Tag Archives: iPad

Saturday afternoon thoughts on the iPad

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Today I’ve been reading a book with the Kindle app on my iPad. When I come across a word or a name I’m unfamiliar with, I double-click and jump over to the dictionary app or Safari/Wikipedia. Or I’d hear the ping of a new email or text message (which I usually check, but not always)

If a big story breaks (like the shooting in Arizona) I can watch news updates for any number of sources.

I’ve started taking this connectedness for granted. Yeah, we’ve been doing this for a while on our laptops, but something about getting all of this from a little slab of aluminum and glass propped on my chest amazes me.

Even the book I was reading when all of this occurred to me. I came across it in a blog post… downloaded from Amazon… and started reading on the same device where I first learned of the book. All within 5 minutes. Damn!

A bunch of Mac Heads meet most Saturday mornings at the local coffee shop. Bigger than usual group this morning and as I looked around, we all had iPads. As far as I could tell, nobody brought their laptops.

Someday soon I’ll stop noticing the wonderful things the iPad (and similar devices) brings to me. But maybe there will something new and even more amazing.

iPad Killer: HP Slate 500

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Our HP rep brought in the long-awaited Slate 500 today and we all got hands on. No way I could be objective about a device that’s smaller than the iPad, weighs the same; has half the battery life; runs Windows and costs $800. So here’s the PC Magazine review from a from a few months back.

Would like to hear from anyone that has one of these… or can snap a photo in the wild.

UPDATE: Jim Boettger sends along this photo of his docked Slate. “The dongle plugged into the top of the slate is for my Kensington Slimblade kbd and mouse set. Also have Monsoon speakers plugged into dock.”

Tiny projector for iPhone/iPad

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Tom Piper demos Laser Pico Projector. A little pricey at $450 but a cool gadget. Just not sure if/when/where I would use it. If the setting is cozy enough for this wee projector, why wouldn’t I just use my laptop or iPad? If I didn’t have those with me, however, the projector (almost exactly same size as iPhone) fits easily in my pocket. What do you think?

Pandora Radio

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Top 40 radio was just what it sounds like. The 40 most popular songs played over and over and over. The idea –as I understand it– was people would rather hear the popular songs more frequently than have a bunch of new stuff mixed in.

The little station I worked at had a longer play list. Maybe 100 to 150 songs? It was pretty loose. Nobody got too upset if you mixed in something not in “the box.” But it was pretty easy to get burned out on the most popular songs if you played them every…single…day.

By the time I left in the mid-80s, I’d heard about all the music I needed for a while. And the only easy way to listen to music at the time was… on radio stations with very “tight” playlists. Somebody else was picking my tunes.

It was nearly 15 years before the iPod rekindled my interest in music. I ripped the few CD’s I had and started buying music on iTunes. It was nice.

The idea of “streaming” music didn’t immediately appeal to me. I wanted to “have” the songs. But when Pandora came along a couple of years ago, I gave it a try and was immediately hooked.

Now I start each day at the Coffee Zone (6:30) by popping in the ear buds and firing up one of my “stations” on Pandora. More on those in a moment.

When I hear a song I like, I give it a thumbs up. If I don’t care for the song, thumbs down immediately rejects it. I think you can reject up to 5 songs an hour. If I want to give my station more variety, I can add and artist or a song and Pandora will start mixing in similar music. It isn’t perfect but over time, Pandora gets better and better at playing songs I like.

And I can have as many stations as I want. If I’m feeling funky, for example, I jump over to my Al Greene station.

Pandora keeps a record of every song I vote up or down, including the date and time I did so. You can check this out if your interested. I can also bookmark songs and/or artists and post a link to Twitter or Facebook.

I was surprised by some of my choices. And by the percentage of new music by artists I’d never heard of. And songs I don’t think I’d hear on our local radio stations. And certainly not commercial-free. You can listen to 40 hours of Pandora a month for free. I opted for the paid version (Pandora One) which cost $36/year. Best money I spend.

Apps for the iPhone and iPad, of course.

End of the desk-top era

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I’ve had a computer on my desk at home since 1984. A lot of them. Zenith, Gateway, IBM, Dell and, most recently, a Mac Mini. No longer. I’m selling the Mini.

Oh, there are still lots of computers around the house. The MacBook Pro long ago became my main box (slab?). And there’s the iPad and the iPhone. But it felt like the end of an era.

This weekend I’ll replace my printer and scanner with a wireless all-in-one from HP and as I started making room, I was struck by how many usb hubs and power-strips were being relegated to a box in the closet.

Yesterday I had a chat with one of our IT guys about where things are headed from a business perspective. Are we getting closer to the day when a company tells a new employee they can use their own computer (any flavor they choose) and hook into the company content via the cloud.

I took a little further and suggested the device of chose would be some sort of tablet, not a laptop. Whatever shakes out, things are going to be much different for the users and the IT folks who support them.

iPads just what the doctor ordered

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That clipboard your doctor used to carry around is getting replaced by the iPad. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

“Emergency room doctors are using iPads to order lab tests and medication. Plastic surgeons are using them to show patients what they might look like after surgery. And medical residents are using them as a quick reference to look up drug interactions and medical conditions.

Since Apple’s iPad hit the market in April, doctors at Chicago area hospitals are increasingly using the hot-selling tablet as a clinical tool.

