That is a good question. Some say yes, and some say yes/no. Most agree to say that it depends on what kind of professional you are, in which industry you work, and what are your needs when it comes to productivity (wow, what a surprise… I would have never figured that out on my own).
In my case (as a “veteran” nomad worker), that’s exactly what I’m going to figure out during a week, starting today. Even though I’m quite tempted to take my netbook with me as a back-up in case the iPad is not up to my expectations (and to prevent being stuck in Vienna with nothing to do but writing down “to do lists” of all the “must-do” things I could “not-do” with my iPad), I’ll fully play the game.
I guess I will (just in case…) take a USB drive with all my favorite apps on it, bookmarks and settings. But I’m not even sure where I could get a laptop to use it anyway…
My expected tasks for the next five days might include:
- Email checking (I guess that will be no issue with the iPad’s email client)
- Document editing (PlainText shall be enough when offline, but I’ll definitely stay in the “Cloud” whenever possible – like by using Google Doc every time I need to create a Word/Excel-like document. As for Pdf documents, I’ll try Stanza for iPad)
- Access documents stored in the cloud (no prob: dropbox for iPad)
- Basic image editing (screen captures, create mock-ups, crop, resize, etc)
- twalaba‘s platform testing and debugging on Safari
- Stay in touch with the “outer world” thanks to Skype for iPad
- Unexpected urgent-must-do tasks…
By judging to this list of regular day-to-day to-do tasks, the use of my iPad will tightly be connected to the “Cloud”. When you have a 16 Gb iPad2, having all your documents dematerialized and available online, is a real relief. You save a bunch of storage (I’d rather keep for iTunes…) and you know that wherever you are, and whatever happens, all documents you created are “safe”.
As for where to get an internet connection, Vienna, as major cities in Europe, is a perfectly “connected” city: you will get a free WiFi connection almost anywhere (Cafés, restaurants, Starbucks, MacDonald, etc). In my case, I don’t worry to much about whether I’ll get an internet connection or not: wherever I’ll stay, I will be able to connect my iPad2 to the cloud through my Nokia N900 + Joiku Spot’s app. I just must not forget to pack a few extra batteries for my Nokia phone as turning a smartphone into a secured Wifi hotspot, drains batteries quite fast. As for the autonomy of the iPad, I don’t worry too much: apparently, an intensive use of the iPad (while connected to the Internet) should leave me enough time to complete a full day at work before having to worry to look somewhere for a plug. Let’s now see how it behaves in the wilderness of the city…
… while I’ll keep my fingers crossed that I won’t bump into too much “Flash” during my journey.
