Two great first takes on the iPad by those that have had the opportunity to live with one for a few days.
First, Andy Ihnatko’s several (apparently there will be a total of six) iPad pieces on the Sun Times web site. Funniest bits lie in Andy’s first lines:
If you’ve been honking on and on since January about how the iPad is “just a big iPhone,†you’ll want to lie low for a few more weeks before appearing in public with your new toy. It takes a big man to admit that he’s wrong; I applaud your sentiment. But you’ll probably want to wait until your family have begun to forget about how you called your niece a “lobotomized Kool-Aid drinking Apple fangirl†and made her cry during her First Communion. (my emphasis)
What’s makes this quote so funny is that it seems to be a direct dig on David Pogue’s NYTimes review of the very same device, in which Pogue states not once, but twice that:
The Apple iPad is basically a gigantic iPod Touch.
(Pogue, it seems to me, is under, if not unimpressed by the iPad)
The second really good look at the iPad is Stephen Fry’s Time Magazine piece, which also includes an interview with Steve Jobs.
Dan Lyons? Well… lets just say that I enjoyed Anna Quindlen’s book piece more than Dan Lyons’ iPad coverage. Lyons, it seems to me, spent the majority of his writing time trying to remove his videotaped foot from his ineloquent mouth.