iPad Report Card – It’s addictive to walk away from the computer and surf the web with a tablet computer but only a B for leaving out Flash videos

iPad web surfing is addictive photo: Gizmo Watch

When I started the iPad review, which is now 3 articles long,  I had no idea how the thing would be useful. It was purchased on a whim with the idea it could be returned within 14 days.

The two weeks are almost up an I can’t see it going back to Future Shop. Everyone in the house grabs it when they get home and again in the morning.

My idea was to set up a scorecard on the iPad against Apple’s claims of its value, do something objective not just “golly this is neat.”

Checking out YouTube was a disappointment. Then watching purchased videos was more fun. But who does that all day long? Only a small value for dollar there.

With the release of the iPhone and EVO 4G I got off on another tangent. But did I? I was taking the iPad with me everywhere I went – everywhere – trying to keep up with the stories. I took it to the table at breakfast and lunch, one night down to Churchill Arms. OK that was ostentatious but I did learn how Mike liked his that night.

Stall surfing gottabemobile.com

I was using the thing in bed to surf when the TV program was boring, which is most of the time.

Aren’t we all getting sick of the vicarious thrill of watching other people get lost, sober, or purchase and renovate their homes?

I was checking out song lyrics while practicing guitar in the studio. Surfing for a map on a bluff overlooking Cape Blomiden, Nova Scotia.

Then something else happened. If I went to my office after supper, the iPad would disappear off the desk. Other people in the house were taking it to do their email, check Facebook and just surf. It disappeared for hours at a time. In the morning, I had to search the house for it.

Security for one

The 17 year old in the house was not too happy when we discovered she left her Twitter session open when she tried out the iPad. We tweeted her friend as a joke who then drove across town in a panic to get us off the account! Adults do get even once in awhile eh?

That’s the rub: the iPad is not like a desktop or laptop with multiple accounts and security rights. There is a user defined pass-code to allow use of the iPad or not.

Once someone is on the iPad they have access to your email, Facebook, Twitter, iTune Store and whatever accounts you use from the iPad. The iPad trains you to be careless since it is easier to just swap back to the main screen than close a session. The iPad is very dangerous for your personal privacy.

You could enter the passwords each time you start a session. That assumes you have the memory of an elephant or use very simple and similar passwords. With all the security problems, people are being advised to use difficult passwords with combination of numbers, upper and lower case letters and weird characters like ?>#$%^ to foil the bad guys. Corporate users rate the iPad as a security risk for that and other reasons.

If anyone has a workaround for account control, we’d like to hear about it.

Apple iPad Report Card, progress report

Touchy touchy

I love surfing with the iPad. It’s easy to find what you are looking for. It’s not tiring for someone with carpal tunnel syndrome. The screen is easy to read and you can make the fonts larger with two fingers.

It’s better than using the iPhone apps for Facebook, Twitter, CNN and other news feeds. NJN Network looks better just surfed with Safari on the iPad. In fact I don’t think our software will allow you to see the Smart Phone version on the iPad.

The screen is very responsive, sometimes too responsive. Most web pages are crowded with links to secondary pages. You have to be very careful with touching the screen on the iPad or you are somewhere else in a hurry.

The sensitivity gets annoying when you’re just lazily scrolling and you end up looking at some video advertisement that won’t quit.

So that’s it. Best portable web surfer bar none. When some of the other tablets start shipping to consumers this may change but for now, the iPad is the game for portable web surfing.

However, it only gets a B for leaving out all the Flash videos in the world. It’s great to be doctrinaire when people have choices but most of the videos on the web are flash as you will find out when you surf with an iPad.

Apple is leaving a hole in a market anyone can drive a competitive truck through. Users don’t give a rats-ass about an Apple-Adobe squabble.