As you may remember, I'm a big fan of eBooks. My plan was to buy the nook, but ended up with an iPad instead. It's able to read books from all the major eBook companies (which finally includes eReader.)

My last few eBook purchases have actually been Kindle books, because they were titles Mary wanted as well. It was very cool being able to read on my iPhone and my iPad, and have my place come along with me.

The one downfall of the iPad as an eReader is sunlight. The screen is really washed out, even in the shade, and is absolutely unreadable in full sun. Of course, this is where the Kindle, and other eInk based devices really shine.

The new Kindle pricing makes me wonder when I should pull the trigger. $359 (what we paid for Mary's Kindle) is way too expensive to have as a secondary reading device (secondary to my ever present iPad.) But $139? Maybe. I think $99 will become a magic price for a lot of people. I don't know what it will take for Amazon to cut another 40% from the manufacturing costs, but I'm sure they're working on it. It's obvious to me that they are selling Kindle's as a means to selling books, not for the sake of the hardware.

I noticed this morning that my iPad clock was 15 minutes slow.  I hadn't noticed that before.  I know I last synchronized with my Mac two days ago.  A quick Google search turned up this Apple support thread.

Despite buying the 3G iPad, I haven't yet needed to give AT&T my money, so 3G data was turned off.  I turned it on, and the time quickly reset to the correct time.  I turned data back off, and will keep an eye on it.  My guess is that "Set time automatically" means something different for WiFi only models and 3G models (i.e. the 3G models expect to get the time from the cell network.)  I wish it would pull the time from the GPS satellites.

My wife owns a Kindle.  I've been buying Peanut Press (eReader, now Barnes & Noble) books for a decade.  I thought I would buy a nook, but the iPad changed all that.  Now I have all the platforms in one device.  No, it's not e-ink, but it runs Evernote, so its all good.
But that's not what this is all about.  Mary loves(d) her Kindle.  The size is great.  The books are usually priced competitively.  And Amazon had a great selection.  Enter Apple and their agency model.  First the price on Kindle books went up, plus they had sales tax.  Now, Mary is finding that series where she has multiple books in Kindle format are no longer coming out for the Kindle.  I haven't spent a bunch of time looking at which books aren't available, but I have to assume that Apple is at the core of this issue.  I guess I should really check to see if the books she can't get on Kindle are available in iBooks.  Actually, I probably shouldn't.  If they were, she might just take my iPad (something she's already threatened to do.)
I don't know what the solution is.  Realistically, I understand the publishers need to control prices.  If I believed the authors were making most of that money, I'd be even more behind it, but I don't think they do.  I'll be interested to see if authors can ditch the publishing companies.  Nine Inch Nails has done it on the music side.  Cory Doctorow has been releasing free ebooks of all his books for quite a while.  Both Amazon and Apple have self-publishing modes (assuming you buy an ISBN.)
I'm looking to the future of ebooks, but I'm frustrated that my wife can't get the books she wants.

I received a shipping notice from Apple this morning for my iPad 3G.  It's shipping FedEx overnight.  Unfortunately, it's only a shipping record at this point, and FedEx can't tell me anything.  I was guessing yesterday that Apple already had these things in a warehouse in California, and would overnight them.

The Apple Store is now reporting that new iPad 3G orders will ship by May 7.  I received the following notice from Apple:
"We would like to confirm that your order will be shipped in late April as communicated at the time you placed your order. You will receive a confirmation notice when your order has shipped."

A lot of iPad talk at last nights Scout committee meeting.  I was the only pre-order at a table full of iPhones.  One guy was going to pre-order until he found out his company was going to evaluate them.  Another said the price was too high (I wonder who paid for his iPhone?)

I'm excited for the people getting theirs tomorrow.  I know that the 3G one is the right choice for me, but the waiting is pretty painful at this point.

I got this email about 8 hours after placing my iPad order.



No AppleCare in Texas?  Hopefully this is only temporary.

I ordered the iPad with Wi-Fi + 3G 64GB, which is item # MC497LL/A.  I added Apple Care, the regular dock, a second power cable, and 2 - 3 day shipping.  $1,081.42 with sales tax.

