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How are you using your iPad?

FirefighterTim

FirefighterTim

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hey everybody, I've got an open ended question for you. What are you using your iPad for? The commercials from Apple are quirky and fun, but not really that ground breaking. I use our iPads as a mobile computing system for the Fire Department, which a lot of people would never consider. That got me thinking, what am I not considering for this fantastic device??? The iPad is only limited by the creativity of it's users, so lets all brain storm and share our work! 😉 Enjoy the list!
 
Let's see. I use it a lot to browse the web when I don't want to use my Mac. I also play a few games on it like Plants vs Zombies, Angry Birds, and Scrabble. I do a fair amount of email on it for casual stuff. I use iBooks a lot for reading. Every once in a while I'll watch some video on it. I downloaded a cookbook app and I think I'll be using it to help me as I prepare dinner. So far that's a lot of it.
 
In no particular order; Presentations, surfing, stock, word processing, flow diagraming, resarch, movies, music, games, currency conversion...n

Q-6
 
A normal day's use with my iPad..

Wake up, make some breakfast and read the latest RSS headlines using Reeder. Check the weather with Weather HD before i leave the house

go to class, and use iPad to take notes, and read off of it in Public Speaking class. I use Simplenote for this

between classes browse a few websites using iCab.

I go to work. During my lunch at work I typically open iBooks or Kindle to read whatever book i am currently reading.

I get home, have dinner and while eating fire up Kindle or iBooks again.

Right when its time for bed, I prop up the iPad and I usually watch a few Podcasts or Ted Talk's to put me in the right sleeping state. I would always use the TED website, but now I use the Ted App. love the inspire me part!
_____________

Other areas i use it on a not daily basis are: I make music, so I have synths, moogs, organs, mellotron app's that i plug into my MacBook Pro and record music with.

I use Simplenote and Pages to write school reports (although the longer ones i still use my Mac)

Flipboard is my offical magazine! I subscribe to a few select publications, and because of the nature of the app it really feels like a free magazine subscription!

I also use apps like usa today, facebook for friendly, official twitter app, comic zeal ect..

While all of these activities could be done on a computer, nothing has the battery life, the diversity, thin-ness, or the experience i would get from the iPad. I use my iPhone still quite a bit, and i use my Mac quite a bit to. But i would be lying to say that they have not taken a hit in my usage. Of course i mentioned a very computer-centric day for me, because many times i am doing social activities, but i wanted to say how i do use my iPad during everyday use. love it!

note: I typed this using my Mac.
 
As a student I use it for student like activities. All my textbooks and teacher slides are on my iPad. 1 pound vs. 5 pound backpack isn't a hard choice. Also my textbooks would have cost 500 bucks if i didn't buy them in ebook form. Makes the iPad worth it by itself.
 
Take notes at seminars (this is a very frequent thing for me)
Teaching (I teach a class on Saturday mornings)
Mobile database (Bento)
Note synching on the go (SimpleNote - but also use it on iPhone 4)
Serious web browsing - use it to get around web surfing controls 😉
Light document creation (always put finishing touches on it using Mac)
Book reading (mainly Kindle, since the iBookstore sucks)
Remote controlling Snow Leopard Servers using VNC Viewer
Organizing Netflix queue
Weather - I live in tornado alley and use it extensively when satellite feeds are out.


I'm a serious football fan, and I use my iPad to keep up with games while I'm watching others during football season.

Dropbox for accessing documentation of all types.
Read It Later - self explanatory.
RSS News using NewsRack, and other news such as NY Times, BBC, Business Insider and Twitter (I use Twitter for news often).
Facebook using Social and Safari
Light photo editing
Remote control when MacBook Pro is hooked up to TV and I don't want my iPhone occupied/am not happy with functionality of Apple Remote for that application

Sometimes I let my three-year old son watch a movie on it, but he has his own iPhone 3G (not activated, of course) for that. 😀
 
I teach high school band, and I use mine daily. I use tuning apps to tune the band, use a metronome, watch videos and recordings for the students to hear and learn from, I use a soundboard on the field to amp special effect sounds, I take roll on it, email parents, and use it as a white board in the stands to let them know what to play next.

I also LOVE watching Netflix on it.
 
I USE IT TO USE THE FORUM SEARCH FUNCTION AND FIND THE COUNTLESS THREADS ON THIS TOPIC ALREADY

AND MY IPAD CAPS BUTTON IS BROKEN. SORRY!

What do you use your Ipad for?
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/858919/
What, mainly, do you use your iPad for?
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/969230/
What do you use your iPad for?
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/990562/
Getting an iPad soon: Do you use iPad for both personal use and work use? Other ?'s
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1010706/
How Do You Use Your iPad At Work?
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1023296/
Unusual ways to use an iPad?
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1018603/
What's the best use for a jailbroken iPad ?
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/989552/

ACTUALLY THE HARDEST PART OF THIS POST WAS THE FORMATTING AND TYPING. OH AND TRYING TO PAINT MY PICTURE OF SARCASM.

