Just a quick follow up for those who care, if you have an iPad with 3G and you want to use it in the US with an AT&T SIM, you will have a bit of a problem.

I happen to have an AT&T Micro SIM that came with the iPad, but I think those are easy to get. The problem is that in order to pay for a plan, you’ll need to enter your credit card information with a US billing address on the iPad itself. You cannot ask AT&T to add credit in any other way, it must be directly on the iPad.

I had thought of a few ways around this problem, but none seemed to work. You can only have a US billing address, that’s it. Just a heads up!

Found this out the hard way? Found an answer? Is this true in other countries?

Rather than reviewing just plain old device reviews, I thought it would be worth looking at solving a particular problem. So let’s look at the latest gadget trend: reading.

The primary types of traditional content I tend to want to consume are:

• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Comic books
• Research material (say textbooks)
• Books

So how, in mid-2010, should we read this stuff (assuming we are trying to eschew paper, of course)? Let’s look at each, and keep in mind that this can change monthly, so it will likely require a revisit. Also, let’s put aside the arguments about how these media should change for the digital age and just see how this stuff could just be ported over as-is. And don’t even get me started on cost and business models.

Newspapers

There are few devices that really get this right. The two that appeal to me the most are the Amazon Kindles and the iPad. What little experience I have had with the Kindle has shown me that the standard Kindle is a bit too small for newspaper layouts, but the eInk screen is satisfying. The Kindle DX or even the Sony Reader Daily Edition are a bit better size-wise, but they are a bit too pricey just for a newspaper (and a tad unwieldy). The iPad is a more reasonable option, and the LED screen is not too bothersome. Newspapers on the iPad need to be released as apps, so they can be hit-or-miss depending on the developer. The New York Times, for example, is absolutely wonderful and a pleasure to read. It feels intuitive and the iPad screen is perfect for it.

• Recommendation: iPad (though not a slam dunk as apps can be hit-or-miss in their design)

Magazines

I can honestly say that the iPad is the easy and clear winner. It’s the right form factor and has a wonderful screen that is somehow much less painful to use than reading magazines on a desktop or laptop.  Brilliant apps such as Wired are really great to read on the iPad. Zinio provides a cool magazine stand that also feels right. Even PDFs of magazines are cool in iBooks.

• Recommendation: iPad

Comic Books

Really, this is so not a post on Apple products. But, in this case, the iPad has the right screen size (despite its bulk), and the colours are brilliant. It really brings out comics. Aside from apps from DC, Marvel, and even Archie, Comic Zeal is my go to app for comics in other shapes and sizes (cbr, cbz, etc.). It’s re-ignited (no, re-kindled)  my interest in reading comics. Really great fun.

• Recommendation: iPad

Research Material (e.g., Textbooks)

The winner here is nobody. You can get by with the Kindle DX (they have tried to market it as a device serving this function) or the iPad, but nothing really gets it right. When I was doing research and studying in school, I had multiple books open and was collating my notes, highlighting, and flipping back and forth between pages. This is just too visceral an experience that has yet to be electronically duplicated. For now, I’d say Evernote, OneNote, or Word are best, along with paper.

• Recommendation: Paper + OneNote, Evernote, Word, etc.

Books

This is the part you’ve (well, I’ve) been waiting for… I have a Sony PRS-505 and an iPad. And have read books on both. I can honestly say that the iPad iBooks reading and purchasing experience is excellent. But the iPad is too heavy to hold when reading a novel. And long reads just don’t feel right on a backlit screen. And you can’t take it into the sun no matter what anyone says. And you feel guilty if you drop it. The Sony is small and sleek and the screen very readable. However, as usual for Sony (a hardware, not software company), the app to put books on it sucks. Though it supports the ePub ebook standard (supported by the Sony Reader Store, Kobo, and iBooks), and there are new ones coming out in a matter of days, to my mind, Amazon’s Kindle 3 is the winner here. (To be sure I have only played with the Kindle 2, but from what I’ve read, it is more or less the same but better).

