iPad 2: my three top tips

Courtesy of the Battle of Big Thinking at Engine Strategy, I recently won some Apple vouchers (for my talk about how the world is slowing down) and so broke my long-time Blackberry fix to become an iPad2 owner.

So, what to make of it? Well, actually what impresses me most isn’t the iPad2 itself but the mobile Wi-Fi hotspot I got to go with it. With the HSDPA network connection, it consistently provides a faster, more reliable connection than 3G dongles (in London at least, where 3G networks are notoriously struggling to cope with growing demands). Plus being a Wi-Fi hotspot it can network all my different portable devices, meaning no need to pay for separate 3G dongles or contracts for different devices. Overall that makes for a better and cheaper set-up than if I’d got an iPad with 3G and a contract. (UPDATE: It’s even better with an extra battery.)

On the software front, Flipboard really is as good as everyone says it is – and it is free. It’s a greatly way of browsing through the content others have found interesting and shared online via Twitter or Facebook. Flipboard’s own dedicated content streams are rather too American-dominated for my taste, but even just the former feature is enough to make it a great app.

GoodReader doesn’t quite have the neat flowing interface that would fit with the iPad’s style, but it does provide an easy way of downloading large video files from the iPad2 to a computer – very handy if you shoot a film that is too long for the iPad’s email or upload to YouTube options.

If you get an iPad those then are my three tips – HSDPA networking, Flipboard and GoodReader.

Now excuse me whilst I hunt the internet for some dodgy information about how to eat an iPad2 friendly diet (I’m guessing there are some foodstuff choices which affect how likely your fingers are to leave greasy smudges on the glass screen…).

UPDATE: My colleague at MHP Communications, John Williams, is also rather wowed by the iPad 2).