iPad reaches one million sold!

You may have heard about this yesterday-and actually the post I wrote last night will mention this as well (couldn’t upload it yet, because my camera battery died while I was taking screen shots to illustrate the descriptions of the home screen, etc.-look for it by tomorrow).  Despite so many people being unsure if they would purchase an iPad…it seems plenty of people HAVE.  It would be interesting to know if they already had an iPod touch or not.  Here’s what the NY times said about the current sales figures.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/apple-sells-one-million-ipads/?src=mv

As far as what they say about the iBooks…it would be more accurate if they could tell us how many people had downloaded the Amazon Kindle app, as I did…and enjoyed even more.

iPad Part 2 of 4

With news of iPad sales reaching one million within the first 28 days on the market, one can see that Apple’s strong advertising campaign has been successful. Very successful. In fact, the ever-popular iPhone took almost three times as long to reach the one million mark. What is so appealing about this gadget? Is it really just an overly large iPod touch?

(Although you can’t see the icons as well in this photo, the ability to upload your pictures as your lock screen or wallpaper, is even more captivating on this size screen.  Even when it is of your now ten-year old daughter, as a 4-month old “Goat ala Adam Sandler style for her first Halloween).
The screen is about the size of a netbook screen and ideal for surfing the web, watching movies or viewing digital photos. The dock across the bottom of the screen initially holds five programs, Safari, FaceBook, Photos, Mail and iPod. It is very easy to drag and drop other programs or apps into that main dock, which is efficient for anything you use on a regular basis.

Safari has a different way on iPad, of letting you have multiple sites open.  Instead of the “tabs” like on a regular computer, it now has a spot where you can click an icon to bring you to a screen with a pic of your various screens that you’ve been surfing:

Here you can see the four sites I was most recently looking at, and you retain the ability to open these at any moment.  As an aside, I’ve noticed that my iPad is incredibly responsive and speedy.  I have the 32gB WiFi version (after much deliberation what to get and what was best for our area, this really was the most logical choice).  Also, the touchscreen is one of the best I’ve dealt with-yet, the smudge -resistant coating is not all that smudge-resistant.  This is only noticeable when your iPad is off, you can barely tell how smudged it is when it is on.

I added iBooks to the dock, primarily because of the hype I’d heard about this app being the one to use in the e-bibliosphere. The aesthetically pleasing wooden bookshelf appearance was also a big sell for me.

After all, I’ve had the same wallpaper on my MacBook for over a year-a hardwood floor looking background with the apple logo etched out in the middle. Yet, I’ve not been overly plea sex with the iBooks application, primarily because of the limited selection of books. Most older classics are free, which is a bonus for those of us who tout that to be our favorite genre. In my Part 3 discussion of the apps available foe iPad, I will do a comparison of iBooks versus the Amazon Kindle app.
Safari is pretty much the same Internet browser as it is on your full-size computer, just with less buttons across the top of the panel. The ability to view windows you’ve previously opened is definitely helpful, since the “open new tab” function is not present, thus limiting your ability to view multiple pages simultaneously.

The Photos app is very handy and user friendly with “stacks” of your photos.  The image quality is amazing.  Everything is just so much more appealing on this large, high quality screen.  It really makes all the difference in the “wow” factor.

The Mail apps are linked to your mail accounts which you set them up for.  As of this point, I’ve only set up a Google Mail account because that was incredibly easy and intuitive.  My other emails for work and via my home Internet provider require a couple more steps, but I plan on doing that soon and will update you on how easy that is.

So far, I’m very happy with the iPad…and I believe after this weekend when I pick up Leopard and install it on my MacBook, I’ll be even happier with my ability to sync my Photos and Music and Calendar more simply.  Now if only the iPhone would HURRY UP and get to Verizon Wireless, all would be right with my Gadget World.   Although I did get a new techie magazine today and saw a great battery product I’m going to have to tell you about…