Much has been made of the iPad ’s potential difference as a stand - in for a laptop computer whenever you leave the comfort of household and do n’t care to tote around a laptop computer . TwoMacworldeditors flummox the chance recently to put that potentiality into practice . Both Christopher Breen and Jonathan Seff spent last workweek on the road — the former on a family holiday , and the latter on a business organization trip . They took their shiny new Apple twist with them , to see how well the iPad fares as a travel companion compare to Apple ’s other portable oblation .
The iPad on vacation
Thanks to the predictable yearly tilting of the globe that fetch about Spring Break in the Northern hemisphere , I had social function to learn something of just how appropriate the iPad is for travel during a longsighted weekend inYosemite National Park . My plan was to use the iPad for several labor : Back - seat entertainment gadget for my girl , tocopherol - record lector , e - mail grabber , and connection internet browser . In most respects it rose to the challenge . Where it fall down , it did so in expected ( though still frustrative ) way .
In the back nates : The drive from our California coastal hamlet to Yosemite Valley is approximately 2381 When - Are - We - Going - to - Get - Theres ( or around 5 time of day and change ) . My daughter has terrific powers of concentration , but providing her with just a single iPad diversion would assess even those power . With that in mind I loaded the iPad ’s Videos app with four picture show and six Daffy Duck cartoons . Should she feel the want to make rather than absorb , I made sure that Autodesk ’s SketchBook Pro was also installed . And , because she still has the stomach for it in a moving fomite , something to record .
She ’s recently been sunburn through Rick Riordan ’s Percy Jackson series and did n’t have the final Quran — The Last Olympian . We attempt to find a copy at the local bookseller , but had no destiny . Before exit I elicit up the iPad , establish the iBooks app , and searched for the book . Score one for e - books and the needlessness of worry about inventory and ledge space . There it was . for certain , at $ 11 it was a Pearl Sydenstricker Buck - fifty more than a physical copy from Amazon , but it was availablenowand took next to no time to download .
The iPad can be a help to the designated navigator.
Such was her love of Master Jackson and her parents ’ repertoire of cable car games that she barely tint the pic , cartoons , or drawing app . After she ’d been at the book for an hour or so I asked her how she like read it on the iPad ; she respond , simply , “ It ’s awesome . ”
The iPad also served in the front seat . Though I ’ve made the Yosemite journey a couple of times , I care having a map at the ready Just In Case . Before we leave the house I plot our route in the iPad ’s Maps app so that the list of turn of events was available to my helpmate and navigator . She referred to it once or twice and she too was impressed .
The iPad can be a help to the designate sailing master .
A little Plants Vs. Zombies action on the iPad can help pass the downtime during a family trip.
The atomic number 99 - book in bed : After the twenty-four hours ’s drive , a romp in the C. P. Snow long enough to remind the house just how damned pissed and cold the stuff can be , and a modest dinner , it was off to layer . Before getting the requisite 40 winks , I like to shore up two pillows under my noggin and translate a chapter or two of whatever bump to be sit down on the bedside table . As the iPad was in meridian post on that very table and I had a not - completely - usuriously - price Wi - Fi connection , I saunter into the iBooks store and download half - a - dozen detached title prepared by the sign Project Gutenberg . Even with a download speed of less than a Mb per endorsement , each Word download in under a minute . I chose a favorite — P.G. Wodehouse’sRight Ho , Jeevesfor the iPad dot test .
Holding the iPad in landscape painting preference I discovered what many have already report : Holding an iPad for long full point of prison term is far different from holding a book . At 1.5 pound , the iPad is heavier than a paperbacked playscript by a goodly amount . And , unlike that paperback , it requires two hands to hold well . I found the honorable position was to place the iPad ’s left corner in the palm of my left hired man and make a reverse L conformation with the ovolo and power finger of my rightfield and rest the correct street corner in the outlaw between the two digits . Doing that I could get through a chapter or two before I had to put the iPad down for a repose .
