The last 10 days in the US has also been a bit of an experiment. I decide to take my IPAD out there instead of my Mac Book Pro. Well, actually that’s not strictly speaking true. I decided to take the MBP with me “just in case” as a PlanB in case something horrible happened whilst I was out there with just the IPAD…
TIP. I had planned to take screen grabs of some my points here. But I’ve ran out of time. I’m might just double back. I learned one good tip for documentation. If you want to capture the screen of either an iPhone or an iPAD – press the off and home buttons at the same time quickly…
For the most part I stuck with the PlanA of using my iPAD for most of my daily tasks. It was part of my attempt to test if the iPAD is a laptop replacement or killer. The verdict. No. I did take some notes on my iPAD as my mood took me. I’ve got those notes in front of me on the iPAD as type this post on the MBP… So here’s a couple of my observations…
Email – Just before I boarded my flight to Charlotte, NC via Washington DC – there was just enough time to download that mornings email. I did that through my 3G connection. It’s pretty much typical that in the UK there is no free WiFi in airports (where its more common in the US) or hotels. If your on the road in the UK a 3G connection is a must. I think if you have both a smartphone, iPAD and laptop – the most sensible option right now is a MiFi device. You can do “tethering” with the iPhone but most options to enable this feature are priced as “daylight robbery” tariffs with miniscule download allocations. I managed to pick up a MiFI unit in the US with US carrier from a buddy out there, to avoid the punitive roaming charges.
Personally, I think the mobile carriers there up there with the bankers for offering value for money, and customer friendly support. [Heck, I guess at least the mobile carriers didn't tank the world economy into a barrel of **** and then let tax payer pick up the check, whilst they reward themselves with outrageous bonuses.] Anyway, less of my politics… Email works just fine on the iPAD. I like the “grouping” view which gathers the thread of email into one view – like it was a chat. The downsides are is you get your email 3 times. Once on your iPAD, iPAD and then MBP. I spent sometime trying to remember whether I’d read/responded to an email before. Also, iTunes does not synch your recent email to the iPAD (unlike my old brick iPAQ). So occasionally, I had to crank-up the MBP find detail that wasn’t on the iPAD…
As for hotels. If your from the UK you will know that the concept of “free WiFi” does not exist in our lexicon. Living in “Ripoff Britain” because quite obvious as soon as you abandon our shores for Mainland Europe and the US where it is more common. Of course, you can make the argument that there’s no such thing as a free lunch – and whether you like it or not – you are paying for a service by hook or by crook. My first hotel was a Hyatt in download Charlotte, NC. Where the WiFi was $9 a DEVICE. That means you have to pay $27 per day to have all your WiFi enabled devices connected. Remember you spend most of time away from the hotel or unconscious in the bed. I was at the Zen Hotel in Palo Alto – where WiFi was free. The link relatively good. But if I was road-warrior in the US with the iPAD, iPhone and MBP in my bag – then I’d be looking to not pay for 3 different 3G plans, but all-in-one single, all-you-can-eat MiFI unit instead… What seems gouging to me is being expected to pay for three different 3G enabled devices when you can only use one at a time. Very few carriers offer a generous data bundle which gets consumed by the device you own…
Keyboard. I find the keyboard of the iPAD relatively easy to use. However, the layout changes depending on the application [which is meant to be helpful and clever] so I often find myself pressing [.?123] and [#-+=] buttons playing hunt-the-keyboard character. Part of me wish it had the same keyboard as the bluetooth keyboard which I use when the MBP is connected to the cinema screen…
Word Processing. It was good job I took the MBP with me – as just before I left I got sent 2-chapters back from NetApp and Dell – for my new book on VMware SRM. Reading those edits and making updates on the iPAD would have been an impossibility. I often find long-haul flights as useful way to catch-up on book editing or writing new articles. Something that would have been impossible or excruciating on the iPAD. Of course with the new VMware View or Wyse Pocket Cloud I could have got access to a virtual desktop. But sadly these clients do not support an offline/local desktop on the iPAD.
My iPAD with the VMware View, Pocket Cloud and PenUltimate applications installed. And yes, I do play Angry Birds – but that’s mainly for the family to use.
In Flight Movies. Where the iPAD did come in handy was watching movies. I use the CineXplayer to watch movies in a DivX format (I prefer this because they are generally smaller to download & upload to the pad). If you on cattle class the inflight movies are normally delivered on a loop without an on-demand player. Generally, the video angle and audio is better than inflight movies – plus they haven’t be edited for flight. Plus you can start watching a movie towards the end of the flight – knowing you can watch the end from your hotel room. Where the iPAD really wins out is if your stuck in cattle class and someone fully reclines their seat.
Web-Ex Playback. I missed a webex session earlier in the week, and thought I would watch a recording off it via 3G network at the airport. Sadly, the Webex App on the iPAD doesn’t support this functionality. Nor does it allow you to log-in and take the recorded session offline…
Skype. I use Skype to call home both from my iPhone and iPAD. This works pretty well (although it would be nice to have a native Skype iPAD application. The purchase of Skype by Microsoft recently would seem to make this unlikely) . I guess Apple assumes you would use FaceTime, and this also assumes that everyone has either an iPhone or iPAD. With that said, I will probably leaving the iPAD at home for future trips – and therefore I could potential FaceTime with the folks at home – so long as were both on a WiFi connection which it requires…
PowerPoint Presentations - I use “Keynote” with the iPAD and bought the necessary connectors (at £19 a pop!) to use with the iPAD. Keynote allows you to import presentations from your MBP into the iPAD. It does go thru font conversions but I was lucky this conversion process didn’t mangle my presentations. Sadly, on the day I had let the power to my iPAD run perilous low. As the iPAD gains its power from the same sources as the video output I couldn’t take the risk of it dying on me in the middle of a presentation – unlike my trusty MBP which has a video out and power source which is separate…
Penultimate – I was introduced to this application by my lab partner. It’s neat application for making hand-written notes. My lab partner Manny – was generous enough to even let me take the spare stylus with me back to the UK.
Conclusions:
Is an iPAD a road-warrior replacement to a laptop. No. Could sales reps and other low-life use it for carrying docs and around doing presentations. Yes.
And perhaps that was my problem along. The iPAD isn’t meant to be a laptop killer. It’s meant to be tablet, a different form-factor altogether. What I would give Apple MASSIVE credit for – is for single handledly by mix of innovation and marketing – created a market for a device where others have previously crashed and burned (are you listening Microsoft). Even if one day the iPAD is sunsetted by more flexible Andriod enable devices, this will be cause Apple created a market within which they then followed. For now the iPAD stays at home, as a domestic, retail, coffee-table system. Next time around I will be buying a laptop with a smaller screen, ready for when someone fully reclines their seat into my cake-hole. I’ve written at length about the iPAD limitations as media player – I sometime think that if Apple spent more time supporting other media formats – rather than slick adverts and FaceTime, the iPAD would have been a more worthwhile purchase…
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