Strange... I sure get a lot of work done on my iPad. The dental office I manage for one of my major clients is going to be adding iPads to replace manual writing of patient notes and entering procedure codes directly into the office management software completely eliminating one step in the billing process. That's work.
It's likely that none of the Android tablets are going to work with any of the vertical solution software out there. . . Just like none of the car makers are making Android dedicated interfaces for their vehicles. The small price difference to go with iPads instead of a somewhat cheaper alternative will not be a major factor when you're paying thousands on a mission critical software and a device to interface with it.
Other clients of mine are using iPads to read x-rays, access patient records, and even order prescriptions. Sorry, that's work, too.
I'm entering this post on FR on my iPad. Not work, but it could just as easily be. By the way, my Bluetooth keyboard works just fine with it... and while i'm not that fast a typist, my daughter CAN type 100 WPM on it.
Screen size? The iPad's 9.7" screen is almost an inch larger, and has far higher resolution, than the original Macintosh screen had in 1984, a screen which redefined desktop publishing and magazine production.
Oh, and storage? I keep my documents on my computers at home and in my office and they are all instantly available to me on my iPad. That's about four Terabytes of storage. I think I have enough.
You have just praised your iPad as a work device, thus you have proven what I have said to you for months. That modest PC laptop&desktops are good enough for 85% of the population. That they have no need to buy fancy schmancy Apple laptops or desktops that go for 2x-3x the price.
What is the iPad if not an underpowered computer with little storage? Of course it is ultra-portable and convenient with a built in LCD screen which is why they are selling like hot cakes. But it has enough juice to get things done. You just said so
Here is a current $349 BestBuy special——>>>
Toshiba - Satellite Laptop / Intel® Celeron® Processor / 15.6” Display / 2GB Memory / 250GB Hard Drive - Black
Lets put aside size and portability. This Tosh has more storage and processing power than an iPad any day of the week. So if you can do work on an iPad and find it useful in many other ways...... Then this modest Toshiba laptop is easily powerful enough and good enough for 85% of computer buyers and comes in at one third the cost of an Apple laptop
Those aren’t the kind of work I’m talking about. Nobody is going to type up a 40 page document on an iPad, nobody is going to run a IDE on one, nobody is going to design a building on one. Sure as a replacement for clipboards it’s fine. But that’s not desktop computer work. The discussion you wandered into the middle of was if pads (i or otherwise) would replace DESKTOP computers, and the answer is no they won’t, they will never have the power of the desktop.
1984 Macs were 1984, nobody had good screens back then. And also nobody realized what tiny monochromatic screens were doing to their eyes. It’s 2010 we know better now. People that do real desktop tend to have multiple screens that are at least twice the size of the iPad.
And carrying around an extra keyboard for a pad is just plain silly. At that point you’re carrying around 2 things that together are about the size of a laptop only with a fraction of the computing power.
Cloud storage (which is what you’re doing) sounds great until the network has issues. Then you find out about the big gaping hole in the cloud. Someday you’re computer at home will be inaccessible, and you’ll find out that your pad has basically no storage. Of course even with the cloud most of the pads don’t even have the memory to open some of the documents I deal with.
Pads are great for what they are. But even Jobs knows that what they are is NOT a replacement for desktops or even laptops. The only people that will get rid of their computers for a pad (which is part of the original post I replied to) are the people who got rid of their computers for WebTV, the web and e-mail and now e-book crowd have never really needed a computer. Which is fine, there’s nothing wrong with capturing that market, but there’s a fat gap between that market and replacing the computers in the HR departments and architectural firms, and even animation houses of the world. Supplement sure, replace, not gonna happen.