I Finally like My iPad :-)

It was a year ago when I finally decided to invest in an iPad. A long time client of ours asked us to recreate an application that we built for PDAs in 2005 for the iPad. As we were building the updated app for the iPad we invested in several iPads for the client to use in the field.

Once the event was over I had no real business use for the iPad so the iPads stayed in the closet. I pulled one out every now and then when I was traveling. In my opinion the iPad was best suited as a entertainment device for me to watch movies and play games during long flights. It was not a serious business application like my netbook.  My netbook was my business workhorse. It managed my emails, my presentations, and my business correspondence. Things the iPad did not do well.

Slowly things began to change and I started finding serious uses for my iPad. The 1st useful app that I used was a telePrompter  application called Prompster that I used when I had to video tape some remarks from a client. The iPad app was easy to use and was less expensive than the larger bulky teleprompters I’ve used in the past.

Afterwards I began researching and I discovered other useful apps to assist me with managing my day-to-day business. The Huddle app is useful app as we have been using Huddle workspaces to collaborate with our clients. Having the app on my iPad allows me to access my files, manage to do tasks and contribute to discussions away from my desktop.

Soon after I was using additional apps like Seesmic and Hootsuite to mange social media campaigns and the WordPress app to mange my Blog.  This Blog post was written on my iPad using the WordPress app.

However, I was still carrying my netbook  and iPad most of the time because when it came to making presentations and working with Microsoft Office documents there weren’t any good apps for that until I came across Quickoffice.

Quickoffice is the by far the best app that I’ve used for editing and creating documents in MS Office especially PowerPoint presentations.  I have a  bunch of PowerPoint templates that I’ve gotten from Slideshop.com hosted on Huddle and now by using Quickoffice I can edit and create a custom presentation wherever I’m at.

There are still two apps that I’m waiting for to get better and they are GoToWebinar and InstantPresenter.  I regularly host webinars and I like using GoToWebinar and InstantPresenter but I can’t use either with my iPad because InstantPresenter does not have an app and is Flash based so it will not work on iPads and the GoToWebinar app only allow you to attend GoToMeetings does not work with GoToWebinars.

Despite not being able to host webinars away from the office I have started going weeks just carrying my iPad and I realized that I don’t have a real use for my netbook. So anyone want a used netbook? I’m willing to entertain any reasonable offer.

One last note I like my iPad so much that I was inspired to create this short video that profiles our company.  Take a look and tell me what you think.