Living On iPad
The crashing of the waves is intense and reverberates across the lania (Hawaiian for balcony). My feet are up, a Guava juice with a wedge of lime and a bowl of rice chex at my left. I have the WordPress iPad app open. We landed 2 days ago, with a brand new ipad but short one functional macbook pro. A little flick of the wrist and a full glass of water spilled across the keys. The screen flashed white and immediately went dark.
I screamed. Then opened the chassis, poured out the water and set it to dry. A quick trip to the apple store right before our flight, and the tech just shook his head, wished me luck and sent me on my way. His advice, wait 3 – 5 days, say a little prayer and hit power. Today is day 4. Perhaps this exercise will end tomorrow.
Now in full disclosure, Peter, dear man that he is, raided my house and brought an ancient computer and my backup drive to SF. Phew. Except that my fairly new time capsule backup was corrupted. Four hours of internet research later and only a few hours to go before our departure, I gave up. No sleep for me. I did bring the old lappy with me, but as it really had almost none of my software or my development files, its basically good for watching Hulu and little else. A tangent but Hulu really should get an ipad app, which I would gladly pay for it – even repeatedly. Heck, I pay $17 a month for netflix.
In the end, I found myself on the ipad, trying to run a company. Now if I was a full time technician, this would be a disaster, at least for now. I have yet to see MAMP (IAMP?) on the iPad (wouldn’t that be sick?!?). But, those days are slowly fading and now I am a full time freelance art-director / project manager / sales person. I spend the day communicating. For that, the iPad has got me about 80% of the way there. Ok, onto the good and the ugly (or just plain uninformed).
The Good
Battery Life: Impressive!! I spent over 8 hours on this little box drinking deep from the internet the whole time, and at the end I had 14% remaining. A battery charge lasting a full day’s use. Now that is what a battery was meant to be.
Touch: I was prepare to rail against the loss of my mouse. It was only at the end of the day that I noticed I never missed it. Turns out, Apple, and many of the application developers out there have done a nice job with UX. My appreciation and respect!
Apps: Considering how young this platform is, the breath and quality of the apps was surprising and this can only get better. I used the following native apps: mail, calendar, safari, notes, contacts, photos. The rest of my time was spent camped out on AIM, Skype, Pages and Tweetdeck. On the web, google docs was a life saver and still worked fairly well. I spent time some time exploring file management tool like Dropbox + RDocs. Next I plan to look for a good time tracking app and an alternate browser option beyond safari, which I found to be frsutrating for the reasons I state below.
Accessories: The keyboard was the make or break (thanks Simon for reminding me). While typing on the screen is far better than I had imagined, I would probably have developed carpel tunnel. The keyboard shortcuts mostly work and the keyboard itself feel really solid. I wish was that there was some way to have it work in portrait mode as I prefer that orientation for some of the apps. Overall, a total win.
Beauty: Peter has a saying, “Work comfortably”. As I sit here on the lania overlooking the surf and swaying palm trees, I find myself somewhat captivated, calm and inspired. Spending the day on the ipad (technical limitations aside) is much the same. Its nice to be immersed in elegance and beauty. I am happier for it.
The Bad
Linear Workflow:
In some ways, being focused on one thing at a time is quite nice. But the reality is that I often use multiple tool to accomplish a task. Like taking notes when reviewing a design. I either have to open and close, open and close, open and close (annoying) or find alternate means of multitasking. Hopefully the 4.0 update will improve the experience.
Push:
Push notification is way more disruptive than growl (it forces you to acknowledge it) – can’t I have a passive push style notification that fades in and out on the top of the screen? Di I really need to stop what I am doing because Reid just sent me something on aim?
- Email client needs basic format tools – ctrl-b doesn’t bold on highlight. Is a super simply wysiwyg too much to ask for? maybe textile would be ok?
- I didn’t realize how important push email was till now. My imap email on dream host just doesn’t support it (to my knowledge). Maybe its time to consider google apps or some other service because waiting 15 minutes or having to click refresh manually is lame.
