear.

That said, have we been frustrated on occasion that certain legacy sites don’t offer non-Flash versions? Yes, and in these cases, we either move on to the next site, or rely on iTeleport to give us a Flash version via our Mini. But as time moves on, we rely on this latter procedure less and less, in great part because developers are realizing that non-Flash alternatives need to exist. In fact, we’re contemplating removing the Flash plugin from our Mini altogether at this point, as we’re that confident that we don’t need Flash in our web-surfing lives.

Overall, the web-surfing experience on the iPad is fantastic. We don’t need to zoom around on a page like we do with the iPhone, and about the only common annoyance is dealing with web forms, which aren’t as quick to navigate as on a traditional computer, especially when the on-screen keyboard is used and cuts off a drop-down box (rendering it smaller, not obscuring options). Certain web pages also are not iPad-friendly, such as Facebook, which either remove options (Facebook chat, for example) or have broken functionality (Facebook photo uploads). Fortunately, there are apps for some of these issues (like third-party Facebook apps that enable chat and file uploads), but the inability to upload files via a basic web form on, say, an online forum, can be very irksome if you rely on such functionality.

The only other complaint we have will be addressed in iOS 4.2, and that’s conducting text searches in web content.

Given the iPad’s form factor, surfing the web in bed, or on the couch, or wherever else, is simply a more intimate experience that having a keyboard and mouse between you and the internet. If anything, web browsing is where tablets shine much brighter than conventional computers.

The writing of the text.

We’ve already covered writing on the iPad to some degree, but let’s rehash: the software keyboard works well for basic tasks, like taking brief notes, filling in web forms, et al. And, it works well in both landscape and portrait modes; though a lot of people criticize the software keyboard in portrait mode, we’ve found that it works about as well as the landscape keyboard on the iPhone, with the only minor downside being the weight of the iPad being a tad awkward if used for more than a few minutes.

Touch-typing on the software keyboard is also possible in landscape mode, and only becomes better when the auto-correct feature is turned off; mis-types that result in whole words we don’t want turns out to be far more annoying than simply back-spacing and making corrections. But for slow typers, the auto-correct feature can be handy.

For anyone who wants to seriously write on the iPad, however, a hardware keyboard is a must. There are now several, foldable keyboards on the market that open to full-size, and these may be better for travel, but the small, Apple bluetooth keyboard has worked for us so far. For home users, the camera connection kit allows a USB keyboard to be used so you don’t need to worry about keyboard battery life, but this hasn’t been a huge issue for us with our bluetooth keyboard. Still, the option is there (though you couldn’t have the iPad hooked up to a wall outlet in this scenario).

Just as with web pages, one annoyance when writing is not having a quick find/replace option. Perhaps as apps start to standardize more, we’ll see something like this evolve, but keyboard shortcuts are a no-go for most writing apps, so there is a slight speed advantage for those who are used to writing on a traditional computer. (We’ve found the lack of a page up/down shortcut particularly annoying, as we now have to scroll with touch gestures which means taking our hands off the keyboard.)

These slight issues aside, we’ve welcomed the simplicity that iPad writing apps offer. We purchased Pages from the get-go, but tend to use even simpler writing apps, as we don’t regularly mark up our text.

To be fair, we’re not power spreadsheet users either, so Numbers works fine for us, as likely would most other spreadsheet apps on the AppStore. It has a slightly higher learning curve for beginners than, say, Excel, but it’s nothing a half hour of tinkering won’t solve. If anything, office apps on the iPad feel manageable, whereas Microsoft Office can often feel monumental (in a bad way) comparatively.

We mentioned earlier the simplicity of the iPad dock as a stand, and if a table or desk is around, this setup works fantastic. If anything, you can get by with much less tabletop space than you could with a notebook, since a wireless keyboard can easily sit on your lap (being more ergonomic to boot).

That said, things become a tad more complicated if you’re not sitting in a chair in front of a desk. Take, for example, a situation where you want to write a few pages in the park, under a tree. Your keyboard can sit on your lap, but how do you prop your iPad up? You can throw something together with whatever you have around you (a jacket, for example, can become a makeshift support), but the ideal situation is a case that will support the iPad at an ideal viewing angle and not shift. With a notebook, the keyboard is the stand, but with the iPad, you have to buy a case that holds the iPad accordingly. We can’t comment on whether or not the iPad keyboard dock fills this need, but we’ve seen various other cases that seem better suited for this task.

