Personal blog of Tristan Blease

I knew immediately that I was going to get an iPad after Apple made the announcement, but I didn't plan to buy one on launch day. Originally, I had planned to hold out for the 3G version. After talking it over with Clay on Friday night, I came to the conclusion that the extra $130 and $15/month contract wouldn't be worth the ten minutes a month I'd actually spend using the 3G service. I went to bed early that night, but still had no intention of waking up early the next morning to wait in line.

Then Saturday morning came.

I woke up at precisely 6:30am. Checked Twitter. Saw a few tweets describing that only a handful of people were in line at the West County Mall Apple Store. By 7:00am, I was in that line. The store opened at 9:00am, and soon after, I was on my way home with 16GB iPad and accessories in hand.

Unboxing and activating the device was simple. After peeling off the plastic wrap and plugging into iTunes I was ready to go.

Having seen most of the first-party apps already, I immediately jumped into the App store to see what was available. Similar to the iPhone, the iPad is only as good as the apps it runs, right? I downloaded apps across almost every category, but I especially wanted to check out the journalism apps to see how they extended their content to the platform.

While some apps seemed to be just resized versions of their iPhone cousins, others make fantastic use of the new, larger screen format. A few that come to mind include Evernote, Square, Twitteriffic, and Epicurious.

I was very disappointed in the few journalism apps I played with. While they all do a great job of bringing their content to the small screen, they all seem to fall short in terms of engagement. None of the apps I tested let you view or leave comments (a big miss as far as I am concerned), and the most interactivity I saw in their content came from the embedded ads. Hopefully, those are things that will be addressed as time goes on.

Overall, I'm impressed with the iPad. Clay is going to get one when the 3G version comes out at the end of the month, and by then I'm sure were going to start seeing a lot of really great apps coming out in the App store. Can't wait.

For those of you who were also early adopters, I'm curious to hear your opinions on the iPad and the apps that made it in time for launch day. Was it good for you, too?