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11 April 2010
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Thanks to ToshNewZealand.com I'm spending the weekend in the company of an iPad. I may go outside at some point (I hear it's sunny and there are people out there) but then again, with only 48 hours with this thing, I may not. I owe it to readers of NZiPhone.com and NZMac.com to do my best to take a look at the iPad in detail...starting with...you guessed it...the obligatory unboxing article. If you fancy something a bit more risque (but not really) check out http://revision3.com/unboxingporn
Oh...and if you've ever wanted to know how to frustrate a courier who owns an iPhone and is a bit of a geek....tell him he's just delivered an iPad and then say that you can't open it to show him because you have to film it happening later. OK, he probably was less frustrated and more wondered "why film it?".
So, for my unboxing article I've decided to do something quite radical. OK, no that's not true...it like all the rest...but hey, it's an iPad straight off the plane from the US, via Jens at ToshNewZealand and it's here to be opened....so without further ado, here's the video, which does include some details on how to get started setting up the iPad....
As you can see, the iPad is a fairly straight forward device to unpack. It may surprise you to know that there is in fact a 154 page PDF guide on using the iPad, but you don't get that in the box. As this is a parallel imported iPad, a power adaptor was supplied by ToshNewZealand because the one in the box was a US one. The adaptor will no doubt be different when the iPad is officially released for New Zealand.
To go with the video above, I'm not going to take any photos. This has been done superbly elsewhere. But here are some images related to the set-up and a couple of things that I noticed that are more or less set-up related.
The iPad shows up in iTunes like any other device....
Those familiar with using an iPhone or iPod Touch with iTunes will have no problem doing the same with an iPad...
The "Apps" tab in iTunes is just the same also, providing you with an opportunity to select, place, arrange and delete apps to go onto the iPad and then sync iTunes with the iPad. As odd as it sounds, I didn't realise how many apps you can have on a screen until I tried (20 apps per screen) as images I had seen had far less.
But when it comes to the "Books" tab, if you want to start buying and reading books through Apple, you have to download the "iBooks" app from the iTunes App Store. Unfortunately at the moment that app is only available on the iTunes US store...meaning unless you know or want to do the workaround to fool iTunes into letting you use the iTunes US store, you're gonna have to wait for the release of it into the iTunes NZ Store.
And currently also, if you are registered with the iTunes NZ store, you'll find that you cannot connect to the App Store on the iPad itself. You can do this on iTunes, where you'll (of course) access the iTunes NZ Store you are signed up to, to buy apps.
Want to know how to freak out a reviewer of a brand new shiny iPad when he first unwraps it and turns it on? Answer - Use a background image on the device that when glancing at it in sunlight, looks like you've just managed to scratch the glass of the brand new iPad. Thank goodness no-one else was around, because for a few seconds the iPad's default background image (which features streaks of white) had me swearing and almost in tears at the same time....
And for those of you like me who are really, really, really, really, really fussy about arranging their apps not only in categories but in order of where you want them on the screen, you need to get used to the fact that the apps rotate on the screen and go from a 5x4 layout (check out in the image below that the "Pukk HD" app is on the right in the third row)...
...to a 4x5 layout, where your app has moved (Pukk HD is now in the fourth row second from the right). It's not a big issue but it does catch you by surprise...
Overall though, the extra space in the interface makes accessing settings much more enjoyable. Instead of having to drill down into wireless settings (for example) and then back up the interface to drill down into another area, it's much easier and well laid out...
One quirk I did find, but never really bothered finding the solution for. On my router at home I have an encrypted password to access my wireless network. The iPad handled that fine, but I also had the router set to block any device that didn't have a MAC address that I hadn't entered. Entering the iPad's MAC address caused this strange error on my router, so I just disabled the feature for a while...
And that's the unboxing. As I typed this up I was uploading the video to YouTube (yikes that took forever) and stopping to play with the iPad. The next article (published tomorrow or Monday) will have a detailed review and another video also.
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elcondornz
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Thank G that you mentioned not being able to connect to the appstore Because it's late and I'm tired but HAD to get my iPad going (arrived today -bought off eBay BTW)- we develop an app which I needed to see on the iPad and I couldnt download it - AHHHHH - quick google brought up your website and this article - problem solved Thanks - and so far I really like this thing... our app is for doing market surveys (think replace pen and paper) so the iPad makes it easier with the extra screen space |
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