iPad: Apple Store Experience

April 3rd, 2010

iPad acquired. Not much of a line at the Burlingame Apple Store, but it was pretty nutty inside. The salespeople mentioned both MobileMe and AppleCare. Passed on both, got a 16GB iPad, and hung around for a useful iPad app demo.

Meanwhile, my brother lives near the Bethesda Apple Store and observed some iPad nuttiness. Here are his notes:

Went over to the apple store in Bethesda, MD just before 9, there was a small line formed around the back alley, not nearly as big as I thought it would be. I had thought there would be more people there since there are only a few apple stores close to the DC area, and this one being most metro friendly. Lots of cameras and media folk were there on hand, some of the newsreporters were interviewing people standing in line. Caught a lady who had just bought one and she let me take a picture of the iPad with the package. She seemed pretty excited to get on

Went to brunch and saw two other people who had just bought one playing around with them at the restaurant. After brunch went back to the store, saw a lot of people inside, but by then the line had died down, there were a handful of apple employees in blue shirts standing around by the entrance. Checked out webomatica from a demo iPad, but didn’t get a chance to take a picture.

Overall I was impressed with the performance of the iPad, the browsing was super fast and the unit itself was much thinner and lighter than I had expected. It reminded me a lot of a large iPhone, but newer. I definitely think I will be buying one one of these days, maybe in a few weeks. One concept I hadn’t thought about earlier, we could buy one iPad now and as Apple comes out with a newer model, retire the older one to keep around the house as a mobile computer connected to the internet, which could be good for using while watching TV in the living room, or to look up recipes in the kitchen. For me at least I think it will be a laptop killer.

Another side observation, we also have a Barnes and Noble on the same block as the apple store, where they have been selling the Nook for a while now, I had a chance to play around with one for a while, and couldn’t help but notice that it was night and day in comparison to the color iPad with web browsing.

Here are a few pics from both coasts, meanwhile a proper iPad review is forthcoming.

Burlingame

Bethesda