I love you as a human being though, and a little less than that as a good forum user. 🙂
 
I use mine for Web-surfing,watching vids,reading books&PDFs and games(Angry birds,cut the rope and fruit ninja mostly 😀 )
I also sometimes make some documents with "Pages"
 
In spite of "elmateo487's" sarcasm, I will answer this post. I write my occasional sermons on it and do the research necessary for it on my iPad.

I want to thank "okrelayer" for his post about using his iPad for his public speaking class. I may do the something for my sermons, that way I don't need to carry the printed version.

Think green!🙂
 
Right now, I primarily use my iPad to tweet (via Osfoora HD) and compose emails when I don't want to type one out of my iPhone. I'll soon use it for an e-reader since I plan on downloading my first e-book. Other than that, I use to surf the web, and explore more apps to d/l.
 
I've had my iPad for just over two weeks (which included a vacation)

Here are a few things I've used it for:
Email
Web browsing
Pictures-The iPad + the camera kit were essential on my vacation! Every night back at the condo, I plugged it in and transferred all the new photos for easy viewing. This is totally awesome! And I'm sure will be a nice way to show people pictures as well!
Music (light)- I mostly have my music on my iPhone 4
Video-I love watching Netflix, Hulu Plus, and less often the ABC player app. I also, loaded movies on it for the two 6 hour flights I've been on. Watched two and a half full length movies and battery was still over 50% at landing.
Weather-checked multiple times over my trip
Recipes-Used in the kitchen multiple times by myself or my boyfriend to try new recipes.
Journal-Used to keep a private journal. Realized I missed doing this!
Games-Love Plants vs. Zombies, Angry Birds and Doodle Jump and Solitaire (though I wish Doodle Jump would come out with it's own iPad version soon!)
Reading-I haven't spent a ton of time reading yet, mostly I've used Read it Later to save articles I want to read offline...GREAT app! I've opened up Kindle and read for a few minutes but not extensively so yet.
Piano-I retaught myself a couple songs on the Free Virtuoso keyboard.
Podcasts-I've listened to a podcast about a show I love.

The battery life is impressive! I was on vacation for 12 days and only charged up once twice. Once during the trip and once right before taking off on the flight home. (Granted, I was very active on my trip and didn't take the iPad with me to the beach.)

I think one of the best things about the iPad is, it is what YOU make it!
 
This might sound like a sales pitch, but on my trip to LA last weekend my girlfriend couldn't stop praising the iPad.

First of all its a GPS. We used it frequently to navigate to places like Ontario Mills Mall (1 hour drive) and for simple places like The Local Place (yummy).

We also used it to check the store list of nearby malls (which is why we went to Ontario Mills).

We also used it to check Yelp (leading us to The Local Place).

On top of that, we used it to find halloween stores which led us to one that would accept competitors coupons within 5 miles away. We immediately found one on the iPad saving us around $20 on costumes we already decided to buy.

It's also useful for the passenger who is bored during a 1 hour drive to check facebook, watch youtube, and surf other web related content.

We did all this in a car, not at home.

The uses are freaking endless.
 
I mainly use it for browsing, email and games but I also use it to play basslines with my feet which frees up my hand to do more melody and drum stuff. I'm not very good at it at the moment but getting better.
 
Other than replacing my computers for web browsing and keeping connected (twitter, facebook, etc) I use my iPad as a digital clipboard for my job as a transportation driver. I get the schedules from my dropbox (since our manager's websites uses a Microsoft technology that isn't supported in the iPad) and mark it up with goodreader.
 
'Right now' I am using my iPad to take notes during my college class. I am also checking on twitter and ither news feeds with Reeder and generally browsing the web with iCab mobile. Yesterday, I downloaded a movie via torrents and a Nintendo DS game via news groups by uploading the .torrent and .nzb files with iCab. I also streamed an episode of a tv series to my iPad with StreamToMe and I control my PC directly with Splashtop Remote.

All in all, I'm using my iPad for quite a lot, and I have only had it for three days now.
 
A lot of things. Will start the day going into Pressreader where the latest newspaper I want will be waiting. Use it for browsing and email.

Love using Flipboard to access Twitter and FB feeds.

Have a lot of sports apps which are great. Use Zinio to read magazines and also use Amazons Kindle app to read e-Books. I also have Kobo for e-books too.

Do a lot of travelling so will put movies on it for those long flights and also when there's nothing to do in the hotel room. Have flight update and TripIt on it too to keep track of flights, hotel bookings etc. Also have Kayak HD to look up any flights/hotel I might need. Have the handy idisk app to access my Mobile Me disk so I can access all my docs.
 
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