The 6 Month iPad review

It has been just over 6 months since I got my iPad. When I bought it, I did not really have too many ideas on what I would use it for. 6 months later it has become an essential tool, which although not irreplaceable, is certainly useful. And surprisingly, I use it most often at work. And over the last few months a number of colleagues phase joined me with their own iPads and there seems to be a corporate move to approve it for all.

The biggest use in a work setting, is taking notes in meetings, and the calendar and email functionality. The email application on the iPad is stunning, and integrates very well with Microsoft Exchange. The setup is quick, and in fact it can be argued that it is faster to set it up on the pad than it is on Windows! Likewise, the calendar function also integrates well and easy to use. One gripe, is that it does not seem to work well with proxies, or specifically proxies that have domain based authentication. It's not that much of an issue, but it does limit the functionality of certain applications and uses in the work environment.

Other than that, it is great for reading PDF documents, and the great battery life means that it is great on long flights. I have flown Boston to Berlin, via Frankfurt on a single charge, and spent most of the flight watching Ted videos or reading ebooks. I have a number of mini games, which are also entertaining, although some of them do seem to drain the battery life very quickly.

Surprisingly, I have found browsing on the iPad to be fairly annoying. This probably has to do with the way browse the web, and the iPad still lacking multitasking functionality. I per to open a number of windows and tabs and then switch between them,usually reading one tab while waiting for another to load. On the iPad, pages seem to reload every time I switch tabs, so it becomes quite annoying. The lack of flash is usually not an issue, except for sites like Ster-Kinekor and Computicket.

The iPad's keyboard is not awesome for very long periods, but it is usable and surprisingly accurate, even with moderately good typing speeds. This post was written on the iPad, but this is probably the longest single typing piece I have done.