Life with an iPad
We’ve had some iPads here for a little while now, so we’re probably in as good a position as anyone to comment on their usefulness. The hype has been huge and has also been matched by the resulting sales, with Apple initially targeting consumers rather than companies.
As a consumer device, there’s clearly a lot to like with an iPad, particularly if you’re a gadget collector. Whilst it’s not a replacement for a laptop it has some key features that make it very useful:
• it’s instantly on when you need it – no waiting for it to boot up;
• a great battery life;
• it’s intuitive and simple to use and the tactile nature of it appeals to most people.
So for something that’s just there for quickly dealing with your email (without resorting to a smartphone’s keypad), browsing the internet, accessing your social networks, playing games or using the countless available apps it is, without doubt, better than a laptop. I suspect that many iPads will end up as quick to use devices that are shared and used when you’re sat in front of the TV. In a word, iPads are convenient. However, I can’t imagine many people will get one and say they no longer need a PC, at least not in their current incarnation.
So what about business use? For many businesses the iPad will be an executive productivity tool (or status symbol – perhaps it’s this decade’s Filofax). As a productivity tool, the iPad is actually quite useful. As well as the obvious benefit of providing email, calendaring and contacts in a reasonably easy to use form, with the addition of some suitable apps it can also be a great way to organise to-do lists and your thoughts (try the “Things” app, not cheap but certainly useful).
Many people are hoping it will replace the pad of paper or notebook for meetings, but I’m not sure it’s quite there yet. It can be done with perseverance and some will no doubt do this but it’s not quite fast or intuitive enough. Perhaps the apps in this area will improve over time.
However, there are some instances, for some companies where the iPad could really shine. At the moment the iPad provides a real “wow factor” and people are looking to use it at the point of sale with their customers. This is typically using custom apps for activities like form filling and showing pictures and documents. There are also many specialist applications for areas such as graphic design, chart creation and screen design that professionals can use with their clients. Innovative organisations are already developing applications that can help them get an edge with the iPad and it’s certainly worth thinking about whether it can help your business too.
Now we have to wait for the competition to appear and I’m sure they’ll be a plethora of different form factors and user interfaces appearing in the next year to rival the iPad. However, Apple seems to have done a good enough job (as they did with the iPhone) to hold off competitors for a little while at least. For this reason, at Perfect Image we’re investing in iPad development skills and expect it to be a viable development platform for specialised commercial use (as well as consumer applications) for the next few years.
