So I’ve owned an iPad for a couple of weeks now and i thought I’d firstly try using it to write this blog post and secondly give my thoughts on the iPad that has STILL not arrived in South Africa.

One of the first questions I get about my iPad is, “So what do you do with your iPad Jason?” That’s a very good question. It’s definitely not something that is crucial to my daily working environment, but it certainly can add to it. So far though, the most use I get out of it is when I’m chilling at home and I want to browse the web, do research on things to do in Cape Town or overseas places to visit in the near future. The other thing I do enjoy about the iPad is catching up on the news and on all my blogs I’m subscribed to using RSS. Twitter on the iPad is also really great.

I have a camera connector for the iPad which I use to download pics i’ve taken and show others by flicking through them on the iPad. It’s definitely one of my favourite features!

I’m still trying to find some of the apps that will make the iPad even more useful. Below are some of my favorites I’ve found:

Reeder – I find I don’t have the time to read all my RSS feeds in Google Reader as I have to be in front of my laptop to do that and there are more important things to do like email and work! So Reeder is brilliant as it syncs with Google Reader and when I’m chilling with the iPad, I can read all the blogs I’m subscribed to at a leisurely pace.

Penultimate – This app is great to jot down ideas, basic wireframes and anything quick and nasty drawings. It’s not an app that I think everyone would use, but as a web designer, it’s great for quickly explaining ideas or wireframes to my team.

PS Express is a simple photo editor by Adobe. I haven’t used it much, but it’s great for editing some of the pics I’ve imported onto the iPad and then sending them via email to friends or downloading to my Mac.

Lastly, the apps that come pre-installed on an iPad I’m actually using the most! Notes, Google Maps and Safari are by far the most used apps on my iPad. Some other apps everyone should download are Flipboard (News, blogs, Facebook and Twitter in newspaper format) and Epicurious (Recipes and a cookbook). Both free and both show off what the iPad is really capable off.

In summary, I’m still trying to find some apps that will enhance the experience and make the iPad more useful to me.

Yeah, it is a big iPhone, but with apps designed specifically for the device, it can be so much more.

P.S. The WordPress app on the iPad is total rubbish, even after the “big update”. No text editing (bold, italics, headings, links etc), poor media and image management in that I can’t add any pics to this post and finally it’s still has bugs that crashes the app. There is definitely scope for someone to develop a decent blog editor app for the iPad and iPhone and make some decent money! (I had to put the finishing touches to this post using my Mac. Not ideal.)