iPad pro as a laptop replacement. Pastor / Executive's Perspective

[takaiguchi]

Hey guys, ever since the first iPad came out, I have wanted to see if it could replace a conventional laptop or desktop. I loved the battery life, the simplicity of the large screen and the idea of having one less device to carry around. The first iPad was a huge failure in that respect. Great as a consumption device, but mediocre as a creation device. The iPad Pro could change all that. Armed with a 128 gig version with a smart keyboard, I'm going to see if it has what it takes to help me as a pastor, speaker, exec and writer. This is part one.

 

[Night Spring]

Is it possible to get a written summary? I'm hard of hearing and can't follow what's being said in online videos.

 

[dingster1]

It may be a bit cumbersome in the pulpit if you are an animated pastor. I use my iPad3 to preach with and need to have a case with interior handle.

 

[Ghost31]

Looking forward to your updates. Don't forget to post here whenever you upload a new video!

 

[sjleworthy]

the preachers on our church still use a clockwork laptop with the good old PowerPoint presentation projected up. as do most i still think.

 

[takaiguchi]

Update. 5 days in.

 

[lagwagon]

Update. 5 days in.

Just wanted to comment on the comment you made about iCloud Drive. I believe you can make folders and folders within folders (nested folders)

I haven't attempted to save anything to them yet but I created some test folders.

Screenshot #1 you will see circled My Created Folder. In screenshot #2 you will see circled a folder I created Folder In A Folder that is inside My Created Folder.

To do this tap "Select" in the top right and then you have a "New Folder" option in the bottom left. If you're unable to directly tell what folder to save to, you could at the very least afterwards once saved to iCloud Drive move it to your desired folder and/or nested folder. By tapping "Select" again and you get a "Move" option in the bottom middle.

 

[Ghost31]

First of all, I like your videos a lot. You seem like a personable guy and that's a nice change from the crappy monotone videos we usually see on here of people talking about their iPads.

Secondly: iMovies sucks. I don't know why people praise it as much as they do (just because Apple made it?) but my go to video editing solution is pinnacle studio. It's had a lot of updates over the years that have made it so much more powerful than I ever thought an app on the iPad could be. Give it a try.

And as much as I like the notes app, notability blows it out of the water. The ability to annotate PDFs and screenshots, record audio of something while taking notes and when you play it back, you can see your notes write themselves out over the recording (cool feature) you can make and arrange folders and sub folders and it all syncs perfectly with iCloud. It also has a Mac version for those times you might wanna work on your documents on the Mac

I've said it in these forums before but I feel like iOS 10 is gonna be huge for iPad. That the iPad pro was the introduction of an idea about powerful iPads that could replace your laptop but that iOS 10 will be what convinces people "ok. iPads aren't dumbed down toys after all. Maybe I can get stuff done!"

I would be blown away if Apple debut pro level apps like logic and Final Cut Pro X

 

[Sirious]

Nice video updates

 

[RRobinson4633]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!! I am a Pastor as well with the same kind of things that you do @takaiguchi (blogging, speaking, teaching, etc). I needed to know what was going on without spending the money for something that I would like to do. Thanks again!

 

[997440]

Is it possible to get a written summary? I'm hard of hearing and can't follow what's being said in online videos.

If you watch it at YT, you can select closed captioning.
EDIT: You can also use captions without going to YT. Go full screen with the vid then select the squarish icon at the bottom of the vid. It's working on iOS 9.3.4.

 

[sracer]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!! I am a Pastor as well with the same kind of things that you do @takaiguchi (blogging, speaking, teaching, etc). I needed to know what was going on without spending the money for something that I would like to do. Thanks again!

I didn't find it as helpful as you did. I would've loved to have seen HOW he uses it for some specific tasks such as sermon prep. As a pastor myself, I have my own workflow for various ministry tasks that I can accomplish on the 12.9 iPad Pro, but I'm always interested in how others do it.

 

[Night Spring]

If you watch it at YT, you can select closed captioning.
EDIT: You can also use captions without going to YT. Go full screen with the vid then select the squarish icon at the bottom of the vid. It's working on iOS 9.3.4.

Ah, youtube's automatic captioning now works with this video -- I don't think they had that back when the video was first put up. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[RRobinson4633]

I didn't find it as helpful as you did. I would've loved to have seen HOW he uses it for some specific tasks such as sermon prep. As a pastor myself, I have my own workflow for various ministry tasks that I can accomplish on the 12.9 iPad Pro, but I'm always interested in how others do it.

I think the perspective of using the iPad Pro was confirmation for me. I have been going back and forth between iPad Pro and a new MacBook Pro. My wife uses our MacBook regularly so I wanted to get something that meets my needs but also provides more flexibility in terms of interaction.

This is definitely a paradigm change as far as our interpretation of work and focus. I went on YouTube and found the latest video, which was taken 5 months after usage. Perhaps this video will give you some better perspective.

Lastly since we are on the topic of tasks. What are your daily drivers for ministry with iPad Pro?

 

[Lisat78]

I'm another who would prefer proper captions/transcripts on all these videos (deaf). The automated ones are better than nothing but they're still not great.

 

[pat500000]

I think OP took MR forum to another level. He made 3 videos (that I know of) and did a review on it. I think I would do this way as well for item reviews.