Ultimately, the iPad is an excellent all-around writing tool, and should be plenty adequate for most people’s needs, to include students and professionals. Trickier things become as the need for more robust layout options arise. Folks in the design industry, for example, will likely want very specific software products to fulfill this niche, and until such apps arrive, they will continue to rely on traditional computing solutions. (This is akin to graphics professionals still needing a machine with Photoshop, while the layman can easily get away with one of the many lightweight Photoshop-like apps in the AppStore.)

For everyone else, however, the vast array of writing apps in the AppStore, to include writing apps for hand-written notes and apps integrating audio capture, should suffice for most any need.

The blogging of the thoughts.

So general writing on the iPad works well, but what about, specifically, blogging? Considering that most of the non-professional writing we do ends up online in some form or another, we hoped that the iPad would address this need well. As it turns out, blogging via the iPad is easy once one gets a decent methodology in place.

On our MacBook, we relied heavily on Skitch for grabbing and editing graphics from the web for use in  blog posts. On the iPad, we have to manually download a web graphic, else perform a screen-capture. We then open the file in our graphics app of choice, crop, edit, and re-save. We now have a graphic that we can’t simply upload via a web form, and that’s a shame. (The default WordPress admin interface doesn’t lend itself to file uploads from the iPad, nor is the content input box for a post resizable in Mobile Safari like it is in regular Safari. So sadly, it’s a poor interface for making new posts.)

Fortunately, since we predominantly use WordPress, there’s both a WordPress app and BlogPress (both apps with trade-offs, but that are reasonable methods for generating new blog posts). That said, in most cases, we still end up writing the actual posts in one of our writing apps, and then cut’n pasting the final draft over to the WordPress or BlogPress apps. This is where we would then handle image attachments and the like. (If we don’t want to deal with images, we often paste into WordPress via Safari.)

Admittedly, it probably takes us a little extra time to blog via the iPad than it did from our MacBook, but we argue that this is mainly because the WordPress app has shown itself buggy, and BlogPress remains limited in what it does. We’d definitely like to see a more robust blogging app, even if it’s just a more stable and refined WordPress app.

The watching of the multimedia.

The iPad is positioned as an entertainment device as much as it is a productivity device, and here, we’ve found no shortage of truth. Even though we don’t rely on the built-in iPod and Videos apps as much as others might, we’ve been pleased with the variety of video options in the AppStore. Key among these are streaming apps, like Netflix and Hulu Plus, but perhaps our top choice is Air Video, which allows us to stream video content from our Mini to the iPad on a local, or remote level. This means that video not encoded for viewing in iTunes can stream to the iPad just fine, and while Netflix and Hulu have licensing restrictions that won’t let you use them when traveling overseas, Air Video lets us watch what we want, where we want. (Plex is also great if you’re running the main Plex app on a media server like we are; it handles landscape mode nicely, and we’re starting to use this app more often now, though Air Video is still out go-to.)

While we could probably find a way to automate the transferring of content from our TiVo to the Mini, when we’re traveling, we simply find an RSS feed for a particular torrent of a show we already pay for via FIOS, and let Transmission on the Mini download new episodes as they’re posted. Air Video is set up to scan the respective directory with new torrent downloads, and we’re good to go. Even if your source isn’t torrents (i.e. you can automate downloads from Usenet or some other source), Air Video can look in the directory where videos are downloaded to and present them to you from the other side of the world.

With iOS 4.2 and multitasking, we expect the iPad to only become better; being able to run Pandora audio streams in the background while we surf the web, or write, is something we look forward to, as we’re currently handling background audio by running Pandora on our iPhone and keeping the phone nearby.

That which remains missing.

The iPad has met most of our expectations in six months of use, though there remain several things we’d like to see improved in the iPad experience. Recognizing that some things simply won’t change based on Apple’s position on third-party apps, there are other things we’d like to see happen.

1. Tethering: The iPad currently requires a traditional computer in order to back up files, downloads, and handle iOS updates. This means that the iPad can never be the sole machine in one’s tool-bag, and that isn’t ideal. Right now, the iPad is a great travel companion, but if we were to go on a major trip lasting several months, we’d question whether not having any backups during that time-frame, or missing a key iOS update, is something we could live with. The iPad needs a way to back itself up via an iPad-optimized version of Time Machine, which could be run on a home network or, even better, via the internet. And, the iPad needs to be able to download and install iOS updates without being tethered to a traditional computer. Once this happens, the iPad becomes a much clearer alternative to the 11″ MacBook Air.
   
