Ipad for work, help!

[610nano]

I'm looking into buying something that could make my work load easier. I own a used car lot, and go to car auctions daily/weekly and looking for something that could do;

Banking- transferring fund around, paying bills - ECT
Making a Database of bought/sold cars- or using other apps that do something close to this.
Easy access to my files- im sure there is tons out there
A way to send pics from my iphone to ipad fast.

This is just some of the things im looking for. If you think buying an ipad to improve my productivity on my lot for buy/selling cars post back with some help, or apps that will be very helpful.

 

[BHP41]

I'm looking into buying something that could make my work load easier. I own a used car lot, and go to car auctions daily/weekly and looking for something that could do;

Banking- transferring fund around, paying bills - ECT
Making a Database of bought/sold cars- or using other apps that do something close to this.
Easy access to my files- im sure there is tons out there
A way to send pics from my iphone to ipad fast.

This is just some of the things im looking for. If you think buying an ipad to improve my productivity on my lot for buy/selling cars post back with some help, or apps that will be very helpful.

So, I'm assuming that you're going to be always connected via 3G or other form of mobile Internet. If that's the case then nothing is better than using Google and it's services.

Banking- simply put, if your bank uses online banking then no worries there.

Database- Google Docs, although it has a slight learning curve if you're use to excel it is pretty much the same. You can now edit Doc files from the iPad and iPhone. I do it everyday. Very handy.

File Sharing - There are many apps and services for this. I would suggest Google Docs or DropBox.

Pictures - Again Google, utilizing Picasa and a App called Web Albums is great. Install on both iPhone and iPad and you're set. You can create new folders right from your device and upload is very very quick from the iPhone on 3G. You can also upload multiple images at once so if you're at a auction and take a few photos that yu need to share with someone else, you can upload the photos quickly and continue on concentrating on the auction. Drop Box you can use but is no where near as fast and can't upload multiple pics at once. At least I haven't found that you can. Plus it is just dreadful slow compared to web albums.

I use these on a daily basis. using Google services keeps everything in one place. Plus storage is dirt cheap if you need more. 1TB is $20 a year I think. Plus, when your back at the office everything is right there on your desktop also. Ultimate syncing. I also use the calendar and have a great app for that as well. The standard calendar on the iPad iPhone is seriously lacking.

All this assuming that you're going to be connected. Hope this is what you're looking for.

 

[matrix07]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Easy access to your files try Dropbox.
Transfer files from iPhone to iPad try BUMP.

 

[Tom G.]

I realize that your question is about how an iPad might help you in your used car business, however, the below address will take you to a post that I made a week or so ago, it will show you how I used my iPad to shop for a car on a snowy Sunday afternoon.


https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1063279/

If you should have a web site set up like the ones I went to that day then other people with iPads or other tablets could do the same as I did.

I think an iPad would help your business in other ways too. When you get your inventory on it, complete with photos and you sit down with customers to do the negotiations you could call up the entry for the given auto on the iPad, and casually leave a photo of the car on it so they can see it. Keep the lust factor up.

Also when you go out to see the customer you will have all the info on the car in your hand as well as possibly short cuts to Edmunds and Blue Book sites not only to prove the value of the car your selling but also to show them the value of their car.

 

[Tom G.]

I should also note that Bento might make a good small simple data base for youth use. An added benefit is that it easily incorporates photos into it.

 

[Dr McKay]

If you're looking for ways to get pics from your iPhone to your iPad fast, and data connection could be an issue. You'll want to invest in the iPad camera connection kit.