- The disappearing email bug (maybe its just dreamhost) went from nuisance to dangerous. On my iphone I found it annoying, but I wasn’t solely dependent so I could live with it. Why do some emails show up for a sec, then disappear? Sometimes it takes 4-5 refreshes before they stay.
- How I miss flags on my emails. Good folder architecture is a reasonable second option but…
- Search only searches one folder at a time. Since I use folders a lot, it makes search way less powerful, even close to useless.
- Email hangs pretty often. It will start to search for new emails and spin for 20+ minutes. I end up restarting the iPad just to get email syncing again.
AIM
- First of all, Nice work AOL!!
- I wish it would remember my group, but as I can keep running conversations open in a reasonable manner, I can live with it.
- I can’t copy text from IM’s?!? That is just inhibiting.
- No image sharing yet, probably ok for many people, but not for an art director managing a remote team.
Safari
- It handles large images oddly, shrinking their actual size without allowing me to see them at full resolution. This is a HUGE HUGE HUGE problem as I can’t see details on large comps
- I keep seeing the mobile version of sites – makes no sense on this form factor. Ultimatly it is the site developers fault for using useragent rather than screensize, but I would love to be able to change the user agent with some toggle? Mobile view VS web view? I seem to loose about 70% of features on the mobile views.
- Is there a way to have mobile safari not try to reload pages every time I change tabs? This is a huge time sink, especially when reviewing 2mb comps.
Core
- iPad drop menu limited width – went to ing direct and can only see the bank name but not the account numbers when trying to transfer money. It was like playing bank transfer roulette. Good thing there is a confirm page.
- Moving apps between pages often doesn’t work.
Calendar
- What do you mean you can’t open an .ics calendar invite?!?! you’ve got to be kidding. Now I have to reply and ask for time and place and details to every meeting invite. I can’t confirm automatically. Super unprofessional.
- I can’t change / delete events I was invited to that are in my calendar from the good ‘ol mac days. Sucky. Got lots of those.
- Something is really wrong with timezone, but I have yet to identify what it is. One day changing to Hawai’i worked great. The next day, everything is back to pacific time and wont change.
Summary
It is doable. The future is here (almost). As Reid told me earlier today, this would have been my greatest fantasy when I was 12. Really all that stands in my way is a small amount of finess to improve workflow. Better searches, integration between apps, file management (although I think I woud be happy with a tagging approach rather than traditional hierarchy), better poweruser support in safari, and more good apps. In fact I have a request for Intuit: make me a QB Lite app where I can do basic actions (invoice, receive $, pay bills) from a QB file stored on dropbox. That would impress me.
For those of you on the same adventure I am on: Which apps have been helpful? Any tips on optimizing the core apps to solve some of my issues?
Follow the adventure on Twitter (@justlikeair): #livingonipad
Nice write-up Shane! I thought you were doing this as a test, but now I know you don’t have much of a choice! So, I have a few recommendations that should help out a few of your quirks — and google is the answer.
By switching email over to google apps (which is free for 5 users I think) you can get push email that should solve a couple mail issues.
Also, by using google apps to run your calendar, you should be able to accept an .ics if no other choice then by using the gmail web app. I don’t own an iPad yet, so I can’t confirm. Then, you can add your google calendar into your iPad/iPhone iCal app and have it sync events up.
Lastly, have you tried the Opera app? Not sure if it works well on iPad or not, but it’s a great alternative to Safari on the iPhone. It loads much quicker for me and is at least worth a shot. Hope you survive your trip! Enjoy the scenery and the weather
Shane! What stock photo site did you get that image from
Nice post! I talked to someone the other day who mentioned that we may actually have the ability to solve the safari reload issue ourselves. We just need to update our server to display images as cachable so that safari doesn’t think it needs to load them from scratch. Ask eric / kelsey about it.
Keep trucking on that freelance trail blaze! Lookin good!
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Shane,
You can adjust push settings in the Notifications System Preference. You can turn a lot of them off. I just use “Show badge count” for my IMs.
