It’s really hard to not feel like everyone in the universe is greedy for more more more when most of the apps that I used regularly on the iPhone have new, bigger iPad brethren that cost more, a lot more. I’m starting to think that apps that are universal will get an extra star from me, or maybe that apps that have an iPhone version that is cheaper than the iPad version would lose a star (or half a star?).

I feel like I just bought DDH Software HanDBase for my iPhone/iPod. And now they have an iPad only version for $9.99. I’m sorry, DDH, but you won’t get my business a fifth time. I’ve bought the Mac desktop version (which is crap), the iPhone version, the Palm version, and the Windows desktop version. No way in hell are you getting another dime from me. Sorry, but your app works fine in the version I have, and since you didn’t see fit to make a universal app I don’t see fit to give you any more of my cash.

So, I love my iPad, don’t get me wrong. I love it so much that I set up all my email to go there as a way to stay curent and up-to-date with my mail even when I’m not at the “big-big-computer” as Jaryth calls it.

But holy spam insanity, Batman! All of my accounts have spam filters on them at the server level. And they work at about 3 different effectiveness levels:

1. Excellent – Accounts like Gmail seem to get almost zero spam. Which is wonderful. I’m only subjected to all the myriad newsletters I stupidly signed up for myself. “Where did that unsubscribe button go???”
2. Mid-range – Some accounts have tools like Postini behind them, and that catches about 80% of the spam.
3. Bad!!! – And one account I have has a spam filter on it, but that filter doesn’t catch things like the current rash of blueberry emails. I want to tell that filter “if they sent me the email four times, I don’t want to see it even once.”

All of this doesn’t matter when I’m happily working on big-big-computer – as my email client also has a spam filter that effectively protects me from the ugly realities of blueberries and home refinances and so on.

But my iPad is Missing a Filter Button

This is driving me crazy. I may have to turn off the accounts that have bad filtering, as I spend more time deleting the crap than I do reading the mail. Unfortunately, one of those accounts is one that I get rare but important messages on, and the senders are almost never online when I am on my computer. The iPad has saved me from missing appointments and other problems twice already in the short time I’ve had it.

But is deleting billions of spam messages really worth it? I’m not sure.

What Seems Strange is that No One Seems to Care

This has apparently been an issue on the iPhone and iPod touch as well, but when I search the Web I can’t find anything about it other than a few sites saying “yep, there are no filters on the IPhone/iPod touch/iPad mail client”. Frustrating!

My 27″ iMac has a shiny screen that is remarkably similar to my iPad (if slightly larger). And in the box of goodies that it came with was a fancy black cloth for keeping it shiny.

However, since I don’t touch my iMac screen nearly as often as I do my iPad (except when I forget that it doesn’t have multi-touch built-in), so it doesn’t have as many fingerprints. So I liberated the cloth and it now travels with my iPad (along with the iMac’s bluetooth mini-keyboard. I kept my full-sized one with number pad, even though it has to be plugged in, gasp!).

One other tip: the multitouch still works through the cloth, so it’s best to turn off when shining the iPad.

This is just too cool. So much easier to type on the iPad than the iPod. Plus it has all the help that the iPod has like the double space for a period and capital letter. Silly to be happy about that but I am.

I’m trying a bunch of new apps for the iPad. I’ll have to give an update of all of them later. I’ve already watched a tv show, downloaded a book, and tried out a bunch of apps. I know, I’m gushing, but it really is just as cool as I thought it would be!!

So Mark found some analysis of possible prices for upcoming iPad apps and they are insane!! apparently they appear to be planning to charge anywhere from 2 to 4 times more for an iPad app as for the same app on the iPhone.

TUAW is falling down by not reporting on this (or not asking in their interviews). They posted a “first look” at Polyhedra XL which I have the iPhone version. What a joke!