   
2. APIs: We’ve heard from several developers that the apps they want to make can’t be made, because Apple still has many private APIs that developers can’t use (but that Apple uses in its own iOS apps). This isn’t good for the development of more powerful and competitive iOS apps, especially when basic things like text markup become restricted to developers. (Sadly, this is preventing apps like Ulysses from receiving a solid port to iOS.)
   
   
   
3. Screen-sharing: We mentioned how fantastic we find iTeleport, but why isn’t there a native solution to screen-sharing via an iPad? And, wouldn’t it be nice if we had a more powerful way to stream content from a server? We’re thinking something along the lines of OnLive, only connecting a video stream between you and a Mac you already own. While iOS 4.2 will allow us to stream audio and video from one iOS device to another on an app-specific level, being able to stream a Mac desktop to an iPad would be a fantastic ability to have.

More experimenting.

We’re not done with our experiment: we don’t plan on jumping back over to a MacBook anytime soon. Rather, we’re quite pleased with how well our iPad performs, and we’re actually more likely to replace it with another iPad well before we replace it with another notebook.

For those considering a similar experiment, jumping over to the iPad is difficult in the sense that switching from the PC to the Mac is difficult: it involves changing habits and adopting new ways of doing things. But once you start getting those new methods, then the iPad isn’t an obstacle for tasks, but a natural fit for them. The iPad isn’t perfect, mind you, but it’s already a solid platform for computing, and we only see it getting better over time. There’s a reason that the feel of the iPad is being transitioned over to OS X, which will only further help to drive iPad sales.

Yes, we sometimes get frustrated with a particular task on the iPad, because the way we know to do that task on a Mac feels easier, but those moments of frustration are less and less frequent as better apps are released, and as Apple continues to develop iOS further.

When it comes to apps, we also find ourselves thinking less and less, “We wish our iPad could do what the Mac does,” and thinking more and more, “We wish everyone used an iPad.” Why? Because more iPad users means more developers on that platform, which means better apps. And frankly, those apps on the iPad would be better.

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Following up on our comments regarding the iPad and MacBook Air, we’d like to address Ben Brooks’ arguments about the iPad being more cumbersome in a classroom setup, which we find to be blatantly bunk.

…think about how much more cumbersome setting up an iPad for note taking would be if you add a keyboard dock or bluetooth keyboard to the mix – it really becomes a pain in the ass at that point. No student wants to be the nerd in the corner that takes a few minutes to set up his note taking system before class, and another few minutes to put it away after class.

Maybe Brooks felt overcome by his pro-Air sentiments and reality started to whisper by, but in what world does it take minutes to set up an iPad with bluetooth keyboard? At minimum, we remove the iPad from our briefcase, plop it on the table, then remove our Apple bluetooth keyboard from the same briefcase, and start typing away. Grabbing the keyboard takes about as much times as opening a notebook. Maybe we’ll add another three or four seconds into the mix by grabbing our dock connector to sit the iPad up, but how does anyone joke that the process is a few-minute ordeal?

In an absolute worst-case scenario, we’re pulling three items out of our bag, and going into the iPad’s settings to re-enable Bluetooth (in the event that we were previously using the iPad with the onscreen keyboard). That setup time still takes less than 25 seconds (yes, we timed it). More time than throwing a MacBook on the table and opening it up, maybe, but still not even a minute. And remember that this is a worst-case scenario; if you’re coming from another class and your iPad is already synced with a keyboard, then you’re looking at maybe twice the time it takes to throw a MacBook on the table. Negligible difference. 

Carrying a keyboard for the iPad has the same implications for the business traveler as it does for the student – you again become the guy with all these little parts and pieces that need to be assembled just so you can work. Not to mention: on an airplane, where would you prop up the iPad, and where would you rest the keyboard?

An 11″ Air may fit on the little airplane table fine, but so does an iPad sitting in a dock. The iPad is smaller than the Air, remember. Better yet, we can situate the iPad at the edge of the table and place our bluetooth keyboard in our lap, which feels far more ergonomic, and offers a better view of the screen, too. The Air will always be further away because the keyboard needs to be on the table.

And this doesn’t even take into consideration a suitable case, for which there are many. Unlike the Air, the iPad can be configured per a user’s preference on a physical level; whether you use the iPad in landscape mode or vertical, you can get a case for that orientation, or one that does both. Want the iPad to feel like a notebook when on a plane? Get a case that does just that. With the Air, you only have one option. 

