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iPad iPad Air for my wife...please help!

angel76ph said:
I do really appreciate all your suggestions and of course a refurb 11-inch MBA is till in the cards. Found some in the UK store and its very tempting.

My wife is not technically-minded. She gets easily (not overly) frustrated when she's trying to edit some stuff in Word or saving some photos. Most of the time right now she's with her best friend Amazon Kindle. She asked whether she can read her book on an iPad Air and i said immediately Yes. We have NowTV & Amazon Prime video and she loves watching movies via our PS3 console. I suspect she would also like to have some portable/more personal way of watching them in a smaller screen when she's in bed or cooking in the kitchen and i thought an iPad would fit into that.

Going back to documents i have heard that one cannot save documents in Office (especially in Word) in .pdf format. Is this accurate?

Asking again about uploading photos which app is the "ideal" one to do those basic crop/edit function? Is it thru the camera roll app? Someone told me not to do it in iPhoto. And if she does the basic stuff in the camera roll will that affect the size of the photo? And would the photo be somehow compressed when saved in the iPad?
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The iPad is ideal for ebooks and movie watching. But it just isn't a very good device for heavy writing, which it seems your wife has to do. If it's within your budget, I'd consider an iPad mini in addition to a laptop for your wife.

And yes, it does seem that at the moment Word for iPad doesn't save as PDF. Pages has that function, and other Office alternative apps might, also.

Can't help with phto editing as I never do that.
 
I have asked my wife and she said she will be doing a 2000-worded 6-page Essay which she will be doing in the next month or so.

Macbook Air is very much capable of doing this but will an iPad Air also cope?
 
angel76ph said:
I have asked my wife and she said she will be doing a 2000-worded 6-page Essay which she will be doing in the next month or so.

Macbook Air is very much capable of doing this but will an iPad Air also cope?
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It's doable, but won't be the best experience.

As an analogy, an iPad is like a Swiss Army knife and a MBA is a high-quality steak knife. You CAN eat a steak with a Swiss Army knife if you had to, but most people wouldn't want to.
 
angel76ph said:
I have asked my wife and she said she will be doing a 2000-worded 6-page Essay which she will be doing in the next month or so.

Macbook Air is very much capable of doing this but will an iPad Air also cope?
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It can do it, but not in the same manner as a MBA. And no where near as productive. I think you really need to listen to the advice that has been given to you so far. I have followed this thread and understand some of your wife's wants for the iPad. But the MBA is going to be more efficient and is going to last your wife far longer than an iPad ever will. She will not regret going with the MBA.

Plus what you will pay for a 64GB iPad puts you right is the same price category as the MBA. I have an iPad, but would never consider doing an essay of that length on it. My iPad is strictly for surfing the web, email, texts and movies when I travel. If I need to do work I have a MacBook Pro for that. I'm telling you, there is a reason for all the advice of going with the MBA.

I understand all the light weight, money and size issues, but some of us have been there and tried that, and it just does not really work so well.
 
angel76ph said:
Hiya. My wife had a Windows 8.1 laptop and was so slow and complicated that we had to sell it. Now, i'm planning on buying her an iPad Air instead. These are the things i noticed what she was doing and what she would need from her "old" computer:

1. Photos - When we had our holiday in Paris we had about (say in this instance) 300+ photos stored in our camera's SD card; photos are saved at 8MP resolution in normal/auto mode. Now i understand there is an SD card adaptor for the Air. Can she easily edit (crop, sharpen, etc.) the photo before uploading them to Facebook or Flickr?
Does she have to go to the app first then upload photos thru there?

2. Documents - The bane of her life. She will be doing course work in the next 2 months which requires doing a long case study (essay). Now i understand there is MS Office for iPad. Can she create, edit, copy & paste (from one source to Word) documents as you would on a Windows computer? I heard you can if you have the 365 paid account. And can she save those documents in .pdf or .doc format too?

3. My wife has an Android phone and he has Gmail and files on Google Drive. I'm aware there are Google apps on the App Store. But the concern here is can she upload for example a saved CV in .doc or .pdf format to Google Drive from the iPad Air?

4. I have a Macbook and sometimes i would like to send files from my Mac to her device for example a photo or .doc document. Can i transfer such files to her iPad via bluetooth or any other easier/faster way?

