We are in NY this week for meetings. This is the first time I have traveled without a laptop, only an iPad and a phone. Here are my top 10 iPad observations:
1. The iPad is everywhere. Not once in any meeting did anyone pull out a laptop. Everyone was using iPads. It has become the go to device.
2. Not having Flash or Java is huge problem. Very often there was visual content that someone wanted to pull up and couldn’t because of the Apple Adobe spat.
3. Because the thing is so light, I take it with me just about everywhere.
4. Showing photos and videos on the device is genius. They look amazing. I use iPhoto and whatever the built in video app is.
5. Unlike a portfolio, I can’t just drop it off. You can’t hide or block the native apps without jail breaking it, and leaving one’s email available for viewing is not such a great idea. This is only a bit of a drag though, as I have a web site that almost exactly mirrors the iPad presentation.
6. Working on the iPad is considerably slower than on a laptop. You can’t multi task, it is harder to move images between emails, the screen shot is cumbersome, and not having Java makes using things like my online banking impossible. It takes me about twice as long to do my emails and social networking as with an laptop.
7. The battery life is forever. It goes on and on and on. Hello trans pacific movie viewing.
8. There is a card reader that can be connected, but basically forget about dumping flash cards in it and using it as photo viewer for your new shots. Not enough storage and no software to deal with them. I am saving the cards with the snaps from this trip to be loaded back at the studio.
9. I didn’t go for the 3G version. Mistake. Wifi, even in NYC can be a hunt. There is always Starbucks, but the bandwidth if so tiny you think you are in the dial up dark ages.
10. I use it as an actual notebook. I can take notes during meetings and be completely unobtrusive, even sort of cool, in a way that a laptop would be totally weird.
I am not completely sold. Doing real work on it, as in something as simple as making this blog post, is about as much fun as pre Novacaine dentistry. The blog post you are looking at took over 2 hours to do, and I eventually had to borrow a computer to complete it. This is the last business trip I will attempt without my laptop. Real work on the thing is just maddening. But, for showing images in meetings it is without equal. Unfortunately, I will probably end up traveling with both a pad and a laptop, which is no doubt exactly what Apple would love for me to do. The iPad is a vessel. You load it up with content, then carry it into the world. I really really want the pad to be the go to travel device, so light, so elegant, so gorgeous. But it is not in anyway a replacement for a computer. If forced to chose between the two, go with the laptop.
Preach it brother! I am maddened daily by the lack of multitasking abilities and have done so much research on finding multitasking apps but none of them do exactly what i need of them. I think it is a great tool for checking email, and browsing the web, I also agree it is a great tool for wowing folks with images, and I concur that it is a lot cooler to take notes on my Ipad than anything else. But I draw the line there… for actual work, one most definitely needs a laptop. Those that said the Ipad was really just a big iphone were spot on. Thing is i love my iphone, and me and the Ipad have more of a love hate kind of relationship.