A week with the new iPad

I’m a week into a relationship with the new iPad and I can definitely say we’re staying together. Strictly speaking we’re still in the honeymoon stage but that’s not to say my giddy excitement and love struck feelings aren’t valid. The thing is, I wasn’t unhappy with my iPad 2 and if anything I had concerns about some aspects of the new iPad, but the big change for me personally is that the previous iPad was a shared device whereas this one is all mine, and as such my engagement with the device has changed quicte rapidly. Evidently I’m not very good at open relationships, as one week into this one I’m not looking anywhere else…

  • Whilst not as radical a “shift change” as felt evident moving to the iPhone retina display from a non-retina, the screen on the new iPad is indeed beautiful and has genuinely drawn a few “wows” from onlookers. Smitten as I am, I’ve found myself marvelling at the detail visible in the lush 144x144px icons or small drop-shadows and textures in updated app interfaces.
  • It’s “rapid” [as teenagers are currently prone to say]. The only one of my apps which ever shows a hint of interface delay is Sketchbook Pro, but that’s only very occasional and to be fair I do throw some fairly heavy Photoshop-like tasks at it.
  • I’ve got a red leather cover. Looks and feels sexy!
  • Migrating from the iPad 2 to the new iPad has suddenly made “the cloud” essential to me. In my case the cloud means both Dropbox and iCloud. I didn’t want to use the excellent “backup old device and restore to new one” method of migration even though it works flawlessly. Instead I wanted to start again and hand-pick the apps which have become essential to me. I was pleasantly surprised to find that all of my essential productivity apps [most of which are mentioned below] have embraced the cloud so throughly that migration was usually as simple as installing the app on the new iPad, entering my account details and watching as the data dropped into place. I mean, I know that’s how the cloud is meant to work… but only when it’s this effortless, efficient and robust do you get that “I’m never going back” feeling.
  •  And then there’s the apps. I couldn’t possibly list all of the apps here – and it would be pointless anyway as there’s some “obvious” crowd-pleasers in the list below – but iOS devices are all about the apps and in my first week these ones have brought the whole experience to life:
    • Sketchbook Pro: Fantastic sketching tool with clever intuitive features that make you want to draw, whilst offering great cloud and export options to other packages.
    • Readability: Saving web pages to read later on your mobile device is not new, but there’s something about the experience of Readability that make me want to save any text-heavy webpage to read on the iPad e.g. blog posts, news pages, etc.
    • Byword: I’m increasingly becoming a Markdown fan and I also buy-in to all the “purist” considerations that simple writing apps remove any distractions but more than that, Byword just enables me to write stuff quickly and easily whilst on the go.
    • Penultimate: I’ve stopped taking notes on paper this week. I’m not throwing away paper just yet as I think it breeds a different creative freedom to digital interfaces, but the convenience of having meeting notes digitally and, if I’m honest, the brevity enforced by feeling very slightly restricted compared to writing on paper are both huge benefits, and Penultimate is the best note-taker I’ve found yet.
    • Kindle: I didn’t used to read “proper” books much because I like to read in bed. Increasingly now I do thanks to an experience which applies very subtle enhancements which just maximise books when presented digitally.
    • Thanks to the other AirPlay-friendly gadgets in my life [speakers, Apple TV, Macbook, etc], my media consumption has now gone through the roof. BBC iPlayer, 4oD catch-up, LoveFilm, TED…
    • When I have my User Experience Designer hat on, my toolkit is now iPad-centric. App Cooker is indispensable for wireframing iOS experiences, UI Sketcher is handy for quick interface ideas, WiFi photo lets me grab screenshots off my device effortlessly and LiveView helps me to preview designs on the iPad in real-time as I’m creating them on my Mac.
    • Machinarium: For whatever reason I never gave-in and bought this game previously but now on the new iPad it’s just beautiful. It’s not had a retina update but doesn’t need it. The story, gameplay and attention to detail feel like gaming meant for the iPad.

So that’s it. I know plenty of the above also applies to previous iPads but the genius of Apple’s design process is continual product evolution, so it’s often hard to define why the latest is “just a bit better”. All I can say is that after a week of reckless romantic abandon with the new iPad, this one’s a keeper.

23rd March 2012

Ben Childs

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