Your intel is spot on.

Flew with a LCA that had one this week. He handed it over, and I got a chance to surf the device and see what was loaded on it. They did remove the iTunes as we know it. The iPod function was still there, as well as the "App icon" for games. The Calendar Icon, and Safari Icon were both present.

As far as the manuals laid out on the iPad, one thing that was not good was the "search feature" (We had B756 on this particular one). We attempted to 'search' various topics to find within FOM, Flt Manuals, WOM, ect.....The search was VERY UNfriendly/not always 'successful' when using it. The impression I got when using if for about 20 mins was the search function was extremely subpar and difficult to use if trying to locate something on the fly. The LCA commented that he had just done a L.C. on a Capt that had a 'personal iPad' with the Flt Manual loaded on it, and the guys 'personal iPad' performed MUCH better on topic searches.....maybe different software outside the UCH issued ones??

The Jepp Chart Layout was kinda cumbersome (zoom in/out). On the pairing I was flying with this LCA, we had an ocean x-ing, so we loaded up the route from ORG/DEST (minus the departure/arrival procedure, wouldn't take the SID/STAR for some reason - I'm sure operator error). The iPad did take the FULL route, overlaid it on a pictoral layout that allowed the user the zoom in/out with enroute charts over laid as you zoom in (could toggle from High/Low charts on the over lay which was nice especially in Europe). There was no 'real-time' moving map obviously, but the idea of having the route over-laided on a single device was nice as opposed to 'hunting-highlighting' on multiple Low/High charts.....+1 there.

What was worrisome, asking the LCA being a "Beta Test Group", what kinda intel or feedback do they have with the UCH IT Dept in which to improve/fix/tweak items in which to make things better/or fix bugs.....In his words "VERY LITTLE". Albeit, this particular LCA only had the company issued iPad for about 2 weeks, but hearing the communication with the UCH IT 'geeks' has been limited is pretty disheartening.....BUT not surprising.

I sure hope the Airbus guys/gals have a much better flow of communication with IT to get this up and running. With my very limited hands-on experience, it appears that the UCH iPad's are just another $600 paper-weight.....Who knows, could be just another UCH-S.N.A.F.U. -or- they could actually make this a useful tool. This particular LCA said they were just handed the device with VERY little intel on some of it's particulars.....IE the company installed/specific after market software.

Either way, 'they' have A LOT of issues/questions/items/and 'edjumacation' to work out (NOT to mention the JCBA) before that item will be considered useful to us 'line guys'.

$.02's