Naturally, it is going to take some time before I can explore all the features of all the apps as well as the gadget itself, but so far I am very happily impressed with it.

In terms of reading ebooks (one of my principal applications for this thing), I really like the appearance and functionality of both iBooks and Kindle for iPad as well as other reader apps, I do have a few questions. For one, I haven’t figured out how to import my own .epub documents into an app that will display them. iBooks is supposed to be able to use the epub format, but so far as I know, only books purchased through the Apple bookstore can use that app. I have three or four other document apps, but none that I have tried so far can handle them. The iBook Store is also pretty confusing. I haven’t found a way to get past the featured items, none of which interest me, so I haven’t bought any books there.

But since there are many more things to do besides read, the lack of ability to add titles to my iPad isn’t a big concern at the moment. I can always convert epub titles to PDF format and use them that way, so it’s not like they are completely inaccessible.

I did go ahead and sign up for the AT&T unlimited 3G data plan, of course, but at the moment I am using the WiFi provided by the RV park where we are staying now. Both WiFi and 3G cellular are very snappy, at least at this location, so that is a good thing.

I will have more reactions later, of course, but right now I’m going back to playing with my new toy. If you’ll please excuse me….

[Edited on 2 May 2010 to correct the spelling of "epub", which the autocorrection on iPad changed to "pub"]

I opted to pick up our iPad at the Apple Store in Austin, since we’ll be in that general area when it’s released, and it might be fun to shop for accessories at the same time. We’ve shopped at this store before, and know the parking is exceptionally easy, which is why I picked that one. We may be staying in New Braunfels, which is closer to San Antonio, but what the heck? Either way we’d have to get in the car and drive for an hour, so the direction we head in doesn’t make much difference.

Apparently I was not the only person a little bit excited about getting my name on the list of early adopters. Mashable said there were an estimated 51,000 iPads sold in the first two hours, and 90,000 on the first day of preorders! Not too shabby for a device the pundits kept wondering why anyone would want one. I know why I want one, of course. I’ve got a Kindle DX, and I have been very disappointed with it. While we do use it, most of the time I prefer to fire up Windows 7 in a VirtualBox window and use Kindle for PC to read my Amazon ebooks. When my iPad arrives, I’ll just use Kindle for iPhone on that instead, unless Amazon has a native iPad app ready by then. Color and a backlit screen make the reading experience so much better for me than eInk’s grainy, low-contrast screen that requires a strong reading light. I really don’t understand at all those people who say it’s harder to read an LED computer display than an eInk device or paper. They seem to get their data from the bad old days of CRTs with flickering, unshielded UV-radiant screens. Silly.

As an ebook reader, I certainly expect the iPad to be the best of the breed, but that’s not the only reason I want one. It will be a superb portfolio display, too. And using Reunion for iPhone combined with a collection of family photos, it will be the star of any family gathering. Oh, the possibilities just keep growing….

One of my primary objectives for having this device, especially the 3G version, is to supplement our very pricey VerizonWireless Mobile Broadband account. While that has been a real lifesaver on the occasions, like this past week, when we are in a place without acceptable internet connectivity, only 5 gigabytes of throughput for a month just isn’t enough, not by a long shot. Figure that only two Netflix streaming video movies would use the whole month’s allowance and you’ll understand. We simply use the internet too intensively to be happy with that kind of parsimony. AT&T’s iPad unlimited data plan, which we can turn off when we’re happy with local WiFi, will be wonderful. Phil will be able to watch movies, I’ll be able to get all the video tutorials and podcasts I want, and all the rest, without paying Verizon twice their already excessive monthly fee for using 1/5th more bandwidth, like we have the past couple of months. After all, as many people around the world have said, internet access is a basic human right.

So, we expect to really, really, really enjoy this device when it finally arrives!

Now the wait. Naturally, I “need” the version with 3G, otherwise what’s the point of a mobile device? That won’t be available for around 90 days. But in the meantime, I am downloading the SDK with iPad emulator from the Apple Developer site, and who knows? Maybe I’ll even get around to developing something for it someday? In my copious spare time, of course.

First, there is the screen itself. It is not paper-white at all. The contrast is rather poor, and text is not as sharp-edged as I’d like. Not having a backlight, while saving battery consumption, does mean it’s necessary to have a light source handy to read productively. My caveats don’t extend to the point of complete disgruntlement, though. While the screen on my iPhone is backlit and high contrast/resolution, its smaller size makes it much more difficult to read for more than a few minutes. Since one reason I want an eReader is for grad school textbooks, that makes a difference. However, although I can list a number of caveats, my reaction was not nearly as negative as that described by Nicholson Baker in his The New Yorker review. However, even Baker says in his final paragraphs that once he started reading, “Poof, the Kindle disappeared, just as Jeff Bezos promised it would.” However, one feature that leaves me completely unimpressed is the built-in Web browser. I’m not sure if it’s Sprint’s 3G network or the browser software or the Kindle’s hardware, but for some reason opening a page on the Kindle is excruciatingly slow, and unless the page has a very clean design and a well-functioning style sheet, the results can be unreadable. I find that even though Web links normally provide very useful extensions to many documents, on the Kindle they are just too much trouble to be worth the time and effort required to use them.

