Sometime ago I was lusting after an iPAD (jan 2010). I could envisage lots of uses for such a device around my home, at work and generally as a mobile device instead of lugging a laptop.
Now I've got one, or should I say, my library has bought a couple of devices for staff use. Yeah!! I have been bringing it home and figuring out the pros and cons of the device.
Dealing with "the Apple Way" was the first learning point. From a person who has used PC's her whole life, the Apple Way of doing things is a little different. Downloading iTunes onto my work PC, authorising it and syncing iTunes with the iPAD was relatively easy, if somewhat counter-intuitive to 20 years of PC using.
Downloading Apps from the iStore was easy - very similar to my Android Phone.
Paying for iWorks Apps such as Pages, Keynote and Numbers has enabled the device to be used with office files but it hurts that I need to download the three apps separately. Perhaps my systems admins can use a different, networked approach?
The interface with iTunes Apps File Sharing is workable but cumbersome. However, the document I transferred from the iPAD to the appropriate folder and then opened in Word 2007 worked like a dream. No importing problems or formatting problems so far.
So far I have avoided as much of the "cloud" as possible, for reasons to do with privacy and security, but I will have to approach that issue sooner or later.
I have downloaded eBooks, podcasts and iView programs - all good. More on eBooks later!
I have used the iPAD at a planning meeting, taking notes as the discussion evolved. I have loaded photos and used it as a photo slideshow, and I used the device in a particular Library Program.
The inbuilt camera is useful for Skype but does not have high enough resolution to use it as a camera. The size of the iPAD makes it difficult to focus as well.
I have also projected the iPAD screen onto a data projector.
The BAD part is the lack of Flash support - none of the Children's online databases subscribed to by my library work as all need Flash!
The interface is intuituve, easy to use and of course a little bit limiting.
But it is a fine piece of engineering and great to use while sitting on the couch in front of the fire!
See, that's what annoys me about Apple. If you dare to even consider straying from their set use cases you're considered to be defective and you will be locked into a mine cart and sent on a roller coaster ride lined with brightly coloured icons, kicking and screaming along the "right path"... and unlike Microsoft, they're brutal with backwards compatibility rapidly outdating older models and removing support for them.
ReplyDeleteRegarding getting stuff onto and from iDevices - unfortunately, it's ALL about the cloud. Get your apps from the app store, get your music from iTunes, get your email from "Mobile Me" or whatever the hell they're calling it this week :).. I dunno.. ultimately I think the best solution lays, as usual, somewhere in the middle, with people able to set up their own "cloud" services wherever they choose with whichever provider they like, or at home.. Centralised storage makes sense when one has so many different intelligent devices, but keeping control of that storage can be difficult.
I think I'm rambling now.. time for bed :)