Why You Should Buy That iPad, Even If You Own An iPhone
When the iPad was first launched, I was pretty disappointed. To me, it looked like nothing more than a giant iPhone and since I had just bought the iPhone 3Gs and a new iMac, I figured the iPad would be a waste of money.
That was until I started hearing other developers and designers talking about how awesome it was and how it totally changed their internet and media experience. While it sounded like hype at first, it did get me out of the office and into an Apple store to try one out.
Of course, every store I went to had plenty on display, but were all out of ones to buy. Finally, a month and a half later I was able to find a 32GB wireless version and I had to say….WOW.
Note: I have now spent $500 to replace my iPhone 3G to a 3Gs (dropped it in the toilet), $1500 on a new iMac, $500 on an iPad and I want the new iPhone 4, which will cost me $500…Apple is the death of my finances…
If you’re wondering why I waited so long to write about it, I didn’t want to upset anyone (the haters) by talking about it. However, I’ve had several people asking me if it’s worth buying when they already have an iPhone, the differences and some of the cool apps. So let’s get to it!
If you have an iPhone
Yes, go ahead and buy that iPad! While I love my iPhone and use it the same amount as I used it before, the iPad can do a ton of things the iPhone can’t, but the iPhone is still faster at doing some tasks.
- eBay: Faster to use on the iPhone, as it allows you to view your account & messages
- Videos/Games/Media: I NEVER used the iPhone for any of this – I never had time or the desire really to play more than a couple of games or watch movies (except when I’m working out now). However, I watch a ton of video and play games on the iPad. Plus, it’s got HD.
- Reading: I still prefer printed books, but I’ve moved all of my RSS feeds to the iPad. It’s absolutely a pleasure to read.
- Location Based Apps: Still better on the iPhone
Basically, while I do have the Twitter and WordPress apps on both the iPhone and iPad, I’ve found for the most part that I have several apps on the iPhone for business & pleasure, but the iPad contains completely different apps (less of them so far) that deal with media and pleasure.
Apps For Developers, Designers & Bloggers
I don’t own any, but the iPad offers a TON of mockup, wireframing and image editing apps.
I do, however, have a coding app called “Markup” It comes with an FTP program as well. While I don’t recommend coding a full site on it (no color coding and has some bugs) it’s great for the quick edits or lazy-in-bed ideas.
Bloggers also have a variety of great apps from WordPress (wish they had a code view 
and shortcuts) and Pages. Typing is super easy and quick on the iPad with it’s almost full size keyboard, I can type almost as fast and well as on a regular keyboard.
Other Apps
- Netflix: My godsend to my Buffy addiction. I can’t believe it’s also going to come out for the iPhone in the summer. My workouts will never be the same again! Video quality is amazing and super fast
- ABC: Catch up on all those LOST episodes in HD!
- The Early Edition: My favorite RSS reader, turns all of your feeds into a beautiful newspaper format.
- Plants vs Zombies: I’m not a big game player, but get this app! Completely addicting.
- Twitterrific: Catching up on tweets is so awesome on this machine.
- Wired: A cool app that shows you what a digital magazine can be like.
- Zinio: Another digital magazine provider, provides a ton of popular mags and gives you a free downloand of MacWorld!
- Dropbox: Syncs with all of your computers and is also a great PDF reader
Computer Replacer?
I was using my MacBook to go work at a cafe and blog on once a week and for the occasional work upstairs. However, I found it was a pain to keep fetching it from downstairs and I didn’t use it very often for anything anymore after I bought the iPad. Therefor, I sold the MacBook and the iPad replaced it as my mobile worker.
Of course, you won’t be able to do this if you only have one computer. But if you have multiple computers, the iPad is certainly good enough to use as its replacement.
Your Thoughts
What are your thoughts on the iPad?
About the author
Amber Weinberg specializes in clean and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress development. She has over 10 years of coding experience and is pretty cool to work with. Amber is available for freelance work, so why not hire her for your next project?
C’mon Amber, lol.
Cmon where? Are we goin to the fair? Is there candy?
Lol. Expect some reticule.
My boss has one, and it’s cool. But for a start price of $500 my laptop can do all that and more for $650. Just can’t justify it. If it was half that price I’d get one, but w/ anything Apple it has to marked up.
My Android OS phone (myTouch 3G Slide) can do all that & more
(mult-tasking, Flash, Camera, Video, etc…). iPad is just bigger.
