Thursday, April 15, 2010

REVIEW - 24 hours with my new iPad SLEEVE

Such are the vagaries of supply and demand, or in Apple's case, Demand outstripping Supply, that I received my iPad sleeve today and still have to wait another week or so (allegedly) before my 3G iPad arrives.

But still, in the spirit of all those excitable and excited Mac fanboys and girls, I thought I'd spill the beans on the iPad cover (which, to be honest, is what the protective cover is intended for).

First impressions:

It's light and rubbery. $39 for something you'd get free with any other electrical item costing north of $800. Shabby. And it's not as elegant as the felt-like cover Mrs Page got for me with my Kindle.

It's got a big Apple logo on the front, advertising that you're carrying around $800 of eminently pilferable electronics. Not good. I'm one of those people who, the first day I get a new laptop, lift off the annoying Intel Inside, and Windows stickers. I do the same with new cars: why would I want to drive around advertising the dealer who sold me the car?

The ID holder / thing that holds the cover back on itself for angled viewing, isn't big enough to hold a business card. I guess I'll go to the Maybach store and get a platinum ID card made to measure.

It doesn't do anything apart from cover the iPad. Forget what the Apple site says about the sleeve: "It folds in just the right places to act as a stand that holds the iPad at an ideal angle for watching videos and slide-shows or for typing on the onscreen keyboard". The sleeve does little more than fold in the same way a book does. What an opportunity this is for some enterprising Chinese manufacturer to produce a sleeve with a little adjustable stand attached to the back (like every single photo frame has). Even better if it could have a slim power dock set into the back of the sleeve. This would make the iPad more useable, and save everyone from buying a freaking $29 dock! And if the cover had a slim keyboard option, those Chinese manufacturers would be shoveling the money into their wheelbarrows. Oh, they already are?

I can't wait for the real thing to arrive so that I can test the sleeve fully loaded.

1 comment:

Jason Deadrich said...

Picked up the official iPad case tonight and am typing this from the iPad with it snugly inside. I have to say it is much more useable and comfortable than the incase grip protective cover that I was using. Agreed that it feels like something that should have come with the $800 device, but this is Apple after all.