It was the company spring yesterday, every way your turned someone was asking about the iPad and how things were going with it. Was it replacing our notebooks? Will their group get to start using soon? Do we use the iPads at home too? We should have matched our notes up before walking into that den of wolves… who would have known there was so many eyes watching.
Home and Work so far:
Home – while we will keep our notebooks or desktop computers we have now for the heavy lifting. All of the day to day, around the house work is being done by the iPads. Web browsing, reading many magazines, keeping lists, reviewing work PDFs, watching movies/TV via Netflix, keeping up on the news and doing work/personal emails. Unless it is really intense and you need to stare at the big screen of a conventional computer, we have moved it off to the iPad. Yes, even spreadsheets and power points for the neighborhood meetings.
Work – the desktop computer is used a lot still for corporate level communications, it could be done on the iPad but it’s just faster with the full power. No one has given up their notebooks yet but we are seeing all iPad owners carrying them everywhere they go about the office. Quick notes either in text/handwritten ink via a couple different apps or typing out longer items into Evernote. Quickoffice and Documents to Go are not laid out for the iPad resolution yet so Word docs are mostly just viewed. There is a lot of viewing documents and being able to resource data via GoodReader – tied to the Cloud storage. Some thought should be given to a great viewer app, AirSharing Pro, if the user is staying on the network and reaching back to their desktop for files.
In chatting with non company folks, there is a lot of concern about storing corporate files on non-company cloud solutions. Either the thinking will change over time as IT Security buys into outside options or companies start doing their own cloud storage. This isn’t an issue if everything you are working on is within the office network, thus Sales is very excited about SalesForce.com coming to the iPad.
ToDo lists and quick sketches of project layouts are areas that continue being moved over to the iPad. These are items that lend themselves to being able to interact with your finger and involve others around you due to the slate form factor.
Will other departments be jumping onboard with the iPad? Initially, we do not see any local groups ordering iPads for the folks instead of notebooks. For really mobile and interactive groups and the lower cost of entry into the iPad, we see iPads in their near future. Remember, hardware is only part of the roll-out expense, software needed to do the job needs to be put into the financial plan as well. The iPad solutions are by far less expensive when compared to desktop software.
No spring party at your place? You can always use the free iPad app Loopt Pulse to find the hot spot near you.
