It’s been available for a week or two here in the UK, long enough for any horrible problems to have surfaced (none did), and so it’s time to see what Apple’s iTunes Match is like. My feeling is that although it appears to be a great concept on the surface, it’s far too sophisticated a concept for 95% of iTunes users to get their head around. So although it may be a profitable sideline for Apple (and indeed a necessary one, to see off potential competitors), it’s not the future of music storage, especially at £21.99 a year.

iTunes Match offers three things. Firstly, the chance to store a copy of all of your music on Apple’s servers. I like this, although there are alternative services. I have my iTunes library of 13,000 songs on an independent hard drive, and backing it up is a worry, especially since I divested myself of my entire CD collection last summer. iTunes Match promises to be the straightforward, off-site backup I’ve been meaning to set up for years.

Secondly, iTunes Match is clearly going to make it possible to download anything I own to my iPhone (and other devices) without needing to copy the stuff over from my main computer in advance of wanting to listen to it. My iTunes library is much larger than my iPhone’s storage capacity, and at the moment I just keep my favourite stuff on the iPhone. But music which I get a sudden urge to hear is often not my favourite stuff. That can be annoying. I do subscribe to Spotify, and in many ways this is just giving me access to my own music library in the same way that Spotify gives me access to Spotify’s much larger one (although without the streaming – i.e instant listening – option). However, I own music which Spotify does not offer yet, and plenty that it will never offer, so this seems like a nice add-on.

Finally, iTunes Match will replace poor quality versions of most songs with nice pristine versions from Apple’s library. This is cool in theory, although in practice I have very little which is stored in lower quality than Apple offers.

Right, let’s go. iTunes Match can be found on the “Store” section of iTunes. Buying it is the painless procedure you’d expect from Apple. Then it immediately starts to scan your library, to see what Apple has already got, and what it can’t identify and will therefore need to upload from your computer to their servers. I imagined this initial scan wouldn’t take long, although fully expected the upload of any unique material would take a while, despite a 50Mb/sec internet connection. I was wrong. Even the initial scan took forever.

The first stage is called “Gathering information about your iTunes library”. That didn’t sound too hard, but the progress bar moved very slowly indeed. In fact, it took all day, and after about 13 hours, when nearly done, my Mac got to its automatic shutdown time, and promptly quit iTunes. I was horrified, and justifiably so, because on rebooting and restarting the procedure, it seemed to start again (almost) from the beginning. So I left it overnight, and after another 12 hours, I watched as it finally got to the end of that stage …then moved on to stage 2.

This one was called “Matching your music with songs in the iTunes Store”. It didn’t appear to be any speedier than the first stage, although in the end it only took about 6 hours. Nothing remarkable to report. And so we get to stage 3.

As you can see, 5000 songs (under 40% of my iTunes library) were matched, or at least displayed at this point as being “available in iCloud”. I was a bit disappointed by that, as my musical tastes aren’t that obscure. I expected the classical stuff (not that there was much) not to match, mainly because of the lack of a standard way of titling and tagging classical music. But my collection is 80% rock and pop, and it’s rare that any of the CDs I’d ripped over the years weren’t in the GraceNote database. So what was going on? I watched as the progress bar moved relatively steadily in this third stage, as songs were added to the total “available in iCloud”, and thought it was unexpectedly fast, maybe one per second. Then I realised that it was just the cover art which was being uploaded here, at least to begin with, not the songs. So maybe Apple did have more than 40% of my library which it could match, but just needed the cover art for a lot more of them? I’m not sure why that would be the case.

So I’m guessing that the process goes as follows: a bunch of stuff gets “matched” and is available immediately; a second lot is matched but needs the cover art and becomes available quite quickly; then a third lot needs both the cover art and the track itself to be uploaded.

So, a few hours later, we appeared to be done. Investigating the iTunes library on my Mac, I found the following classifications of the 13,493 songs:
“Matched” or “Purchased” – 11,204 songs
“Uploaded” – 1,518 songs
“Ineligible” – 6 songs
“Duplicate” – 2 songs
“Error” – 762 songs

