Well, here it is- the much hyped iPad itself.

Several observations have occurred to me in the last hour since taking the obligatory unboxing shot above that I’d like to share:

1. My 2 1/2 year old, who is a 2 year iPhone veteran, upon first seeing it, took one look and told me it was an iPhone.

2. Despite the gorgeous gorgeous screen, this is currently my favourite view of the iPad:

It may seem strange, but this shot of it as a blank slate is how it most appeals to me, just empty ready for whatever I choose to (load on) make it. I think this personalization potential is really the thing that marks such devices out from others currently being integrated into classrooms.

3. It’s heavier than I expected. And it’s taking me a while to figure out to hold it. Do I prefer landscape or portrait? Actually most apps seem to have different functions according to the view. Do you lean it on something, or curl your fingers around it? How will it be used by the smaller hands of students.

4. The keyboard is brilliant in landscape on ones lap (it’s how I’m typing at present). I’m not a touch typist on a desktop keyboard, but I can type faster on this because A. It has auto-correction, and B. where the words appear and where my fingers are typing are so close, whereas when typing on a laptop or pc, I’m looking back and forth, back and forth from keys up to screen and back.

5. I can’t believe mobile safari still can’t be used to enter and edit text in some web pages, like say edublogs or etherpad. Writing this post in email and serving out by posterous is great, but I really wanted just to load edublogs.org like i would on my desktop and write. This is a big limitation, and potentially limits it’s use by students accessing me education departments LMS.

Finally, on my homepage are all the iPad specific apps I’m dying to try out to see what they offer on this new platform – consider these my fave iPad apps for now. iBooks and Adobe Ideas I’m especially interested to explore in terms of use by students.

More to come…

Sent from my iPad