So a recent blog was about the first 24 hours of my new magical and revolutionary Apple iPad. I wrote, with enthusiasm, of how I thought it would be a valuable tool to my working week, so here is my wrap up.
My Work Days
I joked when my iPad arrived, with my colleagues, that I was going to have a week without paper and pen – so in some ways that became the test for this week.
Firstly let me remind you that my day job is for the State Government and while the public sector is transforming itself there is still a considerable need for paper submissions and approvals, so going completely paperless isn’t easy.
Regardless of these limitations I am giving the iPad a tick for productivity improvements for the week, for example
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- Any action points that I gained during the day went straight into my online, syncing, task management program. Compared to my old method of witting it on my daily running sheet and then either trying to remember it or manually putting it into my calendar.
- I had it set up in one meeting with the photos of everyone at the meeting, their names, position and organization so I could easily remind myself of who they where. (Sounds weird but it made things a lot easier)
- I’ve used it to edit documents on the fly while in the back of cabs from one meeting to the other – it’s the form factor that makes it great for that sort of thing. Sure not something I have to do all the time, but it was great to be able to do it.
Some of these examples may seem small but when they occur over and over again in a day and a week – it adds up and makes a difference.
My Uni Class
Usually while I am in class I am doing e-mails, taking key notes from the presentation, reading RSS feeds, using google to quickly find information on the topic being presented, so I thought I would try it without my laptop and just use my iPad.
The hands down benefit of just taking the iPad is the sheer ease of use and portability, not to mention that it fits on those darn little tables much better than the 17” MBP. I managed to do everything I normally would do and found it less intrusive for the other students during the tute.
My Daily Commute
Okay so these days I catch a bus to and from work, prior to the iPad I tended to listen to music, read the occasionally newspaper article or some rss feeds or twitter. Now with the iPad I am finding that I am reading The Australian online before I get to work. This means that the 15/20 minutes I would spend going through the political and business headlines each morning are done before I get to the office another time saver.
Of course I also did the normal 15+ things during the commute now just with a bigger screen and keyboard.
But, it’s not all work there has been FUN as well.
I am not a huge game player but I do like a few other apps designed for chilling out. From streaming multi-format videos over wifi and 3g to my iPad to reading some of my favorite magazines, I am able to maximize my down time no matter where I am.
But is it really Magical and Revolutionary?
I can already hear people saying you can do all of that stuff on a netbook, but the fact is I didn’t and a lot of people I know with netbooks don’t.
I do know that restaurants, hair saloons and all sorts of businesses are using iPads in settings traditionally filled with paper based methods or inefficient cash register systems, they could have but didn’t use netbooks.
When all is said and done Apple sold 2 million iPads in the USA alone in the first 2 months of sales. Despite the critics of the iPad and the apparent lack of need for such a device many companies have subsequently announced plans to introduce their own device to compete with the iPad.
I feel, at very least, it is encouraging people to rethink the possible when it comes to mobile computing and that I is going to have a wider lasting, perhaps revolutionary, impact on the market than many would think.
In closing yes I am an Apple fan but I have used netbooks and tablets and this is the first such styled device that I have personally found useful.
If you have an iPad I would love to hear what you love about it and your favourite app(s).
Have a great day and thanks for reading.
JB
