A Review: iPad

So I've been stuck in a class for the past two weeks--Project Lead the Way basic training, so I can teach "Gateway to Technology" in middle school. It's mostly been a gigantic waste of time, chock full of stupid busywork projects (and we've had to do all of them). I've been in education for two yeas now; I don't know why I didn't see this coming. Boring and/or useless meetings seem to be a staple.

One incredibly bright spot in all this...I got an iPad. One of my friends in the class has one, and he was happy to show me how cool it is. Soooooooo...I proceeded to make the most expensive, spontaneous purchase of my life. I haven't regretted it yet. Here's what I think so far:

The Good

• I canceled my expensive internet service and am now getting 3G coverage on my iPad instead. No contract, and up to 30 bucks a month cheaper!
• I love the touch screen. On a tiny phone I think it would be a pain, but this big screen makes it easy, fun, and soooooo cool!
• I have every church manual you can imagine. I'll never have to lug my scriptures long distance again!
• I loaded every photo I've ever taken. This iPad can hold a LOT of media!
• I have some very cools apps--some of them were very inexpensive, and some were free. I've got a planetarium, sketching app, photo editors, several ridiculous games, research tools, priority organizers, a mall-map finder, etc. And I'm still looking.
• The battery life on this thing is amazing. Lasts around 9 hours, and when you use it on and off like I do, then that ends up being a couple DAYS.

The Obnoxious

• Printing is a pain, but it is possible thanks to a program called PrintCentral. I don't even need an Internet connection!
• Emailing attachments is also a bit of a pain. Apple's mail app and even email accounts via safari don't support attachment. Again, PrintCentral and GoodReader come in handy, though they aren't perfect enough to be on the "good" list.
• Loading photos is annoying too, if you're like me and hate iPhoto.
• Typing is easier on the big touch screen than it would be on an iPhone, but it's not the same as on my laptop. Which makes a huge blog post like this a HUGE effort!

The Impossible

• iPad does not support flash. That makes visiting homestarrunner.com and MSN kind of hard.
• No web camming. Well, I never did much of that anyway, and I still have my school computer.
• iPad might not support .avi file format--the video app won't play the videos I took with my cameras. I might be wrong; I haven't investigated that thoroughly yet.

The list of things iPad CAN'T do is a lot shorter then the list of stuff it CAN do. I am a very satisfied customer.

So what do I do with my time now that I have this fancy contraption? I draw pictures, stylize my photos, use my awesome gardening skills to keep zombies from eating my brains, find stars and planets in the night sky, and look up random useless facts (did you know there are about 147,867 people named "Lindsey" alive today? And the average age is 26. That's .062% of the population!****)

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*Plants Vs Zombies
**Sketchpad Pro
***Color Splash
****WolframAlpha