The odd few ineligible or duplicate songs aren’t of interest, but the 762 “Error” songs (5% of my library) is of more concern. What to make of these? Off to Google we go, and one suggestion, from Macworld, is that the files are corrupted in some subtle way which may still leave them listenable. Interesting. So I grabbed half a dozen AC/DC tracks, created AIFF versions, deleted the originals from both my library and iCloud, and selected “add to iCloud” for the new AIFF versions. The result? The iCloud Status classification next to them changed to “Waiting”. Unfortunately, there it stayed. Following another tip, I selected “Update iTunes Match” (from the “Store” menu), and after a bunch of messages, found that the AC/DC tracks now had “Removed” next to them. Meanwhile, some of the “Error” tracks changed to “Waiting” (even though I hadn’t asked to have anything done to them) and the iTunes window continued to say “Matching your music with songs in the iTunes Store…” After an hour, all the “Error” tracks had changed to “Waiting”, with the exception of the AC/DC ones, which were still “Removed’. So it looks like if you try to do the slightest update, the iTunes Match procedure goes through your entire library again, including all the “Error” songs which will still be in “Error” status because you’ve not touched them. This is all rather tedious. But this wasn’t going to beat me. I selected the AC/DC songs and “Add to iCloud”. And although it took a while, their status changed to “Uploaded” (not “Matched”, mind you). This wasn’t really what I wanted though, because if you remember, these songs are in AIFF format.

So here we are. Not a comprehensive success, with 756 songs formerly marked as “Error” now marked as “Waiting”. There are loads of people with the same problem. However, 95% of my music library has been “Matched” or “Uploaded” and is therefore available on other devices. We’ll see if that turns out to be worth all of the effort.

I love my TV and broadband, and I’m happy to pay whatever it takes to get the best service out there. A few years ago, after a long run of exclusively using Cambridge Cable and its successor ntl, I switched my TV service to Sky, simply because (at the time) it was so much better technologically. But I stayed with the wonderful broadband service from ntl (now Virgin Media), so for the past 5 years I’ve had both companies’ products. And I’ve been able to observe that while they compete with each other technologically, they’re at opposite ends of the scale when it comes to customer service.

In principle, because of its ownership and many other aspects of what it does, I don’t like Sky/BSkyB. However, it’s absolutely superb at what it does. Virgin Media’s customer service and administration is such a shambles that I can’t imagine there’s any chance of it ever bringing its service up to that sort of standard. Sadly for Virgin Media, it must be impossible in such a large organisation to “start again”, which appears to be what’s needed.

Now, normally customer service isn’t that important to me. After all, I watch TV and use the internet every day, and only need admin or tech support once or twice a year, if that. But when you have a choice of two organisations, one offering almost faultless customer service and the other making you want to scream, you do have to start factoring it into the equation.

Following a recent house move I had the chance to reassess what services I would have. The new house was pre-wired for Virgin Media, and it’s clear that with the new TiVo box, the TV service has comfortably caught up with Sky. With 100Mb broadband on the cards, there was no way I’d have been changing that service to any other provider. So I decided to switch the TV and go to the complete TV/broadband/telephone bundle from Virgin Media.

The result? Not unexpectedly, technologically fine, administratively disastrous. I arranged the transfer and upgrade of services a few weeks in advance. There were warning signs. The price I was quoted seemed ridiculously cheap, so I got the member of staff (some poor wage slave in an Indian call centre) to read back what I’d ordered, and “hmm, that’s odd sir, the system doesn’t seem to have registered everything we’ve just discussed, does it?” We eventually got it sorted. I also asked if I could take my telephone number with me, only to be told “I don’t know”. Well, it’s rather important. “Could you ring back just before the move and we’ll be able to confirm that?” Well, you’ve rather got me over a barrel, haven’t you?

Enter the Geordies
I rang back a few days before the move. I need to confirm that I can take my telephone number with me next week. “Hmm, I can’t really tell you sir”. Oh, I’m sure you can. How about finding someone who will? Ten minutes of listening to Tinie Tempah on hold, and a Geordie voice appears. This is clearly beyond the Indian Call Centre’s pay grade. “I’m just looking at your account Mr Rand”, says the very friendly voice, “and I don’t know what they’ve done, they’ve made a real hash of it, but you leave it with me, get on with your house move and your old number will be transferred with you. No problem!”

Four Days Later
So we’re in the new house, surrounded by boxes, and the installation crew turn up from Virgin Media. Nice guys. They love all the prewiring in the house; everything’s set up in a couple of hours. The TiVo boxes look a bit daunting, but I’m sure they’ll run me through the basics. “Sorry we can’t tell you anything about these new TiVo boxes sir, we don’t know anything about them, but if you need any help, you can call customer service”. We exchange glances. It’s quite obvious to both of us that it would be easier for me to just work it out myself. “By the way, the HD services don’t work on one of the boxes either, but I’m sure customer services can sort that out for you too.” He might well have added “(Good luck with that)”.

