MacDailyNews Take: Why? Buy Pages for iPad (US$9.99) and start typing.
Hamblen continues, “Traveling attorneys, especially, appreciate the fact that the iPad boots up faster than a laptop, he said. But because many attorneys write long documents subject to many revisions, that work is still better suited for a workstation, said Michael Barnas, Chicago-based law firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal’s director of application services.”
MacDailyNews Take: It’s matter to retraining your mind. The iPad can be much more productive than most people seem to realize. Those who can’t get past the lack of a mouse and/or physical keyboard have little or no chance of grasping what iPad can really do. Seriously, free your mind or you’re soon going to end up like the people who “don’t do computers” today.
Hamblen continues, “Another professional who uses an iPad is Dr. Jon Wahrenberger. A cardiologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., Wahrenberger said he and four other cardiac surgeons use iPads. The iPad offers a ‘low profile’ that doesn’t seem intimidating to patients during exams, he said.”
“But the bigger value comes from the fact that he’s able to use his iPad to interact with patients’ electronic health records — functionality made possible by an app from Epic called Haiku, Wahrenberger said. He said his medical center also recently completed installation of a Microsoft Exchange server with extensions to the iPad,” Hamblen reports. “‘There’s huge excitement for this stuff,’ he said. ‘People are loving it.'”
Hamblen reports, “Still, experts such as Ted Schadler, an analyst at Forrester Research, have noted that several things must happen for the iPad to gain more acceptance as a business tool. For one thing, Schadler said in a recent blog, Microsoft needs to build apps that create and edit common documents across platforms like the iPad. He noted that he has used Keynote [US$9.99]to make a presentation, but he would rather use PowerPoint on his iPad. ‘Until we get that, the iPad will never replace a laptop,’ Schadler wrote. He also said that the iPad needs a Bluetooth-enabled mouse, in addition to the already-offered Bluetooth-enabled keyboard.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ouch! That’s so effing stupid it actually hurts to read it. The only thing about which Ted Schadler seems to be an “expert” is stuck-in-the-box thinking. Keynote whips PowerPoint hard. Anyone who’d “rather use PowerPoint” than Keynote is utterly incapable of making proper software evaluations. And, why does “Microsoft” need to build the apps? Good God, man, awaken! Microsoft-centric Ted must like inefficient, insecure bloat to go along with his painfully uncritical thinking. It’s the people with “thought processes” like Ted’s that hold the human race back. Think Different™, Ted, if you can.
iPad needs a mouse? Really?
Now I know why Apple made the thing so freaking durable. So you can whack somebody that says something as dumb as this.
@MacDailyNews
Well, what did you expect? Good morning Sheriff, isn’t it a lovely day? Marry my daughter? You have to remember that these are just simple farmers, people of the land, the common clay… you know…….. Morons.
dont they realize you can attach a bluetooth keyboard to it?
What the iPad needs is the ability to do Bluetooth file transfer & then it will be a better business device. Why it doesn’t allow it…..is beyond me. Apple get it and stop make us wait so long for it.
I love that “oh, I can’t get by without the Microsoft version of my apps”. Try iWork and see that the bloat and overhead of MS Office is not needed.
Apple should feature iPad Pages in a tv commercial. Particularly how when you click to send the document by email it asks you to choose to send as a Pages doc, a PDF or a Word doc. That one screen shot would remove this “I can’t create content until Word is on there.”
Ted does have a point – if you put the iPad in a stand and use a keyboard, it’s cumbersome to then touch the screen to navigate. It’s the same reason why Apple has resisted making touchscreen notebooks or iMacs.
But a mouse is dead wrong. It is far too limiting a device. A MagicPad makes much more sense as its use is aligned with the touch screen capability.
The revisions point is valid, especially for long documents. There are often frameworks in place to help out with that — not just Pages mobile.
Really, MDN — there are things better suited to laptops. That’s OK. Basic text processing and presentation creation? Fine on an iPad. That’s why it’s so great and widely applicable.
Deep breaths.
Powerpoint?
ICK
Shakespeare wrote all of his masterpieces with a quill and parchment. Enough said.
Power point?
I remember when I was stupid and used power point a lot…. lol
Even if you are not stupid, Power point helps you a lot to look stupid, just ask to the millions of people that has been ridiculed by their power point presentations crashing, presenting unsynchronized audio, outdated graphics, framed video, the typical animations, and so on.
