While many people love almost all things Apple, there’s a good number of people saying, “Why would I need an iPad? It’s too large, it hasn’t got a camera, it doesn’t have Flash, it’s just a large iPhone without the phone…”.

And if you’re a feature-driven person then iPad is not for you. But the iPad isn’t designed for everyone, and neither is it designed to replace the phone, or the laptop, or the desktop, or even the netbook. I see iPad sitting perfectly in between all other devices and ultimately being used far more than each.

In a typical house, I believe the iPad will ‘live’ in the kitchen. Mum wants to go shopping on the Next Directory website, Dad wants to check the route to his meeting in Cheltenham tomorrow, Janey wants to catch up with her Facebook friends and Little Billy wants to watch the trailer for Astro Boy. Each person can do this one after the other on a device which is going to be so ‘usable’ it’ll free up most other devices in the home.

Like it or loathe it, Apple have taken the Slate concept and made it a) work properly, and b) desirable for many.

On 14th April, Apple announced it would delay worldwide shipping of the highly-anticipated iPad until the end of May. That’s six loooong weeks. But hey, 24 hours later I managed to get my hands on one and have spent the evening putting it through its paces. And here’s the question:

Is the iPad as good as many people expect it to be?

I’m not going to answer that immediately. Instead, I’m going to take you on a journey of the Apple User Experience to give you some honest thoughts on whether iPad is here to stay or a white elephant…

Right from the go, Apple excels at Marketing. Even the iPad box is classic ‘Apple’ with a clean, white finish and ‘spot UV’ on the logos. The iPad itself sits neatly inside, begging to be switched on but wincing at the thought of the first fingerprint to land on it! Surprisingly, it’s much heavier than I thought it was going to be and (this is slightly negative now) I can imagine you’d get tired of holding it throughout a whole movie.

Switching it on and activating requires the standard registering through iTunes so be prepared to wait if you buy yours from somewhere far from home; you may have a long journey of looking at the thing without using it!

Once registered, I instantly noticed how much quicker it is than the iPhone 3GS despite having never thought the iPhone was slow. A lot of people find this; maybe we expect the iPad to be slow due to its larger size, but it’s a good surprise! The icons seem strangely spaced apart but they move around the screen in exactly the same way as the iPhone.

Of course, as the 3G iPad hasn’t been released (yet) its internet connection is wholly dependent on a good wifi signal; no problem if you’re at home, but you’re snookered with this version if you want to collect email on the train.

Watching movies though? Now that’s another matter. In fact, with this 1024×768 screen you’ll have no desire to collect emails as you’ll be completely immersed into movie-world without a care for communication! Only problem at the moment is that my movie ripping software (legitimate, I add!) has everything sized for an iPhone so it’s a little pixelated until I find the time to re-rip at the larger size.

Photographs. This was an area I couldn’t wait to try, especially having heard the UE (user experience) was so ‘Apple’. And I’ve gotta say it, I think this is just *amazing*! Like the iPhone, you have albums of photographs but on the iPad they’re visually laid out in piles of images, each ready to be explored.

A single tap ‘explodes’ that album across the whole screen to then allow flicking through them all one at a time in glorious full-screen. And I can’t tell you how great the display is to view them all! Clear and crisp with punchy colours and a perfect transition from one image to the next. A small ‘pinch’ reduces the scattered images back to a pile to join the others. Just perfect!

Watch this space for imminent details of iPads becoming an optional extra with our Bonjour wedding and portrait albums…

Negative comment alert: iPad is not happy without a case… Sure, you’ll not need one when you’re using it (and I’d highly recommend ignoring the protective screens which are about to hit eBay in their thousands) but transporting this thing with no case would be a recipe for disaster. Right now I’m scared to let this anywhere near any keys, coins and definitely children.

Apps. Some work well but some are badly configured for iPad. Most of them are simply the same size as on the iPhone and sit rather isolated in the middle of the large screen. I can see this changing over the next few weeks as developers make necessary adjustments to turn small-screen apps into iPad-ready versions.

A good example of an iPad-ready app is the excellent IMDB which detects what device it’s running on (iPad, iPhone, Touch etc.) and remains full screen without simply making everything LARGE!

Maps in large screen are excellent. Oh, and they rotate (unlike iPhone). The calendar and email apps are perfectly configured for iPad and easier to use than an iPhone, and the keyboard just flies! I can type almost as fast on this as I can on a standard plastic keyboard.

My overall summary:
If you don’t think iPad is for you then I should slide back to your Windows PC and keep the money in your pocket. It’s not going to be for everyone, and neither is it trying to. But if you really appreciate excellent UE and you see the potential for a well-used device then I should put your name on the pre-order list for end May.

However, don’t forget it’s just the wifi-only version at the moment so I would probably recommend waiting until the 3G model comes out and then signing up to a Voda, O2 or Orange dataplan.

Either way, it’d be good to know what you think!

Interesting week…  I was on a train between Liverpool Street and Ipswich to see a client and I found a 32Gb iPhone 3GS which had been left behind by another passenger.  Tracking the owner was not easy (and with the greatest respect to Network Rail staff, I had little confidence in their abilities to successfully return the item either!)

The iPhone was locked with a keyguard which, on the one hand, provided excellent security for the owner as it prevented any access to their personal emails.  But on the other hand, it was so secure that I had no way of knowing who the owner was to return the item.

Thankfully, I was able to transfer the SIM card to another phone and access the ‘Contacts’.  Armed with this, I called the owner’s ‘Mum’ (it went straight to voicemail), ‘Parents Home’ (no answer) and two other friends where both mobile and home numbers were listed (reducing the likelihood of the contact being a business colleague).

Eventually, I got lucky and spoke to a friend of the owner who put me in touch with a very thankful lady in London.  She was convinced she’d lost her phone forever so you can imagine the relief!  In fact, her appreciation was so great that the next day I received this bottle of Château Méaume.

But the point of this article isn’t to discuss the reunion of iPhone with owner but to highlight how a reunion is possible if you lost yours.  A keyguard is sensible, but so is changing your iPhone wallpaper to display an alternative contact telephone number and email address.

Changing your wallpaper is a simple procedure in Photoshop, just by overlaying the text as a new layer and saving as a JPG file.  Email it to yourself and save the file on your iPhone.  Then, in ‘Settings’ and ‘Wallpaper’, simply navigate to your saved image and select it.

Here’s mine:

How many iPhone owners do you know? Send them a link to this article so they can do the same thing.