yeah, it's an iPad 2. What are you using? A laptop!?

There is an iPad market because consumers are outsourcing choice. Saying "I only buy Apple," means that you no longer make your technology choices. Apple makes them for you.

How does a company like RIM even compete with that kind of herd mentality? They don't.

 

Right now we just use laptops and I'll probably always have one for Microsoft Office so I can work from home, but I'll probably end up getting a tablet when our other laptop shits the bed. We only surf the web on it anyway.

 

I have never used or even looked at tablet other than the iPad. Not because I am a strict Apple follower, but because my company issued them to all of the VPs to travel with in lieu of laptops. For what I need to do from a work perspective when I travel, it's perfect. It's small. I can review any kind of spreadsheet, presentation, or document. Email is simple. ...and I can store all of my movies/music/media on it for personal use.

5 years ago, when I was creating/managing a lot of spreadsheets and documents, without doubt, it would have been extremely impractical to travel with an iPad. Where I am now within my career, it's a much more practical and inexpensive way to have access to work stuff when I travel. I think our company laptops run somewhere around $2,500 whereas the iPads cost around $700 (maybe less??).

Like I said, I can't really say whether or not I like the iPad better than other competing tablets, but I can say that it is definitely a nice tool to have in the work environment when you travel.

 

I have a PC, and this shitty phone which I am typing on right now.

Everything else? Too mainstream. I had the firsr Ipad, before any of you sheep. It weighed seventy pounds and was manually powered by oxen.

Now I use a Commodore VIC 20 to fight the status quo.

 

I have an iPad2, and love it. It certainly hasn't replaced my MacBook Pro (except in the classroom), but I connect to the web more now and I'm getting more of my news content digitally. I also use it a lot as an e-reader for my leisure books (textbooks just aren't quite there yet), and there are quite a few reference apps I make good use of in some of my classes and on-site for my practicum. And I can post here while taking a dump.

We (my household) migrated to Apple a couple of years ago. With the way kids surf around the 'net, they we're picking up viruses left and right and Windows just became way too frustrating. I don't like having to spend time dealing with that crap (a lot of which I really don't understand and really don't want to learn, either) or as in most cases, dealing with Apu in Bangalore to get it straightened out. Some people are into rummaging around the bowels of their PCs, but I'm not one of them.

Now, each of my kids has their own MacBook, I have a MacBook Pro, and my wife has an iMac, all connected on a wireless network running off of Airport Extreme. Knock wood, not single technical problem since the migration. No regrets at all.

 

I got a first gen iPad off ebay a couple months ago.

I'm an Apple whore without ever wanting to become one. I said I'd never own an Apple computer because they were for media types and morons who didn't know how to work with Windows or Linux.....and then one of my previous workplaces gave us MacBookPro's and I fell in love with it. It looks nicer, it runs faster and smoother, there's less fear of intrusion due to viruses, etc. Its a simpler machine, but not in a bad way, as I had previously thought.

I've always been a technophile, especially when it comes to cell phones, so I was one of the first in line for the iPhone. Currently have my iPhone 4, but I am getting bored with that.

My iPad...I think its a combination of both. I use it most for its e-reader capabilities. I was in the market for an e-reader, but decided to spend the extra dough on an iPad for the storage capacity- movies, music, tons of books, etc. Plus, going back to grad school, if I can get those books for a fraction of the price on the iPad, that should pay for the device on its own.

Plus, with my current job, I have two offices and the connectivity between the two is shaky at best, nonexistent at worst. With my iPad though, I can connect to our Citrix environment without a problem.

Could I live without it? Yeah, probably. Do I want to? Nope. This is what you call a "first world problem", no doubt about it. You have two products that do what this one does, but for X amount of your disposable income, you'll still need those other two products, but this one will cut down their necessity in half.

 

I tend to be a pretty late adapter when it comes to technology, but I just don't get the iPad except for a small demographic. If I had a job where I was always travelling, then I can definitely see how a tablet would be convenient over the slightly more bulkiness of a laptop. Or if I was in school now and I could use it for textbooks, that would've been pretty sweet. But for the vast majority of the people who own one and go nuts for it, I get all curmudgeony about it. Why is it useful in your house? Is it that much of a burden to open up your laptop? Plus, typing on it is annoying as all hell. And you have to hold it, which I think is less convenient. And why is it so necessary to be constantly plugged into the internet, ESPECIALLY if you already have a smart phone? Even if you live in a city, do you really need to be on Facebook for that thirty minute subway ride? The appeal of the iPhone is its internet access in a small, easily-transported package, and these are the same people who complain about books being too big to carry around, but then they want internet access on something in between that's too big to be convenient but too small to be better to type with? When do people who don't live in a city even use theirs? Besides the fact that they're pretty, the only thing I would be interested in would be to see the magazine tablet versions that are coming out. I think that's the only thing they do better, as an e-reader, because it's easier to read and has a more appealing image, but I'm generally anti-e-reader anyway.

