The iPad. Do you want one? Do you need one? What do you do with them anyway?

I have just returned to Melbourne after a five week tour to Manila with Cats, (which I am sure you will read about soon enough in an upcoming article) our hotel was about a 30 minute coach ride through the hectic streets of Manila.

I have just returned to Melbourne after a five week tour to Manila with Cats, (which I am sure you will read about soon enough in an upcoming article) where our hotel was about a 30 minute coach ride through the hectic streets of Manila. Once I had familiarised myself with the crazy traffic and all the weird and wonderful colour and movement outside the I started carrying my iPad with me to entertain myself on these daily trips.
As soon as I pulled my iPad out I was inundated with questions, (which isn’t that surprising really) about what is almost a new genre of technology. The questions themselves did surprise me. Quite often they started with: “Ooh an iPad, I want one, now what would I do with it?” It seems that our industry has fallen in love with apple products (as I mentioned in an earlier article about 95% of our cast had iPhones) and they already wanted this new piece of shiny, touch screen, glory, before they had decided why they needed one.
So I thought I would answer a few of these questions and help answer the question a lot of people are asking; could I use one instead of a laptop on tour?
I will admit, I am completely with those folks who had a crush on the iPad. I managed to find one a few weeks before they were released in Australia simply because I wanted one. Apple said they were great, Steve Jobs was raving about them… done: where do I sign? I justified it to myself with the arguments like ‘I do a lot of reading online of tech blogs’ (for the website development side of things) and ‘I often carry a lot of books around with me while touring’. If I purchase books then I have to send them home in a box. Its all a hassle. The iPad would revolutionise all of this for me.
In reality I can’t say that is has revolutionised my life. I will say that I do use it for everything I expected to use it for, and it functions very well.
I still find myself using it mostly for reading at this point. I have the Amazon app that allows you to log in and buy digital books, which are then downloaded to the iPad, and you can start reading straight away. I was surprised that it didn’t take long to get used to reading from a screen. It is a different feeling from sitting at a computer and just like reading a book, you very quickly forget about the device all together and are completely engrossed in the book itself. (Although, I guess that may depend on how engrossing the book is…)
I have the Australian newspaper app, which for $5 a month allows me to download each days content for offline reading and catch up with everything that is going on in Australia. This was fantastic during the election. There was very little coverage in the Philippino media (not surprisingly) so it was great to be able to download all the content and read it on the bus, at the theatre, or anywhere else I felt like it, and not need to have access to the internet in order to do so once it was downloaded. At this point the Australian is the only local newspaper I could find, but assume others will be following soon.
There are several other apps I use like Instapaper and Reeder that are different ways of saving, organising and reading web content offline. Which I find incredibly useful.
As well as all of this of course you can play games and watch movies and TV shows on it, email, watch youTube, chat on skype etc etc.
There are also apps that allow you to have your sheet music collection on your iPad, and you just swipe to turn the page. I wonder how long it is going to be before someone puts it on the piano in an audition?
The big question as to whether you could use it instead of a laptop on tour is still up in the air. It depends on what you normally use your computer for. If you just wanted to email, surf the net, upload photos then I think you could get by with an iPad. If you are going to be doing a lot of writing then I would suggest investing in the keyboard dock rather than relying on the touch screen keyboard. Also in order to upload photos you need an adapter to allow you to connect your camera directly to you iPad, but at around $40 its not too bad.
Something to think about is connecting the iPad to the internet. Particularly overseas you are going to be relying on wifi. A lot of the hotels I have been to recently still only have a cable in the room to connect you laptop to. This can be overcome by carrying with you and airport express modem (about $100) that allows you to broadcast the cable over wifi, it is about the size of a compact camera and very simple to set up.
With all this paraphernalia you could be quite happy using an iPad on tour. The only thing it is missing is a camera to allow you to video chat etc. So you may want to wait until the second generation, in which I am sure this will be included.
If you do have more extended needs from your laptop, such any kind of editing (video, audio or complex photography) then I would suggest that its probably not the device for you yet.
IPads start from around $600 at the apple store, they have lot of them on display so if you are considering it, maybe pop in and have a play with one.
I hope this has been educational. Whether it seems like you could replace your laptop with one or not, I would say that they are very cool. Lots of fun. Why not have both?

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