Reddish Mage
2015-12-02, 12:42 AM
After initially deciding this year would be the year to switch to Surface, a weeklong professional seminar using Notability to take notes (best note-taking app ever) and a trial of the Pencil at Best Buy convinced me to get the iPad Pro and take advantage of the "till January 14th" trial Apple is giving to see if I can finally get rid of my third generation iPad. What follows is my first experiences:
Its the day before Thanksgiving and my iPad Pro came in for Apple. Best Buy didn't have the cellular version and I am on the go to often to settle for WiFi (this was the other reason I stuck with iPad over Surface). No Pencil, no keyboard, Apple told me it won't ship till almost Christmas. Still, I have the main thing, the big big BIG thing. It feels much lighter than the iPad but pretty darn unwieldly in my one hand initially. Like everything I get without a case at first, it worries me that I may drop or scratch it, and something this big seems easy to drop.
I have girl-sized hands. The first thing I noticed as I hit the playground, is that there is just no way I can use this thing like I did my iPad. Holding it in portrait and keyboarding with my thumbs. My thumbs strain to reach the keys. Landscape is even worse, their just no way my thumbs will ever get to the center keys. After messing around a little I found that, after switching to zoom (which makes all the icons bigger on the homescreen), I could change the keyboard into a split keyboard, where there are left and right sides, and type this way in landscape pretty well. Its awarkard using split keyboard in portrait, and it doesn't work unless I use Zoom Mode Display, which sucks.
Incidently, every other Apple device I had I didn't have to mess with the settings to use, although I vaguely remember I had to enable four-finger multitouch on my iPad to use that. This device feels a lot more like when I switched from PC to Mac and a lot less like when I picked up my iPhone for the first time.
Still I'm going to stick with it, and not let myself use my old iPad until I get used to it.
I try out split screen a little and that's all I could do in half a day. There's multiple family Thanksgiving to compare.
Ok this is really, really, disheartening. My iPad is no longer popular or even desirable to the little kids. They don't even blink at the iPad Pro.
There must be something wrong here.
Also, this huge thing can't fit on the table on top of the board games without sticking out, I'm afraid everyone that walks by is going to cause it to drop. Nope.
No one's impressed seems a bit unwieldy still...will things ever get better?
Ok I'm finally getting the hang of typing on this thing in the playground, and my GF comments "its not so big." Odd that I think its just HUGE and silly looking in my hands, and other people just see it as another slate. Maybe I'm just too use to the smaller sized iPad, and mine wasn't even an iPad mini, just a third generation.
I've decided I am going to have to use this iPad in landscape rather than portrait, which is an adjustment, but its starting to get comfortable typing on split screen keyboard...more comfortable then before, and it is correcting my bad habit of typing the "b" key and the "y" key with my left thumb.
Also my GF and I watched 5 episodes of Jessica Jones
Watching Video this iPad is big it is high quality and its great! However, I watched the entire rest of the entire season Jessica Jones on the TV. That has nothing to do with the iPad review, but its a great series
Finally got to get down, work on my finances, note taking, and belated work, and I'm doing it all on my iPad after a trip to Best Buy got me a Logi Create Keyboard from Logitech and...yes....after a long spiel from the Apple guy about how they don't have Pencils and sell out immediately, I discover...in back is a single Pencil!
I test out the Pencil, its pretty good, not as thick and easy as the Bamboo stylus I was using and at $99 it's a helluvalot more expensive (I can get a basic Bamboo for $10), but it can write a lot finer and smaller. I will have to test this out more.
The keyboard is an absolute godsend! I was afraid the bulky third-party keyboard would disappoint with all the added bulk and having a keyboard stick out would ruin watching stuff on my lap or carrying it around (since the keyboard would be on the back) but it feels like a perfectly natural extension. Still I can take the iPad in and out whenever, so that's good.
OMG typing is a dream now, now the iPad fits in my lap just fine, it stays on a table, or couch arm, or a single leg...and it types....perfectly. No tricky bluetooth connecting either. The keyboard fits magnetically on the side like a glove and works automatically. It has shortcut keys, and it types FAST and qwertily.
The icing on the cake is the magnetic close clasp. It just closes and turns off, and its tight. My old Pong case stopped working magnetically years ago and this glove-fit case is a new and wonderful experience.
