Having queued (but not stupidly early) to purchase one of Singapore’s first batch of iPads I thought I’d check in with my first feelings of the device. Only months after the rest of the tech world…

I honestly think it changes the game. In the way the first time I held an iPhone I felt like it was from the future the iPad takes that and multiplies it. If I wasn’t a developer this machine could conceivably be my main machine. The whole experience is delightful, as others have said the involvement in whatever task you’re doing is simply much higher using touch. This is particularly true of browsing the web, it’s simply the best interface to websites there is (for me no Flash is a bonus).

From a design perspective I love the forced reduction in functionality that the touch interface, small screen and apple design guidelines have brought – paring down most (good) apps to an elegant core.

What is surprising is the stuff I already miss from iOS4 (even on my now virtually crippled iPhone 3G). Folders, threaded messages & unified email inbox are my little irritants and when Apple reintroduces them and enables multi-tasking on the iPad it’s just gonna get easier to use.

In terms of changing my habits, I’m reading more – finally churning through my Instapaper backlog. I’ve also found I’m using it as my main browsing, email and twitter platform – the experience of using the pad is just preferable to that of the main Mac. So that’s an awful lot of non-developer time that I’m stripping out of the desktop/laptop environment.

I’m also glad I got the 3G, whilst the pad isn’t going to join me everywhere, like my iPhone, it will at least make some journeys instead of a laptop and the connectivity is useful.

Gripes?

I prefer that apps adopt their own aesthetic, I’m not a massive fan of the anthropomorphisation that Apple and others have introduced. I don’t need a notes app to look like a yellow legal pad, but then that is the joy of the app store, I can choose.

A front camera would be nice. Maybe next year as Apple ‘Facetime’s all it’s devices.

Conclusion

This is pushing me back to a main desktop (for work, our Gameplan test-suite is a good ten minutes these days!) and a satellite machine, which may well be the iPad. For everything except programming on the go it’s good enough, in many cases better.