[UPDATE]
I forgot to mention, there wasn't an option for engraving anything on the back.  I'm a bit bummed about that one.

Way back when, I signed up for the iPhone developer program, downloaded the SDK, read a few articles, never bought an iPhone or iPod Touch, and never actually built anything.

Now with the iPad, I think I'll buy one, and wanted to take a look at the SDK.  Well that's a no go.

Unless you're hiding under a rock, you've probably seen something about Apple's newest device, the iPad.  On the surface, the iPad is essentially a large iPod Touch, or a large iPhone (with only 3G data, no phone.)  But it's really so much more.

I have a long history with tablet devices.  I loved my Tablet PC, until I killed it.  I searched long and hard for a Tablet to replace it, but by then the Windows tablet world was dying.  I know there are still tablet choices out there, but they're really esoteric.  At one point I described my ideal device as
"this is basically to replace the primary usage of my tablet (One Note, email, web surfing, blog reading/posting, light document editing.)  I've come to recognize that if One Note had a full featured Pocket PC version (i.e. with complete ink support), then I would almost be happy with a Pocket PC, although I think I would like a big one that doesn't exist.  I'm thinking something like a 6" or 7" screen, at least 800 x 600.  I still want it to be thin, maybe 1 cm?  8 - 12 hours battery life.  Built-in WiFi.  A fair amount of storage built in (1 GB.)  2 SD card slots, with at least one of them being SD/IO.  USB host support, at least drivers for keyboard, mouse, and storage."

How close did Apple get to my ideal device, as described in August 2006?

no ink support - even though OSX has inkwell, neither the iPad nor the smaller devices have anything ink related.  The onscreen keyboard does look pretty nice.  I tried the iPhone keyboard, and never could get it in 5 minute increments, but everyone I know who has one says they get used to it.

• One Note - I've switched to Evernote for their cross-platform support.  They've already said they will have an iPad version.  In fact, I'm writing this post in Evernote right now.
• email - check
• web surfing - check - although no Flash
• light document editing - slick looking iWork apps.  I guess I now have an excuse to get iWork for the MacBook
• 6" or 7" screen 800 x 600 - bigger - 9.7" 1024 x 768 - I guess we'll need to hold one to understand how big that is
• thin - 0.5" ok that's 1.27 cm
• 1 GB storage - that's just hilarious.  16 GB to 64 GB, but no SD card slots - I am intrigued by the camera connection kit
• keyboard - yes keyboard dock and bluetooth keyboard support, we don't know about mouse

A few more use cases which make it great for me.  Mary has a Kindle.  She loves it.  I've been reading eBooks on my Pocket PC/Windows Mobile devices for close to a decade.  Mostly from Peanut Press, which became Palm Reader, then eReader.  eReader is now owned by Barnes and Noble.  The nook is supposed to read eReader books as well as nook books.  Guess what, and iPhone can read Kindle books, eReader books, and nook books.  I assume an iPad will be able to as well.  Obviously, there's the whole LCD vs. eInk screen issue.  We'll have to see how readable these things are in direct sunlight, but I don't read that much outside anyway.

Battery life - 10 hours with 30 days standby is pretty awesome.  Oh and it charges over USB.  I'll just have charing cables for this thing everywhere.

I'm not sure at this point if I'll want the AT&T data plan.  Yes, it sounds cool.  Yes it would mean I could surf personal sites at work without my employer knowing what I do (nothing work inappropriate, just not necessarily their business.)  It is worth $30 a month.  It's too bad they didn't use a normal sized SIM.  If they had, I could just stick the SIM from my phone in there if I needed to.  I suspect I'll buy the 3G version even if I don't activate it right away.
My biggest gripe is the name.  It seems pretty dumb, and it's much more than a Pad.  Sketch Pad?  Doodle Pad?  Who knows what they were thinking.  Maybe Steve didn't like iTablet or iSlate.  Couldn't they have at least called it an iPadd?  In Star Trek a PADD is a Personal Access Display Device, and is definitely one of the tablet devices which geeks worldwide know and love.  Heck, they even showed Star Trek all over the keynote, and their website.

Now, I just have to wait.