iPad for business - the taste test

Acres of copy have been written about the iPad but it is the business context that interests me. When I visited San Francisco last week, I saw a number of execs toting what to date I've sarcastically described as a kiddie's wi-fi enabled snowboard. Appirio's Narinder Singh said to me that while: "This is a version one, in three years time this form factor will be the way we carry around our compute power." I don't know whether I agree but curiosity got the better of me and after having to order one overnight as there were none in store I became the owner of a 64GB model. I didn't bother to wait for the 3G version because I don't need or want yet another micro chip to connect me to the Internet. That of itself could become a whole topic of discussion.

As many before have said, the iPad's battery life is more than adequate for a day's use. The battery indicator showed 42% left after 10 hours of watching film, playing music and surfing. OK - so not exactly business use but even so, my MacBook Pro would have died a long time prior. Score one to the iPad.

Vinnie Mirchandani sent me a PDF review copy of his upcoming book, The New Polymath. It was easy to read and flicking through pages is intuitive. I then grabbed the Kindle app and tried out another book. Again - easy to read though Amazon seemed to have initial difficulties in rendering the page (see illustration above.) Even the usually curmudgeonly and Apple hater Jason Perlow said to me that he loves the iPad for this style of application. Despite the Amazon snafu, score one to the iPad.

Apple has restricted it's iPad versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote to US markets until the iPad goes international. That's a bummer in the short term. However, there is a way around this for those acquiring the iPad now and wanting to download the apps from outside the US. My good buddy Pat Phelan of MaxRoam has a handy tutorial that works. Of itself that's not much good without having a US addressed credit card. The way around that is to buy a gift certificate and then use it against your US based account. That comes at a slight additional cost but if you're desperate to get paid for applications, then this is the best way to go about it. I used Braziliapilot paying a hefty $8.25 premium for a $50 certificate but 4saleusa offers a much better deal. Both offer payment via PayPal. Minus one for the iPad but kudos to great friends for helping out. So - what about those productivity apps?

Phil Hodgen is a tax lawyer and self confessed gadget nut who is currently running around the Middle East on client business. He's taken the iPad along to see how much could be done with it. He said on email that he was able to complete the outline for a book in 20 minutes. I played with Pages for a little while and found it OK for my needs. Just about. I quickly found that crippling functionality brings with it some restrictions but for most people, Apple has delivered just enough to make it usable. There are some snafus.

The menu bar is only available in portrait mode. It's nigh on impossible to type on the device's touchpad unless you have it laid flat on a work surface or are prepared to work one handed while cradling it between wrist and elbow. the alternative is to use a physical keyboard which kind of defeats the object of the touchpad. I don't see any way around this but then I'm not a product designer. Some have speculated that the iPad could take many forms. One of which might be the inclusion of a keyboard but then what would we have? A laptop!! Honors even.

Numbers, which is Apple's take on the spreadsheet, is gorgeous to look at but will fail the accountant's taste test. I found it was possible to create a confusing error formula. Ahem. That will require fixing. While Numbers has masses of functions (see illustration), there is no ability to create Pivot Tables. Those are the accountant's stand by for reporting and the like. It's boring but essential stuff. Without Pivot Tables, the iPad won't get a sniff in the hands of this powerful and influential group. There is an alternative for the future. Some smart developers out there will build reporting applications that can run over the Internet. It is one of the gaping holes in the SaaS/cloud story requiring urgent attention. If Apple wants to be the provider of apps choice in the future it has to get with this part of the program. Even if that only means building Pivot Table style functionality. Minus one for iPad.

There's not much to say about Keynote except that it restricts me to using illustrations that sit inside the iPhoto application. I often want to use Flickr so I can surf for Creatve Commons images. Does this then mean I have to swipe photos from Flickr and then put them into my iPhoto library on the iPad? If so then it hardly seems fair on the person who created the image. Why can I not upload to Flickr from the iPad as I can from the main iPhoto app?

Overall, the included and bought applications are 'OK' but seem like a work in progress. The more paranoid might think this is part of apple's broader plan of application domination. Charlie's Diary has an interesting take in the context of the recent Flash row:

The App Store and the iTunes Store have taught Steve Jobs that ownership of the sales channel is vital. Even if he's reduced to giving the machines away, as long as he can charge rent for access to data (or apps) he's got a business model. He can also maintain quality (whatever that is), exclude malware, and beat off rivals. A well-cultivated app store is actually a customer draw. It's also a powerful tool for promoting the operating system the apps run on. Operating system, hardware platform, and apps define an ecosystem.

The open source people will hate this but is there any way to stop Apple from achieving its goal? When you see that Apple's market cap exceeds that of Microsoft you have to wonder.

One of the nice touches is that you can share documents and photos via iWork albeit there is a storage limit of 1GB. There are some useful sharing options (see illustration) but again, I came up with a snafu - not directly related to the iPad per se but GMail. In order to get iWork to run, you need to authorize its use via email. So far, so good. I use GMail almost exclusively so sent myself a message. GMail has just released a tablet form factor version of its GMail client which I have on the iPad. Google says that it is a beta but it has a glaring ommision - it doesn't download clickable images. iWork verification requires you to click on an image. Doh! (see illustration)

This doesn't qualify as an iPad snafu but brings me on to development issues.

Apple claims that many of the apps that work on the iPhone will work happily on the iPad. That's true. But in many cases it comes with a giant snafu. When you open the app it renders to its original iPhone size. There is an option to double the size but then you see excessive dithering. That's downright silly. (see video) Some applications seem to have been thrown out the door in indecent haste. Pat Phelan reckons that

Twitter on the iPad is no contest, its Tweetdeck all the way, well done to my buddy Iain Dodsworth on this, it totally rocks.

I disagree. See the video at the top of this post where I show that updates via Tweetdeck were hopelessly slow.

Some native iPad applications have taken on the keypad arrangement Apple has designed. That includes having the @ symbol on the QWERTY section but no .com. OK - I can live with that. However, many applications - including the Google Apps suite do not follow the same convention. While I noticed it, some users will find this confusing. Apple needs to lay down design criteria that ensure consistency across the board. Minus one for iPad.

Overall what can we deduce? I agree with Narinder that this is a version one device and a darned expensive one at that once taxes and the obligatory protective case are taken into consideration. Add in 3G and you're looking at a serious amount of money for what can best be described as a great looking piece of hardware that's crippled by less than whole applications. At least from a business perspective.

Will I pack it on my next trip? Sure. Having the ability to read and write plus watch movies on my next 11 hour transatlantic on a screen I can see and which doesn't overburden my otherwise cramped coach class seat space is a bonus. Will I sacrifice taking the laptop? Not a chance. I'll be fascinated to see what my colleagues think of this brief assessment.