The Kindle 3 is very inexpensive, has a great sunlight-friendly screen, and when you buy a book there, you can read it anywhere (iPad, PC, etc.). Amazon has optimized the device for novels and – despite the way eInk refreshes the screen – it shows. It really takes a lot of guts to keep features out of a product and optimize it for one particular purpose.

• Recommendation: Kindle 3

What Do You Do?

Where do  you do your reading? Am I missing a category? Am I missing a gadget? Do you totally disagree?

Multimedia

• Air Video ($2.99) – Wonderful streaming app that runs a server on your PC/Mac and transcodes all of your video and streams to the iPad AND iPhone. Worth. Every. Cent.
• SlingPlayer ($29.99) – If you have a Slingbox, this expensive iPhone app lets you watch it on 3G or WiFi. Not designed for the iPad, but it works.
• iBooks (Free) – You cannot buy books yet in Canada, but it now views PDFs very well. Better than GoodReader, which I bought and do not recommend.
• ComicZeal 4 ($7.99) – You can get Marvel and DC apps (awesome), but this views all CBR and CBZ files. Syncing requires conversion, but it’s worth it.
• Zinio (Free) – You can buy some good magazines here. Neat app for consuming interactive mags on the go, and comes with a few free ones to start.
• Dropbox (Free) – Dropbox is a must-have in my life (and should be in yours), and the app allows you to view your cloud-synced documents easily.

News

• Reeder ($4.99) – An RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader. KILLER iPad app.
• NPR (Free) – Multimedia news content, with streaming stations.
• New York Times (Free) – Very compelling newspaper app. I use this daily.
• USA Today (Free) – Like the colourful paper… Even has infographics!
• BBC News (Free) – Nicely assembled content from the Beeb, but the app has gotten buggier over time.

Travel & Lifestyle

• FlightTrack Pro ($9.99) – More useful on the iPhone and now pricey, shows you a ton of flight info, including where the plane is. Very cool and useful.
• Flixster (Free) – It has reviews from Rotten Tomatoes, and local showtimes. Surprisingly good!
• Epicurious (Free) – Rated recipes that you can favourite and follow along with, and generates a shopping list too.
• Accuweather (Free) – The least worst weather app for Canada in terms of accuracy and has a nice UI. Oh for an nice Environment Canada app…
• Kayak Flights (Free) – Price comparison app for flights that is well done, but the iPhone app has more functions… Odd huh?

Games

• Scrabble ($9.99) – Now my primary form of communication with my girlfriend, Blair. If you have iPhones or iPod Touches, get the free tiles app that is neat, but flaky.
• Flight Control HD ($4.99) – Same as the iPhone app but bigger. And still fun.

Cool Stuff, aka I’ve Run Out Of Categories

• Delivery Status HD ($4.99) – Overpriced, but when you’re waiting for a package and want to see where it is on a map, it’s pretty neat. Syncs with the free Mac widget.
• 1Password Pro ($14.99) – 1Password is a fantastic Mac (and soon to be Windows) app, and their very pricey iPad app ensures your passwords and wallet are with you everywhere.
• iMockups ($9.99) – Endloop’s inaugural iPad app allows for creating rather intuitive mockups for iPhone, iPad, and web apps. Worth a try if you create software.
• Dragon Dictation (Free) – Free voice-to-text for the iPhone and iPad, implemented very intuitively
• Tweetdeck (Free) – The least bad Twitter app that I could find for the iPad.
• Evernote (Free) – Evernote is a cool cross-platform multimedia notes app, and the client is nice to have on the iPad.
• NightStand HD ($2.99) – A bit expensive, but turns your iPad into a nice big clock. There are a few bugs that suggest you should set a backup alarm if you want to get up on time.
• Google Earth (Free) – So cool. Now on the iPad.

So, what have I missed? What do you like and/or use? What’s missing on the iPad?

Well, I’m really loving the iPad. It really has taking over my non-creative tasks at home, and really makes consuming all content very much fun.  I really do recommend it.

