Why the iPad revolution has reformed working lives?
These were not gadget freaks or latte-quaffing Hoxton-based web designers, as some imagine iPad users to be. They were a large group of senior civil servants and bankers, in a country well beyond Europe and the US. To them, the iPad wasn't a status symbol; it was a device they had chosen to use because it enhanced their ability to do their job.
A year on from its arrival, Apple's iPad tablet computer still divides opinion. A large group of people insist it is an "overpriced toy" with limited functionality -- no keyboard, doesn't run Microsoft Office, can't play Flash video, can't expand its storage. But a growing number believe that, on the contrary, the iPad represents a new frontier in computing. And they simply don't care what the first group thinks. They're getting on with using their machines.
We have lived with the PC paradigm for around 30 years now, since IBM introduced its first personal computers and pushed them into businesses in the early 80s. Until the launch of the iPad last year the only comparable change in the market had been the laptop, which led to the emergence of an army of travelling salespeople whose most urgent need was always to find a power point where they could charge their machine's fading battery.
The iPad seems to be different -- a third stage of computing. Horace Dediu, a former analyst with the mobile phone company Nokia who now runs his own consultancy, Asymco, argues that "the definition of a new generation of computing is that the new products rely on new input and output methods, and allow a new population of non-expert users to use the product more cheaply and simply".
That certainly sounds like the iPad. It shows that it is possible to have something that does all the computing functions you want with a big screen that also has long battery life and weighs almost nothing, certainly compared to a laptop. It is portable and durable, and the touch screen adds another dimension.
Though it has the most prominent tablet in the market, Apple isn't the only player. Dozens of companies are using Google's free Android software to power tablets, and Google is helping them along with a custom version called "Honeycomb", designed for iPad-sized Android tablets. An estimated 17 million tablets -- from Apple and others -- were sold in 2010, and that number is likely to keep growing.
But is it really changing the way we work? We interviewed a range of people in different professions to see whether the iPad is all hype -- or whether in future we will all keep taking the tablets.
Margaret Manning -- businesswoman
Margaret Manning first realised that her iPad was going to change how she worked when she was in hospital, recovering from a minor operation, about a month after buying it. "I realised I could comfortably do emails, download a book to read, watch a film, whatever," she says. "There's no other device that you can do that with. You certainly can't read with a laptop in bed."
Margaret Manning first realised that her iPad was going to change how she worked when she was in hospital, recovering from a minor operation, about a month after buying it. "I realised I could comfortably do emails, download a book to read, watch a film, whatever," she says. "There's no other device that you can do that with. You certainly can't read with a laptop in bed."
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Manning (50) is the founder and chief executive of Reading Room, a London-based web development agency employing 170 people. She takes the iPad with her to client meetings and presentations: "It's got a wow factor," she says. "I did a presentation that I ran off it, and all the people in the room went, 'Ooh'," she recalls, adding: "They were all bankers."
To Manning, the iPad's chief virtue is its versatility. She can carry it in her bag to go to clients, check work emails in a coffee shop or train, and then take it to a bar later and kill some time playing a game. It's become her laptop, TV screen, iPod and iPhone. "It's adaptive to today's digital age. You can create and consume content in a different way."
Key to that is the screen size. "The iPhone was a step towards this, but the format is vital. This allows businesses to start using it in a way they couldn't with the iPhone."
She cites an app that Reading Room has developed for Grains Research Development Corporation in Australia which lets farmers examine crops for disease by comparing them, in the field, to pictures on the iPad. That could be done on a laptop -- but it would be cumbersome compared to doing it on the handheld screen.
She revels in the simplicity of the interface, and says battery life is key: "If it was shorter, that would change the relationship. If I had to travel with plugs and extra batteries that would change things. The iPhone's battery life is too short -- it hacks me off."
Are there any drawbacks? "There are two things that it doesn't do well: the keyboard -- if I travel with it, I have to take a lightweight keypad -- and voice calls. You can use Skype [the free internet voice call service], but not everybody has Skype, and I can't use it to call a client. "
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