“And here’s your phone number”. It’s one I’d never seen before.

Stay calm.

I ring India, later that day. Very apologetic. “I don’t know what’s happened sir, but there’s no reason why you can’t have your old number. It’ll take 24 hours or so, but I’ve filled in the form and is there anything else I can help you with?” No, please, just make sure it’s done.

A quick aside. Virgin Media’s automated answering system. You know, the one where they say: “we’re now going to give you five options…”. None of them usually seem to apply to what I want, and there’s no “any other queries” option, so I’ve just taken to selecting something vaguely close. After a couple of banks of these, you’re then asked: “please key in characters from your password”. But I have no idea what my password is. Why should I? There’s no way of saying “I don’t know”. At this point, some people would just give up in despair. Maybe that’s the idea. Maybe it saves on the number of callers they get. It turns out – according to one customer service person I spoke to – that it’s irrelevant, you can just key in anything. So what’s the point? Or at least, why don’t they tell you it doesn’t matter if you don’t know your password?

Two Days Later
You guessed it. I dial my home phone number from my mobile, and still nothing. “We’re really sorry about this sir, I know the form has been filled in. You’ll have your number in 24 hours. Certainly if you don’t have it working in 48 hours, call us.” Well of course I will. But can you be sure it’ll work this time? After all, it’s the fourth time I’ve requested my number is transferred. “Absolutely sir! The form has been filled in!”. Blimey, this form must be magic.

One more aside. I called about the HD channels not appearing on one of my TiVo boxes. I explained it to the first person I got through to. They put me through to someone else. I’m beginning to get bored of Tinie Tempah, none of these transfers take less than two or three minutes on hold. The next person listens carefully to my problem (and don’t forget, every new person I speak to is asking for my customer reference, or password, or something). They say: “Ah, you’ll need TiVo support for that, I’ll pass you on”. Why couldn’t I have just hit a button at the beginning to choose TiVo support in the first place? But now I’m going “up a level” and I know what that means – India have declared. A pleasant Scots chap sorts me out (it takes 45 minutes of playing with the box, something the installers shouldn’t have left not working in the first place, but hey-ho). The Scots chap is clearly unhappy that I didn’t get a proper working system, or a proper demonstration of how the TiVo worked. You and me both, mate.

It reminds me of ten years ago when Virgin Media was still ntl, at a time when they didn’t acknowledge the existence of Apple Macs, but I had a problem with my Mac’s broadband connection. After being passed around, I was eventually put on to a specialist Mac support guy in Wales, who was just brilliant. What’s more, he acknowledged how hopeless ntl’s support was and said: “listen, here’s my direct line. Any problems, just come straight through”. Wow.

Three Days Later
Oh come on, you didn’t think it’d end happily, did you? If it had, maybe I wouldn’t be needing the therapy of writing this. Still no home phone number. Back on to India. Very apologetic. “The form has been filled in”. Ah, the magic form again. Look, a whole series of people have assured me it would happen the next day, can I speak to someone who can actually get something done? I’m transferred eventually to a supervisor called ‘Neil’. I’m sure some Indian people have English names, but I’m dubious that’s his real one, somehow. Anyway, he sounds confident enough to be a genuine supervisor. I never lose my temper with bottom-rung operatives, it’s rarely their fault. But I feel I can be a little more forthright here. “All I can say is that the transfer of your number is in progress”, he says, “I can’t really offer any more than that. And it’ll be done in ten working days”.

Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.

Ten. TEN? But it was going to be done when I moved in. The third time I asked, it was going to be done “within 24 hours” of that. A few days later, the fourth time I asked, it was going to be done “within 48 hours” of that. Several days further on, it’s now going to be done “in 10 days”. I tell Neil that this is just not acceptable. He has a ponder, and says: “I tell you what, I can get that reduced to 5 days”. I think I’m supposed to be grateful. But I’m powerless. And that’s the most frustrating thing of all.

Now, I appreciate that not having people being able to ring you for a few weeks isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s just that somehow, I knew this was going to happen. At almost every level, when you speak to Virgin Media customer support they’re apologetic. The operation clearly doesn’t work, from top to bottom. The foot soldiers in India are clearly hamstrung by the systems in front of them, and (being an overseas call centre) the problems they have in relating to their customers. When you get up a level, there are just constant sighs of exasperation with what’s going on elsewhere. It must be an awful place to work. But it’s just as bad for us as users. And it doesn’t have to be this way.

