I have had my IPad for 4 weeks or so and during that time it has hardly left my side – my wife is threatening to sue me for adultery, citing my IPad as co-respondent – I have promised to attend counselling sessions!
But, seriously though (really – I was only joking – sort of) what are my views on this amazing piece of kit after having used it in real life situations over the past few weeks?
Well, first off I am still convinced that it will, eventually, change the small net book computing market. It is comfortable to use and for emailing and web surfing there is no equal. Some web sites have not been fully optimised for the IPad – I am not just talking about the absence of Flash which, admittedly, can be annoying at times – but as time progresses this will improve (this, after all is still version 1).
What does take a bit of getting used to is the lack of any accessible file structure per-se. There are numerous applications which allow you to have a quasi windows – explorer experience but via your laptop which to me somehow misses the point.
However, the application market place is a wonderful resource and there are excellent applications that enable easy working with Microsoft Office files. Best of these is Documents To Go which enables easy synchronisation with DropBox and Google Docs.
Additionally there are some great notetaking applications available – I like using Note Taking HD which enables note taking by writing with your finger on the screen – a bit strange at first but you quickly get used to it. Notes can then be emailed in PDF format. The best application is Evernote which enables synchronisation between all my computers and my Iphone.
I have even made Skype calls using the IPad. Video calls are not possible but the sound quality for voice calls is excellent. I won’t embarrass a well known commentator with whom I was speaking the other day – he didn’t realise that the IPad had a microphone!
Using it in meetings is an interesting experience – it usually ends up with people spending more time talking about and looking at the IPad than the main subject of the meeting.
So my verdict – very definitely 10/10.