Madman at the screens

Like thousands of others, maybe millions, this Christmas has bought me an iPad mini.

My eldest son, Matthew, bought one on the day that they were released and yes he did queue up outside the Apple store at 7 o'clock in the morning! Seeing the joy that he has got from his, made me convinced that this was the next addition that I needed to my gadget life.

My first impressions are very favourable. I've rarely turned on my laptop since I've owned it and can see that remaining the case. The screen is big enough to see almost every website very clearly and apps designed specifically for it are generally very impressive.

I also have an iPhone so a bit of the "Wow" factor was reduced, some of it is just what I've experienced on the iPhone on a bigger screen.

So what is different?

Firstly the newsstand app. I now read the Guardian on a daily basis, have a free copy of Stuff magazine and I'm considering subscribing to GQ again. Reading a newspaper or a magazine on a tablet is a very different but fun experience.

Next is the improvement in using the Apple browser, Safari. It's always been difficult on my PC, let's remember is not designed for a PC. It's fairly basic on an iPhone, but it is excellent on the iPad. It also means that through iCloud, articles I've read on my iPad I can also carry on reading on my iPhone if I don't get a chance to finish them.

The final initial benefit I've seen of the iPad is reading books. I have a Sony e-reader and that's been great but let's be honest, it's limited to just reading books. It's also very slow. If you copy a PDF onto it to use that in a meeting, it better be a very slow meeting, otherwise you'll be way behind. Through differing apps the iPad allows you to read PDF's, Kindle, iBooks and EPUB books.

So, so far so good. A very good investment.

PS this blog was mainly dictated using Siri!