Location Free Lifestyle

Over the past week I’ve found myself working more and more on the iPad instead of my laptop. Batteries going dead after three hours were the main reason I started using it, but I’ve just found it’s so much better than a laptop in so many ways.

Of course when they first came out that was what had us all excited, a laptop replacement. But being unable to update HTML websites, design flash or edit video sort of made it so I never carried it around with me until now.

But once you get over the fact that you do need and carry both, the iPad and a laptop, the iPad’s strengths shine out much more.

Autocorrect spelling is fantastic. Touching a picture to move it is great. Email is easier to sort and handle (with no gmail failing to sync). Copying text to Pages is infinitely better than Word, no more pages jumping off when you paste in one line or weird fonts appearing when you paste across. Plus everything looks so much nicer than Word!

Presentations are much better with just one small device to carry and you know that the battery meter is accurate and it won’t die or freeze part way through. That type of confidence is priceless.

Everyone can see the screen in meetings and everyone can reach out to touch it and suggest changes and new ideas.

Somethings are slower, like changing between apps, but the time spent waiting on laptops for them to think about doing something when you click more than makes up for it. It also took me a while, whilst writing this actually, to figure out that you need to use two fingers to scroll the text edit window in WordPress. And as I said before there are plenty of big things you just can’t do.

Backup of data is a concern as is the fact that a full iPad takes up a whole chunk of your laptop’s disk when you sync to iTunes!

But overall as more and more tasks get apps to cover them then I can seen me spending even more time working on the iPad. It is so, so nice not having to search for a power outlet or keep the screen on dim just to save power. Instant on and off is amazing. Apps start up exactly where you left them with no lost data or “oh no!” cries if you clicked “x” before saving. Plus it looks and feels nice, like you really are in charge of a spaceship, and the buttons do things when you hit them instead of just whirring the hard drive.

So for the first time in about six weeks I’m actually quite enjoying working in Starbucks (with the exception of a 3 day workshop on a beautiful tropical island I’ve been living in the city since I got back from New Zealand!)

Lets just see now if I can ever do a full days work without having to boot up my laptop at all!