My initial impression/experience with it has been very positive. I’m still in the “kicking the tires” stage, figuring out which publications I favor have made the transition to effective, engaging electronic formats. Just making a PDF version doesn’t cut it anymore.
When it comes to magazines, I’ve discovered three (four if you stay with PDFs) formats competing for dominance. Eventually one will come out on top. I don’t have a strong opinion on any yet as I plod through the trial versions. Some publications are wonderfully cheaper and one obviously isn’t (The Economist, no surprise; I guess they don’t make enough money pimping out their research departments). The selection is small (for now), odd but full of great surprises (Canadians jumped on board, I can get Hockey News in English and French!).
Books will be another story. I scored some free ones from both iBooks and Kindle (Kindle is really software, not exclusively hardware). The larger dilemma with books isn’t the format for me, it’s time. At least I scored a personal favorite in iBooks, The Scarlet Letter and Tales of the Jazz Age via Kindle (no luck weaseling The Great Gatsby for free) to compare the experiences.
Lastly, I had my first scare with my iPad in merely three days. After coming home from work I realized that the duffle bag I transported it along with a hard drive, were missing. I tried to retrace all my steps while rushing back in my car. My greatest fear was leaving it on the car’s roof, backing out, the bag flew off and I ran over the contents. Six hundred clams gone in a flash. I don’t even drop that in Vegas during an entire vacation! Other unpleasant possibilities raced through my brain as well. Once I checked my cube, I got to breath again. The bag had never been moved.
Next weekend I will be having my friends in Dallas go over it. See what non-Apple/non-IT/non-Austin types have to contribute about the iPad’s possibilities.