Thats a great point mark, thanks. I was aware of that and decided to leave it on. I like seeing what people say, so that I know if I need to reply (our team primarily communicates via AIM). My preference would be that the push message float by in the top right corner in the same approach as my growl messages on my mac. If I touch it, ipad launches the app, if I ignore, then it fades away.
I am always mystified on why safari does not cache pages at all! The ipad has limited memory but it is not negligible at 512 MB (hey, my first X11 machine had only 16 MB RAM); and in any case they could also cache, say 100 MB, to the flash memory (with 16 GB, there should be some space for caching, no?).
Very good article. It was nice to see constructive criticism from actual usage scenarios rather than the regular “it’s a finger print magnet” comments from most reviews. Since I plan to use my iPad not as a sole device but as one that will travel with me when mobile it was nice to hear about your actual experience as a sole device. As this is a version 1 device it is sure to improve. I hope you share your thoughts with Apple in feedback as this is the type of feedback needed to improve the platform and software in the future.
I would be interested in hearing if you found the glare okay with working on the lania. I could go for that work environment like that
and it would likely be worth some screen annoyance simply for the rest of the view.
I’m also curious if many of your email woes would be resolved using Google Apps\Gmail as you hinted at.
I hope you’ll write more on your experiences as I found your insights to be quite useful.
What apps do you have on your iPad? Which paid/free ones did you use? Thanks.
My apps , still minimal:
Entertainment:
* Netflix (superb)
* NY Times
* NPR
* Kindle
* Tweetdeck
Work / Communication:
* Pages
* Numbers
* AIM
* Skype
* Dropbox
* Rdocs
* Atomic Web (still trying it)
Nice experiment you’ve been forced into. Thanks for sharing your experience. Wouldn’t a bluetooth wireless keyboard fix your portrait-only input problem (well, with some improvised holder)?
Apps I use, in addition to what you’ve covered:
- iAnnotate PDF. For searching/reading/annotating PDF files. Fabulous!
- Atomic Web browser. Browser spoofing, desktop style tabs, fullscreen mode, ad blocking, privacy settings, multiple search engines (like Firefox), Twitter/Facebook integration, offline page save.
- Kindle for iPad. Syncs with my Kindle, iPhone, PC and Mac Kindle apps.
- iPad Camera Adapter Kit. Priceless.
- Photogene. Effective image adjustments.
A Blue tooth keyboard would be awesome, given a simple stand!
Been playing with atomic web. Crashed a few times but was good for a lot of issues. Tragically, didn’t resolve the compression of large images though, which was my biggest problem.
Kinda app was a life saver, thanks for reminding me.
Oh great friday picture! It reflects quite well what working with an iPad could be…desktop days are definitly counted. IPhone OS is still too young to offer a desktop-grade productivity but thinking that it comes from a phone is just amazing. I’m sure OS 4 and multitasking will definitly improve the experience. Finger crossed for Netflix in Canada soon. Anyway, great feedback!
sad story about the macbook. Enclosing it in an airtight container with some silica gel (from a craft store) or rice for a couple days is supposed to help by absorbing the water. Best of luck.
Shane, I appreciate your being upfront about how your MacBook Pro was damaged. There is a possibility things are not as bad as they look. Mac laptops have a drip liner beneath the keyboard to catch liquids. The processor itself may not have been significantly harmed since the liquid is water, not something sticky or corrosive. That will reduce any repair costs.
I don’t think your mail problems are coming from Apple, by either Mail or Mobile Me. I suffered mightily during the meltdowns after the Mobile Me roll-out. But, I’ve never heard of emails that appear and then disappear.
One option for syncing, remote control of computers and some other communications tasks may be using Microsoft’s Remote and Exchange options on your Macs. The former comes with Microsoft Office for Business or higher. You should be able to use the iPad to control a full computer back at the office. (Haven’t actually tried this having had my iPad for only a week, but, theoretically, it should work.)
Continue enjoying your iPad.
