by Bill Haughee

President, Custom Computer Services

I am not really that much of an early adopter of technology (anymore). This is because I’ve personally been bitten by too much technical speculation in the past.

Recently, at my wife’s urging and much to my pleasure, I acquired an iPad 2. I’d watched those using them and thought “That looks like a pretty useful device”.

In years past, I’d watched people with their iPhones and felt pretty much the same way. It was finally time to trade in the Palm Treo for an iPhone 3gs. This was complicated by a change in phone vendors from Verizon to AT&T. I give you this iPhone background for another reason as well. If you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch user, the iPad is pretty much a no brainer if you long for a bit more screen real estate to display information and run many apps.

I haven’t personally used other tablets other than an early hp convertible pc where the screen swiveled and you could use a stylus on the screen (bad experience). I am very pleased with the usefulness and simplicity of the iPad. It just does what I expect it to do and I find the interface very intuitive.

The way I use my iPad at work is to record notes during client and employee meetings. I use an application called WritePad where I can write on a portion of the screen and have my writing converted to editable text as I go. WritePad syncs documents to Evernote (another favorite application) which stores my documents so they are accessible from my computer, phone and tablet.

Because of the many passwords I must manage, I use an app called SplashID to securely carry confidential information on my iPad, iPhone, and laptop. As you can see, much of what I appreciate is the fact that the iPad gives me another tool to access information I refer to regularly.

Since my company runs a Microsoft Exchange server for email, the iPhone and iPad use the ActiveSync feature to keep email, contacts, calendar, and tasks in sync on all these devices as well. I setup the iPad to get my Hotmail and Gmail accounts as well.

The final app I’ll mention is GoTasks. This simple task manager syncs to Google Tasks (so the tasks are available on other devices) and it helps keep me focused on what I need to accomplish.

One of the hurdles I had to jump in my purchase decision was which model to purchase. The iPad 2 comes in two models with three memory size choices and two color choices. The two model choices are with or Wi-Fi only or adding a 3G radio. The memory size choices are 16, 32, or 64MB memory. The Wi-Fi 16MB iPad 2 lists at $499. The addition of the 3G radio adds about $120 to the cost of the unit. The color choice (for the case or shell) is Black or White.

I opted for the Wi-Fi only 32MB model at $599. I went this direction because I really didn’t want another data plan. Typically today Wi-Fi is available and in the rare case it’s not, I tether my iPad to my iPhone.

One of the things I learned is that the iPad without the 3G radio does have some limitations. The app Find My iPad relies on the radio for location and some other location based apps work better with the 3G.

As for memory choice, I have a 32GB iPhone 4 and have pretty much everything I want on it with memory left so I opted for the 32GB iPad as well. Again, I have everything I want and memory left over…

I am very impressed with some of the magazine apps that are available and find that reading on the iPad is enjoyable in the settings that I typically find myself in. Strangely, when reading a long time, the weight of the iPad can tire your hands though.

I believe tablet computers will be “the next big thing” as they are filling a niche that people are hungry for. I still use my notebook when I have serious work to do, but between the phone and iPad, I use it much less.

I welcome your experiences and feedback at billh@ccsweb.net