The iPad Is an Indispensable Tool for Managing My Internet Business!
| I’ve had my iPad for about one month now, and I’m still learning all the nifty little things it can do.
The secret to making your iPad really useful is to make sure you download a lot of relevant and interesting apps! I have the iWork business apps, MobileMe to keep my iPad synch’d with my iPhone, ones that help me manage my outsourced Internet business, etc. There are lots of things I love about the iPad, and only a few things that have disappointed me … but those disappointments are really more about the apps than the iPad itself. |
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iPad Pros
| If you’ve been an iPhone user, you’ll love the iPad – the user interface is very similar and you’ll make the transition very smoothly.
It’s very lightweight and portable – I take it with me everywhere (it fits nicely in my handbag) and I use it constantly throughout the day. Here are just a few of the things that I use my iPad for: |
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- Email & web browsing, and managing my tunes and photos – the obvious uses
- Calendar & To-Do’s
- Monitoring and managing my investments and online banking
- Listening to internet radio
- Using my GPS to help me find my destination, and a traffic app to help me avoid accidents and traffic jams
- A nifty calculator – with a virtual calculator “tape”
- Tracking my FedEx, UPS, deliveries, etc.
- World clocks so I know what time it is in Belgium, Asia, etc. when trying to schedule global meetings
- App Deals keeps me apprised of the latest bargains on iPad apps
- An RSS Reader to review my Google alerts and blog subscriptions
- A variety of newspapers/magazines (e.g., USA Today, WSJ, TIme, Newsweek)
- Updating my blogs and managing my internet business
- Games & entertainment, including online books and movie theater info/ticketing (one of my favorite games is Tower Madness)
- Social media
- Hobbies, like cooking and genealogy
- Weather info – just downloaded a hurricane tracker so I could follow Hurricane Alex’s path through the Gulf
- Travel apps – a number of them, including AAA info, flights, taxis, exchange rates, etc.
iPad Cons
First, and foremost, is the price – it’s not cheap, especially if you get one of the upgraded models with lots of memory and the 3G data service (which, depending upon availability of local WiFi – you may want … I did).
Another difficulty was actually getting my hands on one – the stores were constantly out of stock, so I ended up ordering online (which worked out very well and you can track the entire delivery process all the way from Hong Kong online).
It does NOT have a camera and it’s NOT a cell phone – so you need to make your buying decision without expecting either one of those features to be present.
One of the big disappointments for me was that I wanted to use my iPad to join webinars via GoToMeeting – and there is a GoToMeeting app, so I thought I was in good shape; however, it doesn’t let you join webinars (just regular meetings?). I’m hoping that a future release of that app will provide a fix.
Another minor disappointment is that the iPad case I got from Apple gets dirty looking very quickly, but aside from that, the case is very useful and functional. (I find the flip lid to be particularly helpful when I’m trying to work outside and needing to block out the sun’s glare).
Conclusion
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All in all, if you want a lot of functionality (and you’re a “user” not a full-fledged “computer geek”), then I highly recommend the iPad. You can use it anywhere (at home, at work, at the beach…) and you can do a lot with it and get a lot of enjoyment from it. |
I do also recommend that you invest in some of the accessories – including the case and the camera upload. And, if you’re a heavy data user, or in an area where there aren’t a lot of readily accessible WiFi locations, the 3G service (that’s an extra monthly fee).
You also might want to download the iPad Tips application – even if you’ve been an iPhone user for awhile – it taught me some tips that I hadn’t thought of before even though I’ve been using the iPhone for quite a long time.
| Whether you want to manage your social networking, stay abreast of current events, read the latest novel online, stream videos or Netflix, manage your internet business, do some sort of freelancing, or maybe you’re a Boomer who just wants to have a custom storybook to read to your grandchildren, check out the iPad – maybe it will meet your needs as well as it has met mine. |  |
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