The big question – what does an iPad do?

For those in the world that are uninitiated as yet, to the uses of an iPad, a question that often occurs is – What does an iPad do? And the truthful answer to the question is, not an awful lot. Now I’m not being facetious but it is just a pile of components, metal, glass and silicon and the thing that does the work or does the real job of being an iPad, is the software. The applications and what you can do with those apps is the answer to the question of – What can the iPad do.

The Amazing iPad

What can an iPad do?

You can pick up the iPad and do whatever you like with it. It will do all sorts of weird and wonderful things, providing you have the correct applications, bought from the Apple iPad App Store. You can buy applications which will satisfy your need for tasks suited to productivity, iPad GTD, reading or writing, photography, learning stuff or playing games. So on one level you have the iPad which doesn’t do much at all, and then on another level you have the operating system which allows you to interact with the applications that do the jobs that you require it to do.

Instead of asking what does an iPad do? You might instead be asking what can’t it do. Well for sure it will never make you a cup of tea, but there are applications which will work as timers so that you can get your perfect cup of tea. There will be applications that will give you information about tea and all the paraphernalia regarding tea and the making of tea.

What does an iPad do?

Get an iPad to try out to see what it does.

So you see, the question what does an iPad do is a bit of a silly question to ask. The best solution is to try an iPad for yourself. Borrow one from a friend, just go and buy one or visit an Apple store to see what can the iPad do in store. If you are unable to get your hands on an iPad to try it out then why not read some reviews about the iPad or possibly even a book about the iPad. There are a number of books available that you will find will inform you, exactly what can be done with an iPad. Also on the Apple website you will find a whole load of information that will answer the question – What does an iPad do.

Why not start from the other end of the question and answer process, by asking yourself, what it is that you want to do with the iPad. If you are a writer then you will go to the section in the Apple iPad application store where you can you find out what writing and authors applications there are available. There are surely, a number of writers applications that will suit your purpose perfectly. Some of these authors iPad applications are free and some applications you will need to pay for. You will find that many applications are priced very reasonably, so that for a small amount of money you could try out a couple of writers applications to suit your purpose.

Scrivener for iPad

Scrivener for iPad

Unfortunately as of yet there is no Scrivener for iPad application, but there are a number of applications that will allow you to write on the iPad and be able to import into Scrivener on the Mac, really easily. SimpleNote is one of these applications and another application that I like for note-taking would be a NebulousNotes. If you read within the help files of Scrivener for the Mac, you’ll also find that there is an application for the iPad for writers, that is based on the note card idea. What you do, is to break up your writing into small parts and use the cards to rearrange the text and the ideas towards building a finished piece.

If you are a novice user of an iPad and you have asked the question – What can an iPad do? – then you could possibly be thinking along the lines of web browsing, checking your e-mail, using Facebook, using FaceTime on an iPad, to talk to family around the world. Then of course you will want to play some iPad games. Then again if you are a business person that would like to use the iPad in a corporate environment then you might like to record audio whilst in a meeting, create presentations using the Keynote application, use Numbers to make spreadsheets or use an application specifically designed for your business.

Using the iPad in education – What can the iPad do in the hands of a student?

Mindnode icon

There are now textbooks which are available in the form of e-book’s which can be read on the iPad. The beauty of these textbooks is that they are fully multimedia and they are a much more immersive type of learning than you would find with ordinary books. The new textbooks for iPad that can be viewed on the iPad will have video, audio and also have the ability to be bookmarked and to have notes alongside the text without ruining a book.

A student will also likely want to use the iPad to enhance the learning experience by taking notes and these notes can be more useful, when combined with recorded audio notes. There is the excellent application MindNode Pro which is great for mind mapping.

There are a few iPad educational applications that will record the audio, for example, during a lecture and when you create a note at a specific time during the lecture it becomes linked to the timed audio. When you tap on the note later it will start playing the audio that was recorded at the time you made the note or if you play the audio, then the notes become highlighted, at the correct moment. You’d almost wish that you were a student again to be able to take advantage of some of the new technological advances as found in devices such as the iPad.

So what does an iPad do for gamers?

Infinity Blade

Quite a lot actually! There are a huge number of games available ranging from the simple Angry Birds type of game to the much more immersive Infinity Blade iPad. Then there are the huge number of puzzle games, with which you can test your own abilities or play against other users, either in the same house as yourself or with other connected iPad users around the world. What does a iPad do – Gamers will also be just enjoying the iPad for all it can do, rather than asking the question – What does an iPad do? Or what can you do with an iPad?

The Amazing iPad