I will be interested to see how apps do in the iPad store in general. While fun to use, they are a tad pricey. And I’ve bought far too many myself already. But I wonder what their future holds. I think the key reasons the iPhone apps are more revolutionary and perhaps compelling are (not counting creating a revenue model to incentivize developers):

1. The iPhone, like all phones, has very constrained screen real estate, unlike the iPad
2. They re-orient web apps to be touch friendly (something the iPad needs arguably less of due to its screen size)
3. They utilize the phone’s hardware features very well (GPS, accelerometer, voice input, etc.)

While the iPhone benefits from all of these, the iPad benefits from some of #2, and definitely #3. Some compelling use cases have presented themselves to me (reading magazines is GREAT). The iPad has a great opportunity to make use of features that are non-standard on traditional computing platforms (GPS, touch, etc.), and I look forward to the innovation that will come. I don’t think we have yet seen its killer app. But, ultimately, will iPad app sales end up being more like desktop apps than iPhone apps?

What do you think?

I have had the iPad 3G for about a month now… and it launches in Canada today… here are some observations from someone who’s been living with it for a while.

The Good

1. It’s pretty cool. I’m an all-around geek, and have always loved the idea of tablet computing. I wanted to love the Tablet PCs when they first showed up en masse around 2005, but it really felt like a bolted on experience to Windows. This, by contrast, is a very enjoyable experience, with a beautiful screen and finger-based control of the OS nicely embedded. Some apps are excellent, but I’ll delve in to that next time.
2. It has replaced my laptop at home quite often. I surf, consume content, read email… you don’t need a full blown machine for that (let’s not talk Flash). Consumption on this thing is actually fun.
3. Like a netbook, it’s rather inexpensive. If I want to bash around on something, I’ll use this. My Macbook Air is pricey, so I’m conscious of how I use it. Travel, couch surfing, whatever – it’s cheaper if I drop it vs. the Mac.

The Bad (With Some Ugly)

1. Being productive is a pain in the butt. I took the iPad with me on a trip, and my laptop as well. Here’s what I found:
   - If I got IMs from friends, it was super jarring switching contexts. Yes, I know multitasking will be addressed in the next OS rev in the fall, but, from what I’ve seen, it will be only marginally less jarring to switch between apps.
   - I was trying to find a deal for hotels in the US. Having multiple “tabs” (i.e., windows) open and switching is a real pain. Plus Safari reloads randomly the pages you were looking at in other tabs, so you have to wait. This is terrible for something like Google Reader, where context is important. Apple, put tabs or something here. Don’t just copy the iPhone.
   - Safari can render the pages you want, but often (say on priceline.com) you want to do things that expect you to be using a mouse… To be precise with a finger, you need to zoom in to the page. Then zoom out. Rinse and repeat…

   

2. The Ergonomics are odd. What I found:
   - You need the Apple case or a stand or something… to actually set it down and create content, it requires you to hunch over. At least a laptop holds the screen up by itself. Note that no picture on the ENTIRE Internet has a picture of anything other than hands!
   - The keyboard is odd. You can get sort of used to the non-tactile feedback, but, like the iPhone keyboard, the number keys require you to hit shift (huh?!), which is just another odd quirk that can slow you down.
3. It feels… unfinished. It really is cool and fun to use (though I do like toys). But honestly… it feels like it was “good enough” to ship. I know Apple will iterate and make it far better, but it truly feels like a large iPod. For example, when viewing email and holding the iPad in portrait mode, you will only see the last message  you tapped on. To see the list of messages in the inbox, you tap on a pop up that lists your messages (look at the image above). Once you tap on the message you want to read, the popup goes away and you’ve lost the list of your messages. Very odd.
4. It is heavy! It’s not a light sucker and does not fit elegantly into a small bag. I have a Sony Reader and it is a better form factor and weight for book reading, while the iPad is almost unwieldily. Magazines and  newspapers are more appealing to read this way, for the record. But it’s still heavy.

The iPad is an excellent 1.0 product filling a rather ill-defined niche and has some issues to overcome, some easy, some more difficult. I’m glad I bought it, but I will say this: if I go on a vacation, I will take my iPad. But I will also take my netbook / Mac.

Did you get one? Do you have one? What do you think?