I would love to hear an explanation HOW would one use a MOUSE on a touch-based device? Let’s assume, for the moment, that you could somehow connect one to the iPad. How do you know where you’re clicking, when the OS does NOT provide visual feedback (i.e. the arrow-shaped mouse pointer of the 20th century)? You move the mouse around, clicking randomly, hoping to guess the correct position?? Or does he really expect that Apple would actually modify iOS to support the paradigm it has worked hard to finally put behind (you know, the keyboard-mouse-display trio)? The touch interface is by far more efficient and intuitive than mousing around, regardless of the application. In five years, iMacs, MacBooks and MBPS will be sold without any keyboards and mice (you’ll likely be able to buy an optional bluetooth keyboard, though). Mac OSX will be history, and the Macintosh will make a major shift again, into the new world of mouseless, keyboardless computing.
I am the biggest fanboy ever and appreciate MDN trying to stick up for Pages on iPad but…
As a law student who’s tried to use iPad/Pages in both legal and academic settings, it’s not there.
Pages needs 2 features if it’s going to really be helpful to lawyers:
1) Much more robust formatting options, footnote support, and legal line numbering options, all of which are FULLY and transparently interoperable not only with Word but WordPerfect as well (most lawyers and judges are stuck on WP, and even after decades WP and Word are not fully interoperable without screwing up complicated formatting, so I’m not holding my breath)
2) Ability to read/save directly from/to standard file system/servers, not just email or Bluetooth (ugh) sharing. This one at least I expect Apple to get started in the next year with full access from Pages to iDisks… knock on wood. That should help a ton for most folks… but for the lawyers the situation is probably hopeless for many years given #1 above.
If there is one place where “stuck in the box thinking” always has and always will change slower than anywhere else, it is law offices, and until the old farts that run the show decide to change everything or (more likely) just die off, the rest of us minions will be stuck with their 20th century ways…
I would love it if the Magic trackpad worked with the iPad. I hate having to lift my arms to reach for the screen and then reposition for typing on a keyboard.
Hope it will work on the next OS upgrade for the iPad. I like Pages and keynote. For me, it has almost rendered the laptop a mute point except as a method to manage the data that I generate.
You can and have replaced the laptop for the bulk of what I do. The writer needs to play around and get used to it. That may open eyes.
The iPad still has a ways to go before it’s really ready for prime time in business world. It’s got to have a file based system that can operate outside the apps, yet at the same time work native with apps as well. It’s got to get Bluetooth transfer for all different devices ( other then some Apple products & it needs to connect with iMacs and Macbooks and not depend on an app that both parties need to have. A native ability to print and to be able to customize
your home screen to display calendar and to do’s instead of having a ton of folder everywhere. Pages & Keynote need to be on par with the desktop versios for transfer and creation of projects…..and I’ m willing to pay for it.
I agree pages needs some work. Its one thing apple has not done great yet thAt and numbers both need help.
As far as the touch screen things i don’t know i tank keyboards are needed still. The touchscreen is greAt but sometimes a keyboArd is good for a desk where the display might be out of reach. But on a device like the ipad why would you want a mouse?
But i can see a bt keyboard with the iPad for faster typing.
I want an ipad but I’m going to wait until at least this next version so that I can see a few areas of professional growth.
I get the ipad for the media consumption angle, but with just a few changes it can be a light to medium duty content creation platform.
I think Producerjames nailed it very well, with the only personal addition is not for a mouse and mouse arrows on the screen, (just wrong) but for MagicPad integration. That & a keyboard & it will cover a lot of data entry needs.
Then I’ll also use it for a digital legal pad. I used a Newton for a long time and I see a few promising digital implementations of hand written notes & drawings on the ipad.
It opens up filing, searching, linking, etc. of hand written notes.
That all seems doable with just software & current hardware. The note taking already exists and If we could get wireless printing, a file system & some iTunes independence, I’m all over this and I’m sure this would open up a lot of people to using a pad over a laptop.
I’m a lawyer and the iPad has changed the way I work forever. My office is just an App away, I can take notes discreetly and quietly during conferences (no clicking keys), etc etc.
Just yesterday I attended a property purchase settlement and forgot the title search. I logged in to my office computer, ordered the search and emailed it to the bank staff member in a few minutes. She printed it and the settlement was concluded. I was then able to get the keys to the ouse to my client within 10 minutes after that, as she had to get back to work.
That, in itself, paid for my iPad.
Isn’t it time to like replace Power Point?
They recently wified the courthouse I primarily spend my time, so the wifi ipad became a no brainer. I couldn’t stomach paying $130 for a freakin’ extra antenna to be shackled to the death star.
Previously wasted time sitting in a courtroom waiting can be spent with email, looking up documents, dockets and statutes. Omnifocus and dragon dictation are must haves.
Spousal unit promptly goes through my briefcase like a customs agent when I come home so she can fire up the bejeweled app.