5 Things I Have Done With My iPad

David Gilder    Gadgets and Stuff     Apple, Computers, Internet, iPad, Technology

Now that I have had my iPad for a month, I thought I would update everyone on what I have been doing with it. I have used it nearly every single day of that period, at home, at the studio, and even out and about. Below, in no particular order, are five areas that I have found regular use for my iPad.

Watching Video

This is a media device, and I have consumed media on it regularly. The Netflix application has worked well, and ABC’s app covers two of the shows I try to stay caught up on (Lost and Flash Forward). I have downloaded shows through iTunes and watched movies transferred from my library. All in all it does a great job with video, and doesn’t get hot. My biggest complaint here is that CBS’s stopped allowing iPad viewers to watch shows like CSI on the iPad. It worked the first few weeks, and then they locked it down for iPad users. If that’s not illegal, it should be made so. Device discrimination! The content is freely available on their website, the iPad has a full version of the Safari web browser, and they are taking advantage of my User Agent string to discriminate against my device!

Surfing the Internet

I check email, financial news and stocks, my stock photography portfolio, read the news, and catch up on comics most mornings on my iPad. I can’t recall running across any pages that required Flash, so that hasn’t really been an issue. Pages load fast, and you can keep multiple pages open at once. One improvement I would like to see here is and option to have the new page open in a new window, but have the view stay on the current window instead of automatically switching to the new one. Many times I find a page that has three or four links I want to check out. I’d like to be able to open all those pages but stay where I found the links until I am ready to go look at those other pages. Switching back and forth every time you open a new link is annoying. That said, Safari on iPad is still an excellent way to browse the web.

Reading Books

I have been working my way through Winnie the Pooh with my 4yo at bedtimes. He loves being read to from the iPad. We still read from his paper books most nights, but reading from the iPad is like an extra treat that he gets excited about. My wife and I both enjoy reading on the iPad, its the perfect size to prop on your knee and just read away, happily flipping through pages as you go.

Taking Photos

One of the nice features of the iPad is its ability to run most iPhone applications out of the box. Using a MacBook attached to my camera and onOne’s DSLR Remote iPhone app, I used my iPad to frame and shoot overhead shots in my studio. This made things much easier for me, as I could use the live preview from the camera, and see it on the iPad as I was moving things around. All of the primary camera settings can be controlled remotely through the iPad, so I could do test shots, then zoom in and take a closer look, update settings and test again. While I could have done this all from my iPhone as well, the larger screen made things much more visible, even with the 2x blowup. I can’t wait for an iPad update to this app from onOne.

All Those Useful Apps!

There are a lot of apps in the App store. This last section is just a list of some of the things I have done with available apps, most of which were iPad specific. I have:

• Entertained myself in a movie theater before the show started (Tetris and various others),
• Looked up a recipe and searched for ideas for dinner (Epicurious),
• Looked up information about my motherboard while my computer was disassembled (Safari),
• Looked up a phone number (Maps),
• Listened to Pandora,
• Played air hockey with my 4yo (Air Hockey),
• Pointed out to my wife just where Pluto was, if you happened to be able to see through Earth (Star Walk),
• Controlled my media center (TV) computer remotely (Snatch, iTeleport),
• Found nearby WiFi (WiFiFoFum),
• Used it as the worlds most expensive flashlight on a camping trip (Flashlight),
• Checked the inclination of my workstation monitor (Clinometer),
• Looked up definitions (Dictionary),
• Logged into a server to move a file (iSSH),
• Tweeted (TweetDeck, Twitteriffic),
• Made a phone call (Skype),
• And my wife used it to record a meeting she was going to transcribe (Recorder).

The one area where I planned to use it, but have not gotten around to yet, is as a digital photo portfolio for my professional work. I’ve used it to show people my photos on Flickr, but I haven’t loaded it up with my portfolio yet. I should get to work on that, they are going to really pop on that beautiful screen at full resolution!

All in all, I am very pleased with the iPad. Its fast, its easy to carry around with you, and I find it to be very useful on a daily basis. Plus the kids love it!

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