I’m a gadget fan. I love new electronic toys. But I like to explore how they help me in productivity, efficiency and communication rather than just hover in the fanciness. I hear a lot of people express doubt about how useful an iPad would be. Since the iPad 2 debuted yesterday, I thought I would share how my life has been impacted by this little device.
1. The Bible – I have multiple Bibles on my iPad. The one I use most often is the OliveTree Bible Reader. It offers advanced study tools that can be purchased separately. The benefit to me is that all of these resources live on the iPad itself rather than out in the “cloud.” This is helpful when I am at places without free wi-fi. (I didn’t get the 3G version). For my daily Bible reading, though I like to use YouVersion.
2. Books – I have both iBooks and Kindle for iPad on my device. I like iBooks more because of it’s slickness and features. While the iPad will never supplant real books for me, the convenience of digital books is amazing. Because my iPad goes everywhere with me, I always have books. It offers a perfect size for reading.
3. Productivity – Dropbox is my primary storage tool. I’m slowly placing all of my documents there. For large PDF’s I use GoodReader, which also accesses Dropbox. Evernote is my general sticky note tool. I use it more than any other app (besides Mail and Safari) to organize my life and collect my thoughts.
4. Meetings – For meetings, I use SoundNote. It allows me to record the audio from meetings while I type notes. When I go back to review the meeting, it “remembers” what was being said when I typed a word. By clicking that word it takes me immediately to that point in the audio. VERY useful for people like me who tend to forget the details of meetings.
5. Documents – All of my music in Gateway Worship comes to me by PDF and rests on the iPad. I just set the thing on a music stand during rehearsal. I use QuickOffice to view and work with Word, Excel and PPT documents. It, too, syncs with Dropbox.
6. Banking – Mint is my primary banking tool, and my credit card companies all have apps as well. The Mint app is built for the iPhone but works fine on the iPad.
7. Social – I use Friendly for Facebook and TweetDeck for Twitter.
8. Music – Strangely, I don’t keep any music on the iPad since my iPhone has music and is already always with me. I use several musician tools: Tempo 2 for a click box, and PitchBot for guitar tuning, along with others.
9. Entertainment – Netflix and the new DirecTV apps are great at managing my entertainment life. The convenience and accessibility of both apps blow me away.
10. Games – lest you think all I do is work, my iPad has a respectable selection of games. Two words: Angry Birds. I don’t spend much time with them, but the games make for a nice distraction.
I use a ton of other apps on a regular basis like Ebay, WordPress, and RSS Readers. The point is that the iPad is a key part of my everyday life in leading and growing. It’s ease of use, simplicity, and compactness simply have no comparison.
The new iPad 2 has come out, but I won’t upgrade. There’s not enough new features to convince me to spend another $500. The cameras aren’t appealing to me, I rarely use Facetime on my iPhone, and I’m very pleased with the speed.
If you don’t have one, though, I highly recommend the iPad 2. I believe it will make you a stronger and more productive leader. Allow the apps to redefine your work flows. You’ll find yourself with more time to think!
What apps have you found most useful, and which technology pieces do you like to use in your productivity?