My iPad 2 – One Year On

One year ago today, I bought a 64Gb iPad 2. I purchased the device in preparation for the three month visit I subsequently made to America between August and October, 2012.

I had two main purposes in mind when I bought it: one was that it made it easier to leave my 15 inch Toshiba laptop behind, and thereby reduce the amount of weight I was carrying; and the other was my desire to use the iPad as an eBook reader.

I have said it before, and I don’t mind saying it again―buying the iPad was the best pre-travel gift I have ever given myself. The convenience it offered in terms of size, weight, and functionality has proved its worth over and over again.

A year after my initial purchase, the device is rarely out of my sight or out of reach. The word I keep coming back to when I talk about the iPad is convenience. Couple convenience with ease of use, and you have a device that has helped to revolutionize the way we use technology to connect with each other, and tap into the vast resources of the internet. Making use of a basic WiFi service, I find I am forever reaching for my iPad to look for information online, research some small item of interest using Wikipedia, or translate a couple of lines of French or Latin that I have encountered in one of the many eBooks I now have saved to my iBooks app.

I maintain a daily journal with Pages, track my daily spending with Numbers, and keep in touch with family and friends via Facebook. Using a free app supplied by my bank I can move money between accounts, and to the delight of my creditors I can pay bills on time with Bpay. I have far more apps than I need or use on a daily basis, but then why not? Most of them were free to download, and if I need the space for more important or useful applications, they can be deleted with a couple of taps.

I have written before about my favorite iPad apps here… and here… so I won’t repeat myself in this entry, however, I do have plans to write about some other favorite applications not reviewed already.

After twelve months my iPad continues to work flawlessly, and I am more than happy with the physical size of the device, as well as its 64Gb capacity. The quality of the images I can get with the camera is one of my biggest frustrations, although video footage is actually quite good―as long as you are shooting in plenty of light. Although I have WordPress and Blogger apps, I prefer to use my laptop to write for and maintain The Compleat Traveller. Even though I have bought a keyboard to use with the iPad, I find writing with my laptop to be easier, faster, and generally more accurate. Personally, I find the iPad’s virtual keyboard good for short journal entries, and minor text entry work for things like email, Facebook, and other such tasks, but for long periods of typing it just doesn’t suit me.

Quite frankly, apart from my complaint with the camera and virtual keyboard, I am struggling to think of any other issue that has been the cause of major―or even minor concern. The biggest frustrations are caused by badly designed apps, not the iPad itself. Recently, I exchanged my old iPhone 3GS for a new Galaxy S4, and I remain very happy with that decision. However, I can’t see myself swapping my iPad for a rival tablet device any time soon.

I realise I have not written anything about using the iPad as an eReader, but I will leave that topic for another post. In conclusion, if you have been thinking about getting an iPad, or similar tablet device, I am more than happy to recommend this amazing technology to you. It is hard to believe that tablet devices were almost unheard of five years ago, given the way they have become pretty much ubiquitous today. They can only get better, faster and more ubiquitous over the next five years.

Apple Maps Vs. Google Maps

Oh, dear. How could Apple get it so wrong? The problems with Apple’s new Maps app just won’t go away. In fact they seem to just go from bad to worse. Just today, Australian police have warned travellers using the Apple Maps app to be very careful about relying on the app to get them safely across this vast, and often unforgiving country.

This latest warning came after a number of travellers got totally lost on cross-country road trips due to the poor directions provided by the Apple Maps application.

A case in point: anyone travelling to the regional Victorian city of Mildura could end up miles from their destination if they use Apple Maps, as the screenshot below indicates. For both this, and the following Google Maps image, I sought directions from my home in Adelaide to Mildura.

Click to view full size

Mildura is shown here as being located somewhere in the middle of either an unnamed National Park, or in the Pink Lakes Conservation Reserve. It isn’t. As it happens, Route 3 in the image above is at least heading in the right direction (for most of the way), as can be seen in this next Google Maps screenshot.

Click to view full size

As can be seen, Apple Maps puts unsuspecting travellers smack dab in the middle of the now correctly named, Murray Sunset National Park. Google Maps also provide a lot more information including numerous highways, the names of country towns, and physical features in the landscape. Of course, as one zooms in to Google Maps, more and more useful information is revealed.

Hopefully, in the above example, people getting lost using the Apple Maps app should be able to find their way out of the National Park without too much trouble – providing other problems (lack of fuel, vehicle breakdown, etc) doesn’t stop them in their tracks. But as I’ve already said, Australia is a vast country, and the landscape, climate, and other factors have combined to trap unsuspecting visitors and locals on isolated roads, bush tracks, and even highways far from help, often leading to the death of more than one lost traveller.

The message the police issued today was clear –travellers embarking on long road trips this summer, should not rely only on the Apple Maps application. They should use a good highway map or atlas, and pay attention to highway signage.

Coming Up For Air

Hard to believe, I suppose, but there it is… my last entry was posted on April 1 (All Fools Day), and despite my best efforts to ignore my blog and devote myself to reading, people have kept visiting this site, and to my amazement (and confusion), I’ve even gained a couple of followers during my self-imposed exile.
I also discovered recently that a blog called Eleni’s Blog in Ikaria recently featured The Compleat Traveller as her blog of the month. In keeping with the focus of her own blog, Eleni has specifically chosen to feature my numerous entries about the Greek island of Ikaria, my ancestral home in the Aegean Sea.
I had hoped to return to Ikaria this year, but I have decided instead to make my third trip to America, so Greece and my island ‘home’ will have to wait for another twelve months or so. Meanwhile, thank you Eleni for the honor, and I commend my readers to Eleni’s Blog in Ikaria and hope you enjoy her writing and mine.

Apple iPad 2
Apart from continuing my reading streak, I bought a 64Gb iPad 2 at the start of June, and I have been discovering its many joys and features ever since. In fact, I am rarely away from it, and amongst other things, I have been testing its potential as an eBook reader. To that end I have downloaded over a hundred free eBooks from that wonderful repository of public domain books at Gutenberg.Org, and already read a dozen of them. I have also bought and read one other book, Peter Bergen’s Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search For Osama Bin Laden.
I finally made the move to iPad and eBooks after my bookshelf began to fill to capacity, and I realised that I just had to make the transition from physical books to digital reading before my passion for books got totally out of control.
It seems to have worked.
Since purchasing the iPad, I have only bought a couple of physical books and the more I use the device to read, the less I feel the need to buy ‘hard copies’ of the printed word.
Of course, the iPad has many other functions and uses, and I am planning to make it my main digital companion on my forthcoming trip to America. On previous trips I have lugged a heavy laptop around with me, but I am going to see how I can get by with my new purchase. I am hopeful that I can do pretty much everything I will need to do while on the road, and where it does not suffice, I will use internet cafés.
Anyway, I’m alive and well, and looking forward to travelling again, and making the occasional blog post here. Oh, and it’s good to be back. I think.