Things no one tells you about the iPad (for Apple newbies)

Far be it from me to advocate drinking the Apple koolaid, but I have to admit I am in love with my new iPad.  However, it took a lot of frustration (mainly on Chris's part), to get to this point. 

Before I start, however, let me give you some background.  I am not a Mac girl.  I'm usually fairly neutral on the subject of Mac vs. PC, but Apple has done some really irritating stuff lately (think Agency Pricing Model...), and I've operated Macs before, and to be perfectly honest, I just didn't "get it".   What's all the fuss?  Chris is pretty anti-Apple in most cases. He can use a Mac, but like me, doesn't see what the fuss is about.  And closed or proprietary anything drives him up a wall. So when Chris said we were getting an iPad, my first internal reaction was to rush him to the Emergency Room for an MRI.  Since he wasn't exhibiting any other unusual symptoms and seemed quite lucid except for that aberration, I managed to suppress that, *grin*.  Besides, they are pretty shiny and I'm a confirmed gadget freak. 

This brings me to the number one thing no one tells a non-Apple person about the iPad.  You can't plug it into a PC and have the PC detect the iPad as an external usb device.   About two seconds after discovering this, Chris declared the iPad "junk", and handed it over to me. 

Well, it's no secret to anyone that I possess more patience than Chris does about *most* things.  I took the poor orphan iPad and followed the instructions to the letter and had it up and running in about fifteen minutes.  The hardest part was getting it to play nice with our wi-fi, but that's partly because Chris has it locked down with some huge long password designed to be a complete impossibility to crack.  In our neighborhood if you plug a wi-fi device in, you won't find our network! 

This brings me to the second thing no one tells you about the iPad (and Apple in general).  You don't make folders and store stuff, everything is stored within the programs.  Photos are stored in the photo program. Music is stored in iTunes.  Books are stored in iBooks.  App files are stored within the application.  I can see where this would drive a control freak crazy in a big hurry, but I have to admit after using the iPad and installing some apps I can at least see how it works.  I guess this is why Apple forces you to use iTunes to put anything on an iPad.  If you ever want your stuff back, though, I highly suggest syncing it to another Apple product, and having a backup of the original on your PC, because you sure as heck ain't getting it off any other way.  I'm assuming this is what "sync" is for. 

After all that, I'm sure you're thinking, "And you said you LOVED it?"  Yeah, well.  I do.  It's going to replace my Windows netbook/tablet (the ASUS T91MT).  I can do everything on it that I could do on the netbook, and I can usually do it faster, and believe it or not, the onscreen keyboard on the Mac is a lot more manageable than the physical one on the netbook for me.  Go figure.  I am totally in love with the iBooks reading interface, though I can assure you I will not be buying anything from the iBookstore (see Agency Pricing Model, above...).  Good thing for me it has no issue with unDRM'd ePub files.  I'm managing this by pointing it at the LAN address of my calibre content server and hitting "get".   Safari asks if I want to open the file in iBooks, which of course I do, and voila! there is the book all ready to go.  See what I mean about files being stored within the programs? 

So far I've done a lot of playing and not much of anything productive.  I do plan to get Docs to Go, eventually ($14.99, though I suppose if you compare it to the cost of Office it's a bargain, right?), so I can edit Word  and Excel files.  Assuming I can figure out how to get them on the iPad...