What is an iPad Used For? Depends on Who You Ask!

What is an iPad used for? – good question

It is a very good question, what is an iPad used for, and the answer is going to depend largely on who you are asking. For example, if you are asking me the question, then I’m likely to say that it is good for finding information, such as the name of actress in the film, that I am watching. I was also say that is good for doing some work with a mind map, for getting some ideas out of my head and into some manageable format. Then I’m quite likely to use that set of ideas, that have been turned into text in an application, that is a note taking application, good for dealing with text, either in straight text format or in perhaps the outline format as used by something like Omni outliner.

I am really not too much into playing games, but every now and then I might fling a few birds around in Angry Birds. I do have Infinity Blade installed on the iPad, and I keep promising to have a go at it, quite soon. If you get talking to the sort of persons, that are really into playing games then it seems that the iPad really is a good device for playing games on. There are a large number of games in the Apple iPad application store to choose from. So when you are wondering what is an iPad are used for, and you are looking for some entertainment, it could be that you are into the wandering around shooting zombies, type of game, and then again maybe you are looking for something that is more like a puzzle.

Using an iPad for business, and the answers you get to your question, of what is an iPad are used for, will be different again. There are a large number of applications that have been built especially for a business. It is economically feasible for a large business to have an application created that specifically solves a problem for that business. Quite possibly could be a database that is accessed from the iPad, so that the business people using the iPad will be able to have access to the information required to be successful. Some of these applications will not necessarily be found in the Apple iPad application store and will be distributed locally within the company.

Quite likely a business user with the iPad will also be interested in spreadsheets. Dealing with the data that is contained with sets of numbers, and turning them into good-looking charts, that can be used for organising the business. Note taking applications will also be high on the list for business users, Phatpad for handwriting recognition for within meetings and straight note taking applications such as Nebulous Notes or PlainText.

What is an iPad used for – Getting social

Whether you are a business user, iPad on the sofa user, or a gamer, you going to be quite interested in the social networking applications. Many businesses these days are looking for ways to increase the amount of business and sales by using social networking. It seems that just about every day, I receive an e-mail telling me about a webinar that has all the information, about everything required to use Facebook for business purposes.

Twitterific  what is an iPad used forThere are a mountain of Twitter applications, my favourite would be Twitterrific, although I also have TweetDeck, Twitbird Pro on the iPad and I also have tried a few others. An application that I really enjoy using, which is great for a number of different social networking applications, is Flipboard. With Flipboard you can use it to see what is happening in Facebook, the best thing about Flipboard, is the way that it takes your feed from Facebook and presents it in a almost a newspaper like fashion, on the screen and makes it very easy to read. It is in some ways a kind of like a book and you can swipe from right to left to move to the next page. It will have the first part of the story and images that have been included, if you tap on the first part of the story in Flipboard, it will take you to the full article. Then you can tap on the small arrow in the top left-hand corner to get back to the Flipboard interface.

FlipboardYou can also use Flipboard to show RSS feeds, for instance from your favourite blog or from Google reader. It will also bring in a feed from a search in Twitter, so that for instance if you are interested in tech, it will bring in all the tweets on that subject and arrange them in Flipboard, so that you can read it really easily.

What is an iPad are used for – Consuming information

When you are asking what is an iPad used for, the answer of consuming information from various sources, has to be a popular answer. On my iPad I have the BBC News application, net newswire, which is an RSS reader and there are now a large number of magazines that are available either through the Apple iPad store or as HTML 5 magazines. If you want to see how good an HTML 5 magazine can be, have a look at the aside HTML 5 magazine, and I’m sure you will be impressed.

The reason that the HTML 5 magazine format, is popular with some publishers is because it gets around the Apple taking a part of the payment for the magazine, their commission, for including it in their Apple Store. A number of newspapers such as the London Times are experimenting with this way forward. Another reason for doing it this way is because the magazine or newspaper gets more information about who their customers are. And also perhaps, more importantly, it gets to know what their credit card numbers are, too, it makes it easier for them to up sell with other products.

Creating Content with the iPad

There are a lot more things that could be said about what is an iPad used for. There are content creators start making videos completely within the iPad using the camera on the rear of the iPad, and iMovie as the application of choice for editing the video. For consuming the video you have the video application, there is also the YouTube video application. Watching videos on the iPad is an extremely popular way of using the iPad. We have audio experts that will be using applications such as Garageband, to create music or podcasts. Then you can also be using applications such as Stitcher, for consuming the audio content.

I am sure that with this article I am only scratching the surface of what is an iPad used for. Please send me an e-mail using the form below, to let me know how would you answer the question of what is an iPad used for. I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say and I would be pleased to put your answers into another article and credit you with what you have to say about how you use your iPad. I will also put a link back to your website for you, if your information is included in the article.