By Sree Sreenivasan
DNAinfo Contributing Editor
It's now been 48 hours since the Apple iPad hit U.S. stores.
Of the millions of tweets and Facebook postings, along with the deluge of on-air and print coverage, I think two tweets captured the craziness leading up to the iPad's debut.
One was from someone in Sao Paulo, Brazil, who told me he was planning a trip to Manhattan just to buy one. The other: "OMG! SHUT UP ABOUT THE FRIGGEN[sic] IPAD ALREADY! IT'S JUST A BIGGER VERSION OF THE iPOD TOUCH!"
I first wrote about the iPad for DNAinfo after its January announcement, and decided to go to the Apple store (a.k.a., "the Glass Cube") on Fifth Avenue Saturday morning to actually get my hands on one.
There were huge lines, of course (along with numerous TV cameras), but those were for people who had pre-ordered their iPads or those who wanted to buy one. For a test drive, there was no need to wait outside.
Using the new device, I jotted down my thoughts on my Facebook page:
Have a column due Monday about the iPad, so I thought I'd start it here, at the Apple store, by writing on an iPad, as a Facebook Note.
First impressions: heavier than I expected; I CAN type wi my thumbs on a virtual keyboard; does FB well; does photos well; is really a giant iPod Touch! I wish it had a camera. I am an early tester and a later adopter, so I'll skip versions 1,2 and 3. i don't know about version 5.
More in my Monday column at DNAinfo.com — meanwhile, send me your thoughts, tax, etc.
Now that I am at a better keyboard, let me break that down. It's strange to call something that weighs 1.5 pounds heavy, but it was. Standing and using it for five minutes caused strange stresses on my shoulders and arms — that's why Steve Jobs ran his January demo off his lap.
I was surprised that I could type on it with my thumbs, Blackberry-style, but I really missed having a physical keyboard (I made several typos, including "wi" instead of "with"; "later" instead of "late" and "tax" instead of "reax").
I tried Facebook and Twitter on it, and they worked fine. As did photos and videos. In fact, the sample photos looked really, really good.
Not having a camera is a major issue for me (as Jeff Jarvis has noted in his morning-after review). I would have loved to have an iPad lying around the house for the kids to easily see and talk to their grandmas in India.
Though the iPad is essentially a larger iPod Touch, it's also more than that. It's Apple's way of making a new category of computing viable for more people. Tablets have been around for years, but the iPad's mix of elegance, ease-of-use and style will spur acceptance and innovation in this category. That's what happened with the iPod. It wasn't the first MP3 player, but it was the one that caught everyone's imagination.
But the idea that the iPad would somehow save print media has been overblown. It will help a new generation of consumers discover, read and watch content, but no $500+ product (along with apps that can cost as much as the $5-a-week Time app) is going to save print's troubled business models.
As I wrote in January, betting against Jobs and his team isn't smart. Even so, I presume this edition of the iPad won't have much of an impact on the media landscape, and I won't be tempted to buy one, until a much later version.
I would be glad to proven wrong.
SOME iPAD RESOURCES:
• Mashable iPad collection
• Gizmodo iPad collection
• Poynter on the USAToday iPad app
Every Monday, DNAinfo contributing editor Sree Sreenivasan shares his observations about the changing media landscape.
