I used the most common excuse in the book to rationalize buying an iPad. I need it for work. I walked into the store with a straight face, and I’m still walking around with a straight face, reciting the line, I need it for work over and over again.
Here are the top five ways I use my iPad for work:
1. Email and Calendar Tracking – I find the push email notification on the iPad much better than my G2 Android phone, which I had troubling hooking up to my company’s Microsoft Exchange. When I wake up I can quickly see which drunken co-worker wrote to me the night before with their concerns. By the way, work emails after midnight is probably in bad form. The calendar isn’t a thing of a beauty on the iPad, but it’s effective enough to track both my business and personal events.
2. Google Analytics – You can’t use the Keyword Tool on the iPad (no Flash), which is obviously lame. But I did download a little app called Analytics Doctor Pro for $5. It’s got some embarrassing spelling errors in it (“contect” instead of “content” is never a good sign), but it lets me see our corporate site analytics in fairly easy fashion without having to open a browser. Not bad, but if somebody really wanted to nail this market, it seems open to me.
3. Evernote – A solid staple for work. Tap some notes into Evernote on your iPad and it will sync to the cloud automatically. I like to tag my notes and then group them for easy reference. In the same vein, I’d prefer a better Google Docs than GoDocs, which I bought for a few bucks.
4. WebEx – I have to set up all of our meetings, so the WebEx App actually isn’t that helpful to me because you can’t host from the app. But in instances where someone else is the host and I’m working from my couch in the basement, this is a nice little app to have handy. Plus, it’s a freebie.
5. Brainshark – We’ve started putting a lot of our videos on Brainshark, and now that Brainshark offers an non-Flash version, the iPad and Brainshark can play nice together. Not a must have, but useful in a pinch.
The iPad, for me at least, is a great back-up device for work. It’s not robust enough to be used as a productivity tool, but it is effective to use to for presentations and emails. All in all, my excuse to get an iPad doesn’t sound as flimsy as I first thought. Now if I could only figure out how to categorize the HBO GO app as work-related.
Other apps of note: Keynote for presentations; QuickOffice Pro HD for document creation (these two are both over $9, which seems a bit pricy when you likely have a version on your desktop or laptop already); and most importanly, a custom VPN app to access your corporate network .
