I get confused when people say the iPad is the easiest to use computer ever made.

iPad home screen

There are a few reasons for this.

Primarily it is that actually damned hard to use. If you want to do absolutely anything other than open an app, it is difficult. The navigation, in an attempt to be simplified, has been simplified to the point where it is consistently inconsistent between apps, the system, and anything else.

It is also absolutely dog slow. Perhaps I have been spoilt by the Galaxy Nexus, which let me tell you in no uncertain terms: it never keeps you waiting. The iPad is quite the opposite. Even loading the Settings app takes forever on mine now. Perhaps Apple is hinting at me to buy a new one (not likely).

It is also virtually impossible to get support when it goes wrong. If there is a problem I usually google it. However any mention of iPad in a search term gets your results flooded with all kinds of crap blog posts about how to do simple things, when I actually want a solution to a problem. I think this is partly because the iPad seems so simple, it makes just about anyone think they can provide technical support for it. Not the case.

In that vein, a reminder to myself. If your iTunes app ever disappears from your iPad home screens again, it has most likely been disables in the Restrictions of the General settings in Settings. Good luck remembering your Restrictions pin! Image for future reference:

Look for Restrictions

One thing struck me, other than the inexplicable absence of a “retina” display in the new iPad model, about Apple’s announcement today. Why did Apple not build HDMI into the iPad 2?

That’s it, I’m fed up – I’m calling out Flipboard for blatantly disregarding ownership of content, costing me money without providing a return, and reducing my advertising revenues.

Now don’t get me wrong, I only make a few quid out of my website, so this is not a massive problem to me (let’s face it, I have a job); but scale this up and it basically turns into robbery. It’s what got Google in a big stack of lawsuits over Google News, and just because you’ve got some “cool app” for the iPad doesn’t mean you can just go treading on people’s rights and doing what you please.

Yesterday Apple went and busted out iOS 4.2 for iPad, coming (discouragingly late in the year) in November. With it they also got some people from Epic Games up on stage to demo one of their creations.

The game “Project Sword” is still in the works, but I can tell you now it looks brilliant. This is because they have released a preview of the Citadel area of the game as a free app for iPhone and iPad. The free app is simply a walkaround where you can just run around the Citadel area (no other people to meet as yet, and you can’t go in many places).

The game uses the Unreal engine ported to iOS, which makes for some absolutely superb and quite frankly mind-blowing realtime 3D rendering.

I included some screenshots of Epic Citadel below for your viewing pleasure.

I was thinking the other day about how I use the iPad, Nexus One, netbook, MacBook, desktop PC and so on together. I found it strange how I could accept iOS 3′s restrictions on the iPad, but when I tried to use an iPhone I found myself constantly annoyed about being unable to perform the various tasks I wanted to do.

iPad Unboxing

I suspect what it comes down to is the fact that I expect my mobile phone to perform a lot of tasks – and in many ways, I have been spoilt by the Nexus One allowing me to do pretty much anything I could ever want it to. However with the iPad, there is no precedent – there hasn’t really been a truly widespread tablet of this kind before, so coming in to it makes it a new experience.

Nexus One

Sure, it isn’t without its annoyances here and there when things go horribly wrong (and hopefully iOS 4 will go some way to address that); but I still think the iPad user experience is managed and what I would expect it to be.