I very much appreciated the brightness control . I adjusted it down so the backlighting would n’t incinerate into my middle . But after awhile I began to wish that the text was a little crisper .
Unlike crayons, the iPad doesn’t melt in the back seat of a hot car.
hold care of byplay : Although I was on vacation , message from the function stay to appear in my inbox . One , in particular , required my attention . This subject matter contain a PDF attachment of our iPad reporting forMacworldmagazine . My iPad as iPod write up was part of that coverage . The story ’s editor want all those who lead to the patch to take it over and get back to him with suggestions and change for the print version .
I was able to expend the iPad ’s Quick Look have to unfold and read the bond , but beyond that , nada . I could n’t simulate any text edition from it nor would Mail allow me to transplant the file to another app program that could delete the filing cabinet . Without the power to do more than read the article , the reply to my colleague was n’t awfully helpful .
I understand that the iPhone OS 4.0 update will let you to open vitamin E - mail attachments in a freestanding applications programme . Given my experience , this is a feature I suspect anyone hoping to do serious work with an iPad uneasily awaits .
Reading a free version of Ulysses on the iPad.
A piddling Plants Vs . zombi natural action on the iPad can help oneself pass the downtime during a family head trip . The extend - around iPad : When not taking in the rude glorification that is Yosemite Valley ( or rest our aweary dogs in the backwash ) , the kinsperson took turns with the iPad . My wife surfed some of her favorite Web sites . My daughter return time and again to Percy Jackson , took inDuck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century , played Plants vs Zombies HD , and dinked around with Smule ’s Magic Piano . As I saw the iPad shuttled about I recognize that , far more than my MacBook or iPhone , this is a gadget that begs to be share — for both unspoilt and not - so .
The beneficial is obvious — it ’s a gimmick just about any mob can love for its powers to entertain and inform . The not - so is that you have to be careful about what you put on it . I had to tell my girl that there were certain coating that she was n’t allow to touch . The iPad ’s Restrictions feature film is fine for curtail medium you ’ve prevail from the iTunes Store , but I sought a style to barricade her from using a especial applications programme . Specifically , the comics I prefer are fledged in radical and not for her eyes . unluckily , any comics app is an attractant to a youngster . I ’m golden to have a tike who is of an old age where she still listens to her father , but not every minor is so aware . The jailbreak community has produced a way to limit access to third - party apps under the iPhone operating system . I go for Apple can do the same .
limit as laptop computer : Although I was generally slaked with what the iPad could do , I was also sometimes frustrated by its limitations . I ’ve already name my problem with e - mail attachments and the overall difficulty of moving document between applications . Additionally , I take a mountain of characterisation when on these kinds of trips and I yearn for an iPad photographic camera connector so I could take in my pictures on something other than my camera ’s LCD . I see forward to Apple ’s television camera connecter kit and am thrilled to the nub that it supports RAW files .
ABC Player lets you keep up to date on your stories, even from the road.
And I overlook a 3 GiB connexion . There were time when we were plaza where there was no Wi - Fi and thus no path to make a connexion to the net to carry a short Web lookup for a bird we ’d just spot or deplumate up some Ansel Adams envision so my daughter could see how Yosemite should really be snap . Fortunately , this is n’t a limit I need to live with for long ( if I ’m willing to sell in the Wi - Fi model for the forthcoming 3 gigabyte version ) .
Unlike crayons , the iPad does n’t dethaw in the back seat of a hot car .
Home again : The drive house was more of the same — Percy Jackson , in the back tail end , with a trident ; some sketches of Half Dome and El Capitan in SketchBook Pro ; and one or two Daffy Duck cartoon . When we pull into the driveway it was bare minutes before daughter and iPad were on the couch withThe Last Olympianand a few hours following that I was perched in layer , the iPad tuck into Apple ’s iPad Keyboard Dock , clacking out these words in Pages ( and wishing for an iPad - compatible reading ofBBEdit ) .
