Apple released its newest piece of tech yesterday, the iPad, and immediately half of the world claimed it as the second coming, and the other half decried it. Comments were made about it’s name, about it being an OS X killer, about it being too expensive, about it not having built in 3G on the base model, about it being tied to AT&T, about it being a Kindle killer, about it not being a Kindle killer, and about it being just a bigger iPod Touch. Personally, I think it’s a fantastic product, particularly for someone like me, but it’s not going to replace laptops like the MacBook or MacBook Pro nor displace the iPod Touch any time soon. Here are my thoughts on it.

Me as The Student

• This is great replacement for getting a netbook for most students, because it essentially consolidates a netbook and an iPod Touch into one device for about the same price. Since moving to Mac I wouldn’t consider getting a netbook for being on campus because I’d have to go back to Windows or to use Linux. I don’t have time for downtime, so this would give me the Mac experience and still allow me to be productive but not lugging my expensive laptop around.
• I need to be connected on campus. The iPad allows me to do it for 1/2 the price of a MacBook, and 1/3 of a mid-range MacBook pro. $500 versus $1000 or $1500. With the open wifi on campus, I don’t need the 3G option, and I don’t need more than 16Gb, so the cheapest unit will work fine for me.
• It’ll run Pages, Spreadsheets and Keynotes, meaning I can write up school work directly on it, and share it with my other Mac computers via syncing (local, cloud etc). I can also run Evernote and other note-taking tools on it. Of course, it’d be nice if Pages did a better import of Microsoft documents.
• Textboks for courses can be made available on the iPad, meaning I don’t need to carry 5-8 heavy books around on campus with me at any one time. I can use this to have books open, and then use my MacBook Pro to write assignments on. With my MacBook Pro plugged into the mains, and the iPad plugged into it and staying charged, I have the ultimate assignment writing set up with dual screens. I get a full tactile keyboard to write with, and the ability to flip through books as needed. Not a bad thing.
• The microphone and voice memo function allows for ubiquitous capture of to do lists as well as brief notes. This is ideal for GTD, and for capturing class notes and encoding them on the fly.

Me as The Future Professor

• The ability to hook the iPad to a projector and use it to display notes or operate as a whiteboard is fantastic. No need to worry about having a laptop or computer hooked up in a lab to the digital projectors. I can just take my iPad with me and use it instead.
• This is the perfect platform for me to deliver my own course notes and podcasts on. Although this sort of content should be platform agnostic (RTF, HTML, MP3 etc), having a device that students can use to access support documents is a win for both instructor and student. I can also create interactive applications to help them learn core concepts.
• This is the perfect mobile device for a professor because it allows access to web, email, schedules, course content and other support tools but being small enough to put in your day bag.
• The microphone and voice memo function would allow in-class capture of to dos and brief notes, as well as the ability to record audio on the fly for student content. With dictation software, this would be ideal to help support those students that are sight-impaired or who are aural learners, which is a consideration that all instructors should (but don’t) take into account.

Me as The Gamer

• For on-the-go gaming, my iPod Touch, which has 8Gb of space, has become my default gaming device. I can snatch in 5-30 minutes of game time, from simple games to more advanced like Civ Revolution. All of the games I’ve already bought will work and may be upgraded to the new device specs. This means I have zero loss of investment.
• Games that specifically utilize the screen real estate of the iPad will be developed, leading to a richer experience.
• I use Parallels and Bootcamp to access Windows to play all of the games that I already own. The iPad doesn’t support this, and I don’t see it doing it. I need to use an external keyboard and mouse to play these games. The MacBook Pro has this covered, as well as the stronger and better processor and larger hard drive space. Games for the iPad will be designed to take advantage of its capabilities, but desktop and laptop gaming are not going to disappear.
• I’ve just gotten back into playing tabletop RPGs, but many of the guys I play with have their laptops with them, and I’ve taken mine, when we get together. It’s bulky and takes up some space, and creates a physical barrier between us. The iPad is perfect to take to gaming sessions, especially if there was an app that allowed you to store your character via an online sync service. Being a GM and having all your campaign notes in one place, and that could be updated, is also beneficial. It would also be perfect to use instead of using miniatures, especially if everyone had one and everyone was running a synchronized battle map program that allows you to move characters and fight.

