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mkral · Dec 21, 2011, 02:19 PM

I'm pretty sure there is a topic or several on this already, but I couldn't find it with any of the search terms I tried.

I'm wondering if anyone has tried to replace their computer with an iPad as their primary computing device? For fun, I've tried doing that this week. I still have my mac & have no plans to get rid of it, but I wanted to see how it would be to use an iPad as my primary computing device. Overall it hasn'tbeen as bad as I expected. I've used it on trips where I've left my laptop at home, but this is the first time doing 'real work' on it. Overall it's been easier to do that I thought it would be. Certain things take getting used to, and Numbers is no Excel for sure, but I find myself being pretty efficient on it (the bluetooth keyboard is essential). the biggest drwaback I've found is the inability to see two things at once. Copying data is a lot more tedious with only one app viewable at a time. Aside from that, I kind of like the simplicity of the iPad.

mduell · Dec 21, 2011, 05:40 PM

A coworker tried that; didn't even last a week. 2 apps or even windows of the same app at once was fatal, along with the slow app switching and limited memory.

mkral · Dec 21, 2011, 05:49 PM

Hmm, I've found app switching to be pretty quick if you do the 'hit the button 2x to get the little bar at the bottom of the screen' trick, but I agree with you on the 2 windows thing. That is by far the biggest downside for me as well.

TETENAL · Dec 22, 2011, 02:44 PM

4 finger swipe also works for fast app switching.

mkral · Dec 22, 2011, 08:16 PM

Tetenal, thanks for the tip on 4 finger input. I hadn't heard of that. I just activated it & that makes things much faster.

subego · Dec 23, 2011, 04:28 AM

For personal use, I've essentially done this with my iPhone. I'll fire up desktop Safari when I need tighter 1Password integration, and that's pretty much it.

For work, I need the Adobe suite, so I need to use a real computer for that. I also have a server which acts as a "home media center" type thing. My poor iPad only gets used when I'm trying to read and eat at the same time.

Everything else goes through the iPhone.

Big Mac · Dec 23, 2011, 08:07 AM

A less serious computer user can definitely swing the iPad as a PC replacement. There are many areas it excels in. But anyone accustomed to the power of Mac OS X or Windows should think twice before embarking on such an option.

mkral · Dec 27, 2011, 05:20 PM

Just in case anyone searches out this thread in the future, I figured I'd post a wrap up. Overall the experience was a huge win for me. Using the ipad as my main computer caused me to learn the tweaks and shortcuts that are unique to it. Once I implemented these (especially the 4 finger swipe that tetenal suggested), my time on the ipad became much more productive. I found that I like the ipad for its ability to keep me focused on the task at hand. I tend to get distracted on my mac & having only one window at a time on the ipad was worth it for those situations. Numbers for the ipad sucks if you are happy with excel on the mac or pc. It just doesn't come close. (That being said, Pages is a very competent word substitute.)

I did find that the speed of the original iPad was a hindrance in some cases (web searches, typing in a new web address, and moving calendar events being the three that come immediately to mind, especially when playing music in the background). I think an iPad 2 would eliminate most of those issues.

driven · Jan 2, 2012, 03:14 AM

mkral,

Very well said. Your experience closely mirrors mine. That said: I do use numbers quite frequently, but I often create the original spreadsheet on a Mac, and then just edit values and columns on the iPad which works quite well. Numbers support for external keyboards also needs improving. For more "traditional" spreadsheet work, try Office2HD, which works very well with external keyboards, and offers Google Docs support.

I also agree about the speed of the iPad1, but I'm waiting for an iPad3 to rectify that.

Overall though, the solution is competent enough that I won't be taking a laptop with me on personal trips any longer, and for most basic functions I've been reaching for the iPad before my laptop.

Heavy lifting, and of course development (Xcode) still requires me to use the Mac.

mkral · Jan 2, 2012, 04:27 AM

The problem I have with numbers is that most of my excel docs come from other people who compose them in excel. It seems like something is always off when I import it into numbers. And I agree about the keyboard support for Numbers. Much room for improvement.

Thanks for the tip on Office2HD, I'll give that a look.