Now, don’t get defensive. These are legitimate reasons & points. I’m not being biased.
Far too expensive.
Too expensive compared to what exactly?
Got my iPad just yesterday and damn …. I’m addicted. When the introduced this little bugger I thought it was a waste of money but WOW it is just an amazing gadget. I don’t see me using it as an developers tool myself but it definitely is great for those moments when you’re not working. Great to read your RSS, Tweets, play games etc. I even played the racepad game with 2 iPads and 2 iPhones. Apple did an amazing job there and I cant wait to develop some apps myself.
The ipad has changed how I consume all the digital content. I use it daily and love it! there will always be room for improvement. We could have use the double camera as in the iphone 4 and the use of facetime.(ipad v2). Multitasking will be here with ios4.
But for all the big list of great things it does- its an awesome device. The key to apple product I think is quality they have and the user experience can’t be beaten… Anybody can use it from my 10 year niece to my 75 year grandma. Of course we can get cheaper clones but they will not get close to the experience of using the ipad.
I’ve use some of the designer’s apps and they are helpful. For books, movies, music, games, web and more.. how can you beat it? We could always use cheaper prices but its a great product and I would always be willing spend more on quality and reliability as in our macs.
BTW Amber, there will always be haters! lol
My iPad was the first device from Apple I’ve owned, and it’s one of the few that I’ve never had a regret over. It hasn’t replaced my notebook for doing development work on the train, at lunch… but this is the first I’ve heard about Markup. Is it worth the $10? (I don’t know why I’m asking, I’ll be able to talk myself into the worth of it within the hour).
I had reserved it (instead of pre-ordering) because I needed to actually hold it, see it at the store before dropping $500 on it, but even after it sold me with just a few minutes of playing with it, I’ve become more and more impressed. You’re spot on with Netflix (and Plants vs Zombies). It’s become my defacto idea / doodling surface with Penultimate; I no longer sleep with a pen & paper nearby, because with Penultimate I don’t even have to turn on a dreaded light to jot down the 3am burst of inspiration. Too, the iPad’s opened up the whole App Store for me.
I’ve gotta disagree about it being too expensive (except for the easy-access to buying apps/books…), because it does so many things for me by being only a notebook-sized touchscreen platform. I’ve gotten my money’s worth (at least for how much I value $500, personally).
Are on the Apple pay roll or something?
Just because I write a good review of an Apple product, that means I have to be on their payroll? Are you on Microsoft’s payroll since you’re so negative about it?
Apparently it’ll cost me £375 to upgrade my iPhone to iPhone 4 now at the end of the month. But… O2 are offering to buy back my 6 months old iPhone for £235 so I might treat myself to an iPad and iPhone soon. We shall see how things unfold! Thanks for writing this up, Miss Weinberg.
Very good and interesting. I’ve only used the iPad once, my cousin has it, and I liked it so much I want one now. Except I don’t have an iPhone yet so I’m just going to get the new iPhone 4 first. The iPad will have to wait a couple of years since I don’t have an immediate need/want for it. I’m sure it’s like anything else, you’ll never know you needed it until you had it lol
I can see how I could find many uses for it and keep me from always carrying my macbook pro around. Specifically when on vacation. I carry with me just in case I will need it. I barely use it for about 10 minutes to maybe check some things online and this is something where the iPad would definitely come in handy. Sure, so could the iPhone, but that’s personal preference…
Hey Amber- great article as always! I have been intrigued to hear more from fellow designers and developers. I must admit, I was a hater when these things first launched. I was really disappointed that a full operating system was not included. However, after a bit of time passed I realized that, low and behold I was probably not the target audience (amazing how selfish we can all be when we evaluate products on a criteria solely based on ourselves- ha!). That being said I made it down to the apple store to try it out. It is super slick and a really great product! It still didn’t convince me that I needed to buy it though because I have a custom solution I created awhile back that has changed the way I mobile compute.
I use a Dell Mini 9 that has been adjusted to run OSX. The Mini 9 is no longer sold anymore which is a travesty because the form factor can’t be gotten anywhere else. It runs a full OSX operating system and runs CS3 fluidly. I replaced the harddrive in it with a fast SSD and it sports 2GB of RAM. It has a VGA output to which means I can connect it to most monitors for a mobile setup. This has totally slimmed down what I carry with me while still giving me full access to all the production tools I need. All this in mind- I understand this is a super custom solution that fits me really well but probably wouldn’t fit others that great.
