Deeper into the iPad

Here are some additional observations from my delve into the iPad. This is a great device for the young, two to eight or nine. It has some great learning games, some terrific skill level and process level thinking that it teaches the kids. It's great for internet research and basic papers with iWorks it makes it the perfect elementary school companion. The one problem that Riley has is he wants to use both hands at the same time or when he sits, his tummy touches the screen which causes some issues with the touch screen. However, it's taken less than a day to get past those issues. The young learn so quickly.

It has some basic graphics programs, allows you to move photos from your computer or with the camera adapter, pull photos in directly from your camera. The serious photographer doesn't have enough space to use it as a place to put pictures,  but it's the perfect preview size to go though your photos on your camera. The other draw back here is editing. Although there are some very good photo editors available for the iPad. Space is the number one drawback.

It's also the perfect device for those who like to play solitaire, tetras, memory games and need something to surf the web and do email, but don't do those things in great measure. My dad is the perfect example of this. And does the app store have some great games from free to 19.99. Most of the good basic ones that those of us that aren't hard core gamers cost about 5.00 a piece.

Although you can turn it sideways and type comfortably, my problem is the number of passwords and user names that I have. This was a two fold problem. 1) the iPad doesn't really do multi-tasking. You can however flip between applications leaving them in place and accomplish the task. Not something I would do daily as I've gotten really comfortable with multiprocessing since we left Mac OS 9.  2) because of the magnitude of the number of passwords I have, I keep them in a password, 128 encrypted FileMaker file. FileMaker hasn't come out and said they supported the iPhone or iPad yet. However, I've found a third party app from FMTouch that works really well and is worth the 29.99 that they charge you. It even allows you to encrypt your data and sync it back to your original file. It takes about 30 minutes to set up and you have to have FileMaker Advanced or you have to use a service that lets you create a DDR File that connects to your file. They also have a version that will work with your server, if you need data on the go.  So this problem was solved, but takes some time to set up.

I'm still fighting with printing all of my stuff. I can print the contacts, notes, pictures and calendars or cards from eprint, but it doesn't do and of the other documents. There are a couple of options here as well, but I'm not finding any elegant solutions.

I originally thought, no flash, not a problem - problem. Even the small little websites have flash or small pieces of flash on them. Although, I've found three or four ways to access flash, it's not simple and it doesn't always work.

I still have four or five other things I'll check before I finish, and not all the solutions are elegant and clean - but today is the second day it's on the market. So the fact that there are solutions (most coming from the iPhone) gives us great hope that these will be much cleaner the more devices Apple sells.