Musings

It’s been 30 hours since I received my iPad. I’m not really using it yet. Just getting ready to use it. So am looking at the apps and getting the content ready. But it’s really a cool device.

Mr Yoshida at the Japanese restaurant last night came to wow at it. So nice and cool, he said as he bent over the table. How heavy, he said. I let him carry it and he said “Oh not so heavy, neh.”

Yes, but if you carried it like a book, your hand will tire. It’s nice, sleek and sexy. If you’ve used an iPhone, this is really a walk in the park. But read my review in coming Wed’s Digital Life (April 21).

I dithered about pre-ordering the iPad when the Apple store was open for orders. After a few days, I decided I would buy it. After all, if I’m really a gadget freak, I should get the latest – well almost all the latest – gizmos.

Then I spent another couple of days thinking about how to get it. One friend tried booking with Vpost and had his order cancelled. Oh, oh, I thought. I thought of Borderlinx but you need a Citibank card and I don’t have one. Apple developer Hon Cheng suggested comgateway.

That wasn’t a bad idea. I’d also received a comgateway voucher. Some special discount on shipping if I bought it with comgateway. So I did. When the iPad arrived in US stores on April 3, I hurriedly checked my comgateway account that day and every day after that. No news.

I was worried that the order had been cancelled. Then on Tuesday, it said the device had arrived in its warehouse. I quickly signed up for express shipment and comgateway said I’ll get it on April 11.

Well, not bad, getting it about 8 days after it hit US stores isn’t a bad record. Well I’m not in a race to see who’s first to get it. Then, it suddenly turned up at work yesterday.

My colleague put a DHL parcel on my table round about 2pm on Friday. It didn’t dawn on me what it contained until I saw the label that it’s from comgateway. My heart gave a lurch and I screamed (think it came out as a croak!): “It’s here. My iPad is here”.

Well the unboxing was captured on video and is up on Digital Life’s Facebook account. It’s as I saw it during the Jan 27 launch in San Francisco. No surprises there. It’s all in the apps. I’m now downloading and spending a whopper on iTunes getting it ready for use.