iPad

[GeeZa]

If the iWork suite had the cloud-based saving of the Google Docs clients they would be incredible. Pages in particular is way way better than I anticipated. The office side of things is going to get stronger on the iPad.

For those who grab the 16 Gb version I can recommend AirVideo for streaming and transcoding movies from your main computer. It's a Universal app so works on the iPhone too, and over Wifi is almost flawless. Over 3G it can be more problematic but it still works. I was streaming Father Ted from home to work yesterday. Good interface too.

For music, if you have SlimServer/Squeezebox all you need is another Universal app called Tunemark Radio (it's free) and you can use Safari to browse your entire music collection remotely, and Tunemark to play your mp3 stream. Again, works over Wifi or 3G and makes storing music locally largely pointless. It'll even pass the stream back to Safari so you can play music in the background.

This thing is the shit.

[Misfit]

For those who grab the 16 Gb version I can recommend AirVideo for streaming and transcoding movies from your main computer. It's a Universal app so works on the iPhone too, and over Wifi is almost flawless. Over 3G it can be more problematic but it still works. I was streaming Father Ted from home to work yesterday. Good interface too.

Funnily enough I started playing with this last night.

Very good!

Only issue I have is that my older systems, just can't handle the live transcoding of anything big. A £50 processor change in my home server should sort that.

It has a free client too, which limits you to only the first three items in a folder, you could structure the media you need to watch in such a way to cope with this, but it seems well worth the few bucks it costs and should only really be considered a trial.

This thing is the shit.

Can't argue with that!

[VNVObit]

Just caught the review of the iPad on the Gadget Show.

Rather unfair to complain about the only word processor app on the iPad at the time, then compare it to the laptop with Windows 7 on it, especially as they then said that spreadsheets (shown in Excel) and Word docs are handled better on the laptop.

I didn't know that Windows 7 came bundled with MS Office for free?

Yeah, was hardly a review. But it still came out well.

Good point on office. And apparently Pages does have a word count if you know where to look! (haven't bought it yet as it's only on US store at the mo).

I thought the mosttelling bit was thefact he thought the ipad was the most fun piece of kit of the three of them

[matt303]

Don't go mad buying them for friends, you'll get banned from buying them "for life".
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/25 ... ime_limit/

[Yak]

OH HAI

[Cloudane]

Last two win it "oooooh look at that!"

Now we need a video of one of them using it

[Deckard]

Any initial impressions from you or the biped ?

[GeeZa]

That last picture is simply the most awesome thing ever.

[Yak]

Very nice so far - the thing is solidly built, probably a bit heavier than I expected. Screen's lovely, seems bright and sharp, pictures look amazing on it. UI beautifully fluid, much more so than my old iPhone 3G which seems positively clunky by comparison.

Got some of the apps that are available on the UK app store - Geom Wars, Real Racing, the Kindle app (since iBooks isn't out in the UK yet) through which I got the latest Culture book by Iain M. Banks, Orbital (which is pretty much just like the iPhone one but bigger), Brushes even though I can't draw worth shit and will probably just draw sheep and spunking cocks with it, the Marvel comics app, Words With Friends (since Scrabble isn't available yet on the UK app store), Beastwave, IMDB app because Giles always wants to look stuff up on there.

Suggestions for good stuff I've missed always welcome .

Haven't charged it since I got it, just used the charge it had in it, been fiddling with it off and on all day and the battery's at 72%.

Impressed so far .

[matt]

I posted a list a while ago: http://yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=33&t= ... 5#p1455555

Here's my revised one:

Adobe Ideas
AIM for iPad
Alice Lite
Articles for iPad (rather than Wikipanion)
Beatwave
Comics by ComiXology (or the Marvel branded version)
The Early Edition (RSS)
Freeform
Geometry Wars: Touch for iPad
Guardian Eyewitness
iBooks
iCab Mobile
Instapaper Pro
IMDb
Labyrinth 2 HD Lite
Mahjong Artifacts: Chapter 2 HD Free
NPR for iPad
Real Racing HD (wow!)
Reuters news/galleries
Shanghai Mahjong Lite (HD, nice)
Simplenote
Sketchpad HD
Twitterific iPad (I miss Echofon)
USA Today for iPad (just for interface)
Wordbook XL (very nice dictionary)
Worms HD
Zinio (nice, just to see where magazines will have to go)

Plus several iPhone games that work really well on it:

Bit Pilot
Fruit Ninja
Paper Bridge

[Cloudane]

My dad also bagged one today, damn all of you lucky gits

From my brief play with the device, it's about as awesome as I expected in Maps (aside from understandable loading time) and really, really nice in Safari.

Thinner than I pictured it to be, really is ridiculously thin. I agree that it is slightly weighty but not to the arm breaking extent that some on other forums etc are making it out to be. Gorgeous Display (TM) (Steve Jobs). Looking forward to them appearing properly here, whenever that might be!

[Yak]

I posted a list a while ago: http://yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=33&t= ... 5#p1455555

Here's my revised one:

cheers, I've bagged a few more from that list .

[GeeZa]

Definitely have a nice scratch-free cloth/screen wiper with the iPad at all times. You will be constantly wiping your filthy disgusting finger smears off the beautiful screen with religious fervour.

Real Racing and Geom Wars are absolutely wonderful. Also consider (game-wise):

Civilisation Whateveritscalled.
Shredder Chess iPad (or tChess Pro -- looks better).
Plants vs Zombies HD.
Harbour Master HD (free!).
Sword of Fargoal Legends.
Nethack HD (free!).
Space Duel (not perfect but it's SPACE DUEL).
Soosiz HD.

And Espgaluda II plays fine upscaled and is probably the best shooter released this year.

Edit: Utilities GeeZa can not do without:

Downloader (for downloading [legitimate files from legitimate sources -Ed]).
Tunemark Radio (free!).
CloudReader (free! For viewing [legitimate cbrs of comics from legitimate sources - Ed]).
AirVideo.

[Deckard]

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/27/found-fo ... e-control/ Rather funky and clever

[Yak]

that's not Space Duel - this is Space Duel:

http://web.utanet.at/nkehrer/JSpaceDuel.html

and that other one seems to be a version of Space War, which is an entirely different beast.

Shame really as I wouldn't've minded a bit of linked-shippy rotatey-thrusting geometric shape blasting action (come to think of it was Space Duel the first true Geometry Wars?)