Later on, the phone rings, for the first time in days. Maybe a miracle has happened? Unfortunately not. “Hello, this is Virgin Media. If you join our mobile phone service, we can offer you a free Blackberry Curve…”

Most of this article was written while on hold to Virgin Media Customer Service. You still can’t call me on the number which I’ve had with them for years.

POSTSCRIPT
As mentioned in the update at the top, after writing this, I was contacted by the Virgin Media “Social Media Team” (via Twitter and email) and by the company’s “Head of Customer Experience” (see comment below). Impressively, the telephone number situation was sorted in 24 hours, and I’m very grateful for this. It seems slightly churlish to raise the following question – but I must – which is “Why couldn’t normal customer service make this happen?” Clearly the capabilities are in place to expedite matters. Ten days to transfer a phone number indeed.

THE NEXT DAY
“Dad”, comes the cry from downstairs, “Why is the telly not working?” I look at the screen. It says: “You have not subscribed to this channel”. Or indeed any channel, by the looks of things. Oh hang on, the broadband’s down too. Time for technical support. That’s one of the numbers I haven’t pressed on the menu over the past fortnight. “No problems reported in your area sir”, says Luke. “But it says here that you’ve been disconnected for non-payment of bills”.

I’m not sure how to explain speechlessness in print. They have my direct debit details. They’ve been taking money from me for years. Luke puts me through to a nice lady in accounts. “There’s nothing outstanding here”, she says. Indeed, that description could probably apply to most of your organisation, but thanks anyway. So what should I do? The nice lady offers to take the matter up with something called “Collections”. But we have to wait ten minutes to get put through to them. Mid-80s David Bowie to listen to today.

Apparently “Collections” says there was £3 outstanding, but couldn’t explain why it wasn’t “collected”. Clearly it’s easier to just switch customers off when there’s a glitch in the system. That always gets things moving. The nice lady says that it’ll all be sorted in a moment, “but it might take 24 hours to restore all of your services”. I refrain from losing my temper, reminding myself as always that it’s not her fault, it’s down to the lack of investment in systems which work, from people at board level. The trouble is, I’ll never have the chance to talk to one of them. I wish I could. It’d make me feel so much better.

So as I write, everything’s working. My advice to anyone using Virgin Media services, and whose systems are fine, is don’t move house. Indeed, don’t move a muscle. You might just get the service you want (as long as accounts doesn’t get involved).

AND THERE’S MORE
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water. A letter arrives, telling me that my services have been restricted (whatever that means) because of the unusual account expenditure taking place. I’m a bit concerned: many years ago, with ntl, I was sent a 10-page bill amounting to hundreds of pounds which was nothing to do with me – they actually had to send out an engineer to look at my set-top box to confirm it wasn’t. So I was worried that something like this had happened again, and immediately got on to accounts to find out what the unusual account expenditure was. “It’s only a standard letter”, I was informed, “and won’t affect your services; it’s just to let you know that we’ve noticed something out of the ordinary’s being charged to your account”. Sure, but I haven’t been spending anything unusual, so why the warning letter? The accounts lady peers into her screen (I have a nice mental image of Virgin Media’s call centres by now). “Well, there’s a couple of hundred pounds been spent from your account, which isn’t normal.”

I have a think. £200? We tried out an “On Demand” movie. That doesn’t account for the other £197 though. Oh hang on…

Is the “unusual expenditure” anything to do with the two TiVo boxes I’ve just had installed? “Ah yes, that’ll be it. Not sure why they sent you a letter in that case”. You don’t say. Does everyone upgrading their service get a letter warning them that they’ve been spending too much money, I wonder? Right, so that’s sorted. Are my services still “restricted” (whatever that means) then? “Would you like to talk to Collections about it?” No I blummin’ well wouldn’t. It’s been nice talking to you. Get your house in order (I add, silently).

That was done mid-afternoon, so things should be towards the top end, before the children in the neighbourhood all get home from school and start wasting their time on YouTube. Here’s a test I did in the evening (ugh!) a few weeks ago:

…and here’s how it performed at its previous prime time, in the morning, just after we had the 50Mb broadband upgrade last year:

I think 42Mb/sec downloads and 4.8Mb/sec uploads during the day will keep me happy for a while to come, although Virgin Media are rolling out 100Mb/sec broadband as I write, and people in Ely apparently have it now, whereas there’s no date for Cambridge yet, and I’m not holding my breath for it to arrive before the end of the year.

