Thursday, July 8, 2010

Why I Love My iPad

I have now had my iPad for about a week and it is even more than I expected. Not only does it do all the things I expected it to do, but has so much more to offer than I realized. Right now I am typing on it for this blog. The typing experience takes a little getting used to but is much better than a phone keyboard. So far my favorite feature is the zoom when reading. I can read articles, blogs and books at a comfortable font size instead of squinting at a page. I also love the touch feature. I thought I would miss the computer mouse but it really isn't needed with the touch screen.

What are my favorite things I have discovered?
Of course everyone has heard about the wonderful book reading options.  The screen is very easy to read and you can adjust the font size by just using your fingers to zoom in.  It makes it easier for reading newspapers as well.  Many newspapers are available to read for free online.  So, I can read the local paper, the Seattle Times and the San Diego Union in one sitting. A new find for me is a blog reading app that allows me to view online blogs from one location instead of having to go to each site to read them.  The app looks like the iBooks bookcase with all my blogs formated like books.  It is a wonderful way to read you favorite blogs (including mine, of course!).

Even though the iPad does not support flash, many video sites are coming up with alternative video viewers that will work on the iPad.  ABC TV even has it own app for viewing shows from there as well as HGTV.  I'm sure others will be joining to take advantage of the large amount of both iPhone and iPad owners. Both of these apps are free!  There are many other ways to download and view videos, including a Netflix app, and the screen is very clear and bigger than most portable DVD players.  With a 10 hour battery life, you can watch lots of videos.

Two other great features with the iPad that I am using quite a bit are the contacts and calendar.  You can snyc the iPad with your Microsoft Outlook or other calendar programs you are already using so you don't have to start over with adding all of the same information onto your iPad that you have on another computer.  And, a thing I discovered by accident, was that when your contacts are open, you can just press the address of someone and a mapping program will open up to show you where they live with the option of getting directions from where you are (via the built in gps) to the location.  What a great time saver if you need to get to someone's home and have no idea how to get there.  With the larger screen, viewing the mapping program is very simple.  It is much bigger than a traditional gps unit so you can really see where you need to go.  Within the same contacts app, you can also just press the person's e-mail address and it will take you to your e-mail program to send them an e-mail.  What could be easier?

The built-in gps locator (your choice to turn it on or not) helps when you want to find a business that is near where you are.  Use the locator and an app, such as the Starbucks one, you can find out where the closest ones are to your current location.  That will be a big help to me when I travel!  There are many such apps that use this locator to help you find what you want near you. It will always ask you if you will allow the locator to use your location to find something.  You have the option to use it whenever you want and turn it off when you don't.

There are many audio streaming apps that you can use such as Pandora.  A recent find for me was one called 'HiDef Radio'.  You can either stream it from your iPad directly or through the internet and keep it running in the background while your surf the web. It also has a sleep timer feature and recording feature so you can either listen to a station before going to sleep or record a station to listen to later.  For less than $2, I think this one is a bargain.

I could go on but you get the idea that I am finding that the iPad is a multi-purpose tool.  It is very portable, I can go all day on the battery without recharging and am finding more ways to use it every day.