<p>I have to get this off my chest. Having relentlessly taken the mickey out of everyone I know who’s fallen for Apple’s stupid iPad thing I just went down to the Stockton Street store here in San Francisco, Apple Mecca, full of scary fanbois and girls, and bought one of the bloody things. The cheapest one. Sigh…</p>  <p>I could lie and say I was marched there at gunpoint. But the truth is so many people at Bouchercon had the sodding things and seemed so happy with them I had to find out what the hell was making them so pleased with themselves.</p>  <p>First impressions: it’s fun and nice to use. Pages is a complete waste of money, and coming from Android I’m shocked you can’t immediately return an app once you buy it and discover it’s utter tosh. I have a book-length manuscript I’d like to read and comment on it. My lovely agent, who seems a bit smug about me giving in frankly, has persuaded me to buy iAnnotate which seems Ok if a little fussy – why so many buttons and toolbars? All other iPad software writing suggestions will be welcomed.</p>  <p>What I’d really like is to be able to read and comment a manuscript in draft view, without headers and footers. Not a lot to ask but Pages can’t do that and apparently won’t open an rtf file which would manage that anyway. Deep suckage on the word processing front so far. Oh and Kindle may be able to do the job if I can find a way to get my imported document from the Kindle 3 to the iPad. Kindle looks great on this thing by the way…</p>  <p>PS. All crowing comments will be assessed for crow quotient, and any that crow too much may not make it. So there.</p>