Aside from the fast delivery (thank you, USPS!), there isn’t much to say that has not already been said elsewhere, but when has that stopped me?

One thing I found particularly appealing about this new product was the video demo in the Trackpad System Preferences window. Apple is well-known for non-verbal instructions for using their products, but this takes the concept to a whole new level. Instead of reading potentially confusing text, just watch what happens when the disembodied hand moves around the pad in the video. The gesture I like best is the 4-finger navigation. Swiping sideways with four fingers brings up the applications selection window, while swiping up or down invokes Exposé, the MacOS X feature that shows all opened windows at once. I will likely use Exposé more now than I have in the past, which ought to improve my workflow.

Several commentators have mentioned that it takes a little bit of getting used to when switching from a mouse, but I’ve used trackpads on notebook computers for years, and didn’t find the change to be difficult at all. Instead, the biggest adjustment for me will be the result of needing a solid surface to rest the trackpad on, so the clicking buttons on the bottom will have something to resist. It may be time to acquire a lapdesk instead of resting the keyboard on my lap, and mouse on a chair-side table. Or not. It remains to be seen how much trouble it is to reach over to the table to use the trackpad. I suspect it won’t be any worse than reaching over to use the mouse. But a lapdesk might be nice anyway.

So, even though it doesn’t work with the iPad (which doesn’t need a mouse, and has no cursor to move around with any pointing device), I’m happy to replace the mouse with this new gadget on my desktop.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not complaining about the great portability provided by the inclusion of the virtual keyboard in my favorite device. But for doing serious input when I’m not out and about, a real physical keyboard can’t be beat.

So, why did I name this post “Input Device #1″? Next week I’m expecting delivery of device #2 — Apple’s new Magic Trackpad. Yes, I’ll write about it then.

Both these gadgets connect to their host device(s) using Bluetooth. Yes, I tried out the keyboard on my desktop computer, too, where it also works beautifully. In fact, I bought the thing in the first place to replace the USB keyboard that is worn out. This time I didn’t wear the letters off the keys (which I have done on older keyboards), but the USB cable where it enters the keyboard had frayed and finally won’t make a reliable connection. This is the second Apple USB keyboard I’ve had experience this failure, so I decided to try again with the wireless version. I’d had a wireless Apple keyboard a number of years ago, but wasn’t happy with the fact that the Bluetooth signal dropped frequently. Now, after a number of OS updates, that problem has been addressed, so we’ll see how well it works. I think it will be better now, based on other recent Bluetooth experience I’ve had, connecting the iPad to both my desktop (iMac) computer and my iPhone. Crossing my fingers!

Meanwhile, here’s how I paired the keyboard with the iPad. First I pressed the power button on the right end of the keyboard’s cylindrical battery compartment. This makes the indicator light flash. That’s a tiny green LED on the upper right of the keyboard, that otherwise is almost invisible. Then, I opened the Settings app on the iPad, selected General and Bluetooth, where a button appears that said “Keyboard – Not Connected”. I clicked that button, and a message apppeared instructing me to type a string of numbers, followed by the Return key. I did that, and the button changed to “Keyboard – Connected” and I was done.

Interestingly, when the Wireless keyboard is paired with the iPad, the virtual keyboard doesn’t pop up on the screen when I tap in an input field. Instead, the wireless keyboard becomes the only way to enter text while it is paired. That is good in a way, since the virtual keyboard can take up a lot of screen real estate, but if the keyboard isn’t handy, but is still within range (33 feet, or about 10 meters), it would make it awkward to try to use the iPad. A simple solution is to go back to Settings and unpair the keyboard, but that is an extra step. Maybe future apps will provide a screen button to do that, but unless the wireless keyboard sees very broad adoption I doubt that will happen. It’s up to app developers to implement such a feature, and it would require a lot of user demand to push them to add it.

Ultimately, in spite of the hypothetical inconvenience of having to unpair when I want to use the virtual keyboard on the iPad, I am very happy with the wireless keyboard, on both the iPad and iMac.

As luck would have it, the guys at Java Code Geeks wrote about using Oracle/Sun Microsystem’s Virtual Box, which I have extolled in the past. So, I’m going to follow their tutorial, download the live CD, and have a go. If it’s really all that great, maybe I’ll even try my hand at developing an app for that platform, perhaps as a warmup to writing an iPhone/iPad app, who knows?

