Join the Mac|Life staff as we spend our first 24-hours with the iPad. Which staff member will love it? Which will hate it? Check back as we enter the world of iPad.
Robbie - Saturday 8:34AM:
This is where the UPS truck SHOULD be
I'm still waiting for the iPad to arrive at my house. The UPS tracker tells me my iPad left Oakland an hour ago, fingers crossed they come to my house first. While I pass the time, I'm downloading more iPad apps than I need onto my MacBook Pro.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Ray- Saturday 9:01 AM
Bwah ha ha! Little does Robbie know, but I've hijacked his iPad as it was leaving Oakland....
Not really. Mine's not even out for delivery yet. Some stats:
Number of iPad apps downloaded so far: 28
Number of texts/emails/Facebook messages/phone calls from people wanting to know if I got my iPad yet: 4
Number of iPads currently in my possession: 0
Susie - Saturday 9:04 AM:
I've been up since 7:30. My iPad is being delivered to Robbie's house, since our friendly neighborhood IT guy ordered both of them together. Anyhow. Approximately 2 seconds after Robbie signed into IM, I started bugging him. [Note to readers: Anything nonsensical is usually a Simpsons reference.]
Dear UPS man: Please visit Robbie soon. Dear AT&T: You better ring my phone when he calls. Dear Everyone Else: Happy iPad Day!!!!
Paul - Saturday 9:11 AM
Mine's on the same truck leaving Oakland as Robbie's...and UPS is not answering the phone thanks to millions of nerds like me worrying about delivery. Ray, please do hijack that truck...it might be a faster way to get our iPads!
Jon (Editorial Director) 9:23 AM:
In line at Stonestown Apple Store with about 200 folks. Chunks of 20 entering store. Apple employees giving away candy and bottled water. Starbucks clerk taking orders and hand delivering drinks to folks in line.
Jon 9:39 AM:
Inside the Apple Store
Jon 9:49AM:
From entering store to leaving store, purchase was seven minutes. Bought dock. Did not buy case.
Paul - Saturday 10:01am:
UPS sucks. Been on hold for 90 minutes, and giving up. Next Apple launch, I'm preordering at a store, like Jon did.
Robbe & Hector the Cat - Saturday 10:09 AM:
Where's my iPad?!?
Robbie - Saturday 10:14AM:
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, US 04/03/2010 8:36 A.M. DESTINATION SCAN
So close...
Ray - Saturday 11:30 AM:
Waiting... and downloading Mirror's Edge.
Paul - Saturday 11:33AM:
I've got 52 apps downloaded. I think I better stop & wait to see if I actually get an iPad today to run them.
Robbie - Saturday 11:53AM:
Two iPads were just dropped off by the nicest UPS guy ever!
Paul - Saturday 11:53AM:
iPad get! Yes, literally at the exact same time as Robbie. The UPS guy said he felt like Santa--everyone's overjoyed to see him today.
Robbie - Saturday 12:15PM
Pre-sync first impression: I was leery of the onscreen keyboard being as easy to use as everyone said. Typed up a few things. Super cool. I'm a believer.
Oh and here are some pics.
Paul - Saturday 1:39PM
1st use of iPad: the Dora Coloring
Book with 4 fascinated little kids (it's a playdate, we only have 2). Then I read them Winnie-the-Pooh on
iBooks before naptime. Great, great story--I love the rhythm of Milne's language. Now that they're asleep, I'm suddenly wondering if
my kids are even going to remember paper books? iBooks is rad; glad I never
bought a Kindle.
Now the wife, who picked on me nonstop for being excited and anxious about its arrival, won't give it back. She keeps going, "oh this is cool!". Sigh.
Susie - Saturday 1:47 PM
Hey, Paul, I got some almost-kid-approved faux-Dr. Suess for ya: Oh the syncing, the syncing, the wish-I-were-drinking!
Yeah, this sync is taking forever.
I did manage to stop it from syncing ALL my applications the first time -- including my 250-odd iPhone applications. Not! Necessary! I appreciate how iTunes separates out iPad/iPhone, iPhone only, and iPad-only applications in the Apps menu, but in the screen where you select apps to sync to your iPad, there's no way to sort that list by intended device. So I had to go by memory, pretty much, but I think I chose a good mix of apps, some written just for the iPad, some that I'm already running on my phone that had updates to be iPad-friendly too, and some iPhone-only apps that I'll compare with their iPad-only versions.
Can't wait for the sync to finish!!! Oh, look, I think it's done...
