PREFACE: This blog entry is not intended as advertisement for Apple’s iPad. High Rock Studios is in no way connected to Apple, and we use both Macs and PCs in our work. There are other similar tablet devices in the works, most notably HP’s “Slate,” which is based on Windows 7 and will display Flash content (unlike the iPad). But the iPad is the first tablet to really make an impression on the market, hence my focus on it. All tablets will potentially have a big impact!
It’s hard not to have heard of Apple’s iPad, soon to be in the hands of countless Apple fans (the device is officially available on April 3rd.) But the iPad appeals to more people than Apple fans. I’m a lifelong PC user, and I’m planning to buy an iPad. Why? Read on…
The iPad will push the print publishing industry farther into the digital realm than ever before. We’ve been hearing for a long time that one day print won’t exist (and many trees will be saved). It was a pipe dream for years, and then devices like Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s eReader started the revolution. The problem with these devices is that reading is all they’re good for. People still balked at the clunky tablets and limited grayscale displays. They still preferred the simple lightness and comfort of paper.
The iPad puts all these qualities into a sleek, beautiful tablet that’s a pleasure to hold. The sharp, well-lit display is as easy on the eye as any electronic device can be, and what makes it superior to previous
e-reading devices is that it does much more than display text. It displays video, photographs, websites, plays music, and runs applications in what is arguably the best form factor of any device to date. And it even lets you turn pages. Not just “click to advance” to the next page…but literally peel the leaf from side to side, in the same smooth, slow rolling motion we use with paper. This might seem like silly eye-candy to some, but I think it’s a crucial detail for the widespread adoption of e-reading—because it’s familiar. And that’s a good thing.

What this means for the print publishing industry is now there is a device that can display (for example) an e-magazine with all the brilliance and beauty of its paper counterpart. And it’s comfortable to hold and easy to use. That’s what distinguishes reading a magazine on the iPad from reading it on your computer. Publishers will be able to offer periodicals via the web—formatted for the iPad—at reasonable prices (less than the printed version). This is huge. And people will go for it. (Even your grandmother will go for it.)
Better still, the iPad has the potential to increase sales for publishers and get more people reading their work. Here’s a perfect example: as a teenager, I loved National Geographic magazine. My mother bought me a subscription, and I couldn’t wait to get lost in those amazing photographs and stories. Now, as an adult, it’s been years since I even held a print copy of National Geographic, much less bought one. And I never go to their website, because when I’m in the mood to get lost in stories about exotic places, I don’t want to sit at my desk or have a hot, clunky laptop on my legs. But I’d be happy to pay a few dollars for the iPad version of the magazine and be able to sit on my porch on a spring morning and rediscover this great publication—without fear of accumulating 100-pound boxes of old issues.
Beyond reading, viewing photos, watching movies, playing music , and surfing the web…a question that’s being thrown around a lot is whether the iPad will have any legitimate business uses? This is a good question, because all of us business folks would love an excuse to justify getting a handful of iPads for the office. Let’s take a look at some of the potential business uses for the iPad, and preface it with this caveat: like any device, getting the best use of an iPad will depend largely on recognizing the device’s strengths and weaknesses. Too often we’re obsessed with the “One Device to Rule Them All” concept…and this just isn’t reality. We can’t maintain our yards with a single tool, and we shouldn’t expect to do business with a single device.
The Top 5 Business Uses/Reasons for an iPad
1. It’s a great presentation tool. Nothing will look as slick (nor be as convenient) as sliding an iPad from it’s case and lighting up the screen with your…umm…Powerpoint presentation. Okay, so maybe your Powerpoint show needs work, but it’ll be a lot friendlier on an iPad. And regardless of whether Powerpoint will ever exist for the iPad, you’ll likely be able to create the show on a PC and import it into Apple’s Keynote on the iPad.
2. It’s easy to pass around. How many times have you wanted to show someone a photo or diagram on your laptop, and you had to shove your laptop over to them or they had to get out of their chair and stand over your shoulder. With the iPad, no more—it’s as easy to hand off as a legal pad.
3. It will run the 150,000+ iPhone apps in Apple’s App Store. Not all of these apps will be formatted specifically for the iPad at first, but developers will be converting their iPhone apps quickly. (And you can still run them even if not formatted for the iPad—they’ll just look a little small or a little large on the iPad’s screen.) And while a lot of these apps are games, many are brilliantly-designed, functional tools. Depending on your business, this could be a big advantage. From ballistics specifications to music composition to video storyboarding to language translation, I believe some of the best, most creative software development in the world is going into App Store apps. And you’ll no longer have to have an iPhone or iPod Touch to use them—you can keep your BlackBerry and have the best of both worlds!
4. It will make working-on-the-go easier. I hate that cliché, but it’s true. Some have pointed out that you can’t do with an iPad what you can do with a laptop or desktop computer. Maybe not, but you can review documents, videos, presentations, and edit/annotate them on an iPad. I’m a writer, and I’d have no problem writing on an iPad with the addition of a physical keyboard (which you’ll easily be able to use with an iPad). The iPad will be easier to carry than a laptop, and it will be more pleasant to use for reading and reviewing than an iPhone or BlackBerry.
5. It will be a great portable reference tool. Whether you need to find information on the web or refer to business-specific documentation, the iPad’s strengths as an e-reader will make it an excellent reference tool—not just because of how it looks, but because people won’t mind hauling it around. Yes, it’s bigger and heavier than a smartphone…but it’s a heck of a lot nicer and easier to use than a laptop.
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As with any new technology, there are plenty of people smugly disparaging the iPad as a legitimate business device…but their arguments in my opinion ring hollow. The most common complaints come from corporate IT managers who dismiss the iPad because it can’t easily be locked into a hyper-controlled, secured link in the corporate network chain. But it wasn’t meant for this.
Above all, the iPad is meant to be a communications tool. Its strength is how it can convince and motivate people and compel them to action through photographs, sound, and text. For businesses that rely on good communication (and who doesn’t?), this is big.