Extraordinary.

As a matter of course, at bedtime we read a book with our eight year old. And can there be a more charming children’s book than Winnie the Pooh? A great story and the most delightful drawings make this book, first published in 1926, a classic for all time.

Now by a stroke of what can only be described as genius, Apple has decided to include a free copy of Winnie the Pooh with the iPad – at least with the one sold in the US. So when it came to reading to our Winnie (named after the great Englishman, not the bear!) I can report that Winnie was among a handful of kids in the whole wide world enjoying the magic of reading on an iPad. Only New Yorkers beat us Californians to it (no one reads in between).

And magic it assuredly is. He was endlessly fascinated with the page turning using a finger. While you can turn them by simply touching the screen, the romantic in us had us turning pages with a gentle swipe, playfully moving the part turned page to and fro. Insanely complex programming hidden away inside, the result is simply Magic.

Our son loves books but his is the last generation in the Western hemisphere which will be turning physical pages. When a jumbo iPad appears soon, art and photography books will migrate to it and much as I will miss the smell and touch of beautiful books they do take up an unconscionable amount of space. Certainly, all the literature will be the first to go to the thrift shop. I no longer have a single LP, CD or DVD in the home and it looks like books will be the next to go. And if getting rid of my books allows me to move to a smaller space, everyone wins – my pocket book, the environment, etc. Of course, a transilluminated image on an LCD screen renders far more dynamic range and color vibrancy than any reproduction viewed by reflected light ever will.

Finally, on an amusing note, the profiteers at Greenpeace, who so ably jumped on the trumped up global warming bandwagon, have lost what little credibility remained through their most recent pronouncement. You see, they have stated that Apple’s creation of a server farm in North Carolina will contribute significantly to carbon output. It doesn’t take an especially high IQ or a spreadsheet to realize that driving your 15mpg V8 to the cinema or cutting down forests to make books is just a tad more polluting than storing an electronic copy of either medium. Duh!

Impressive.

Here are my first reactions after a couple of hours of use.

Unboxing: The instructions are on one small card. If you know how to use an iPhone there is very little to learn.

Charging: No need. It ships 100% charged.

Sync: I use MobileMe and recommend it unreservedly. Six minutes to sync Contacts, Calendars and Email after spending one minute getting the iPad to recognize the wireless network. Syncing apps, music and photos took a few more minutes and apps had to be synced thrice before they all came over.

Screen: Glossy. Ugh! What is it with Jobs? Matte does not show fingerprints and is far easier to use. At least the screen is not so large that it’s difficult to avoid the worst reflections. Definition is no better than with my hacked MSI Wind net book, meaning its great.

Typing on the virtual keyboard: Very easy and fast in landscape mode, so-so in portrait. Auto-correction is a blessing.

Bluetooth keyboard: My aluminum 3-battery Apple BT keyboard reluctantly paired after a minute; it refuses to pair with any other device in the home.

iPod: Simply a perfect touchscreen implementation.

iPhoto: More later.

WSJ: Bog slow. Forget it and save your money.

Netflix On Demand: Perfectly implemented. Nice large screen makes watching movies easy.

Books: Ships with a lovely version of “Winnie the Pooh” and iBooks is beautifully implemented. You can read for hours.

Heat: I gave up on Apple laptops because of heat and poor longevity. Heat is not an issue – cool after two hours of hard use.

Multitasking: None, but not an issue as app switching is so fast.

Sound: Surprisingly decent from the mono speaker, excellent on my Sennheiser PX100 headphones. Standard mini-jack.

Email and Safari: Like on the iPhone but easier owing to the larger screen.

Numbers app: More later.

Pandora radio: No issues.

Kindle: No issues. iBooks is better.

Project Gutenberg free books: Have yet to figure out how to get them downloaded to iBooks.

Battery life: One word. Awesome!

Speed: On the above it’s comparable to the 2.83 gHz Core2Quad CPU running OS 10.6.3 on my desktop machine.

Weight with charger: 1.6 lbs. Netbook: 3.3 lbs.

Finally, quality: I have only owned three other devices with a comparable quality feel. An SME pick-up arm for LPs, my Leica M2 and M3 cameras, and my Patek Philippe wristwatch. All three are obsolete and all but the last have been sold. The watch goes to my son when I check out or when he graduates Harvard, whichever comes sooner!

Typed on my iPad using the WordPress iPad app.

Finally.

Winston waits in the Reservation line – only one person ahead of us!

Ouch!

The ulitimate Point Of Sale terminal – an adapted iPod Touch with card scanner.

Dad – I can’t wait to crash cars with it.

Happy campers. I’ve heard of capitalism, but cheering people for spending their net worth is a bit much ….

We now have two 32gB iPads ready for unboxing as the second computer revolution commences.

Coming attractions.

Eric Lafforgue, master French travel photographer, has confirmed he will be porting his superb iPhone app, which showcases his work, to the iPad – finally a mobile screen to do his splendid photography justice:

Equally exciting, subscribers to Netflix On Demand which streams movies directly to your TV or computer will be thrilled about this:

On Demand movies include a lot of Indie and foreign titles that would never otherwise be seen in the US, including much of the best of French, Italian, Spanish and English cinema. And the price – so long as you have a mail Netflix subscription (as low as $9/month) – is right! The streaming catalog now includes some 12,000 titles (many in H264 High Definition) compared to over 100,000 in the mail order one, but that ratio will change rapidly once the dunces at the studios get with the action and start licensing their movies for digital download.

Do this today!

As the iTunes store will likely get massively overloaded tomorrow when the iPad is released, I am downloading selected iPad apps to iTunes on my desktop today, and will simply do a local sync when the iPad is in my hot little hands (OK, our boy’s hot little sticky hands).

In addition to already having updated to the latest versions of iPhoto and iTunes, essential for the iPad to work, I have downloaded the following apps for installation tomorrow:

All of these are free except for NetNewsWire which is $10, but as that was my Application of the Year for 2009 it’s the best $10 I expect to spend this year. Also, Numbers costs $10 if you are into spreadsheets. iBooks does not come on the iPad, strangely, and it’s essential to read both purchased and public domain content. Apple has promised to upload almost** the whole 30,000 public domain book library from Project Gutenberg for free download to iBooks. Not bad for a company whose CEO not too long ago proclaimed “People don’t read anymore”. Click that link for an musing time.

The WSJ looks like a real newspaper on the iPad – here’s a screenshot:

I’m hoping that master French photographer Eric Lafforgue ports his fabulous photo app for the iPhone to the iPad ASAP. Eric – are you listening?

When Winston gets home from school I have a feeling we will be adding some games too, but to limit his spending he has to kick in 50%. We arrived at 50% as it’s the amount of my income which is stolen annually by the various criminal organizations in Washington and Sacramento, in the guise of tax collectors.

Evolution of the computer. Chauvinistic, but true.

As for my iPad holder, why, I have that already – mouse over to see (needs Safari or Chrome to render):

Hand made from the last of the rain forests by German craftsmen using hand tools only, these are available from me for $1,950 each or $3,000 a pair. Shipping is free worldwide, but allow 6 months for your order to be fulfilled. It’s tough finding the wood, even tougher getting the Germans off their vacations, let alone off their backsides. Picture not included. Using the latest construction technologies, the holder has fewer moving parts than the iPad itself, which is to say none.

** American prudishness will doubtless preclude the availability of such ‘dirty’ books as Vatsayana’s ‘Kama Sutra’. Next I expect they will be censoring Michelangelo’s nudes.