A few months ago our CFO came to the office with a newly purchased iPad which, of course, prompted our trendy EVP of Sales to one-up him with the purchase of the 3G version the next week.
As we began to see more and more traction and began developing iPad apps for several of our media clients, I caved in and purchased the cheapest version I could find for myself. I figured that as the first generation of the product, there would be issues and I wanted to be able to easily upgrade to generation 2. I commonly find second-generation products to be nearly 100% better than the first. User feedback is king.
There are two remaining execs at Three Pillar who haven’t bought into the iPad trend and purchased one. One of two seems to ask about my experience on a weekly basis. I just read Michael Hyatt’s thoughts (one of my favorite blogs by the way) on the iPad vs. Kindle and thought I’d add some thoughts:
1) I like the iPad but don’t love it. Michael points out correctly that it’s great for consumption but not for production. I stay up-to-date with my iPad, but I am not productive with it. Of course, for me, a workaholic, that’s a good thing. I can bring my iPad home instead of my laptop and help manage my work addiction.
2) While the iPad has some nice features, I don’t find it incredibly innovative. I’m waiting for a note-taking application that will perform handwriting recognition on the notes and transfer them into a Word document. That will make me LOVE my iPad.
3) Printing is nonexistent without a hack, which is bothersome.