Ask HN: Four months since launch: how are you finding the iPad?

Honestly, I don't think the iPad becomes truly useful for a couch surfing thing until iOS 4 is released for it.

I started out using it with a bang, but the flow of iOS 3.x was no where as smooth as just using my laptop. Reading in Safari, switching to email, switching to the iPod, etc. it's still clunky and mildly frustrating.

Also, my fingers are getting fatter as I get older, so I'm constantly tapping the wrong fricking thing which is uber frustrating.

Pilots love using them for mapping. There are a couple of very nice apps for it too. I'd bet you could make really good money if you can ferret out more niche markets that it's perfect for.

I use it on the muni/bart ride every day. Games, occasional video, reading a book or something saved on Instapaper. I think it suffices to say that it does what I wanted it to do when I bought one.

My parents loved theirs so much they bought two. I used it for a few days when I was at their house - I thought it was unparalleled for browsing the web. Swipe, swipe, touch, swipe. And I could hold it in positions that were far more natural. More like holding a book than holding a laptop.

My parents bought one because they are both recently retired, and wanted a computer they could bring on the many trips they take.

Mine has become the place I prefer to do my evening reading. Twitter, RSS, Instapaper, eBooks; my iPad is my coffee-table/bedside computer.

Game changer for me. Somehow, the format lends itself to reading "properly" in a way a desktop computer does not. So I've actually started reading e-books instead of print and have gone through a ton of academic papers. I also no longer take my MBP out with me. I can present and do most things I want on the road with the iPad. It's also great for getting the "silly" browsing of the news, Reddit, etc, out of the way in bed or at the dinner table.

It'd glorious. I would much rather do any casual net browsing on the iPad because it's easier to read. Then throw in the fact that you can be much more comfortable, take it more places, and not feel like a dork sitting with a laptop while everyone else is watching TV. I loaded a whole bunch of family photos onto it which really becomes 'magical' when you're visiting relatives etc. It's also easy to pass around or crowd around.

Makes consuming academic papers and online lectures much more palatable (that's the main reason I bought it). I'm pretty fast at typing on it only problem is often I hit N instead of spacebar.

Not into the handheld gaming scene but it's got me back into online chess - iPhone screen was too small for that.

Not done a lot of book reading but on the other hand I installed a pagedump of Wikipedia for offline access, so as a reference tool it's brilliant (I also have a Python Docs app). Makes a good compliment to desktop computers for when you need a second screen for something. Or use it as a TV/radio.

And of course I'm sure many great apps will be invented in the future.

P.s. It's worth stressing just how great the battery is - genuinely lasts all day, greatly enhancing the portability factor

Netflix streaming is awesome. It even works okay over 3G, which shocked me (and my data usage).

I really wish there was a VLC client that could stream all video/audio I have on my LAN.

I use my iPad every day for email and browsing. My wife and I pass it back and forth to play Small World and "still-iphone-only" Carcassone. My daughter swipes through photos and mashes on the piano app Virtuoso.

It's a purchase that I feel no regrets for making, even though it's a first version and the next iteration will be better.

I love mine. For the first time I've been able to leave the laptop at home entirely when traveling - need restaurant lookups? Map where you are? The iPad does all of that, for much lighter, and is about a million and half times more usable than your standard netbook.

It's a "laptop lite" so to speak - for most basic uses it's brilliant. When I'm on vacation and I don't want to write code (or pen long, important emails), the iPad is pretty sweet. It's also gotten me reading again, which is a nice plus.

I have the 3G version, so it's also a really nice way to just chill out somewhere and check Facebook or something without having to worry about WiFi (or carrying a dongle).

Also: as an enthusiast photographer, I find it incredibly useful to show people photos. It's an incredible screen - better than most desktops and laptops have - and it's just perfect. I've had multiple pros express the same sentiments.

Like others have said, I too use it in the morning and evenings, either in bed or at the couch. It's not a device for the office, but it excels at casual web & email (which is probably what 90% of the Internet population uses their computer for anyway).