Without even thinking about it, when lying in bed with my iPad, I get the screen into the orientation I like, then flick the little switch on the side to lock it in place. Now I can roll around as much as I like without the screen deciding I’m pointed 90 degrees in the other direction.

Until the new iOS 4.2 update, that is. Magically, or should I say tragically, it’s turned the little switch into a mute button. Why? Sometimes the folks at Apple really should leave things alone. You can mute the iPad just by pressing the “volume down” rocker switch for a second.

Anyway, to get to the point, here’s how you get the screen locked into your desired position in iOS 4.2. Firstly, double-click the home key (the only button on the front of the iPad). This brings up the little app-switching menu. Then, swipe the menu to the right, so you can see what’s hidden to the left of it. There, on the very left, you’ll see the new screen-based orientation lock button. Tap this and you’re done.

How you’re supposed to have worked that one out without someone telling you, I don’t know.

I’ve got very used to using keyboard shortcuts in GMail, especially “]”, which just archives the message you’re reading and moves on to the next one. Bang-bang-bang through my email, luvvly jubbly. Now, I know Google doesn’t really want you to delete messages, but I often like to, because I don’t want junk messages appearing in searches in the future. So what I really want, alongside “archive and next”, is “delete and next”.

Unfortunately, that’s not available, but there’s a quick enough way to do it. If you hit “#”, it deletes a message. Herein lies the problem – at this point, you’re sent back to the main inbox view. So how do we delete and move to the next message? Quite simple: when you’re on the main inbox view, hitting “o” will open the next message. So a quick combination of “#” then “o” deletes the current message and moves on to the next one.

The last problem, which will immediately occur to many people, is avoiding the use of the “#” key, which, er, doesn’t exist on UK Mac keyboards. To do this, go to Settings>Labs and turn on “Custom keyboard shortcuts”. Then set an alternative for “#” as “delete” – I noticed that “d” wasn’t used, so that’s a fairly good choice.

Now to delete a message and move to the next one, I just type in “do”.

OK, here’s the task: I wanted to build a discreet music system to go in a room with a bookcase, using an old third-generation iPod from about 2004, whose battery had long since died but which worked perfectly sitting in its original dock. The challenge was to make use of two nice Gale speakers, which sat neatly on the bookshelves, rather than buying a brand new (and poorer-sounding) iPod speaker system. Clearly then, the missing link was an amplifier which could sit inconspicuously in the bookcase. With a depth of 170mm, the bookshelf didn’t lend itself to this sort of thing, as hi-fi manufacturers’ idea of “small” tends to refer to a unit’s height, and occasionally width, but almost never depth. In fact, the most shallow amplifier I could find was almost twice as deep as the bookshelf.

Then, hidden away in a forum posting, I discovered the tiny Bantam amp from Temple Audio in Manchester. It really is small (even smaller than it looks in the pictures) but a bit of homework about the Tripath TA2024c Class T amp inside the unit quickly suggested that it could sound great. And it does. There’s nothing more on the front than a volume control and an on-off switch, and nothing more on the back than phono inputs and speaker terminals. Which, of course, is all that you want.

When the iPod one day decides it’s had enough (or possibly even before), I may connect the little amp to an Airport Express, hidden away round the back, and have all the music on my Mac available using my iPhone as a remote control. Effectively a Sonos system at a fraction of the cost.

It’s extremely covetable. The only person outside of the family who’s seen it took about ten seconds to decide she wanted one. And she’s a completely IT-illiterate (but smart) mother of two, who wouldn’t know what the term “fanboi” meant even if you tried to explain it.

The bloggers who said “everyone in the family will want one” were right. Mrs R wants one of her own, seriously, as soon as possible. It’s exactly what she wants: a lightweight, portable device which will allow her to look things up online and service her emails. And before you say “she can do that on much cheaper devices”, she knows. But nothing else has ever appealed to her before as much as this. When it comes down to it, she doesn’t like computers, and never has, but everything else she’s ever accessed the net on (including, strangely, the iPhone) has seemed too much like a computer to her. For some reason the iPad doesn’t have that tech-awkwardness.