Me as the Media Consumer

• I already use Stanza and Amazon reader on my iPod Touch. I’m finding that it’s easier for me to do that than it is for me to have a physical book around at times, particularly if I’m on the move, or lying in bed. I can still use these, as well as supplement with the new iBooks program.
• I don’t watch many movies or shows on the iPod Touch, but I do on my MacBook Pro. The larger screen on the iPad and syncing with my iTunes means I can watch on a larger screen. I’ll be more apt to watch more media.
• I track all my book, videos and games with the Hunter Suite by Joel Ares. The iPad still allows me to continue to do.
• The iPad is too unwieldy to carry in my pocket when I work out, although it would allow me to watch my own television while working out. I prefer to listen to music and focus on my breathing and the workout, so the iPod Touch wins out here. But it might be idea for others.
• I also use my drive time to college and work to catch up on podcasts. The iPad will need a whole new set of connectors to put in the car to use, but it’d make an excellent GPS device, particularly with the 3G option.

Me as the Connected Family Man

• I need access to email and other web tools because they’re heavily integrated into my lifestyle. When I’m not with my family, that’s how we stay in contact. I use Google Tools such as Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Reader and News every day.
• I would have access to Remember the Milk’s client, just like on my iPod Touch. We use this to sync school assignments, shopping lists and other important family tasks and to dos.
• Having a bigger screen for web browsing over the iPod Touch will be great. While using mobile-enabled versions of sites is workable, sometimes you need to have more on the screen at one time. Mobile Safari compensates with using screen gestures to make pages bigger, but you still don’t the full experience of the layout of a site. Although content is king, layout is a large part of the experience.
• Apple also needs to enable Flash on all its mobile devices and allow users to turn it on or off as they want. Yes, it’s a resource hog, but there’s also a lot of web apps out there that rely on using it, and you can’t use these sites if you don’t have access to Flash. Good design or bad per website, Apple’s decision to exclude Flash stops the iPad from being a true netbook replacement. Allow Flash to be installed post-purchase, and trust the user to decide whether to use it or not. The same goes for Silverlight.
• Last year my wife stated that she wanted a touchscreen pc that she could carry around the house and mount on the wall when not in use. This would allow her to use the web to view recipes, to use email and a few other features. We ended up with the iPod Touch because it’s what is available now. The iPad fits the bill for what she wanted to, and I can see it’s use in being a household media device for multiple tasks, particularly for people who have certain hobbies.

However, the iPad isn’t perfect:

• It lacks a camera, Why the heck is this the case? The iPod Touch and the iPad should have cameras. They operate as cameras when you plug them into your Mac/Windows PC, so they should operate as cameras in all other ways.
• Lack of multitasking is a problem. This should be a user-defined setting, so that you can swap between the apps running. The fact that apps may remember or bookmark where you are when you close isn’t the solution as you still need to open and close apps in serial. OS X and its mobile variants are good enough at multitasking and handling idle processes that it shouldn’t be a problem. If you can get 67 hours from a MacBook Pro on battery, you should be able to get the same on an iPad, especially when you take out all the other tech that can consume power.
• It’s only available on the AT&T 3G network. This is the same network that is already buckling under iPhone usage. How is it going to handle all the additional traffic that is going to come its way, particularly with the no-contract $30 unlimited plan that comes with it? I foresee some major problems, as well as much bemoaning from the existing iPhone users who are paying double for the same type of access and who are locked into a contract.

Lastly, here are some wishes for the future for me:

• What I’d really love to see is the ability to read a textbook in iBooks or some other app, then be able to run a bibliography function that captures a quote and exports it to a bibliography manager like Endnote. This would be a killer for education.
• The ability to take pictures and run OCR on the iPad would make it a tool as well, although that would chew up some CPU cycles.
• Books are more than just words. Content takes many forms, and the best type of content is that which inspires, and helps you remember. Integrating the ability to turn books into interactive applications would readily improve any of the education books coming on iBooks. Imagine a book that explains a concept, then allows you to run an embedded video of it instead of going out to a website, or allows you to run an interactive tool showing the concepts.

That’s it in a nutshell for me. The iPad is a bridge, a supplement, an enhancement to what I do now and what I plan to do in the future. So, what does the iPad mean to you?

Tags: apple, ipad, ipod, netbook, student, professor, college

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