Part 6 - Portability and Fun - iPad as my main computer

I’m back from my holiday trip and back after a long and tiring week of work (we just launched new Nozbe Desktop and new Productive! Magazine issue! Yay! :-) and it’s time to get back to posting about my workflow and my new toy, I mean, “work device” called the iPad. This time we’ll focus on iPad’s real strengths - portability and fun.

A month has passed…

It’s been more than a month since I picked up my new shiny iPad 3 and decided to do most of my work on this new device instead of my trusty Macbook Air. It was also the first time I went for a two-week trip without my laptop. Here are some thoughts on that.

iPad is very portable… duh!

It’s not like I discovered something here. iPad is half the weight of my Macbook Air and half the size. This means I can put it into my man-purse and take it with me. No need for a full-blown backpack there. 10 hour batter life is exactly that - 10 hours worth of life - each 10% is one hour. Sweet and very long. On my trip (as I wasn’t working a lot) I used to charge it every 3-4 days. When I’m back, I charge it basically every night. I don’t use cables in between.

iPad is just more convenient when traveling

It’s just not clumsy when I want to pull it up from my bag and use it. I take it in one hand, use the other to navigate and that’s it. A lot more comfortable than using a laptop on a trip (try to hold a laptop on one hand and type with the other!). I don’t need to sit. I can just stand (or walk slowly) and use it. Sweet.

iPad means more “fun” than “work”

When I pick up my laptop, I tend to think “work” and start opening up web sites, checking email, etc. When I pick up my iPad I firstly ask myself this question: “Is there anything I absolutely need to do now?” As I have my flows for work nicely designed on the iPad, if I don’t need to work at this moment I simply open up Kindle app (for ebooks), Reeder app (for news) or Pocket app (for the articles I’ve saved) and start reading. And I usually use it in portrait mode, without keyboard and stuff. It just naturally transforms itself from a “work machine” to a “play machine” or simply a very versatile “reader device”.

This was especially convenient on a plane. I’d use it at times with my Zagg keyboard to write things (i.e. “create”) and then I’d just pick it up to read. A real Transformer :-)

I tend to use the iPad more now

This week has been crazy. We’ve been working a lot just to catch up, we’ve launched a few things and we’ve mainly succeeded. And the whole week long I preferred to just pick up my iPad to work instead of my laptop. I just enjoyed working on the iPad more… it’s just more fun, I feel more and more productive on it every day now… and I hardly need my laptop anymore. We’ll see in months to come, but I lean towards my iPad a lot more these days than towards my laptop. Strange feeling, you know?

Do you use iPad a lot these days, too? How do you use it?