I’ve finally ordered an iPad. It was done in anticipation of my vacation in Europe this August. I’ll be returning to the south of France, where I spent about a year almost 15 years ago. When I moved to France in college, I went with only enough clothes for a week, a dozen books, toiletries, and a Sony Discman – not bad for a 10-month stay!
This time around, my needs are rather different, which really makes me hope that the iPad can deliver promised results. First, I must keep my 3-year-old son entertained on a 12+ hour flight. Yikes. If it fails, I’ll be a wanted man by the end of the flight; however, it does seem the iPad’s long battery life and library of children’s books and movies should be adequate firepower. Second, my first stop is in London, where my wife will do archival research for her doctoral dissertation at the British Library and the College of Arms. My question is whether I can stretch the iPad as a true replacement for a laptop, even for serious dissertation work? I sure hope so because I can’t imagine lugging a laptop around with it. I plan to use Dropbox, so that my wife can access her GBs of docs while in the library. I will buy the Pages app, so that she create new content that will convert to Word docs upon return. Alternatively, I’m considering Google Docs as an option; however, I don’t think she will have Wi-Fi access in the reading room, and I’m not totally sure it can work effectively offline. Lastly, I hesitantly plan to bring the wireless keyboard from my iMac. I’m hoping my wife finds the touch screen adequate, but there is no room for typos when you are transcribing texts from 700 year old manuscripts!
The reason I write this blog is because I’m going to only have a few days with my iPad before the trip since I’ve joined the backlog of online Apple store orders. Any Apple gurus that can recommend quality productivity tools or caution me in my approach are welcome to chime in. If the iPad meets my needs for this trip, I think it can meet almost any expectation related to netbooks.