My final verdict- I think the iPad definitely has legs and will do really well for itself. I think Apple has keyed in to something here and that is that sometimes full OS’s are overkill for your average user. They’ve simplified the UI and stripped away all the extras and have done so in a sleek package. The ONLY thing that keeps me sticking with my Mini 9 netbook (besides the fact this its AWESOME) is the ability to run all my production tools unhindered.
Great review!
-S
Holy cow! Can you post some pics of that thing??
I’m not sure if your comments allow for HTML so I’ll try an img tag and also leave the URL for the photos. And yes I did create a custom faux-Mac finish to the front of it.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/775137/preview.jpg
and
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/775137/netbook_in_action.jpg
As a sidenote- I’ve often mused on the future of OSX and iOS. I could see these two eventually merging one day giving users the option to run in scaled-down mode (iOS) or full-scale mode (OSX). This would allow the super-users (read here as heavy system requirements) to jump on board and have the ability to access a full OS when needed while still maintaining the ability to run your device in ‘simple’ mode for day-to-day consumption tasks. This would also open a new door to developers who could create both a scaled-up and scaled-down version of their app that works across all OSX platforms. Think about being able to buy Photoshop and have it run in ‘simple mode’ (small edits like rotation, cloaning, color adjustments) and in ‘full-feature mode (access to all palettes, filters, menus, etc).
I’d love to see that dream realized some day!
Ugh don’t talk about that yet…I’m still trying to learn basic Objective C and Cocoa so I can try my hand at making some iPhone/iPad apps, if they change it up I’ll be even more lost! >_<
Pass, don’t need it don’t want it and I’m saving to buy an iMac (which I really want!). Also I’ve bought my first iPod touch a couple months back and that was first released a few years ago, wonder how long it’ll be before I buy my first iPad. Probably a couple of years from now.
“Apple is the death of my finances…” Well put. XD
All in all, I still believe to some extent that aggrandizing the iPad to a level of being more than just superfluous to any iPhone owner is still a psychological mechanism to convince oneself that it’s advantageous or even necessary when it’s not, I personally think you should get one at least for the sake of developing for it. Make some iPad-only apps and crank it up!
I waited a month prior to “testing” an iPad. I was seeing more tech support guys using it and got curious. Figured I could return it with the 14 day period if I didn’t like it. I had the same thought when I bought my iPhone last year…I hate AT&T, but I can return it within 30 days.
So…a year later I still have my iPhone (although I just got an EVO from Sprint and I’m VERY impressed with it). And I not only kept the iPad, I upgraded from a 32GB iPad to a 64GB iPad (both wireless…stayed away from 3G AT&T). I LOVE my iPad! I now use it for approx. 50-60% of my daily use. It’s much easier to pop this thing out while having lunch and check things or read a book/RSS feeds than me dragging out my backup, opening my MacBook, powering up, logging in, going to an app, starting the app…you get the idea. I just pull the iPad out of my cool case that also houses my Bluetooth Apple Keyboard, pop it on my little stand, and I’m up and running. GENIUS!
I like things that work. The iPad works! I believe that it’s a game changer in many respects. Does it replace a laptop or desktop? Nope…it wasn’t meant to do that. BUT…for the majority of what I need a device to do, it is an excellent solution. My two sense…
BTW…I’m going to sell my iPhone and keep the EVO. Great phone running Android. AMAZING camera and camcorder. AND…it acts as a WiFi Hotspot for up to 8 devices on unlimited data connection. So I can now use it to provide internet for my Wifi iPad. AND it’s 4G speed in the Cool Springs area (while they are testing it in the area for general release). I used it for a 4G connection yesterday for my iPad to watch Netflix movie. It was great! Amazing speed. I’ve even setup a mount in my SUV for my iPad to use iTunes that has my 25GB+ music collection and various other things (though I don’t recommend ever using a computer while driving). It fits my needs perfectly.
Under “Apps for Developers, Designers & Bloggers”, you need a comma before “but” in the first sentence. But is a coordinating conjunction, and they need commas!
Amber, I had to reply to your iPad article
http://www.freelanceschool.com/2010/07/ipad-is-it-for-freelancers/
I love the expression. Everyone needs to express there own opinion and feel free to hear others. Keep it up