April 05, 2010

Why I Got an iPad

One advantage of living in a smaller city is that you don’t need to wake up at 5 am to get your hands on an iPad.  In fact, stopping by Providence Place around 3pm on Saturday still scored our family the iPad we’ve been waiting for.  Even after all the media attention that has been paid to the launch of the iPad, many still remain skeptical on whether or not Apple’s iPad will be revolutionary or a ho-hum.  All I can say is that for me, I knew as soon as I saw the launch event that I wanted one.  Why? I see this device as a bridge technology between my iPhone and laptop and here is how I plan on using it.

Business Travel

When I’m travelling to business meetings or conferences, I tend to use my laptop and iPhone to view content rather than create it.  Generally I use email, browsing, travel apps, Tweetdeck, and possibly some entertainment (iBooks/Videos) for when my brain is too fried to keep working.   Instead of letting my eyes blur spending hours hunched over my iPhone, I look forward to taking my iPad on my next trip.  The instant on is a huge plus for plane and train travel where I lose so much time waiting for my laptop to boot and it will handle all my basic content consumption needs.

Personal Travel

We are planning a family trip to Hawaii this year and the iPad was a must have for the long flight — knocking the battery life of the iPhone, laptop and Leapster out of the park.  It will also save space in our luggage by leaving the game cartridges, books, laptop, and DVDs at home.  I can’t wait to use the eReader, load it up with some movies to kill time on the flight, keep all my daughter’s favorite apps from my iPhone and load up some new ones.  Then, once I’m there, I may be compelled to check email and check on my social networks from time to time.  And yes, I can do all this on my iPhone but we know the battery is crap and writing longer emails is painful.

Household Appliance

I’ve long envisioned an instant-on device that would sit on our kitchen island and allow me to check weather, view recipes, catch up on news, and sneak in a little work while I’m “cooking” without getting called on the carpet about it.  I even installed an outlet into the kitchen island in anticipation — even if I did claim it was for my Cuisinart.

So did you get a iPad? What will you use it for? I’d love to hear.  And, if you haven’t seen last week’s Modern Family, you need to watch it…