By using the “building” tools in Second Life (actually 3D wire-diagram and texturing tools), complex models can be constructed quickly, and with practice, easily. With a length conversion calculator in hand, I was able to build the house model at 1:1 scale. The only complexity was that Second Life uses metric measurements, while most US builders prefer English, so I wanted to make it easy to calculate square feet rather than square meters. The building platform is slightly smaller than one acre (60m square). And yes, I do intend to clean up the roofline for those architectural engineering purists out there. It’s a preliminary sketch, ok?

Oh, and of course I do have the presentation on my iPad. In fact, I created it there using Apple’s Keynote for iPad app, and exported it to PDF. This might come in handy when we talk to a real builder, since we can show him our ideas without requiring him to go into Second Life to see it. The same is true of our Realtor, who will be able to see exactly what kind of lot we are looking for. As a portable electronic portfolio, the iPad would be hard to beat.

Naturally, it is going to take some time before I can explore all the features of all the apps as well as the gadget itself, but so far I am very happily impressed with it.

In terms of reading ebooks (one of my principal applications for this thing), I really like the appearance and functionality of both iBooks and Kindle for iPad as well as other reader apps, I do have a few questions. For one, I haven’t figured out how to import my own .epub documents into an app that will display them. iBooks is supposed to be able to use the epub format, but so far as I know, only books purchased through the Apple bookstore can use that app. I have three or four other document apps, but none that I have tried so far can handle them. The iBook Store is also pretty confusing. I haven’t found a way to get past the featured items, none of which interest me, so I haven’t bought any books there.

But since there are many more things to do besides read, the lack of ability to add titles to my iPad isn’t a big concern at the moment. I can always convert epub titles to PDF format and use them that way, so it’s not like they are completely inaccessible.

I did go ahead and sign up for the AT&T unlimited 3G data plan, of course, but at the moment I am using the WiFi provided by the RV park where we are staying now. Both WiFi and 3G cellular are very snappy, at least at this location, so that is a good thing.

I will have more reactions later, of course, but right now I’m going back to playing with my new toy. If you’ll please excuse me….

[Edited on 2 May 2010 to correct the spelling of "epub", which the autocorrection on iPad changed to "pub"]

Surely this isn’t really a result of my telling the first rep I had a countdown timer for the iPad delivery on my blog? Nah…. Whatever is causing it, though, I can only applaud Apple for apparently also wanting to remake the retail experience, after already rebuilding personal computers, music playback and mobile phones.

So, thanks, Tim, I’ll be sure to call when/if I have any ordering issues in future. And yes, I’m certainly becoming even more committed as an Apple fan-gr1 than I already was. It will really get sickening when I get my iPad! Kool-Aid (Apple flavored, of course), anyone?

Maybe when I’m feeling more creative I’ll tweak the CSS settings for this timer, too.

So far, I’ve collected forty dedicated iPad apps, 22 universal apps, and 184 iPhone/iTouch apps which may work on the iPad, too. That’s not counting those in my wishlist, most of them paid apps with bigger pricetags than the nominal $0.99 or $1.99 no-brainer ones.

Can you tell I’m excited?

Thanks to Jim MacMillan for finding this and tweeting it.

Instead of simply waiting patiently (or impatiently, as the case may be), I’ve been avidly reading every review I could find, and trying out iPad-optimized web pages, including the iPad site from National Public Radio. NPR says it is best to view their iPad site in Google’s Chrome browser, since it isn’t optimized for other browsers. Hmmm. I wonder why Chrome, and not Apple’s Safari? Maybe Chrome is more like the iPad version of Safari than Safari itself is?

As a member of the Apple Developers Program, I’ve also downloaded the beta version of the iPhone SDK (Software Developers Kit) that includes an iPad simulator, but must confess I haven’t yet found time to fire it up. It would be different if I actually had a real application I wanted to develop, but so far I’m still trying to learn the development how-to. Thanks to some comments on a technical article about iPad app development, I may have an easier time of that now that I’ve found Corona Simulator, an alternate SDK that seems to be much more straightforward to use than Apple’s Xcode alone.

So, even without a chance of getting our own iPad, we’re considering driving up to Austin tomorrow to see if maybe we can touch one anyway. Maybe that will get me excited enough to finish the Corona tutorials and start working on my own apps, who knows?