The iPad: Good for Business or Just for Fun?

If you are contemplating an iPad the big question is really, where does it fit?  Is it really for business or more of a fun thing to have?  Kind of a cool reader, or game base or music and video box, or is it a fantastic business tool?  Which one?

Recently on a flight to DC a stewardess stopped me and asked did I like my iPad?  What a question!  I’m the man.

I love the little pad from Apple.  I really got it to use for business and I don’t have any games on it outside of the free game app that gets plugged in when you load the 4.2 version of the software, but I haven’t opened it.  I keep music on my iPhone so I don’t use iPad space for that.  Seems a little more convenient to play songs on the mini-box.  I rarely use video unless it’s business related, sales or educational--but those are rare.

What I do use it for is incredible but it is only one of three tools (I’ve been a Mac guy for years so sorry, all my stuff is Mac), I have the iPad, iPhone and a couple Mac’s.  I really bought the iPad to travel with as I got tired of lugging a bigger briefcase around especially through the airport.  Now I have a messenger bag that is light, easy to carry and fits anywhere.  So what are the pros?  Notice I am not even going down the con list.  Really not much from my point of view...

Portability:

Recently I traveled to Central America.  I needed e-mail, web, reference, a photo storage, news access, weather and travel data as well as the ability to manage my flights, hotel, etc.  Also, I was pretty much hitting the rural route so it was vital I could conceal it, and when not with me lock it up easy.  The iPad is awesome on all these, and it’s just small enough to fit in the standard hotel room safe!  Made the worries go away quick.  I do use the password function to access the iPad, because if it’s ever stolen I can either remote wipe it completely out and erase all the content, or after several false attempts by a thief--it does it itself.  I sit in the airport and watch people pack their monster size laptops with 4 pound battery packs into rolling bags that rarely fit in the luggage space, and then recharge their 3-hour battery life in the gate concourses.  I don’t even travel with a power cord anymore as the iPad stretches out into an all-day tool hitting about 10 hours of pretty active use, or a few days between flights, morning and evening work.  Gone is the shoulder beast.

Quick:

The other day I powered up my wife’s Toshiba laptop with Windows and I thought I would lose my mind waiting for the thing to just get to the basic opening page!  It was like I was stepping back into the 80’s.  Either I am so impatient (I’ll take the hit there) or I am just accustomed to the blazing fast load on the iPad.  Press the button and a second later you are on.  No hourglass.  Gone.

Accessible:

This thing can read and open almost everything there is.  PDF, Word, Excel, text docs, pictures, and everything else.  The only thing it won’t routinely open is videos especially flash, but I so rarely use them, and if a website opens in flash, quite frankly I get off of those as quick as I can.  Ditto for sites that open with music playing.  They’ll play on the iPad, I just won’t stay on the site.  Somehow folks still think that’s cool.

Blogging, writing, notes and letters:

If you write almost anything the iPad is by far my favorite platform.  The keypad takes a little learning (especially going back and forth between numbers and some punctuation or symbols), but once you get it, it rips.  It is silent and fast and self correcting, and always seems to think ahead of you for what to capitalize, etc.  You can download a journal app that makes you feel like your writing in a small leather journal as you magically travel the globe, making you believe on the plane trip to Charlotte that you’re really on a long journey to Bangledesh.  Sweet.

Reference:

I work a lot on health care related projects so I like to have access to the thousands of billing codes for medicare and other payers.  I have 4 apps for that.  I like a good resource for medications so I have a MicroMedex app that gives me thousands of up-to-date drug profiles from cost to application, adverse reactions, etc.  Not only that it’s the real big-boy stuff--the same as the hospital formulary in thousands of hospital pharmacies around the country.  Fast, easy and pow I’ve got it.  Need the market data on a real estate piece of property?  Instant, market price, movement, and trends.  Need to convert foreign currency?  Instant, anything, anywhere, and actually current adjustments to money market shifts.  Dictionary, thesaurus, word use and even street use.  All there. 

