The iPad is the most popular tablet device, but do people really use it for business? We all know that you can use the iPad for business purposes, and many forward thinking companies have purchased iPads for key mobile workers. The question is how productive are they in a business setting and is it a wise investment? Here are some quick statistics.
- 40% of iPad owners use it to browse the Internet
- 32% use it to watch videos and listen to music
- 26% use it to play games
- 21% use their iPad for business
When you consider the many uses of the iPad 21% isn’t bad and the number continues to grow each year as Apple continues to attract more business customers. When you consider the cost of a laptop at around $1500 an iPad for $700 could be a wise business decision given the right circumstances. Here is a short list of programs that might be enough you to leave your laptop at home and take your iPad next time you leave the office:
Keynote is the most powerful presentation app ever designed for a mobile device. Keynote makes it easy to create, deliver, and share stunning presentations on your iPad, and iCloud keeps your work up to date across your iPad, iPhone, or iPod automatically.
Power Presenter is also used for presentations, but if you save your PowerPoint as a PDF file this app will help you present it using a projector. It automatically detects and sends the signal to the projector using the VGA cable.
Pages is a powerful word processing app originally designed for the Mac but now on the iPad. You can also store your documents on the iCloud so you can access them on all your Apple devices.
SugarSync puts all of your data from your computers at your fingertips and you get free cloud backups that you can use to sync files, share folders, and access your data.
PrintCentral prints directly to most WiFi printers or to all printers when used with your Mac/PC. View, print email, attachments, documents, files, photos, contacts, web pages and other items from your iPad.
There are programs available on the Internet such as DropBox, iCloud, Office 365, and others that allow you to save all your documents on the Internet and simply access them from any device like your desktop at work then go home and edit that same document on your iPad. As these programs improve you will continue to see a move toward this type of mobile computing.