Non-techie adults seem to be proficient after <5 min of explaining basic operations and I liken the intuitiveness of its interface to that of an elevator - once you've got the basic concept you're good to go.

I don't think the current iPad is itself a revolution, but I do think it's the first step.

Bought it for reading papers in pdf, does that reasonably well, though there is no good annotation software yet (with smooth ink). Not bad for movies. Cool feel of "100% interface." Completely lacks a viable input method (keyboard too small for touchtyping, too big for thumbs, and the pen apps just aren't there yet); input on the iPhone is far more comfortable.

My mother (almost computer-phobic) has been using it for months and now loves it. She uses it for e-mail, loading up pictures from her camera, and some music. Since she has poor satellite internet bandwidth, the iPad isn't very useful for video at her location.

I've been using my iPad extensively. My main apps are:

- Evernote with auto-sync to my MacBook Pro. It's great for simple note taking. Still wish it had a stylus and sufficient touch resolution.

- iAnnotatePDF and Goodreader for PDF reading. I use the former if I need to markup the text.

- Netflix. The streaming video is awesome if you have good Wifi.

- Dropbox. I loved my Dropbox account before, but with the iPad it's now irreplaceable. My 50GB dropbox account serves as my extended iPad disk system. Any paper, ebook, etc., can be opened in my iPad app of choice.

- E-mail and Safari, of course.

- Flixster, IMDB.

I have the cheaper 250MB 3G account and only use it when I'm away from decent WiFi.

I absolutely love it. I use it for everything but development/work... and I mean everything: browsing, email, reading, ordering pizza/food, as a reference when making food, buying stuff online, researching stuff to buy offline, listening to music, sharing photos (like, physically I mean), checking the weather, playing board games (and other multiplayer stuff) as well as single player games like Osmos and Angry Birds. I use it to keep up on Facebook and Flickr happenings as well as managing twitter accounts... The list never ends, really. If it broke I would absolutely go right out and buy another one immediately.

I have read five novels ( Carpe Jugulum, Blackout, The Graveyard Book, Never Let me Go, and the Accidental Time Machine) and and find it far more convenient than my Kindle1/K2 for indoor reading - Ironically the battery is always charged on my iPad (I tend to let the kindle run down) and until the graphite kindle comes out, the ability to read at night is the deal breaker.

When I go on vacation though, I expect the Kindle will be in heavy rotation as my primary reader though - particularly out in BRC during the day.

Netflix, even with it's so-so iPad interface is frequently in rotation, and when Hulu-Plus -finally- sends me an invitation, I expect to get a lot of use from it.

Videos are in frequent rotation.

I've spent way to many hours on Games (PvZ, Build-a-Lot,BloonsTD)

DropBox/Good Reader/Instapaper get rotated every other day. Innovative Use: I have a Go program that I worship (SmartGoPro) - and every Friday Night, when I get together with a Friend for our six-hour Go session, we go through a bunch of Life-Death problems, both new and old, on the iPad.

All-in-all I really like how the iPad and the iPhone compliment each other. I use the iPhone for taking pictures, Blogging, GPS, SMS, eMail, instapaper a lot. But I find that general browsing I now typically reach for the iPad.

The Laptop at home gets very little use - only when I need to hop onto Terminal.App or use Remedy (Grrrr Flash) do I actually bother to open it up.

WSJ is killer - I open it up every morning and read it on my walk to/from work + they keep improving the App! The WSJ really, really are good. What's going on at the NYT - they've totally lamed out on the iPad.

Of the three magazines I read - Time, Popular Electronics, and Wired - Only wired really wowed me, and now I actually look forward to the new magazine coming out. I haven't looked forward to the day a magazine comes out in 20+ Years (Dragon Magazine).

So, for me - iPad is a huge win. Looking forward to iPad with a retina display. :-)

Is there a market for a screen darkening overlay? Even with brightness right down it's too bright for me at night, and I think it disrupts my sleeping slightly.

My macbook is my new desktop machine and my iPad is my new laptop.