 

What a timely thread. I was given an iPad2 as a gift this spring. I used it a bit the first month and then never really picked it up again until this week when my MacBook broke. Now it's being used as my primary computer. Ugh.

I think Chater is right, people only want the iPad because of Apple's culture. I already had an iPhone 4 and a MacBook Pro; the iPad really had no use to me. If it wasn't a gift I would have never owned one. Now that my laptop is in the shop I've been using it to take notes in class and watch porn. It's a shitty substitue for both (slow typing and no flash support).

 

I currently do not own Ipad/tablet, I only have a Blackberry at the moment. I looked at getting an Android powered phone for a while however I just didn't want to give up Blackberry's Messenger program, I use that feature constantly. That combined with the physical keyboard kept me with the Blackberry.

I have, however, been looking into getting a Android powered tablet. My department's reporting system recently switched from a windows pda to Android tablet so we have been using the Samsung galaxy tab (the 7 inch one with sprint 3g). I think I will be waiting for sprint to get the Galaxy 10.1 with 4g before I get my own though. Its not really necessary for me to have my own. Though, at times it would make my life a whole lot easier since people like to take them out of the ambulances and not put them back and we only have one for each ambulance at the moment with no spares. I am currently in the process of taking over our inventory and maintenance at work as well. The Assistant Chief is leaving at the end of the year and they are starting to move his duties over to me (yay). As there are a few cheap programs for Android that will make my life easier with inventory control and truck maintenance schedules. You might not expect it but we have a ton of inventory bullshit to keep track of, with over 250 different items, of which there are multiples in stock, to keep track coupled with expiration dates and no real inventory system its a pain in the ass to manage.

I think this may qualify under first world problems....

 

My husband REALLY wants an ipad. I have been a wrench in his plans since I am not entirely sold on it and it seems kind of pricey. I can sort of see his desire, his laptop is work issued, as is his blackberry. He doesn't even know the password to my laptop and we don't have a home desktop computer. So basically, somebody from his work knows every move he makes online (you guys figure out why that may be a big deal).

Now, I just got a text from my 60 something year old mother last night from her new ipad. I am thinking I am slowly losing this battle.

 

I have a small notebook PC (13", >5lbs) and a smartphone. No need for a tablet when it isn't a pain in the ass to take my lappy anywhere and the smartphone takes care of the rest.

For what an Ipad2 costs, I could buy several guns that I want. No contest. I absolutely believe lots of people buy the newest, trendiest, most expensive Apple stuff just for the brand association.

 

I'm considering a Playbook. I have an ipod touch, and I've had a chance to try out an iPad and a Playbook. The iPad is, really, a giant ipod. The ipod is convenient to have as a pocket reference, and I see a giant sized version of that as less convenient, not more. It also doesn't take advantage of its size: the same format on a larger size makes it more convenient to use, scroll through, open various apps, etc. It'd be more useful if I had wi-fi access at work.

The playbook, however, I found to be a lot more usable. The swipe function on the screen makes it fast to move from the home screen to various apps and back, and the list of open apps makes multitasking a lot easier.

As it stands, I'm waiting on the next generation of blackberries to come out. Supposedly, they're going to have access to the Android app store and will run on QNX, which the Playbook currently runs off of, so they should have more integration options.

That said, I'm not much of a tech junkie. If I got a playbook, I'd probably just use it to play with and it wouldn't really fill a void that my small, light laptop does.

 

I bought a first gen iPad a while back for two (solid) reasons:

1. There wasn't really anything else on the market. I would have loved one I could whack a usb into - damn you Apple - but the only other product available at the time was a Chinese brand that was more expensive and had no track record.

2. I was specifically after something that would make it easy to read, mark up and collate documents without having to need a red pen and a wheelbarrow to carry them all around with me. As soon as I found iAnnotate I Was sold.

Now when my four year old's around, he plays with it more than I do. Having to wrestle it off him when I get a work call, because he's in the middle of Plants vs Zombies, is a bitch.

