iPad Review

This Summer I developed an App for iThings, so got my hands on an iPad for legitimate business purposes. They’re a bit pricey to be justified as a personal toy as yet. My team and I are using the iPad to research the device’s capabilities, check out other apps, and test/demo our own apps, but the member of the team who gets the most use and value out of it is my 4 year old son.

As with any toy that rewards the user’s efforts, the iPad is encouraging an interest in spelling, typing, sums and other reasoning (e.g. predicting trajectories in Angry Birds) that parental efforts in the real world have up to now failed to inspire.

And there are a phenomenal number of iPhone and iPad apps aimed at his age group – both to entertain and to educate: annimated nursery rhymes, characters that echo back what’s said to them in cutesy voices, first spelling and maths games… the list goes on. I may review some specific apps here at some stage, but not just now.

The iPad is definitely the ultimate first computer for kids, and once the price point drops to ~€100, every pre-schooler in Ireland will have one (or one to share, at least).

Top tip: if you are letting a small person play with your iThing, log out of the store first, and preferably turn off whatever internet access you’ve got going. My boy’s excuse for clicking on Upgrade and other links is that he can’t read them yet, but I’m guessing that even when he can, the temptation to add to the games selection will prove too much to resist.

For the grown ups, there’s plenty to entertain and educate too. I’ve downloaded an app to learn how to play real Mahjong, and have been doing Sudokus again for the first time in ~4 years. (It’s almost as if something happened 4 years ago that made me give up all my hobbies for lack of time and energy… I wonder what that could have been? Hmmm…)I’ve also been looking at word processors and spreadsheets, timetablers and mind-mapping tools. Oh – and the book-reading apps, of course: iBooks, Kindle and the like.

Reading books on the iPad is just lovely, provided you’re indoors and shaded. Tragically it’s quite useless in bright/direct light, like the iPod and iPhone before it. For these conditions, you’ll be wanting a Kindle or similar.

iPod apps run on the iPad at their original resolution or supersized to fit the larger screen (by clicking the x2 icon), and many apps either have versions specifically designed to make the most of the greater area of screen real estate, or are developed for iPad only. The larger screen size is a definite bonus, and the onscreen keyboard is as manageable and responsive as the “full size” keyboards on netbooks and other similarly-sized devices.

In short:

Would I recommend the iPad? Oh yes

At that price? Oh no! Wait a generation or two, then either pick up an early one on sale, or the latest and greatest at a price point that’s *got* to be lower than today’s. It’s a must have, but not right away.

Author: smurphy

Writer, mother, gardener, geek... View all posts by smurphy