The computer, even though its a laptop, lives on my desk with a chair in front of it. I use it for work (mostly).
The iPad is for everything else. Going up to the roof to hang out on the deck, I browse the web, play games, compose music with garage band, sometimes I'll play around with editing movies in iMovie (though it would really be better if I could use the iPad to edit movies that live on my computers hard drive, since thats where all my footage lives.)
The iPad is a dream for browsing the web, just big enough to be an expansive experience, but nearly as portable as the iPhone.
I can't imagine dragging the computer up to the deck. Its a laptop, sure, but it has a USB hub plugged into it, headphones, a mouse I periodically use and an external drive. These things effectively anchor it to the desk. Plus its much easier to sit in just about any position and use the iPad, where the laptop kinda forces you into the sitting-at-a-desk position.
The iPad also great for reading books. I have no paper books anymore-- all of my books are iBooks, and if there's a book I want to read, and the iBookstore doesn't have it, I don't buy it. The other day I downloaded over 200 ebooks in ePub format from the mises institute- http://mises.org. This means I have essentially the entire works of austrian economics on my iPad, at my fingertips. There are also probably another 200 books from the iBookstore we've accumulated, as well as Oreilley ebooks, and a very large collection of PDFs (the iBooks PDF viewer experience is dramatically improved recently and is just great now.)
I've also got the entire footage from WWDC 2011 on my iPad. I watch it periodically when I need to refresh myself on iOS development issues.
Of course there are some perennial movies that we like, and so I keep them synced to the iPad. Sometimes we'll put our TV shows on there that we subscribed to in iTunes.
I travel a lot, and the iPad is the full time computer on trains and planes.
The iPad has a big chunk of photos. I have a photo folder in aperture that syncs with it, and of course iCloud keeps the most recent 1000 photos. So, it was really easy to show photos to my parents when I visited them last, or to show a photo to my partner or co-founder.
When in lectures, or having a company meeting, I use the iPad to take notes. I have no problem touch typing on the on screen keyboard. I set the iPad down and use notepad and don't even have to look. Sometimes though we record discussions to be transcribed later, particularly during brainstorming.
The iPad is a great email machine. I'll read email on it and reply to people. Often late at night when I still have work to do but am tired, I'll get in bed and do email.
Of course, it also makes a great TV while in bed- I've watched Netflix movies and shows on Hulu, and used to watch TV on ABCs app in the past.
I use the iPad for research. I keep iCab open as a seperate browser specifically for researching technical topics. This way I can have a bunch of tabs open and essentially open unlimited tabs, and its never polluted by my normal browsing. I switch between iCab and notepad to make notes about ideas, and in this way I architected our main product. (In fact, I spent a couple weeks with an illness and used the iPad full time to do work those weeks.)
When there's an issue with one of our machines, I'll use the iPad to SSH into it and see if I can diagnose it, sometimes. (though of course usually I use the laptop for this stuff.)
Oh, I forgot, I do play games on it too. And I use twitter. And Facebook, though I don't use Facebook much at all these days.
Whenever I need to close tabs on my browser so that I can concentrate on work, I will use instapaper to save the tabs that I want to read later. Then, later, on the iPad I'll read those articles.
I use the iPad to keep in touch with my cofounders. We are often in different rooms and rathe than disturb each other we send iMessages back and forth.
When I need to talk to someone on the phone, I use the skype app. Haven't really used FaceTime much but might start doing that soon as the people I talk to are all on more modern hardware.
I have bluetooth headphones so if I'll be spending some serious time with iPad, I'll put on some tunes. I have a selection of music synced, but everything is in iCloud too so I an add whatever I want whenever I want. Its amazing to have your entire music library accessible in a portable way like this.
About the only thing I don't do on the iPad is write software...
The iPad is for everything else. Going up to the roof to hang out on the deck, I browse the web, play games, compose music with garage band, sometimes I'll play around with editing movies in iMovie (though it would really be better if I could use the iPad to edit movies that live on my computers hard drive, since thats where all my footage lives.)
The iPad is a dream for browsing the web, just big enough to be an expansive experience, but nearly as portable as the iPhone.
I can't imagine dragging the computer up to the deck. Its a laptop, sure, but it has a USB hub plugged into it, headphones, a mouse I periodically use and an external drive. These things effectively anchor it to the desk. Plus its much easier to sit in just about any position and use the iPad, where the laptop kinda forces you into the sitting-at-a-desk position.
The iPad also great for reading books. I have no paper books anymore-- all of my books are iBooks, and if there's a book I want to read, and the iBookstore doesn't have it, I don't buy it. The other day I downloaded over 200 ebooks in ePub format from the mises institute- http://mises.org. This means I have essentially the entire works of austrian economics on my iPad, at my fingertips. There are also probably another 200 books from the iBookstore we've accumulated, as well as Oreilley ebooks, and a very large collection of PDFs (the iBooks PDF viewer experience is dramatically improved recently and is just great now.)
I've also got the entire footage from WWDC 2011 on my iPad. I watch it periodically when I need to refresh myself on iOS development issues.
Of course there are some perennial movies that we like, and so I keep them synced to the iPad. Sometimes we'll put our TV shows on there that we subscribed to in iTunes.
I travel a lot, and the iPad is the full time computer on trains and planes.
The iPad has a big chunk of photos. I have a photo folder in aperture that syncs with it, and of course iCloud keeps the most recent 1000 photos. So, it was really easy to show photos to my parents when I visited them last, or to show a photo to my partner or co-founder.
When in lectures, or having a company meeting, I use the iPad to take notes. I have no problem touch typing on the on screen keyboard. I set the iPad down and use notepad and don't even have to look. Sometimes though we record discussions to be transcribed later, particularly during brainstorming.
The iPad is a great email machine. I'll read email on it and reply to people. Often late at night when I still have work to do but am tired, I'll get in bed and do email.
Of course, it also makes a great TV while in bed- I've watched Netflix movies and shows on Hulu, and used to watch TV on ABCs app in the past.
I use the iPad for research. I keep iCab open as a seperate browser specifically for researching technical topics. This way I can have a bunch of tabs open and essentially open unlimited tabs, and its never polluted by my normal browsing. I switch between iCab and notepad to make notes about ideas, and in this way I architected our main product. (In fact, I spent a couple weeks with an illness and used the iPad full time to do work those weeks.)
When there's an issue with one of our machines, I'll use the iPad to SSH into it and see if I can diagnose it, sometimes. (though of course usually I use the laptop for this stuff.)
Oh, I forgot, I do play games on it too. And I use twitter. And Facebook, though I don't use Facebook much at all these days.
Whenever I need to close tabs on my browser so that I can concentrate on work, I will use instapaper to save the tabs that I want to read later. Then, later, on the iPad I'll read those articles.
I use the iPad to keep in touch with my cofounders. We are often in different rooms and rathe than disturb each other we send iMessages back and forth.
When I need to talk to someone on the phone, I use the skype app. Haven't really used FaceTime much but might start doing that soon as the people I talk to are all on more modern hardware.
I have bluetooth headphones so if I'll be spending some serious time with iPad, I'll put on some tunes. I have a selection of music synced, but everything is in iCloud too so I an add whatever I want whenever I want. Its amazing to have your entire music library accessible in a portable way like this.
About the only thing I don't do on the iPad is write software...