It’s not all rosy in Apple’s Walled Garden.

Take the curvature of the back panel in tandem with the thinner profile. This actually makes the new iPad less comfortable to hold than the iPad 1. It digs into the palms at the corners and over a short period of time quickly becomes tiresome.

Then there is the interface between the touch-screen glass and the metal back, which curves to meet the glass. It’s inconsistent. There are no issues with this interface on the iPad 1st generation, but on the new iPad, there is some roughness. This roughness alone makes the interface between hands and device especially uncomfortable. It lacks the quality I’ve come to expect from Apple. I can’t believe the likes of John Gruber have missed this, unless I’ve got a dud.

The curvature of the back panel is deliberate of course, it gives the appearance of thinness without requiring it. Apple has realised since the rev A MacBook Air (yes, I have one of those too) that a side-on shot of a device with taper gives the illusion of the object floating in space and thinner than if the height was determinable by a single, two dimensional plane. It’s just design. And it works, even when you know the truth.

What doesn’t work is the configuration of interfaces along the edges. There is no way around this for Apple until they get the device really thin, at which point they can take the iPhone 4 route and go back to the metal band design language. It’s really difficult to insert the dock connector without seeing the port. It takes longer to find the lock button. I fumble around for the volume rocker switch and I’m never really sure if I’ve hit the right bit until I see which way the volume is going. I have to visually find the on/off switch. This is ergonomics 101. It was spot-on with the first gen iPad and it’s just broken since second gen.

From time to time I like to experiment with Xcode, openFrameworks and targeting the iPad with toys. It’s how I wind down from time to time. The new iPad suffers here too as far too often, debug processes are left hanging on this device, necessitating a full power cycle. This means I’m no longer interested in experimenting and will stick to the Mac. Life’s too short to file RDAR requests that will never get answered. Life’s too short to file RDAR requests full stop.

The battery life is definitely shorter. The first gen iPad lasted forever. The new one is still mightily impressive, knocking every laptop under the sun into a cocked hat, but you have to think about whether it will last two reasonably busy days. First gen did two days without breaking a sweat.

It does get warm. Certainly not blisteringly hot the way my MacBook Air rev A used to get, but pretty warm when you’ve been gaming for ahem, a few, ahem (60) minutes with the brightness turned up to maximum. Taking the brightness down a few notches helps a lot I’ve found. It’s definitely hotter at the bottom left on the back panel.

This might sound lame, but I often mistake the camera at the top for the front panel button. It’s because I was used to just a single visible circle on the first gen iPad and so mistake the camera for that circle. I would be surprised if I was the only one who made this mistake.

It’s definitely lighter, but it’s no Kindle. That means it’s still not comfortable to hold in a single hand, but then I expect it never will be.

The Smart Cover, which I eventually caved in and bought is not so smart. I hear the cover switch being triggered in my bag as the covered device moves around; I often trigger the cover switch even when I’m just carrying it in my hand. It’s hopeless folding it over the back for reading, so I just take it off, which is a shame, because that’s the only time it does cover the back and if Apple think their fans don’t care about the backs of their devices, they’re wrong. I use a cut-to-size polythene sleeve. It’s paper thin and it protects both sides.

The Smart Cover does works well in its two stand orientations Though and while we’re closing on a positive note, the Retina Display, the raison d’être of the device is a thing of wondrous beauty. I knew it was coming as soon as the iPhone 4 came out and I knew I’d buy it when it came. It did and I did. The power of the thing is also impressive, taking everything in its stride and restoring the tarnished “magical” label.

Despite the flaws, the new iPad is still the one device I would not do without. This article was written on it, on a 98 bus, without the Smart Cover, at less than full brightness.

I got asked a rather odd question this afternoon as I moved my various Apple gadgets around on the breakfast bar. “If you could only have one Apple device, what would it be?”

This caught me by surprise. I fought back tears as I took turns in imagining life without just one of my devices. Alright, I didn’t fight back tears, but I had to buy some time.

“So where would I be that I couldn’t have all of them?”

“Say a desert island!”

“Well that’s easy then. I’d take the iPhone. I’d just call for help”

“There’d be no reception!”

“In that case, there’d be no electricity either!” I protested.

