FMYI | For My Innovation

Can the iPad be used as a laptop replacement at work? To figure this out, I kept my laptop off for a week after first deciding to get an iPad, setting it up, and leaving the laptop at the office. Part of the week I was in Manila on a trip, and during the other part my laptop stayed turned off in the office.

My general impressions? I didn’t miss the extra complexity of the laptop, but I did miss doing some key workflow related tasks that aren’t possible on the iPad:

1. Pros

• Singletasking: I found the lack of multitasking (until iOS4 is released on the iPad) to be actually refreshing. Focusing on one task at a time made it easier to get things done.
• Travel: The iPad is perfect for traveling and leaving the laptop behind. Battery life is outstanding. During my 18 hour trip back, I watched two movies, read an iBook, did some work, and only used up half the battery! And if you get the built in wireless data 3G version, you can work in more places without committing to a wireless data contract.
• Worklife: Using a tablet is truly “A New Day“ for working. How you sit, being able to work from anywhere with built in Internet access and a longer battery life, making it easy to pass around during group brainstorming, and not having a screen cluttered with too many things at once will change how you work.

2. Cons

• Emails and calendar: The Mail app doesn’t show flagged emails for follow up (essential to my system of never filing an email), you can’t search the full text of emails on the server, you can’t click on an original email to view the sent email, no iCal tasks show up, and .ics file import is lacking. Together, these have a major impact on my workflow, although I can use FMYI’s Activity Manager and shared calendar to get around this.
• Writing: Without a physical keyboard, typing anything more than a paragraph is a pain. A Bluetooth keyboard is a must if you plan to do a lot of writing. Copying and pasting URLs, critical to blog posts, is awkward.
• Sharing: There’s no videochat (at FMYI, we rely on it because of team members working around the country) and IM through push notifications is a bit clunky. And the biggest problem of all is you can’t upload documents easily to websites/web apps.

3. Tricks

• Get access to your laptop’s document folders by using services like Dropbox, MobileMe, or SugarSync. That way, you won’t have to use iTunes to sync individual files.
• Use web apps to collaborate especially if you have a 3G iPad. This keeps your team’s info in the cloud and accessible from anywhere. Check out FMYI, which blends a social networking site ease of use with project management, contact tracking, file/calendar/task sharing, and more. I may be a little biased, but we created FMYI for exactly this situation.

My conclusion? If you’re traveling for awhile and shut down the laptop, the iPad works well, but in the office, you’re not going to replace the laptop or desktop computer just yet. You can get close if you have a cloud based file and collaboration solution though.

Next: final thoughts on the iPad, tablets, and the future of computing in the workplace.

-Justin