Waiting for the iPad
April 2, 2010
As I write, my iPad is somewhere between home and Linthicum, Maryland, entrusted to the nice people at UPS. In anticipation, I’ve queued up a number of applications so I’m ready to go once it’s un-boxed.
Several of the dedicated apps I’ve selected are, at least primarily work related. The iWork suite was a given – very curious to see how Keynote, Pages, and Numbers – which I enjoy – make the transition to a touch environment. I’ve also included the WebEx client – this was an app I reviewed for Macworld when it first came out. I actually used it a few times for meetings, and am very interested to determine how the larger iPad implementation is to use. Disappointed to hear that you apparently still cannot lead a meeting from the device. The NPR for iPad application is an essential news application, which I’ve augmented with both Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters.
I’m from the Midwest, where the weather is a never ending source of discussion, so I’ve loaded a couple of weather applications. AccuWeather has a dedicated iPad version; I’ve used the iPhone version and enjoy it greatly. The Weather Channel iPhone implementation never grabbed by long lasting attention, but I’ve loaded the iPad version to try it again. Twitterrific is the early client of choice for 140-word missives. Surprised that Tweetie seems to be a no-show, at least at this point. And a few pure entertainment apps – ABC, iBooks, and Netflix.
There are a handful of iPhone/iPad apps I already own – Evernote is the essential one in the mix. Really looking forward to Dropbox, which seems to be missing so far.
The goal, at least for me, is to use my 27″ iMac for the bulk of my work – it’s got tremendous power for photo editing, and offers lots of real estate for writing. Be interesting, on that point, to see if Scrivener develops an iPad version – somehow I don’t see it. The iPad is primarily meant for work while out and about and at clients. I’ll be taking my aging laptop, for awhile, but will be great to ditch it.