“Look just imagine you have electricity and no reception!”. My family were beginning to lose interest by this point.

I’ve thought about this a lot and I tend to cut the thought experiment short through strategic equivocation. An iPhone is what I’d call the greatest personal computing device ever invented. Mine never leaves my side and is the closest thing I have to a prosthetic. Given the choice between always having to have an insulin pump attached to my body and carrying an iPhone, well, the pump has already lost that battle.

As for the MacBook Air, an 11″ model from 2011, fully maxed out with the processor, RAM and SSD upgrades, well that’s the greatest personal computer I’ve ever owned.

Then there’s the iPad. It’s such a 55M-sold-in-a-year anomaly, that I still haven’t been able to classify it. Most everyone I know says the same thing – that they can’t think of why they’d need one. Then of course they get one and wonder how they got along without it. The iPad doesn’t quite inspire the same degree of love as does an iPhone or MacBook Air, and you wouldn’t type a novel on it (but how many people type novels anyway), but you end up using it for much more than you realise. (I’m writing this post on my iPad, lying down, comfortably. I’d not be able to do this using the MacBook Air.)

On the iPad I run my life with the best version of OmniFocus there is. I can’t run Xcode on it, which would be fantastic and make my life complete, but I have given many presentations off it, going straight into a projector. In fact, I have once written an entire presentation on a tube journey on it. Keynote on iPad is the best presentation software I’ve ever used on any platform.

I once had an hour to write a 30 slide presentation. I chose my iPad and got the job done.

I read books on the iPad. For technical books it beats my Kindle hands down, but granted, for novels it is simply too heavy. For short form reading, I still prefer Instapaper on iPad.

I’d use it for writing if iA Writer didn’t have that cursor positioning bug that the author never responds to queries on. Still, there’s SimpleNote, which I pay for.

There is no more convenient browser than Safari for iPad. It’s the first browser I reach for when I’m at home. For email, I’d rather use the iPad than the iPhone, and it’s often more immediate and therefore convenient than reaching for the laptop.

My favourite diary app is Day One. I like it best on the iPad.

I used to prefer TweetBot on iPhone to any other client on any other platform until TapBots made the iPad version.

I use a Cosmonaut pen by the guys who made the Glyf. I’m still waiting for them to send me a replacement tip, but whatever, I use it on Penultimate, which I use every single day for free form writing and ideas. I used to buy loads of notebooks and then I felt too much reverence for the paper to defile it with my writing. Now I can use page after page of virtual paper and never feel the twinge of regret that I did when I used to lay waste to trees with my ridiculous paper fetish. The iPad did that.

I think the best portable gaming device is the Vita. You might accuse me of bias, but I genuinely believe that. The iPad runs a close second. Right now, there are some fantastic games for iPad and I see only more time wasting brilliance coming this way. It’s better for games than either the Mac or the iPhone.

Then there’s music. I have a folder full of music apps that are absolutely brilliant.

I know that as a geek I should pick the MacBook Air. I know that as a rational time and motion study, the choice would be iPhone.

But if you ask me today, I’d have to take the iPad. I don’t love it as much as the other two, but it’s the one I’d have to take. It is worming its way into more and more areas of my life and nearly always does what I need it to do.

It’s loaded with my music and a couple of choice films (I’m presuming my life’s truncated music collection would be available via iTunes Match) and most importantly, with more books than I will ever be able to read in what’s left of my life.

I will be able to read, write, play, draw, make music, record my thoughts, blog, write Lua if I really want, scribble, access my personal archives, pretty much everything I could do with a MacBook Air bar making iPad apps. And I haven’t made an iPad app, so let’s be honest with ourselves. An iPad is all the machine I need, in a format that makes it a lot easier to use, a lot more immediate, a lot more friendly, a lot less buggy, a lot longer lasting and a lot more personal than a laptop computer. As a canvas, it excels and outs the iPhone into the shade. I can’t see this changing. I see the iPad occupying an ever-increasing portion if my life, and the lives of hundreds of millions of others and I don’t see Google, or almost anybody else, catching up for a decade in this space. The traditional computer is dead bar the shouting.

I just wish it would be a bit quicker, and have a retina display. Roll on March.