Since then my brother's bought one, and my other co-director has bought two... because he's less successful in wrestling his away from his son.

 

I personally recently made the switch from Windows to Apple since I've gone through 3 laptops in 5 years, all three with hardware problems. To say I gave PCs a fair shot is an understatement. So far, I'm in love with my Macbook Pro (OSX Lion). I also have an Android smartphone, but I'm going to switch to the iPhone as soon as the iPhone 5 comes out so everything works well together.

As far as a tablet goes, contrary to popular belief that it is mainly for technophiles, I think the exact opposite is true. My parents, my mother especially so, are completely lost when it comes to computers. Whenever anything would go wrong with any computer, my parents would call me to help me figure out what was going on. My mother was so afraid of messing up the computer that she just avoided using it. Then my sister got my parents an iPad for their anniversary last year and all of a sudden my parents are fighting over it non-stop. They freaking love the thing. The fact that is incredibly restrictive is perfect for them; they couldn't screw it up if they tried. The fact that it rarely needs to charged isn't a concern. I think the fact that you don't have to use a mouse and keyboard are a huge plus, because although the majority of us have grown up with computers, the older generation hasn't. To them, pointing and clicking with a mouse or trackpad is far less intuitive than touching it with their finger. To be sure, we do have a PC in the house for when my parents need to do a lot of typing but the vast majority of their computing needs are met by the iPad.

While a tablet alone will likely never meet all of my needs with a computer, I think it is great for older generations, or anyone else who only uses their computer to surf the web, and check their email.

 

I have an Ipad 2 and it is amazing for classes. Because of my back injury I try to limit how much shit I take to campus with me and I have trouble writing hand written notes because of the posture or neck position (looking down at the paper all the time) it forces me into. I have a netbook too, which I use for work when I'm not at home, but the Ipad makes lecture notes so much easier. It's light, has a great battery life, and though the screen keyboard can be a little cumbersome I got used to it quickly. So I can set the ipad sideways on the table like an actual keyboard, lean back into a less painful posture and type away. Sure, I'm probably 'that guy' with an Ipad in the class, but I don't give a shit if it helps me study better without the physical problems I have that you fucking don't.

I have an app that records audio, which isn't a big deal, but it then syncs the audio to the timestamps of my text entry. So I can take light notes while recording the lecture, and then if I need to review my notes later, I can click on the relevant words or sentence, and the audio will skip right to that part. It's great for not having to sift through 3 hours of lecture audio to find one specific small thing you may have forgotten.

As for all the entertainment stuff, it's great for that too. I really really love it for ebooks.

There's an app that lets you bypass itunes for videos, which makes it so much easier to load it all up with crap for later. I'm really loving mine. The games can be a bit meh, but that's secondary to me.

 

I have an android tablet. I use it almost daily for anything that doesn't require mass amounts of typing. I keep it my bedroom mainly, and use it for web surfing, Netflix, checking my email in the morning porn, and angry birds. It usually goes with me on air planes also. I load it up with movies for that.

It's pretty much worthless outside of convenience. I like it for consumption. I'm not so fond of it when I am creating anything. I will never get an iPad for personal reasons.

 

I bought an iPad 1 soon after it came out. Only opted for the 16GB Wi-fi model as I didn't want to drop a lot on such a new product that didn't know where it was going. Anyway, it's all I've ever needed in terms on an iPad. I don't listen to music on it, so I don't need space for that. And when I do, it streams to it using home sharing.

As a device, it's awesome. Install Plex server on your computer and buy the Plex app and you can lay anywhere in the house and watch any movie you want. I buy the EA Games when they put them on sale (basically any holiday weekend you can get the $10 games for $1) and I play Madden, T Woods, Risk, Monopoly, whatever until I'm bored with it. It's great for browsing the web in bed or on the couch watching the TV. I love the thing. There's so much to do with it.

Then I bought the new 11" Macbook Air, and suddenly the iPad sits on its dock all day, unless I want to play Risk. Literally, I only use the thing for Risk now. The issue I found was that I just needed something smaller, and more portable to do my computing on. The iPad filled the void when I had my 13" MBP, but now with the Air I find myself struggling for a reason to keep the iPad. Sure, the battery lasts longer on the iPad and there's more games for it. But I'm debating if it's worth keeping. I can tell you right now, if it was an Android Tablet or Playbook with a smaller games catalogue and poorer battery life, it would have been out the door the minute the Air took over.

My opinion on the iPad: It's great if you only have a desktop computer in the house.