In fact, I enjoyed, not just the trip, but also having the time to explore this gadget. I guess, what I like most is its mobility, the ease to move around with an 'envelope' (oh yes, I bought an additional sleeve as I felt the iPad is too naked when only having the screen covered by the special cover).
Before moving on to the rest... perhaps let me put down a 'disclaimer' (for whoever is reading this post): I'm a non-iPhone user, and I'm not really in favour of touch-screen technology.
Next is the ease to get connected to wi-fi... just a couple of touches. On the other hand, I also noticed that the more convenience we enjoyed (i.e. the ease of getting connected), the more it has also raised the 'minimum' expectation... hence, we sometimes could also become less patient. Perhaps there's how addiction comes about? Haha... well, be it iPad or Mobile Phones, notice that I'm not the only one, but other people in the tour group also asked about it. In fact, we were quite grateful that there's free wifi access in all the hotels we put up. Of course, we enjoyed even more when we were in Mecure Budapest because we could get connected even in our rooms! The only 'disappointment' we had was Vienna Trend Appartementhotel when we were told wifi connection was available in all rooms... but we test around the room to figure out where the connection spot was...
Something that I only tried out in this trip was the "Facebook Apps" which allowed me to upload photos directly to facebook. On the other hand, there's also where I learnt the shortcoming! We could not upload photos to online applications easily, we had to go through some 3rd party software/ application! This is something that I felt not quite user friendly. No direct upload to blog or even facebook via the webpage. The folder was no where to be found!
The same applies to video! There's no way I could upload videoclips to Youtube directly, too!
Similarly, this applies for files created in the iPad... it seems like we are unable to extract it from SD cards! Instead, seems like emailing (within the application) is the only option.
How about copying files into the iPad? Hm... the connector seems to work only for SD cards containing image files... it doesn't seem to read any other files from the SD card. So, there's this inconvenience, too... now have to think of a way to transfer files out of the iPad! hm...
Having pointed out some of the inconveniences, well, something that it's very user-friendly... the way it organised the photographs downloaded... by dates and by albums... which I like alot... of course, it also comes with limitations like I could not rename the albums...
Twittering could also be quite easily done with the iPad too... well, it all went down to the design of the apps, I suppose.
Also played with "KeyNote"... pretty easy to use, hm... though it was quite troublesome to get the various features to be displayed at one go as it didn't come with "Inspector" as in the Macbook version. Hm... Have not quite tried the other applications yet though I used "Pages" to read some of those downloaded documents.
Actually downloaded a couple of forms that I intended to work on during the trips... unfortunately, the format went haywire... sigh...
Till now, with my limited experience, I think the iPad 2 definitely could not replace a computer if we were to use device for serious learning. Hm... so much hype about it... I guess the hype revolves largely on the accessibility (in particular, to the internet when connected to wifi or go into the 3G mode). Of course, another thing that wow people was the library of applications which was very rich and diverse...
Anyway, it definitely serves me well when I'm on the move... hm... I guess there are more good things for me to discover :)
Cheers!
