Happy New Years to all!
Now that that’s out of the way I present an update! It’s been a fun 5 months, and I’ve been busy and I really have not had much to write about in with technology ranting or whatever, but I feel the need to actually write something now. It might be funny to see me write about it because of my February post on the iPad, but I am writing about my experience with my iPad. Now you might ask “you said you wouldn’t buy one!” Well, I didn’t buy it. I won it at work back in September (see!). So after 3-4 months of using it I felt I should write something about it, so here we go.
When I first got it, I was excited (who wouldn’t be) but I found out quickly that I really had no practical use for it. Everything I would want to do with it on the road (send/read email, calendars, Facebook/Twitter, etc.) I can do on my phone. And what’s more, I can do those on my phone from ANY location as opposed to anywhere with wifi (this iPad is wifi only). I began downloading and installing apps and games and found that while a lot of the iPhone versions of apps and games are free, iPad versions aren’t. I’m cheap, so I don’t buy apps. A lot of the apps I wanted for the iPad also had free counterparts for Android, so I might as well use my phone instead.
I did find it useful at home when I didn’t want to take out the 17-inch laptop. I can check Facebook and Twitter without an issue (and the apps are usually better than using my laptop anyway) and watching Youtube videos on the iPad is great actually, much better than the site! I also use it to play Scrabble with friends. All of these are just secondary things that are just helping push my laziness even more, nothing totally useful for me at least. There are two apps I found particularly useful though; VLC and Remote.
Everyone knows VLC (and if you don’t…you SHOULD), it plays any video file on the iPad without having to convert it, and you don’t even need to sync your computer and iPad, you just drag the video into the VLC list in iTunes and it’s done. I found this great to watch downloaded video’s and ripped DVDs while witting around, just put a pair of headphones on and you’re good to go. I like being able to hand off the iPad to someone to show them Archer or something.
Remote is an iTunes remote control program. I can control my home desktop iTunes from the iPad from anywhere I get my home wireless signal. This comes in handy when you want to listen to music while you’re cleaning, or cooking, or in the other room. You can raise the volume, change and search songs, make palylists, etc. I also found it can wake a sleeping computer up to connect to the iTunes library. The only thing is that iTunes needs to be running on the machine for it to work of course, a very minor issue I think. I found this extremely useful during a party when I just left the iPad out and asked people make playlisst and add whatever they wanted to hear to the list.
So all in all, I do enjoy having the iPad but I still believe that it’s not something I need. It’s fun, it’s helpful, but for me it’s just not a real replacement for anything just yet. Maybe when I get a cable provider that utilizes it I will change my mind, but right now, not yet.