Bothers me just a bit when turning the keyboard around to use the iPad as a slate (you know as an iPad...) but not too much...I can really get used to this. I may not even try the Apple keyboard.
Next time....iPad at work, iPad at play, and finally...what its like to type up an enormous review in the playground on an iPad.
Its the day before Thanksgiving and my iPad Pro came in for Apple. Best Buy didn't have the cellular version and I am on the go to often to settle for WiFi (this was the other reason I stuck with iPad over Surface). No Pencil, no keyboard, Apple told me it won't ship till almost Christmas. Still, I have the main thing, the big big BIG thing. It feels much lighter than the iPad but pretty darn unwieldly in my one hand initially. Like everything I get without a case at first, it worries me that I may drop or scratch it, and something this big seems easy to drop.
I have girl-sized hands. The first thing I noticed as I hit the playground, is that there is just no way I can use this thing like I did my iPad. Holding it in portrait and keyboarding with my thumbs. My thumbs strain to reach the keys. Landscape is even worse, their just no way my thumbs will ever get to the center keys. After messing around a little I found that, after switching to zoom (which makes all the icons bigger on the homescreen), I could change the keyboard into a split keyboard, where there are left and right sides, and type this way in landscape pretty well. Its awarkard using split keyboard in portrait, and it doesn't work unless I use Zoom Mode Display, which sucks.
Incidently, every other Apple device I had I didn't have to mess with the settings to use, although I vaguely remember I had to enable four-finger multitouch on my iPad to use that. This device feels a lot more like when I switched from PC to Mac and a lot less like when I picked up my iPhone for the first time.
Still I'm going to stick with it, and not let myself use my old iPad until I get used to it.
I try out split screen a little and that's all I could do in half a day. There's multiple family Thanksgiving to compare.
Ok this is really, really, disheartening. My iPad is no longer popular or even desirable to the little kids. They don't even blink at the iPad Pro.
There must be something wrong here.
Also, this huge thing can't fit on the table on top of the board games without sticking out, I'm afraid everyone that walks by is going to cause it to drop. Nope.
No one's impressed seems a bit unwieldy still...will things ever get better?
Ok I'm finally getting the hang of typing on this thing in the playground, and my GF comments "its not so big." Odd that I think its just HUGE and silly looking in my hands, and other people just see it as another slate. Maybe I'm just too use to the smaller sized iPad, and mine wasn't even an iPad mini, just a third generation.
I've decided I am going to have to use this iPad in landscape rather than portrait, which is an adjustment, but its starting to get comfortable typing on split screen keyboard...more comfortable then before, and it is correcting my bad habit of typing the "b" key and the "y" key with my left thumb.
Also my GF and I watched 5 episodes of Jessica Jones
Watching Video this iPad is big it is high quality and its great! However, I watched the entire rest of the entire season Jessica Jones on the TV. That has nothing to do with the iPad review, but its a great series
Finally got to get down, work on my finances, note taking, and belated work, and I'm doing it all on my iPad after a trip to Best Buy got me a Logi Create Keyboard from Logitech and...yes....after a long spiel from the Apple guy about how they don't have Pencils and sell out immediately, I discover...in back is a single Pencil!
I test out the Pencil, its pretty good, not as thick and easy as the Bamboo stylus I was using and at $99 it's a helluvalot more expensive (I can get a basic Bamboo for $10), but it can write a lot finer and smaller. I will have to test this out more.
The keyboard is an absolute godsend! I was afraid the bulky third-party keyboard would disappoint with all the added bulk and having a keyboard stick out would ruin watching stuff on my lap or carrying it around (since the keyboard would be on the back) but it feels like a perfectly natural extension. Still I can take the iPad in and out whenever, so that's good.
OMG typing is a dream now, now the iPad fits in my lap just fine, it stays on a table, or couch arm, or a single leg...and it types....perfectly. No tricky bluetooth connecting either. The keyboard fits magnetically on the side like a glove and works automatically. It has shortcut keys, and it types FAST and qwertily.
The icing on the cake is the magnetic close clasp. It just closes and turns off, and its tight. My old Pong case stopped working magnetically years ago and this glove-fit case is a new and wonderful experience.
Bothers me just a bit when turning the keyboard around to use the iPad as a slate (you know as an iPad...) but not too much...I can really get used to this. I may not even try the Apple keyboard.
Next time....iPad at work, iPad at play, and finally...what its like to type up an enormous review in the playground on an iPad.