Kindle for School

Last term I bought several textbooks in ebook editions, and found it quite a hard slog to get through them on the iPhone. For the Fall semester I’ve already purchased a couple of required texts in Kindle format, and I’m much more confident that I will be able to read them more productively than I could on the iPhone. For one thing, the Kindle for iPhone app doesn’t have a way to highlight or mark text selections, a time-honored study technique used by students for countless years. The Kindle DX does allow highlighting, and automatically adds marked selections to a file called “My Clippings.txt”, which can be downloaded to a computer using the USB cable. As a plain text file, these notes can then be organized in any way one chooses. On the Kindle itself “highlighting” consists of a light grey underlining that is not very conspicuous, but not invisible either.

Kindle Resources

Speaking of Kindle for iPhone, since Amazon’s acquisition of the company who make the highly-regarded Stanza ebook reader software, the latest version of this app shows many improvements obviously imported from that excellent application. Stanza itself comes in a desktop version as well as for iPhone OS, which has a feature I just found out about. Possibly new since the Amazon acquisition, it is now possible to save books readable by Stanza Desktop in Kindle’s .azw format. In particular, I’ve found that .epub format ebooks, available from many publishers including O’Reilly and Associates, Baen Books, and the public domain resource, Project Gutenberg, are very easy to use on the Kindle. Just open them in Stanza Desktop, select File-Export Book As-Amazon Kindle and copy the resulting file into the Kindle’s “document” folder when it is connected to the computer with its USB cable. Or, email it to the Kindle using your personal [yourname]@kindle.com address. Before sending documents to the Kindle via email, though, you have to register the email address you want to send it from in your Amazon “Manage my Kindle” account. Using this address costs US$0.10 per document, but will send it directly to the device over the Whispernet Sprint cellular network. There is also a free email address, [yourname]@free.kindle.com, but there is not much point in using that for this purpose since you have to then copy the document from your computer to the Kindle, and if you already have it on your computer in the appropriate format, why send it through Amazon’s system?

The Whispernet cellular network does add a special filip to the Kindle. Buying books on the Kindle and having them delivered directly to it within minutes is possibly the most compelling reason to buy this eReader instead of others on the market at this moment. Amazon’s Kindle Store has an enormous selection of books, magazines, newspapers and blogs available, of course, and the hardest thing about it is to avoid blowing the budget filling up the Kindle with the enticing commercial offerings. But finding a lot of sources of free ebooks has saved my finances. One list of sites offering free ebooks is in The Kindle 2 Cookbook: How To Do Everything the Manual Doesn’t Tell You, which has a lot of other very useful information, too.

This ought to give you a taste of why I’m happy with my new Kindle DX. Will I still be as thrilled with it if Apple announces a competing product next month? Maybe not, but in the meantime I gotta go now… so much to read, so little time!

I’ll have more to say about it later, but for now you can tell I’m having fun. So much to read, so little time….

You may be sure I’ll write more about it after receiving it next week, but right now I still have a term paper to complete, so that’s all for now. Ciao!

Now I have a problem. I ordered a Kindle DX a couple of weeks ago. Naturally, I’d rather have this new thing from Apple, especially with what I expect will be a high-res color screen and other functions besides just being an ebook reader. Think about a 10-inch iPod Touch…

So, should I cancel the order? Or use it for a couple of months until the Apple tablet comes out and sell it? Tell me what you think I should do. Vote in the poll in the sidebar before July 31st.

The good news about the Barnes & Noble announcement is that they plan to make their ebooks available on many platforms. Here’s what the company president had to say about that:

“Today marks the first phase of our digital strategy, which is rooted in the belief that readers should have access to the books in their digital library from any device, from anywhere, at any time,” said William J. Lynch, President of BN.com.

But in spite of all these factors, I’ve still bought one. Why?

The fact is, I’m impatient. I’ve long seen the benefits of digital media. Indeed, I’ve even published books electronically myself. A decade ago, I owned a PalmOS device (a Handspring) on which I read a number of ebooks as well as kept track of appointments, played games, and so on. That device finally failed, and I didn’t replace it, so all the content I’d bought for it, while still in my computer’s archive folder, is essentially lost. Still, I did enjoy the handheld experience, and know I’ll use any ebook reader I finally acquire. There’s the practical issue of portability, too. My husband and I live in our motorhome nearly half the year, and there is just not enough room to carry all the books I’d like to have available in there.

But what about that iPhone I’ve written about so often? I’ve even written about the Kindle for iPhone app on this blog and I use it still. But as much as I love my iPhone, it is the case that my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be (which never was that great), and these days I simply cannot read for long or as well on even as good a screen as the iPhone’s simply because of its small size. I find that although I have read entire books on it, I don’t retain as much sense from them as I want to. Also, the iPhone app doesn’t let me highlight blocks of text to refer to later. Yes, I can create bookmarks, but that’s not quite the same. Since I have bought some of my textbooks for grad school as ebooks, these are critical shortcomings.

In short, the Kindle for iPhone app is a stopgap. I had hoped Apple would announce a tablet computer or ebook reader this summer, and if they had I would have held off a while longer, but they haven’t. Oh, if they do eventually come out with a new gadget, especially if they make a deal with Amazon to allow Kindle-formatted ebooks to work on it, I will cheerfully throw my Kindle up on eBay and jump on the killer iBook. But until that day, Amazon is getting my somewhat grudging allegiance and money.