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No iPad for me yet (I think Alaire’s saving it for a pre-wedding gift!) – but the one question that I’ve had is whether or not it’s viable as a tool for working with code is (specifically WordPress theme code, but that’s just the flavor of the day) – I played a little with some “code” apps in store, but they felt flimsy. Same thing goes for FTP obviously – are there viable apps like FireFTP?
So far, I haven’t found anything that makes me think it is a viable code platform, but I think an app that does a descent job allowing you to work with files off a server and is a nice text editor would do fine for basics. Add SVN / Git support and it becomes viable for me.
I got my iPad the day they came out, and I have barely had it out of my hands since. TeamViewer will let you control your computer at the office using your iPad. It is incredibly simple to use and works flawlessly.
My list of essential apps:
• GoodReader – not only reads email attachments, but lets you do file management, too!
• Dropbox – one of my favorite services/programs/sites all-around. Greatly simplifies life if you have more than one device, and I do…Macs, PCs, iPhone, and iPad.
• Evernote – my synchable notebook of miscellaneous stuff.
• Netflix – perfect.
• Pages – much better than I expected, but it is crying out for folders.
• Sundry Notes – lovely multimedia “idea” pad.
• Epicurious – gorgeous cookbook.
• Kaleidoscope – stunning image doodler that lets you save your creations.
I am so digging this thing!!
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Hi there. I was having trouble getting my iCal to synch up with entourage as well. It totally works. Actually, it’s how I came across your site.
I simply googled “get entourage calendar into iPad” and paw 2 had the answer! So easy, it was silly.
Did you get yours to work yet? If not, simply go to settings, Calendar and add contacts and events to your calendar and contacts. You can even go back in and request calendars from 6 months ago.
Hope this helps!
They Benny,
You are totally right. The catch is that the iCal format is often used to describe two different tasks. One is importing a calendar, which you mentioned. The is handling meeting invites (.ics files). This is where I find myself at a loss. There is an app called calendar viewer that at least lets you see whats in the ics file, but hot damn its ugly and doesn’t do the critical task of importing it to calendar.
Yes yes, I was also having trouble with the .ice files! I’m at R/GA and we use entourage, but I love rocking myy iPad. I was able to get all meeting ivites sent to main entourage calendar AND synch with my iCal as well!
Once I did those steps, every .ics file I got was then turned into a meeting within iCal.
So far, it’s working like charm. All my meetings at work through .ics are now on my iPad!
I have the same problem with email on my iphone and iPad. Using gmail through imap, I have messages briefly appear in the inbox list, then vanish. Usually they will come back after one refresh, maybe two.
I know that it was probably already said, and I won’t go looking for it in all of the comments, but the majority of your cons with the device and Apple’s apps (Safari, etc) can be solved after jailbreaking.
Oh snap, I said the J word.
I know that your income relies on the device, but back it up in iTunes and you can grab everything back in a few clicks and some time.
On the brighter side, that solves multitasking (Backgrounder), top of the screen passive notififactions (GriP, though not sure about iPad compadibility. Great on the iTouch.), Switch Useragents, (SBSettings with the UserAgent toggle), and so on.
Noe a days it’s dead simple to Jailbreak, and with things like Spirit, it does not overwrite or delete anything. It installs like any other app.
I encourage you to look into it.
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I really love my iPad. However, as a new device, it still has a lot of things that needs to get right before we start to completely think about replacing our computers. One issue that you mentioned that concerns me is the issue with emails that disappear from inbox and then come back. Good post. Keep up the good work.
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Hi, nice review but you should update your experience according to the linear workflow since new ios 4.x version for the ipad available, so multitasking is implemented and the workflow experience increased significantly.
regards Jörg
I wrote this a couple weeks after the ipad came out. While it is true that multi-threading is available now, it doesn’t actually represent how I genuinely multi-thread. All they did was remove the launch time and hold state. When taking notes looking at a design, have ti swap back and forth is not a good ux. These days I take notes on my iphone and look on my ipad. But isn’t that the indication of a fail?