I love it!
My year-long wait (no camera and the old “never buy a 1st generation Apple product” rule) was worth it. Now I “only” have to wait one more month for it to ship into my eager creative hands.
The features I’m excited about:
The front-facing camera!
Now I don’t need to sit down at my computer to have a video chat. Ok, so it’s not Skype or gchat (yet) but Facetime is just the beginning. I can chat outside in the summer or in my easy chair, couch, wherever I am. An iPad is alot more portable than a laptop. Yes, I am aware of the 13″ MacBooks but I don’t own one.
iMovie!
I wasn’t concerned too much about a backside camera (knew both cameras would be ship at the same time) but didn’t in a million years think about an iMovie version for the iPad. I’ll be creating a short film this spring (more details on that in a future post) and this just made me think about editing while sitting on a couch. Or while sitting under a tree on a balmy, summer afternoon. And sharing with vimeo – bonus points. I love vimeo.
Podcasting!
I don’t use Garageband for my audio podcast but oooooh the possibilities. I’m sure other audio apps will do but with iMovie, you can video podcast. Sure you could easily do this now with the iPhone 4, but I don’t have one yet. Besides, a larger screen is better. If I can record Facetime chats, then maybe I can include them in Garageband. Probably not the case but one can dream. Besides, I can record audio at conferences, in the field, edit in my hotel room and publish.
That’s about it. I’m already anxious to use it as a sketchbook and ereader. As well as building interactive ebooks (I’ve already begun wireframing) for it. There are a tonne of other features like iTunes sharing, using your iPhone 4 as a hotspot, duo core processor, faster this and faster that but everyone’s already blogging about them. Plus, I’m still using my iPhone 3G (I use a gadget until it’s totally gone).
So in a nutshell, this is a lot more (aspects of) creativity on the go. Anywhere you happen to be. You don’t NEED to be tied in front of a computer. You can record, edit and publish in one go (situation depending). Just imagine what film students can do!