It’s missing some curiously basic functions. I needed to work out a sum too hard for my inbuilt mental arithmetic processor, the iPad was on the side, and instinctively grabbed it to use as an expensive calculator. Except it didn’t have one. When I investigated, there were several other functions which come as standard on an iPhone which don’t exist on the iPad, including share-price monitoring and a weather service. But it was the absence of a calculator which is the real oddity. Fortunately there are loads on the App Store, including free ones.

It’s great at just being what you want it to be. This is the hardest thing to get across to people, and it’s why it doesn’t matter that the iPad isn’t “multitasking”. You just pick it up, touch the icon representing what you want it to be, and that’s what the device then is. So far it’s been a (much used) games machine. A bedside telly. A digital photo frame. A web browser. An email terminal. A big Twitter display on the coffee table giving an alternative take on something we were watching on the telly. And obviously there’s a bunch more things it can (and will) be. In every case, it’s a joy to use, and does it as well as (or in many cases better than) a laptop computer. I haven’t used it to listen to music, read books or browse newspapers yet. It looks promising for all those too. For the money, it can be justified for just one or two of these functions, and it’s really not relevant if people buy it who’ll never use it for 90% of the main functions it offers. Imagine if a TV manufacturer offered an ultra-thin, portable telly with a crystal clear display which could seamlessly be switched between live TV, stored movies, iPlayer and YouTube. Would that be worth £500 on its own? You bet it would. I think it’s going to take a while, and perhaps the inevitable price reductions, for people to get this though. You don’t need to be embarrassed about all the things the iPad does which you won’t use.

Stop Press: Full Panasonic SD 257 review – with video – now here.

My online review of Panasonic’s SD255 breadmaker has been one of the most widely-read pages on this site for the past three years. Now the Japanese electronics outfit has introduced a couple of replacement models, and although I’ve yet to get my hands on them, there are just a couple of small upgrades to the design. Anyway, here’s everything you ever wanted to know about the new Panasonic SD-257 WXC breadmaker.

OK, bit the bullet and had my Virgin Media cable internet connection upgraded to 50Mb/sec. Quite painless, smart guy did the installation. That’s the result above. The only problem is that my Devolo dLan 200AV, which I’d used to connect the internet around the house, turns out to max out at around 20Mb/sec, which was OK for the old connection, but not now. I’ll have to do some homework on that one, but in the meantime, I’ve had to go wireless (that’s a wireless result on the iMac above). No problem for the main PCs, which are Macs, but the old Windows box is going to need a wireless adapter. Fortunately the guy from Virgin was able to supply one of those, FoC! So top marks.

Here’s the old 20Mb/sec connection at its best:

…and here’s what I got on my old Motorola Surfboard modem (see separate report from 2007):

Ten years ago we were mainly on 56k modems. So on that basis, should we expect 50Gb/sec internet connections by 2020?

So, it’s the iPad is it? Lots of potential. My predictions were at best average, but considering so many people are saying the device is “nothing more than everyone predicted”, I can’t find a commentator who accurately described it beforehand.

I think there are a few problems. Note they show people watching video on it in a strange curled-up seating position with the iPad on their knees, putting it at the right angle for viewing (which a laptop screen does automatically). That’s not great, although the opportunity of dumping it in a stand and having it as a video player or digital photo frame is very cool.

And it’s not e-ink. If you’ve used a Kindle, you’ll know what I mean. That’s comfortable to read and demonstrates perfectly why ink-on-paper is more restful than illuminated screens.

But Apple have got the distribution model cracked, and that’s the key. Newspapers will flock to it, and as the user base increases, magazines will follow in time. Not sure about advertising-funded magazines for a long while though. Against the trend, I predicted the name iBook, which turned out to be half-right (the app is called iBooks and the store the iBookstore), and I took the opportunity to register www.iBookUser.com which I’m going to launch as a book review site.

The iPad will easily take off (especially as, crucially, it’s not at Macbook prices) and it will establish the market for future versions to solve any problems with this one. Compare the iPod Touch to the old clickwheel monochrome text-only screened Mk.I iPod still playing away all day in my kitchen.

Pricing will be interesting too. Nobody’s mentioned contract pricing for the 3G ones, but they could easily be free on £35/month contracts, as the basic unit cost is no different to the iPhone.

Finally, as Mashable says, the iPad is about consuming content, not creating it, which is why there’s no camera, and (although there are two types of text-entry device) why it’s only adequate – not elegant – for entering text. Wait until a newspaper offers you one for free if you buy a two-year subscription to its electronic version. And why wouldn’t you? I pay £312 a year to get The Times every day.