carpeaqua

Marco Arment doesn’t believe the iPad is a great “office productivity” device.¹

Most of us tried to rationalize the iPad’s purchase by telling ourselves that it could often replace a laptop. The productivity apps and the Keyboard Dock support that view: that the iPad is a new kind of computer that might replace your traditional computer, and therefore, it’s rational to spend over $500 for one.

But I don’t think that’s what happened in practice.

The iPad isn’t really a great “office productivity” device, in the traditional PC sense. It can be used that way in some cases, but it’s rarely the best tool for the job.

Marco also goes on to talk about how rather than doing major updates to the iPad versions of the iWork suite they started bringing the iLife suite to the tablet with GarageBand and iMovie.

I don’t think I’ve used Numbers more than once since I bought it and tinkered around with how it works. The same with Pages. I’ve given a few Keynote presentations with the iPad, but as I said on MacBreak Weekly a while back I find the process of creating them on the device tedious.

Though I don’t use the Apple sponsored applications for content creation, I use a variety of third-party apps.

OmniFocus for the iPad is by far my most used application. While I do all of my heavy lifting on the Mac version, there’s no better review experience than sitting on the couch with the iPad and going through all your active projects to prep for the upcoming week.

Elements, my own application, is used all the time for writing. I keep all of my in-progress writings in it as well as recipes, app ideas and various notes in it. In fact, I am writing this post on my iPad in Elements.

I use both iThoughtsHD and MindNode for creating mind maps. I used to use MindNode on my Mac to generate these, but the experience of doing it on the tablet is far more enjoyable and being able to lay back on the couch and think works better for me than sitting at my desk.

CarbonFin Outliner is frequently used to make quick lists, outline talks I am planning to give or blog posts.

I stopped buying dead tree editions of technical books a few years ago and now I keep them all as ePubs and PDFs in iBooks on my iPad. What used to take up several rows of bookshelves in my office is now a tap away and searchable.

And then there is of course the consumption apps I use: Safari, Mail, Reeder, Kindle and Flipboard.

I have no games on my iPad. It’s all about creation and consumption of content. I have replaced so many tasks I used to do on my Mac with the iPad I can’t keep track.

Just because the Apple applications aren’t that great for productivity doesn’t mean the iPad itself can’t be more than a consumer toy or another vessel for birds to be launched towards green pigs. Just like the Mac, the iPad is what you make of it. Use it for work, play or both.