Not only does the iPad allow doctors to view electronic medical records, wherever they are, it also gives them a way to show patients their X-rays, EKGs and other lab tests on an easy-to-read screen. Plus, it’s lighter and has a longer battery life than many laptops, making it convenient for doctors to take on rounds.

Within the next month, the University of Chicago Medical Center plans to provide iPads to all of its internal medicine residents, expanding on a pilot program launched earlier this year. Similarly, Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood has given iPads to all of its orthopedic residents as part of a pilot program.

Other doctors are buying their own iPads and using them to interact with patients. At U. of C., for instance, plastic surgeon Dr. Julie Park uses her iPad to show breast-cancer patients what they might look like after reconstructive surgery.

Another hospital that has embraced the iPad is MetroSouth Medical Center in Blue Island. Once doctors there learned that they could access the hospital’s electronic medical records with the iPad, “it went through here like wildfire,” said Dr. Richard Watson, an emergency room physician at MetroSouth. “At least half of our staff here in the emergency room has their own iPad and carries it and uses it.”

Though the iPad provides a portal to the hospital’s electronic record, patient information isn’t actually stored on the device. And both the iPad and the hospital server are password-protected, lowering the chances that sensitive data could be swiped from a lost or stolen iPad.

Dr. Eric Nussbaum, MetroSouth’s emergency room chief, said the iPad also solves one of the problems created by switching from a paper-based record system to an electronic one: having to go to a desktop computer to order lab tests or type in notes on a patient.

“With this, I’m back to the convenience of being in the patient’s room, talking to them and plugging in my orders right then and there,” he said.

If you’ve spotted the iPad in the medical wild, let us know in the comments.

iPad stories

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The company I work for has been giving iPads to our sellers as incentives for meeting sales goals. The iPads are theirs to use any way they choose. Here’s some of the feedback to date:

“I use it at home more than anything for web browsing etc.  But also bring it in the office everyday, just in case I made need it for meetings, etc”

“I never see it, but my family loves it!”

“My family and I have been enjoying the iPad since receiving it back in early August. I tend to use it more as an informational resource, especially to view daily newspapers and other on-line publications. My kids love the game apps and we have started to explore some of the educational programs. Much like the Wii and the Flip Video Cam previously, the iPad was a very popular gift this year for my gang.”

“Using it at home right now for personal use.  I am sure when sales season picks up I will use on some presentations.”

“Yes I use my iPad all the time at home…my laptop is collecting dust. I use it some at work for taking notes in a meeting. I can’t really use it beyond that because it’s not 3G. We have bad WiFi in the stadium where our offices are.”

“Using the iPad a lot at home actually. Funny enough, other than iTunes, we use it most with our 2 year old son. There are flash card apps on there that he LOVES, he asks to play on it almost every night. Pretty cool. Also really nice to have a second device with good internet access when either Stacie or I am on the MacBook at night. For work, not much lately just because there haven’t been the fact findings and presentations like we will have staring back again in January.”

“My 15 month old little boy is loving the iPad.  We have downloaded several Pixar movies to keep him entertained in the car as well as when we are dining out.  My wife has also downloaded several kid friendly apps that she uses as teaching/learning tools for him.  It has been awesome!  My mother-in-law has had an iPad for a while now, so (our son) knows his way around it much better than I.”

What do you think? Is the iPad a transformative (new) device? Will this (and similar) devices replace laptops one day? I expect our company to take the initiative in showing our sellers (and others) how to use the iPad as a communication tool in all kinds of settings. I find these stories very exciting.

iPad above every player’s locker

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Beginning Monday, the 123 back-lit nameplates about the lockers of Nebraska’s varsity football players will be replaced with iPads.

From the story on Huskers.com:

Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne admitted Friday that he didn’t know a lot about iPads, “but the main purpose,” he said, “is for communication, so if Bo (Pelini) or an assistant coach needs to schedule a meeting, everybody can know immediately, whether they’re in the varsity locker room or the walk-on locker room at the Hawks Championship Center.

For compliance reasons, the iPads will be mounted into each player’s locker. The football staff will have the ability to send messages to the players via their iPads. The players will be able to acknowledge and respond, but their messages will be limited to football and academic personnel only.

The new capability will enable the football staff to post events to each player’s iPad calendar, so he will know the times of each practice, conditioning session, academic meeting or position meeting, even if it’s called at the last minute.

What about the capability to access all iPads remotely so they can play the same video at once?

“Wireless can cause a slight delay, but yes, that’s the plan – to get all to play at once when the situation calls for it,” said Chad Chiesa, a Nebraska Athletic Department IT specialist. “With the assistance of a software development firm that specializes in mobile device applications, our hope is to keep everything in sync.”

I’m sure the guys in Cupertino didn’t foresee this particular use of the iPad but they knew in their hearts and smart heads that there would be no end of creative uses. Do you think they pull these down and replace them with the new RIM Blackpads? Or Microsoft’s Slate?

via Uber Husker, Todd Perry

Will iPads replace laptops?

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Dylan and Miles dropped in at the Coffee Zone this morning. They’re high school sophomores in Savannah, Missouri. Dylan brought his new iPad which he purchased with money from his summer job (scanning medical records).

He has a desktop computer (and a Blackberry) but no laptop. I found it interesting that he would go for the iPad instead of a laptop. But not surprising. I think we’ll see this happening more and more. For all the reasons we’ve mentioned here. Price and cool factor topping the list.

Dylan says he plans to take it to class this fall. Would like to know how that works out.

Lots of colleges are exploring ways to bring the iPad into the classroom.