25 APRIL 11

Being nerds, the Optimus family sold their iPad 1 and upgraded to an iPad 2, purely to tell you all about it!  The iPad is getting some traction in the business place now.  We’re seeing people using it to take notes, replace cue cards for speaking, replace paper for drawing ideas, give presentations to clients, and of course gaming and reading.

 

The iPad 2 is a pretty great machine - it’s much lighter than the iPad 1, much quicker, and has those two cameras.  But apart from that it’s pretty much the same.  It looks the same as before (unless you get the white version), it uses the same graphical user interface, it’s just a bit skinnier and Angry Birds HD loads up quicker.

The new versions are still coming out in 3G & Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi only.  We decided to go with just Wi-Fi this time because we all have iPhones now. The reason for this is that in the latest iPhone software there's the ability to turn your phone into a Personal Wireless Hotspot, sharing your phones data plan rather than paying for a whole new data plan just for the iPad. We discuss how to do that here.  Also, the Wi-Fi only version of the iPad is cheaper than the 3G & Wi-Fi version, so this way you can save money if you already have an iPhone. 

 

Facetime is integrated into iPad 2 (if you’re familiar with the feature from iPhone 4), which provides video calling between people with iPhone 4, iPad 2, and Mac’s.  If you already have an iPad and don’t need to do video calling (the cameras are not the greatest anyway) then we suggest sticking with your original iPad, but if you don’t have one, definitely go get the iPad 2!  But remember, Facetime only works if you have Wi-Fi.

 

There are still a couple of gripes about the iPad that continue: Apple doesn’t support Adobe Flash and that is continued here, so there are still a lot of websites that simply won’t show up on it.  And reading books on the iPad – I’ve never been an advocate of this given it’s like having someone shine a torch through a piece of A4 paper you’re trying to read (my interpretation of backlit devices), but we have some clients that are cracking through books on it with no problem, so it’ll be trial and error until some proper studies come out I guess.

 

There are a lot of solid competitors available now.  The Motorola Xoom got really good reviews, HP are releasing their tablets shortly and Sony announced theirs as well, so it’s going to be pretty busy in the tablet market this year.  Let us know if you have any questions about iPad’s or whether you think they’d be right for you.

 

Click here for some iPad tips and tricks.

 

Click here to learn how to set up your own Personal Hotspot.