Work tools:

Productivity tools, SWOT analysis, business plans or brainstorming.  Everything is available .  Need to design a floor plan, develop a sales brochure or build a spreadsheet?  Done.  Need to build a presentation with super-cool charts or grafts and send them instantly anywhere in the world?  I can.  If you need proof see Roambi in the app store.

Need to dictate a report, or message, then have it typed automatically, then email anywhere, post to wherever, or stick in the cloud?  How about just wireless print the thing?  You can.  Fast easy and whoa, how nice.

Catching up:

I read the USA Today, everyday for free.  Like to follow BBC?  Its available.  I read more papers and articles for free, and without the waste of paper or inconvenience of trying to keep a 30 inch paper in my 20 inch airplane seat.  I watch travelers reading outdated editions spread out all over and wonder what it is like to live back then...

Communication:

The iPad has it all for communicating.  I have multiple email accounts for various companies I own, and it handles them all well.  Skype account to save on the long haul phone calls, cloud disks to send, transfer or share almost anything anywhere, and almost any size document.  No hard disk, so nothing whirls, or spins, or reads or writes.  Old-school stuff unless you still use the old Microsoft vintage stuff.  I stay more connected in Guatemala with my family and business affiliates then most people in the same neighborhood.

Readers:

If you read books, go to the library, or visit the local bookstore, get ready to move all those things into the obsolete category.  I still have people who say “I just love to sit and hold a real book” or “books will never go away”, or a million other things about the outdated process of printing, distributing, and publishing actual books.  Hardcover, paperback, comic, or whatever, let me be the first to say it.  Obsolete, yesterday, vintage.  I can read almost any book within minutes of even thinking about it.  I can write my own, publish it, download it and sell it--all on my iPad.  I have in my iBooks library the free Winnie-the-Pooh book that comes with iBooks.  I also have the 900 pages of the health care bill that could infuriate the heck out of anybody who takes the time to read it.  I can download a PDF and slap it on my bookshelf all in a few seconds, and sit back and marvel at the coolness of my wood bookshelf, while others fight the crowd and stand in line at the big-box bookstores.  No more waiting for the little lady to finish writing her check and the manager to then approve.  Gone forever.

Entertainment:

I don’t use my iPad for entertainment in the real sense very often, but if I wanted to I could access the home account for Netflicks and pick a movie instantly.  If I am at home and need to search Netflicks, and you ever have had to use the annoying search box you could spend eternity typing  letter-by-letter getting the search in.  Or you could whip open the iPad, pop up the keyboard and remotely do it all, as if it magically took over.  Youtube?  All there even has it’s own instant app.  Music likewise, and plenty of music apps to turn your iPad into a piano, drum set, violin or whatever.  Buy an adapter and plug in your vintage Gibson and let it rip as you pick your amp model.  Record, compose, and develop.  All there.

Coolness:

I absolutely love the slickness, speed, color, brightness and style of the iPad, but I also like to create on my own.  Click a button and you have an inexpensive rival to Illustrator, but this one intuitive, and easy to use.  Click again and free hand draw like a real artist.  Click again and build cool designs, develop a fashion design or invent a prototype.

A few months ago I was at a meeting in LA.  Met a group from India and wanted to convey what we could do at our training center in South Carolina.  I clicked a button, grabbed my home page off the App selection, opened our website, went to the training center, spread the image with two fingers, and literally popped inside our beautiful center.  All in about 4 seconds, and all with a crowd from across the world gathered around my iPad bringing it all together in an impressive, fast, unbelievable way.

I keep reading of the perpetual negative talk and reasons why the iPad is not for business, all the while I’m enjoying it everyday.  The iPad is for business--in a refreshing, intuitive, innovative way.

Certainly the way we conduct business is changing.  With the iPad it is a pleasure to be on the forefront of the change.