As an amusement twist , the iPad passed with colors mostly aviate . As a cock for lite business — when really , you ’re on holiday for heaven ’s sake , give it a rest — it was up to the task of observe me in touch with the role and world around it . As a MacBook replacement for get serious work done , the iPad is the in - between Apple claims it to be — more flexible than an iPod touch modality yet hardly a complete laptop substitute.—CHRISTOPHER BREEN
Getting down to business
After my iPad made its 10,000 - plus naut mi journey to my theater — Shenzen , China ; Guangzhou , China ; Anchorage , Alaska ; Louisville , Ky. ; Oakland , Calif. ; San Francisco — what did I do with it three day afterward ? Hop on a plane and add together 2704 miles to its globetrotting way .
To be fair , the line trip-up was already planned , just as luck would have it time . And I ’ll add that I also brought my iPhone and my MacBook with me on the trip .
In the airport : I unremarkably get to the airport early and breeze through security , which leaves me superfluous time to hurry up and look . But my spare moments atSan Francisco International Airportoffered an chance to play around with my new iPad .
Reading a free version of Ulysses on the iPad . While enjoying a trough of San Francisco Soup Company’ssouthwestern corn chowder , I flipped launch the concealment on the iPad case and began reading a free iBookstore download of James Joyce’sUlyssesin iBooks . ( I first read the book almost 15 years ago in a Joyce seminar at UC Berkeley , and even constitute my cat Molly after the character Molly Bloom . ) Although I was slimly more worried about splashing soup on my novel iPad than I would have been with a book , reading was middling enjoyable as the events of June 16 , 1904 spread .
Because of flaky or costly airport Wi - Fi , I would have like having 3 G datum access . I ended up pulling out my iPhone for contain and respond to e - mails that I would have preferred to get by with using the iPad .
Up in the air : Once on my flight to Boston , I lick anLA Timescrossword teaser using the $ 5KrossPathiPad app , and read a few more “ page ” ofUlysses . I then watched two half - hour idiot box shows ( The Daily Show , South Park ) , an hour - long instalment ofStargate Universe , and then almost all of the movieMonsters vs Aliens(I might have finish had it not been for two rum flight attendants require me about the iPad ) . After all of that , I still had more or less 70 percent battery living remaining .
On the flight of steps home , I listened to some music , and take in three hr - tenacious telly shows ( include an episode ofFringethat I buy from the iTunes Store directly on my iPad earlier in the daytime ) and the entire movie9 — and still had more than three quarters of my shelling remaining .
ABC Player lets you keep up to day of the month on your story , even from the road . In the room : During a scrap of downtime during my trip , I launched the ABC Player to watch a streaming adaptation of the later episode ofLost(my married woman and I pre - coif that we ’d check the mysteries of the island separately that week ) . Using the Wi - Fi in the room provided for an enjoyable screening on the iPad , and the character was broadly speaking excellent . The iPad ’s preference lock was useless , however , because betroth it always forced the app back into portrayal modal value . ( And peculiarly , all the ads were for another ABC show , Modern Family . )
During the day : Because I brought a laptop computer with me on my tripper ( using Adobe InCopy or working on a document stash away inDropboxare beyond the iPad ’s capability ) I did n’t lug along a Bluetooth keyboard for the iPad . Still , I establish draw up einsteinium - mail much easier on the iPad — especially with the orotund keyboard in landscape mode — than on the iPhone . I could type much faster and make few mistakes that required my attention to decline . If you ’re attempt to stealthily fit your e - chain armor during a clientele presentation , say , the iPad larger sizing makes it a short hard to stay under the radiolocation .
The last word : Overall , I was pretty impressed with the iPad as a travel machine . It ’s thin and lightweight , and meet well in my backpack even with my MacBook and other items in there as well . As I explained to many people who I showed the iPad to on my trip , I do n’t see it as a complete laptop substitution , but for trips where its purpose is entertainment and Web / e - chain armour usage , it ’s a nice alternative.—JONATHAN SEFF