Dropbox + omnigraffle + numbers + keynote + safari + mail means I basically have all the information I need when I'm out in usable form.

I do have a ridiculously large case, though. I've been wondering if I should go for the apple case as opposed to this incase thing that makes the footprint larger than my Dell mini 9.

99% reading blogs, managing emails, quick checking calendar on couch, in kitchen, in bed.

Killer app is the start-up speed / always-on state for those uses above.

I read the middle third of _Infinite Jest_ on it while I was on vacation. It was outstanding. The footnotes were hyperlinked, it was trivial to refer back to the bookmarked page that lists what all the years are, and every time I came across a word I didn't know, I could just touch it on the screen and get a definition.

I've also found (and this is goofy I know) that because an iPad page is shorter than a book page, I have an increased sense of momentum reading long-form books; pages are flying by faster than they did in the actual book, and I always know how far I am from the end of a chapter.

This probably would have been true for the Kindle as well (I don't own one), but the Kindle didn't come with an excellent web browser or a zillion games my kids like, so I was disinclined to buy one.

I know HN is US-centric but I would just like to point out that it's only been about 2 months since the iPad is available in large EU countries like France and Germany and 2 weeks since it's available in other (Austria, Belgium, New Zealand, etc). It doesn't even sell world-wide yet.

The same about the iPhone 4 which although available in the US for almost 2 months, has just been released to some other countries.

I find it to be a spectacular device. The best part about it is that I don't feel it to be "forced" in any way -- sometimes with new gadgets you'll use them even if you don't necessarily need to. The iPad just fits at certain times.

For example, I was sitting and waiting for a friend outside of JFK yesterday, parked in a long line of cars. I wanted to go through some emails and resumes that had come in. Sitting in the driver's seat of the car, I found the iPad to be absolutely perfect for this task -- it was too cramped to pull out my MBP, and no reason to squint on my iPhone.

I hate to sound compromising, but the iPad really is the ideal "in between" machine. There are times when you only need the phone (on the go), and there are times when you need a full-sized machine (MBP or a desktop). The iPad is letting me discover those random times when an in-between device just fits.

My wife and I fight over it. She for games (Plants v. zombies, Super 7, etc.) youtube, and magazine reading; I for ebooks/pdfs, surfing, and listening to Podcasts (thanks to the HNer who recommended "A Life Well Wasted" podcast, friggin' brilliant) and NPR before bed. We both use it to stream our episodes with Air Video during mealtimes.

When I was on vacation back in June, I was floored that I needn't even take my laptop with me. An iPhone and iPad was all that was required (the iPhone was the GPS, too), and we could plot out stuff to do, read restaurant reviews, and check with work stuff all without feeling like "work", if you can understand that.

It's like the mythical "third place" of computing technology. That thing between the little smartphone and the big smart computer: A "smart" thick client, a mainline into exactly what you need. Even the fact that it doesn't do multitasking (yet, but even when it does, not really) makes you focus on what it is you're doing at the time, stopping "wikidiction" and other time sinks that persist when using a computer and all its multitasking splendor (and horror).

I use mine to read books, mostly, though I'll sometimes play games on it when I finish a book and don't have another lined up.

There was a week or so where I used Instapaper a ton, and I also read a series of comic books on it.

I'm decidedly meh. You could steal my iPad and it would likely take me several days to notice.

Reading on it is not my favorite, I much prefer the Kindle. My wife has the same problem. :) When I get a new Kindle the iPad will likely be relegated to its dock for reference PDFs.

Can someone with both the iphone 4 and an ipad comment on how the screens compare? The iphone 4 screen is so great that I'm worried the ipad screen will seem disappointing by comparison.

I love it. So much so that I think the next time I upgrade, I'll get a desktop not a laptop as my main machine; the iPad meets all my on-the-move needs.

I use it for media access (movies/tv shows), documents (books/PDFs) and a little web browsing. Email stays on the BlackBerry tho'. Actually even at work I'm using it, as a third screen for reading documentation on.