5. Wireless printing - There has been occasions that she wants to wirelessly print something to our wireless printer. Can she do that straight & on-the-fly via an app (or from within an app)? For example a train ticket or her CV.



Please advice. Thank you.
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Don't forgot to buy a Logitech keyboard she is going to need it for long document. :apple:
 
Without going through all the replies my view is

To store pictures on the iPad you are going to need a 64GB or 128GB iPad. 16 wouldn't even work for you and a 32 would fill up quick with pictures and the usual iPad apps.

This high capacity iPad can take you up into the realms of refurb MacBook Air prices which I think would be a better bet. Check out the apple refurb store
 
I am listening to all your replies and advice. You don't know how lucky i am with this forums and i'm very grateful for all your comments.

I have a brand-new latest 11-inch MBA and having had Windows PCs and a Chromebook this is probably THE best computer i had. For me its an investment. And it's worth the investment.

From what my wife is saying to me she's not gonna do much with the iPad. The essay will probably be a one-off and she has nothing planned in the next 12 months. She would be using Office so the files will all be saved in OneDrive so i think storage would not be an issue. Typing i have covered as i plan to get a bluetooth backlit keyboard. With regards to the photos the 300+ photos can be almost halved as i suspect some of them are "bad" (or badly taken) photos anyway. And with a Google Drive (and OneDrive) account she can also upload those photos there so again storage is not an issue i would imagine.

She has her Kindle with her literary everyday. And what i can see the iPad will just be some kind of "support" for her. She said to me she will not be doing much apart from as you mentioned reading books (Amazon) and watching movies (NowTV & Amazon Prime video) and the odd document that's about it. I can transfer music to her iPad but again storage won't be an issue as i won't be putting too much in there. A typical 320kbps album of 7-12 songs would probably be in the range of 200-500MB. if its 5 albums then that would be 2.5GB max at least. Storage again not an issue.

And just for the sake of storage....would you say 300 photos taken on an 12MP point-and-shoot camera on Auto mode would not take up space on an iPad would u think? (If it was a 32Gb iPad Air).
 
angel76ph said:
I have a brand-new latest 11-inch MBA and having had Windows PCs and a Chromebook this is probably THE best computer i had. For me its an investment. And it's worth the investment.

From what my wife is saying to me she's not gonna do much with the iPad. The essay will probably be a one-off and she has nothing planned in the next 12 months. She would be using Office so the files will all be saved in OneDrive so i think storage would not be an issue. Typing i have covered as i plan to get a bluetooth backlit keyboard.
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Okay. But I think even with a bluetooth keyboard, typing a paper on the iPad isn't going to be a good experience. The main problem is that the iPad UI has no "mouse." Every time you need to do what would be a mouse action on a computer, you have to reach out and tap the screen. This gets annoying very quickly, because the amount of movement you have to make to reach the screen is a lot bigger than moving from a keyboard to a mouse. And the distance is 0 if you have a trackpad as with the MBA.

And I need to stress, the experience is different from a Win8 touch screen laptop, because with Win8 you have a choice of tapping the screen or using a mouse. On the iPad, there is no choice, you HAVE to tap the screen.

What might be best is if your wife could use your MBA to type her paper. Because really, a laptop is the best tool for writing papers. Or maybe you could rent one, or if you feel comfortable with buying and selling used electronics, buy a MBA and sell it when your wife is finished with her paper.

But if you are dead set on going the iPad route, at least make sure your wife gets it at least a few weeks before she has to write her paper, so she has time to get used to the iPad and learn its quirks. Don't give her an iPad a week before she has to write the paper and expect her to be able to get down to work right away.
 
I have already bought a 32GB iPad Air (plus a bluetooth keyboard) and i'm waiting delivery. I did this because as you said she can acclimatise herself with the touchscreen and writing using the keyboard connected.

At the moment i was able to save at least £120 with the 32GB iPad Air + bluetooth keyboard compared to the cheapest refurbished 11-inch current-gen MBA on the Apple Online Store. For me i think i got s a good deal.

If she doesn't like the feel of typing on an iPad then i can always return the thing and get her the refurb one.