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• iPad haters: external keyboards are not cryptids. – Gary Arndt talks about using the iPad while traveling, and [his review](http://everything-everywhere…

At the recent Back to the Mac event, Apple unveiled their redone Macbook Air, which now comes in two form factors: a 13″ model that is, basically, an updated version of the old Air, and an 11″ model that hearkens back to the 12″ Powerbook days. This latter model is every bit the “starter” Mac that the basic Macbook is, albeit with a smaller screen, more portability, and some arguably negligible differences in storage capacity, performance, and port availability.

John Gruber argues that the new Air, as far as Apple’s lineup goes, falls under the “secondary Mac” category. And that poses an interesting conundrum for buyers who may already be looking at the iPad as a device to compliment their primary computer.

The new MacBook Airs — particularly the 11-inch model — don’t compete against the other MacBooks so much as they do the iPad. It’s like a “pro” solution for the same “in between a smartphone and a full-size laptop PC” market segment that the iPad sits in.

We disagree with Gruber’s assertion that the Air is targeting consumers who want a secondary Mac. Certainly, for those who need a notebook computer and already have a desktop, the Air is a promising choice. But for those who already have a MacBook? The Air’s role in the lineup seems to better target those who don’t need all the bells and whistles of a “Pro” Macbook, and simply need a lightweight computer, period. (And in this context, we don’t include the iPad.)

Ben Brooks agrees that the 13″ Air is a fine primary computer, and is meant for people who don’t need the performance and storage offered by the traditional MacBook Pro line. This is especially true when one considers the actual performance differences between devices is negligible thanks to the Air’s flash drives. So price-wise, the devices are close to a wash.

All of this to say: the 13” MacBook Air is no secondary computer any more than the 13” MacBook Pro is.

So if the Air fills the same role as a Macbook Pro for most people, we still have the 11″ Air vs iPad debate. We’ve said numerous times before that for most people’s computing needs, the iPad is sufficient. All the more reason that the Air’s lack of storage, expansion ports, etc are not a huge concern. So is the 11″ Air effectively a “Pro” version of the iPad?

Brooks seems to think so, especially for three categories of buyer: students, business travelers, and the niche market.

Brooks is dead-on when it comes to college students; the iPad is simply not fit for university campuses at large because many students need to run applications as-of-yet unavailable on the iPad, be they Windows apps that require emulation or Bootcamp, or applications that run natively on the Mac (IDEs, business apps, etc.) Unfortunately, simply having a web browser and an office suite doesn’t cut it for every college student, and while most can sit in the local computer lab to get around the need for a Windows emulator or very specific app their silly professors want them to use, this is hardly ideal. So while many more students could get away with just using an iPad, it’s not the most practical affair depending on one’s course of study.

Of course, as far as pre-collegiate students go, Brooks’ argument doesn’t hold up. If anything, the iPad is a much more ideal device in a pre-collegiate setting thanks to it being able to record written text, being a less complicated device, cheaper, and a device that can comfortably be synced at home. 

Mind you, the iPad is close to meeting most student’s needs, even in university settings: iOS 4.x will bring multitasking and printing to the iPad, which is already a huge deal. But the big elephant in the room isn’t just iTunes syncing, as Brooks mentions, but the mere fact that the iPad remains a tethered device; the iPad still relies on a Mac for OS updates, and as such, it simply can’t be a primary computer for many people. It’s why when we replaced our 17″ MacBook Pro with an iPad, we also bought a Mac Mini to act as a server for our files, and to handle our iOS device upgrades.

This remains the biggest problem for the iPad-as-a-home-computer movement. People want to back-up their files, and not always to the cloud. If your iPad gets stolen, or broken, you want to be able to recover your files, and put them back on your replacement device.

The 11″ Air is a fantastic computer for those looking to replace a primary computer who also want portability. But let’s be clear, it’s no more a “Pro” version of the iPad than the basic Macbook is.

Yes, we’re factoring in iOS 4.x here, but we’re happy to factor in OS X Lion as far as the Air goes, too. The iPad remains hastle-free, the Air does not. Lion’s app store is a big move in the direction of a better user experience, and while the iPad remains somewhat crippled because it lacks certain “power” apps that Mac users have come to love, that’s already slowly changing. The iPad, meanwhile, remains a more mobile device, and is a more flexible device for content consumption. Furthermore, it’s interface remains more intuitive for the general populace.

Really, just as the Air is one of two paths a customer can take beyond the basic MacBook, the iPad is a similar trade-off in mobility over the 11″ Air.

So while the 11″ Air remains a great device, it’s not going to replace the iPad for those who know exactly what they want in a mobile device, just as the iPad isn’t going to replace the Air for the same reason; if you’re not sure whether to get an iPad or the Air, then you’re not sure what you need a mobile computer for, and you should figure that out first.

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