I’ve been using the iPad more and more in the last few months. It is quite obviously a very handy way to deal with media (emails, movies, music, books, etc.). But beyond this convenience, I am slowly coming to see that there are some emergent aspects of using this Apple tablet. Since I have almost immediate access to all of my documents, photos, music, movies, and almost anything I can get online…the nature of how I deal with all of these disparate kinds of information is changing.
There are, however, a few short comings to using this as a primary computing platform. Typing…
I have the (wireless) Bluetooth keyboard, but I have gotten so used to Microsoft Word as my means of producing typewritten documents that changing over to any of the current Apple offerings really feels like a big step down. Nonetheless, I am going to try to create post (later this week) using only the iPad. I need almost any excuse to force myself to get used to typing with the iPad…
Luckily enough for me (and or you too, although for differing reasons…) I don’t deal with any complex or arcane formatting in this blog. This mean s that other than my mentioning it, you will not be able to distinguish whichever computing platform to create this future post…
Earlier this week I had my first bout with iPad problems. I was in the process of syncing the iPad with my NetBook. In the midst’s of upgrading the iPad OS something must have glitched in that the net result was my iPad turning into a brick. I have a lot of experience with catastrophic OS problems (I have had quite a few Windows machines over the years…), and the experience of seeing a booting computer fail to recognize any operating system still puts a cold twist in the pit of my stomach (i.e. it means that I will be dealing with some real problems and grief soon…).
Imagine my surprise when upon turning on the iPad for the first time after the failed OS upgrade that the iPad merely presented a graphic of connecting (through the interface cable) to iTunes. After connecting the iPad back to the NetBook and having iTunes automatically instantiate, I was presented with a dialog box stating that I merely need to click the restore button (the only button on the screen). This reloaded the latest OS (but wiped my system otherwise). Upon finishing this job, I was then asked whether I wanted to restore my latest backup (from about 25 minutes earlier)…presto. I had all of my data and profile back!
At this point I should state that as a long time Microsoft user, I was elated! Maybe the Apple Fanboi’s have something after all!
This is where I can add a couple of reasonable criticisms of this ‘fix’ to my system. Everything I just stated is true, and as such it still makes me feel quite amazed (if only as a long time Window’s user). BUT, there were still a few (small) snags. You see I had to reload every app I had on my iPad… While this may be reasonably justified and make sense to those who are deeply into apple methods, I found this to be a bit of a surprise (to say the least). Coming off of the recent elation I felt about getting everything back, I suppose that having to go through and re-download every app was a small penance. I would have only wished that I had a screen-shot of every page on my previous iPad installation, if only to ensure that I get every app back. That is my advice to current iPad users (take some screen shots of every page you have).
Screen-shots are actually easy to do, just hold down the button (the button) while also holding down the power button on the ‘top’ of the iPad. You should hear a click (like a camera), and you will have a screen shot in your photo album.
For good or bad, this is (so far) the only advice I have for iPad users…