I just thought having a MBA (my own) and an iPad works as they are both Apple products. And having Android phones and a Nexus 7 tablet i get to enjoy the best of both worlds.
 
angel76ph said:
If she doesn't like the feel of typing on an iPad then i can always return the thing and get her the refurb one.
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Let us know if she takes to the iPad or you end up getting the refurb MBA. I'm curious whether this works out. ;)
 
Received the iPad yesterday and i have set it up whilst watching the footy.

I didn't install many apps there. Apart from the usual news/weather/reference/video streaming/education apps i installed all the basic iPhotos, Keynote et all apps and the MS Word for iPad which i was able to unlock all features with my Office 365 account.

Her first impression was positive. She was take aback with the screen and the backlit keyboard in particular. She said she will start doing her essay tomorrow so we'll see how that works for her.

She's also liking the Sudoku and Crossword games. *sigh*
 
I too will be interested in seeing how she takes to it, because I read your first post and was going to go against the grain and say I think she'll be fine with an iPad. The iOS ecosystem is really improving and gaining power, and for things like minor photo editing, iPhoto has gotten really good. Document creation and editing is fully practical with iWork or Office, Skydrive and Dropbox, etc. make for reasonable file managers, and good keyboards are now widely available. The only thing I'll add is that I don't know what keyboard you bought, but there are huge differences between the poor ones, the acceptable ones, and the good ones. Personally having one that turns the iPad into a clamshell-like laptop where the screen is held securely and can be adjusted to most any angle is a must. I also prefer keyboards where the keys are set back a bit from the bottom edge, giving your palms somewhere to rest. Many put the keys right at the bottom so your palms are always hanging uncomfortably off the edge.
 
I have bought this amazing ZaggKeys Folio backlit keyboard. Very high quality make. The iPad just attaches itself to the case part and you can adjust the angle to whatever suits you.

If i may ask about Word on the iPad i cannot seem to find a way to delete a document in there. Any ideas please?


Thank you.
 
Great. The Zagg line is my current favorite as well!

I can't help with Office unfortunately. Microsoft's bizarre licensing means that even though both my wife and I have expensive multi-year paid licenses for Office through our workplaces, because they are not part of Office365 (and can't be converted to 365 until our current agreements are up in 2-3 years) I have no way to access Office on iOS. :rolleyes:
 
Depends on what you want....

If you need the convenience of a tablet (portability, touchscreen, lightweight, use with one hand, etc.), then the iPad may be what you need.

If you need the convenience of a laptop (larger storage capacity, real keyboard, USB Flash connectivity, DVD option), then the MacBook Air may be what you you may be able to get a MacBook Air for $900 or less as some forum members have mentioned.

In my case, I have a MacBook Pro, which since I got my first iPad, I hardly ever take off my desk. It normally runs like a desktop computer, attached to external keyboard and Monitor.

Even at home, many times I use my iPad more for several tasks:
- Create documents, some short others long.
- My main app is Pages. I'm able to compose really professional documents on
my iPad and distribute them as PDFs or ePub files.
- I only must use Pages on my Mac when I need to do special page
composition adjustments on a document, such as a form, and even then, it
rarely happens.
- Take notes at meetings using the onscreen keyboard. I got used to it and I type
really fast. When I'm home, or if I'm going to be away from home for
several days, I take with me an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard. ¿The main
advantage? I get back the screen space the on-screen keyboard needs, so I
can see more of my document on the screen. I can also use the arrow keys
and other shortcuts to navigate and edit.
- View and edit photos
- Do some video editing (not crazy special effects)
- Watch videos for studying or pleasure, listen to music
- Read and reply to emails.
- Read books, and extract information from some books to create my own documents.

- I have about 16 GB of files and documents synchronized through Dropbox
- My main File Manager is Readdle Documents, which can also read PDFs and
access shared folders from other computers and servers such as Windows.
- I also have Readdle PDF Expert to work on fillable PDF Forms.

There's a lot to consider, but it's un to the actual user to finally decide what to get.
 
I'd say a laptop is a better tool for the OP, then the tablet, for the stated needs.
 
angel76ph said:
A Macbook Air is slightly off my budget. But how about my queries please.

Some brief explanation and advice please?
Click to expand...

You can get a MacBook air with 64GB storage, 4GB RAM, and an 11 inch screen in the refurbished store for $599.

They don't come all the time and when they do they go fast, but some did come today! There are sites that will notify you when they come.
 
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