The iPad gets closer to our shores and everyone around Singapore will have access to this fantastic tablet; at an affordable price. So I've used the iPad thus far strictly only for work. If you're considering buying one, I have to tell you that the iPad does have it's flaws. In the sense that you need to know what you want it for, otherwise it's just an expensive nice-to-have gadget and get disappointed after the honeymoon period is over.
This is my experience in bullet point;
- For presentation purposes Keynote does a good job. Sometimes importing tables from Powerpoint into Keynote will mess the tables up.
- Keynote ships with 40 fonts and there is no way to install and use your own custom fonts. The company I work for has a custom font as part of it's global brand identity - so it's a problem for me. For general presentations I find it very good, esp. since you can tap-hold-move on the iPad screen to have a red laser pointer show up on the presentation screen to highlight to your audience what you're talking about.
- To cheat Keynote I sometimes export my Powerpoint slides as an image format (so that my fonts maintain) and reimport those images into slides (one image per slide). When I do this, I sacrifice animation, video, and audio.
- The Excel equivalent on the Mac is 'Numbers'. It does well for general spreadsheets. If your type of spreadsheet work consists of alot of dropdown menus for example, it's not so suitable for you then.
- For those of us that read alot of content online, it can be tiring staring at a computer or laptop screen again after a day of doing just that. It's fatigue. It's simply just relaxing to just whip out your iPad, sit on a couch or lie on your bed and read, or catchup on social media. The experience is different. It's casual and fast.
- No longer do I like to adjust my time to sit infront of a computer desk and check email. My smartphone and iPad gives me quick access anytime, anywhere. With it's big screen and keyboard, the iPad does this well.
- The iPad has many apps that are one-off purchase. If you own an iPhone you'll get both versions for one price.
- Evernote, Dropbox, iThoughtsHD, instapaper, are 4 important cloud services I use. If you're familiar with mindmapping software: iThoughtsHD is a mindmapping app on the iPad that can sync to your Dropbox folder. Anytime a colleague modifies a mindmap, my iPad gets updated immediately. Same with Evernote.
- If your digital reading consists of alot more than bookmarking or instapaper-ing. Maybe you have a process of highlighting, collecting several snippets from different sites and have a multitude of images, audio, video. The iPad can't cater to that.
- Digital Magazines - Much cheaper than the physical copy (up to 90%), leaves less of a carbon footprint, and easy to carry and access (even while offline). Plus: Interactivity.
- Day planner: Contact book, address book, scheduler, ToDos, Project management (ie. Basecamp), Lead tracking (ie. Highrise) - fantastic.
- Stock market - fantastic
- Instant Messaging - I prefer iPad for group chats. iPhone for quick response.
- Safari web browsing - meh.
- Drawing - not bad, getting better with stylus addons. Nice to draw (ie. maps to places) and email friends.
- Remote Connection with your PC at home (or elsewhere) - fantastic.
- IMDB App - absolutely fantastic.
- Comics, iBooks and Games? I don't do much of these activities, so I'll reserve my opinions.
I hope this gives you a realistic opinion about the opportunities and challenges of the iPad atleast from my perspective. If you do purchase one, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do - as it has in many ways, improved my life.
Comments [0]