Ok, been using the iPad a lot to consume content.  The Apple closedness does kind of get in the way of watching videos but hasn’t really been an issue for anything else.   There are a few really great apps for it:

Media

There are several media apps available but most don’t work well in Canada.  Pandora and the ABC app for example don’t allow content to be viewed in Canada, this is a deal breaker for me.  I haven’t tried Netflix yet but iTunes still seems to be the winner here ( no surprise ) with access to the best content.  Not sure the impact of the Canadian iTunes store but I suspect it will be pretty empty initially…

Games

The best game I’ve found is Civilizations.  I loved this game as I was growing up and the iPad version is awesome.  Dragging your armies around is a really great interface and it just feels natural.  The other fun app is the Colour Aquarium application, which is a free app and kind fun to play with a bit..

Twitter

I haven’t found the perfect app yet.  The two I tried are both free.  Twitdeck, which is a good first revision of the app for iPad but doesn’t work too well for reading posts.   I wasn’t able to click on links inside of the Tweet for example but the Tweet creation process is really smooth.  Twitter is kinda the reverse as a great app for reading your Twitter stream.   Very smart process to read and click on links etc..  The Tweet creation process isn’t great though.   For example there is no ability to add photos.  Hoping for another free option before I investigate the paid clients…

News

There are several apps that claim to be free but after download require a subscription fee to access any content.  The WSJ app is a good example of this with NO FREE content.  I uninstall and low rate all of these, Apple really needs to develop a process to indicate “Subscription Required” in the App store.  The 2 completely free apps that I did like were the USA Today and BBC Apps, both provide good content in a great format.

I got my iPad today and I spent a few hours using it now. My initial impression is that is a great 2nd device to consume media. The screen is beautiful and watching video on it is awesome. The input is ok but will never really replace a laptop and is probably by design. I think Apple has designed the device to be a media consumption platform and not a content creation platform. For creation the Mac Book Pro or even my iPhone are better platforms.

I’ve downloaded a few iPad specific applications now and I’ll write some more on this shortly. If your an app developer and would like your an iPad app reviewed send me the details on your app in the comments below.