One of my biggest marketing tools is my writing. I write three blog posts a week and at least one article or book review every weekend. Now that I have my iPad, I have another tool to help me keep current with my written content. Over the weekend, I tried two approaches to writing and editing articles with my iPad. One method takes full advantage of Google’s cloud-based technology, while the other method uses Apple’s web integration with its native iWork program.
An iPad docked with a wireless keyboard (from Terpstra_Brett via Flickr)
I have used the Google Apps suite of productivity tools for almost a full year and really like it. My wife and I have kept our personal checkbook register on an Apps spreadsheet, and I write the majority of my articles and many blog posts with the Apps word processing program. Apps is not as full-featured as the Microsoft Office suite or Apple’s iWork suite (more on iWork in a minute), but it handles 9 of 10 tasks I need from my office software. In fact, we use Apps exclusively on our netbook. The best feature of Google Apps on the iPad is that it looks EXACTLY the same as it does on a laptop or desktop computer. The only difference is the iPad’s 9.7-inch screen size and the touch keyboard. Since I use a 13-inch MacBook Pro as my primary computer, the iPad’s smaller size was not a hindrance to working with Apps on my iPad. I have quickly learned a “hunt-and-peck” style of typing on the iPad with my right thumb and left forefinger (yes, I know I am quirky about that!). I can type at about 60% of the rate of my typing on a traditional keyboard, which is more than acceptable on the iPad for me.
I also am using Apple’s Pages and Numbers applications from the iWork suite more and more. I have Office 2008 for Mac on my MacBook, but I am quickly using Pages as my word processor of choice. The layout of the editing tools is more user-friendly on Pages compared to Office 2008, and I like the more creative aspects of Pages. I downloaded the iPad’s Pages application for $9.99, and I also signed up for a free iWork.com account to upload my iWork documents for use on my MacBook and iPad (One of these days, I may also add an iPhone to my toolkit. However, Verizon needs to seal the deal on their own iPhone!) I typed a document on my iPad using Pages and then uploaded the document to iWork.com. After asking iWork.com to share the document with my e-mail address, I received an e-mail to the document. It was easy to download the document to my MacBook and start editing in pages.
Except in rare circumstances, I would not write a full article on an iPad unless I had the wireless Apple Keyboard shown in the photo to the left. However, the iPad is a very easy tool to use when editing an article or writing small pieces of content. I can see myself taking my iPad to a coffee shop or library instead of my laptop, but only if I knew I would not be doing heavy writing. Apple’s wireless keyboard may be an option, but I try hard to limit the tools I take with me. For the first time I did some “real work” on the iPad instead of a traditional computer, I was pleased with the iPad’s ability to be a capable substitute for a computer. As I mentioned in my post from last week, I will never expect for my iPad to completely replace my computer, but it did work well for what I wanted to do in this case.