Paul - Saturday 2:57 PM
Paul - Saturday 3:28PM I'm mostly lost in iBooks so far. I really, really like reading on this thing. It's awesome to get a free sample of a book and decide if I want the whole shebang. But I'm leaving for a romantic night out with my wife in a hour...and I'm suppressing urge to tell her I'd rather stay home with my iPad instead.See, 14 years of marriage has provided me with at least a tiny clue ticket! But it's not just me: my 2-year-old son's first words after his nap were, "can I play the iPad?" Sniff...so proud! Ray- Saturday 3:37PM Set up Wi-Fi & email. Syncing my 1Password data to the iPad. It's taking forever. Headed off to the Moose Lodge in a bit to get ready for my dad's retirement party. Will be taking the iPad along to see how some less tech-savy folks get on with it. I'm sorta frustrated by app management when syncing. iTunes wants to put all my iPhone-only apps on the iPad, but the only way to stop that is by manually unchecking my gazillion iPhone apps. How about a global checkbox or pref that puts the kibosh on that? Ray - Saturday 3:13 PM The iPad landed about half an hour ago. Syncing.... Susie - Saturday 4:15 PM I'm slowly working my way through the apps I've got installed so far. My favorite thing, though, has been watching videos. Man, this screen is gorgeous. The speakers sound louder and fuller than I remembered (we couldn't hear them much at all in the crowded demo room after the iPad introduction), and the colors look amazing. The dedicated ABC television app is awesome. Next up, Netflix (once they email me my forgotten password, d'oh!), and CBS.com, which has a new iPad-optimized site for watching TV shows. Here are some screens from the ABC app. These are in portrait orientation. When you turn it to landscape, you get full-screen video, in full HD, with black bars on the top and bottom. Beautiful! 
The list of shows is pretty comprehensive, even some daytime soaps and The View. 
Every season of Lost! You just turn it sideways to watch in full-screen. Robbie - Saturday 4:25PM: iTunes is acting insane. Not letting me remove apps from the iPad via the App tab. I might have to kick it. Robbie - Saturday 6:49PM: Favorite apps so far: EpicuriousABC PresentsSam & MaxPages NetflixMarvel iBooks I really wish Tweetie for the iPad was ready. Robbie - Saturday 11:46PM: Just returned from party where 90% of the people there had iPhones. They kept grabbing the iPad to look stuff up online. Susie - Sunday 9:12 AM: Will you laugh at me if I admit I slept with the iPad last night? Look, my husband is sick and has been sleeping on the couch for two days. So I went to sleep watching Julie and Julia on Netflix Instant Watch -- the iPad Netflix app is great! The iPad's flat bottom edge made it easy to prop up on the nightstand, too, even while it was plugged in. I'm one of the unlucky ones who can't charge it with my MacBook Pro, so I had to put a power strip on the nightstand, propping up the iPad with a now-totally-useless clock radio. Anyway, besides watching movies, I really love reading on this thing. I've used iBooks, Kindle, Instapaper Pro, Time, NYT Editors Choice, and they were all a much better experience than reading on my iPhone or crading my too-hot, weak-batteried MacBook Pro on my lap. (Oh yeah, on the first charge my iPad lasted about 12 hours of near-constant use, gaming, reading, watching videos, and more.) Some screens from my favorite reading apps: 
An Alice in Wonderland enhanced storybook called Alice for the iPad [Lite and $8.99 full version, iTunes links] 
The free NYT Editors' Choice app [iTunes link] is a good distillation of the Gray Lady's biggest stories. 
Time magazine is selling its April 12 issue (with Steve Jobs cover, but what's with the no-cap mistake above?) as a separate $4.99 iPad app [iTunes link]. 
Amazon's Kindle app [iTunes link] stays synced with the Kindle apps on your iPhone, Mac, or yes, even your Kindle. Strangely, when you flip it sideways, you don't get a two-page view, as you would in iBooks. Just a wider one-page view.
Got an iPad story you want to share? Drop your info in the comments below. If we like it, we'll add it to the article
Mike James
April 03, 2010 at 7:03pm
Watching the UPS tracking, I became confused... (I live in Anchorage, Alaska.) It shipped from China, arrived in Anchorage on April 2nd, and I thought that was it. But noooooooo. Next thing I knew, it was off to Louisville, Kentucky, for an "Import Scan". What the?!... Not very "green", transportation-wise. But sure enough, it was shipped back to Anchorage and delivered at about 11am local time. Nice!
Love it! Fast, easy to set up, and barely gets warm enough (after using it for 6 hours) to even notice it's on... That was a surprise. I figured it would get hot, but it stays just barely above room temperature. (64 GB WiFi version) Everything works as advertised, including all my iPhone apps, Keynote, Numbers, and Pages, Sketchbook Pro (really a nice one!) and of course all the fun stuff. Video looks great, as do other images and text.
Current 3D work: http://www.mikejamesmedia.com
mob1278
April 03, 2010 at 9:27am
I'm still waiting as well, I have a lot to do today by default but I know if I miss that delivery that I will have to wait almost a damn week before I can go get it from UPS. So you know what I'm doing and that is sitting on my 27 inch i7 iMac reading what everyone else is saying about there toy!!! Man this sucks but at least I have you guy around to share my mental bleeding!!!
mwmatter
April 03, 2010 at 9:05am
Hope it comes soon for you. I think I'm going to wait for the 3g before I pull the trigger but until then I'm insanely jealous!!
