The iPad and Productivity
This article will primarily focus on how the iPad can be used for productive tasks. While contemplating the purchase of an iPad, one might wonder, what will I use it for? How will it fit into my workflow? What is it best at? After using it for a few weeks this is a brief summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the iPad:
- Consuming Information
- Reading/Responding/Managing email
- Reading PDF documents, manuals, etc
- Reading web articles
- Reading RSS feeds
- Reading books
- Meetings
- Taking notes
- Creating To-Do Items from meeting
- Accessing reference materials during meeting
- Scheduling future meetings
- Presentations: You can use Keynote to display a presentation, and it even features a built-in laser pointer - note one major limitation: You won't be able to display external web pages. Also presenter notes are not displayed.
- Documents
- Syncing documents between main computer and iPad allows you to carry a library of reference material and recent documents with you. Notes on projects, budgets, configurations, etc
- I wouldn't characterize the iPad as a tool to be used when you really need to hammer out a whole, polished, finished document, however it can be used very effectively in two ways:
- Sketching out an idea for a new document
- Light edits to existing documents
- Research
- Several applciations provide a unique workflow for different types of research. You can view web pages and RSS feeds, PDF articles, and send web pages to InstaPaper.
- Personal Information Manager
- Calendar management is much more useful on the iPad compared to an iPhone
- To-Do List management
- Portability
- For many scenarios you will be able to get by with an iPad, and not need to take the larger laptop
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