All entries for October 2010

iPad after 3 months

Follow-up to recently installed iPad apps from Rudo's blog

This blog has been quiet and you may have wondered: is he still using the iPad? Well, I think my Physics colleagues would have been able to answer this rather affirmatively! They make jokes about the iPad slowly becoming part of my body (not true!).

But seriously, yes, it is moving evermore into the centre of things. Let me give you some examples:

[1] Went to an international conference in Mexico where I was organizer and had to give a talk. Used [Keynote] for the talk. All went well, never missed my laptop at all!

[2] I now tend to give all science talks using the iPad, will do so again this Friday in Leeds. No more laptop for me to carry.

[3] Actually, with the iPad, and its nearly seamless integration via MS eXchange with calendars, emails, contacts, etc. who still needs a smartphone? I have an old HTC smartphone and was sort of desperate for an updated version, but now, this seems much less needed. The only thing I really use the phone for is the talking bit and really I do not do very much of it on the mobile anyhow (yes, sad life, I know).

[4] Am giving lectures with the iPad. Not using [Keynote], but simply displaying PDFs via [GoodReader].

[5] [GoodReader] now allows marking/highlighting/etc in PDFs, so great to go thru papers, theses, reports, etc. Then just mail them back to your students/colleagues/etc.

[6] I still read a lot on the iPad, mostly for pleasure when there is time. With [Stanza], [iBooks] and [Kindle], there is hardly any book (ok, this comment is for the English language readers) which is not available!

So overall, this is an excellent device which reduces the weight of things to carry around while offering nearly all of the flexibility of the laptop. Let's see how I think about it after the term has finished!

Rudo Roemer : 06 Oct 2010 17:50 |  Tags: Ipad |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem