Just… brilliant.

Am I pleased I got one: absolutely.

Initial thoughts: When using my iPhone I’m constantly darting to the Twitter or RSS app to see what has changed, normally I will push links to Instapaper for later consumption. With the iPad, I have no such urge. I very much have enjoyed browsing sites, reading RSS and catching up on Instapaper. The iPhone is for quick bursts of consumption, the iPad for more considered and deliberate ingestion.

Below are a set of thoughts that I would usually bombard Twitter with but I am not going to as I don’t wish to bore/piss people off.

• The screen is pretty much the right size. Anything smaller and it’d invade the iPhone, anything larger and you’d start to think a laptop is the right tool.
• The screen does end up with finger prints all over it. This isn’t a surprise and the same happens to every other touch device I’ve used. The only reason it feels jarring is because the iPad screen is lovely to look at and putting a finger print on it feels somehow wrong. I expect this to change as it becomes less new.
• iPhone apps look horrid on the iPad. They either look stupidly small, or pixelated at the 2x resolution. The only things that don’t look retarded are fast moving – non delicate – games. I’ve managed to replace most applications with iPad counter parts, but not all. Stares at Remote, TuneIn Radio, Skype, OmniFocus and last.fm.
• Mail on the iPad is much more usable, I can actually use my email rather than just triage as I do on the iPhone.
• Twitter clients that have iPad counter-parts mostly suck.
• Apple claim that the browsing experience on the iPad is magical. As I’m neither five years old, a camp old gentleman nor in marketing, I wouldn’t use the word magical. I would say it is very nice. You have screen real estate with great touch feedback and pages render quickly.
• The iPad is much faster than my iPhone.
• My iPhone now feels cramped, slow and claustrophobic.
• Maps on the iPhone is useful, maps on the iPad is excellent.
• Signing up for 3G data worked very easily – plug in details and sign up. No need for credit check, sitting on hold or talking to other human beings.
• I like having 6 icons across the bottom on the dock – my common applications now all live there.
• Choosing to go for the 64Gb seemed like the expensive choice. It was the right choice. After sync’ing my music library and about 10 full films and various applications, I’m still left with about 15Gb of space.
• Typing in portrait is pecking at the keyboard iPhone style. Landscape, after a little practice, can be done at speed comparable to a normal keyboard.
• The weight of the iPad is surprising. It is heavier than you’d expect but the device feels solid so it doesn’t feel unnecessarily heavy. Using it with one hand comfortably requires cradling it from the back. Holding it with two hands you’d hold it like a book.
• The iPod app is good and makes use of the screen real estate, it would be nice however to have a list – as well as an icon – view for albums.
• For universal applications – those written to run both on the iPhone and the iPad – generally feel a lot nicer on the iPad over the iPhone.
• The battery is excellent – after using it for about 4 hours solid, the battery had only gone down by ~15%. This seems to genuinely be a device you can charge, use all day and not worry about running out of juice.
• Bluetooth support for keyboards is excellent and finally gives me a reason to keep my Apple bluetooth keyboard for travelling where extensive typing might be needed – for example a trip to Sweden for a few days. (I use a Microsoft Natural Pro keyboard for my desktop).
• It is absolutely not a laptop replacement for myself. It will do 90% of the things I do on my laptop in a faster, more enjoyable fashion, but this will unlikely to become a code machine. (That being said, IronMonger might come out to play again – my Cocoa Touch port of ferite – for a bit of hacking fun.)
• Instapaper is absolutely spot on. Excellent app.

All in all I’m really pleased.

Now I just need to sort out a car charger for it and my iPhone (the current iPhone one doesn’t work for the iPad due to the power demands of the iPad), and a case (I had ordered a neoprene case from amazon.co.uk who emailed me the day after it was due to ship to say it has been delayed).

Pretty damn good.

Last Thursday I joined up with the Brighton MTB for one of their now infamous Thursday night rides.

With a slight degree of nerves – this was my first night ride in a long time – and a large bucket of excitement I arrived at Sussex University Sports Carpark. I met Simon – who I’ve ridden with a fair number of times – and got my bike ready. As the clock ticked towards 7pm, various people showed up and did the same with various people introducing themselves to the new faces – mainly myself.

With everyone ready, we set off into the woods. We did lots of nice climbs and some dusty single track. Compared to what I had been used to recently – mostly open tracks and muddle bridleways – this was a breath of fresh air. We had tight corners along tight paths whilst going down up and down hills. It would give me great pleasure to give you a blow by blow description of each of the trails that we encountered but with a mostly new location containing new trails with new people means that most of it was a blur. Instead I shall relate some of the more memorable parts:

Picture a scene of a large tree trunk lying horizontally. There is a ramp up one side joining a ramp on the other. This middle section of the tree is about a metre high. The ramps are a little off camber. The aim of the game is to ride up one side, make your way over the trunk and down the other side. You get bonus points for style, not falling off and surviving with most of your bones intact. The trick it seems is to not even think about it, get some speed in your wheels and go for it. The bike knows how to do the rest. Although daunting the first time, several of us nailed it and even went on to do it again. It was good fun and felt nice to have places on the ride to push your skills, improve your confidence and have a nice cup of fear.

Turning on the lights. This was my first ride with my own set of lights – would they fit the bill? Would they provide the right conditions so that as the darkness crept in, I could keep up with the pace? Not only did they do the job I can still remember myself giggling inanely as the light went and we were darting through the forest. There really is no experience quite like peddling as hard as your legs will take you into the darkness with just your lights guiding the way. It is also quite a visual feast to see a train of mountain bikers heading off into the forest in front of you with lights blazing – makes the forest pretty magical.

The company. The company was excellent, a great ride is only possible with a good group of people around you. Not only was the banter good covering all sorts of topics but when people had problems – mainly someone taking a bale – others were there to help and make sure everyone was ok. I was made to feel very welcome by the nice chap leading the ride and was instantly made to feel part of the group.

All in all the ride was great fun and I remember clearly feeling a little disappointed as we headed back to the car park. I’d enjoyed myself so much that I really didn’t want the ride to finish – a true testament to how good it was. I did console myself with the fact that I would be back next Thursday enjoying another ride with the group!

Max speed: 24.3 mph
Total distance: 17.7 miles
Moving average: 7.4 mph
Moving time: 2h 24m

This was a good ride although took a while for my legs to warm up. Went about as expected given my current cycle fitness which should hopefully improve over the next month or so. My lights did the job. The banter was good. Managed to bend my large chain ring when I stacked it into a ditch whilst cycling up a particularly horrid hill.

The best part was was being in the back third of the mtb train through some forest, in the dark, with carpets of bluebells all around with beams of light punching around. Next time I will get a photo.