The iPad: One Year Later

 (Disclaimer: This post is not necessarily about AutoCAD or support issues so feel free to skip it if that's all you care to read about.)

Today I'm travelling to San Francisco to attend Macworld Expo 2011. As is the case more and more lately, I won't be taking a laptop with me; I'll only be taking my iPad. Coincidentally, today is also the one-year anniversary of Apples official announcement of the iPad. On that day, I talked a little about it in this post and ended with the following statement:

"Personally, I don't see a need for the Apple iPad in my world but that doesn't mean it won't be extremely valuable to someone else in their world."

I don't mind admitting how wrong I was.

Really wrong.

I have been the owner of a 32GB iPad since April 13, 2010. That's right … 10 days after it was released in the United States, I owned the device that I "didn't see a need for." The truth is, like so many people, I didn't truly appreciate what they were announcing until I held it in my hands and used it. It has since become a device that I use, in some capacity, every single day to:

• Handle my email and schedule (Mail, Calendar)
• Browse the web (Safari)
• Read books (iBooks, Kindle)
• Follow my Twitter feed (Twitter, Flipboard)
• Read RSS feeds (Reeder for iPad)
• Organize my tasks (Things for iPad)
• Write (Pages, Evernote, Maxjournal for iPad)
• Draw (Sketchbook Pro, AutoCAD WS, Penultimate)
• Mind mapping (iThoughtsHD)

And those are mostly just my work-related uses. I won't get into all the other apps for music, games, weather, newspapers, reference, education, and entertainment. In the nine months since I bought it, I have accumulated a lot of different apps on my iPad. Some are daily use apps and some are used more infrequently but the reality is this:

As "magical" as the iPad may be, it's the apps that make the iPad a really useful tool.

I felt the same way about AutoCAD when I first started using it around Release 9. As good a design tool as it was, it was the AutoLISP apps that made it really useful and productive. I used to regularly fire up my 300 baud modem, log in to my CompuServe account (71521,450) and scour the forums for interesting LISP that had been posted by others (Oh God, I can't believe how old that makes me sound). A lot of people, myself included, wrote some wickedly complicated AutoLISP "apps" for AutoCAD that made users more efficient, streamlined production and generally made AutoCAD more valuable.

I believe the ability to customize AutoCAD has always been one of it's greatest strengths. And just like we don't have rely on Apple to create every app for the iPad (thank goodness), there are still plenty of people and companies creating great add-ons for AutoCAD.

(See what I did there? I took a whole post about the iPad and brought it back around to AutoCAD. But, back to the iPad…)

Considering Apple sold around 14 million iPads in 2010, chances are good that some of you own iPads as well. I shared just a few of the apps that have made the iPad such an integral part of my day, now how about you? If you own an iPad, what are your essential apps?

Leave a comment and share with the rest of the class.

Also, keep emailing me those "In The Box" feature suggestions. You've sent in some nice ones so far. If you haven't seen yours yet, keeping reading; it'll show up.

Comments

[Angel Espinoza]

Aside from most of what you mention I frequently use Maps (built-it), Google Earth, The Google app (I like it more than using Safari), Dropbox, Dragon Dictation, Note Taker HD, and Skype.

Thanks for this post. I will be looking into those apps above that I do not use.

[Dean Saadallah]

Tools to add to your list oof apps: CamScanner Free (turn the camera into a PDF document scanner), FileViewer USB FREE (transfer files using iTunes, and view many file formats to boot), neu.Annotate PDF (Read, markup, redline, and annotate PDFs), HP iPrint Photo (print to a wireless HP inkjet printer), TeamViewer or LogMeIn Ignition (access your desktop or network from anywhere wirelessly), and Free Wi-Fi Finder (after all, there is only so much you can do with 3G).

[Account Deleted]

iPad has become more popular in these days. In order to get more response for your iPad apps, the developers must design them such that it is unique from the existing apps.

[RobiNZ]

I said the same about the original iPhone, even saying "not myPhone", then purchased a 3GS :)
I still feel this about the iPad but would get one in a flash (sic) if it could do tablet PC like ink. To me a pad you can not write & sketch on is not a pad. It's a keyboard less computer.

[Tom Stoeckel]

There are lots of drawing apps for the iPad. Check out Sketchbook, Penultimate, and Noteshelf to name just a couple. At Macworld I saw a hand-writing recognition app that translated gestures into typed letters, similar to how the old Palm OS used to work. I think the app was WritePad by PhatWare.