 

[MrGimper]

I doff my cap to the OP. Great honest videos.

 

[takaiguchi]

Thanks everyone. I just checked back in on this thread. I didn't realize it would be helpful to so many people. I made the videos because I had pretty simple questions but I could not find any videos that could answer them. It seemed like all the reviews focused on things I really did not care too much about day-to-day.

If you have any follow-up questions, feel free to hit me up on here or on social media.

I am still using my iPad Pro as my daily driver and it solves 90+ percent of every thing I need.

IOS 10 is still not as robust as I would like it to be and there are some quirks here and there but overall, it does the vast majority of what I need. Every once in a while, I will go to full macOS for large spreadsheets but that is not what I deal with day-to-day.

For example, the last few days I was at a conference where I would go between taking notes and doing work (depending on how engaging the speaker was) and I ended each day with between 70 and 80% battery. Never got hot. Never glitched. No fan noise. And when the speakers would have diagrams, I could easily take pictures or draw them out on my iPad inline in apple notes.

Absolutely phenomenal.

 

[bensisko]

I agree - the iPad Pro is an absolute WONDER for conferences!

The last conference I was at I brought my Surface Pro 3 and the iPad Pro. The Surface (with WiFi off and brightness turned down to 50%) lasted about four hours of taking notes in OneNote (with ~20% left). I used the iPad Pro (WiFi connected and no adjustments to brightness) to take notes in One Note (with the Apple Pencil) and still ended a full day with ~40% battery (enough to draw at the end of the day). The Pencil was a little annoying as it needed to be charged 3-4 times per day (I ended up just sticking it in the iPad when there was a pause in the note-taking). It's just absolutely amazing!

I'm going to another conference at the end of October and I will be bringing just the Pro (and, of course, the Mini - to use it as a guidebook and all of the other miscealleous stuff).

I've also really gotten into the visual note taking trend, so it's not just handwritten notes anymore!

 

[RRobinson4633]

I am curious about what tools you are using with the iPad Pro. Also is everyone using a 12.9 inch? I am looking to work on a 9.7 iPad Pro. I currently have an iPad Air and plan to make the jump to a Pro model.

Thanks all!

 

[Night Spring]

I am curious about what tools you are using with the iPad Pro. Also is everyone using a 12.9 inch? I am looking to work on a 9.7 iPad Pro. I currently have an iPad Air and plan to make the jump to a Pro model.!

For me, the bigger screen of the 12.9 makes all the difference. I didn't get the Pencil or the Smart Keyboard, just the iPad. And now, I do all of my writing on the iPP, and just use the iMac for finalizing the formatting. With the 9.7, I could write if needed, but it was more comfortable to write on my iMac. Of course, your mileage may vary.

 

[bensisko]

I am curious about what tools you are using with the iPad Pro. Also is everyone using a 12.9 inch? I am looking to work on a 9.7 iPad Pro. I currently have an iPad Air and plan to make the jump to a Pro model.

Thanks all!

I'm using the 12.9". I'm giving some serious thought to the 9.7" though - if Apple doesn't come out with a iPad Mini Pro, I'll push the button on a 9.7".

As for tools, it depends on what I'm doing.

For Note Taking:
- Microsoft One Note (I live and breathe by OneNote).

For drawing:
- Adobe Sketch
- Paper by 53
- Sketchbook

For creating training:
- PowerPoint
- Word
- Photoshop Touch
- Photoshop Mix
- PS Express
- Photoshop Fix
- Adobe Shape
- Adobe Comp
- Captivate Draft
- Sway
- Photos
- One Drive
- iMovie
- Camera
- Pro Camxl
- DropBox (occasionally)
- Office Lens
- Duet (when connected to my Laptop)
- Acrobat

I also use my Pro for writing:
- Word
- Looking into Scriviner

Bible Study:
- Bible Study by Olive Tree

Also so many other things (like flying my Bebop drone!).

 

[boston04and07]

These were some really great insights, thank you @takaiguchi. Really informative. For a while I've been wondering if having a combination of an iPad Pro with a 21" iMac would work for me better than my 15" MBP. It seems like I have similar work requirements to you, and your thoughts were really helpful! You should really do more tech videos, they were very interesting and you're a very engaging speaker!

One thing I've been kind of unsure about is how it physically feels to use a 12.9" iPad Pro at a desk, which is where I'd still probably use it a lot. With the iPad propped up like a laptop screen, do you guys feel significantly more wrist or arm strain after using it vertically like that for a while? (Sorry if this has been discussed to death; I'm kind of new at the whole iPad Pro thing!) I've seen people using their pencils as somewhat of a mouse replacement, using it to navigate around the OS instead of touching the screen, allowing their wrists to be a little lower, and that seems like it might take off some of the strain, idk. Any thoughts about that would be appreciated!

The more I think about it, the more I think that while I'll still need OS X, I just don't need OS X to be mobile at this point. Most of what I absolutely need OS X for that iOS can't do is stuff I could never be able to do on the go anyway, like scanning lots of docs at once in my feed scanner or backing up synced docs to Time Machine. At the same time, I do use my MacBook Pro when on the go, and I've been wanting more and more refinements to make it a better on-the-go device that the iPad Pro already has, such as better battery life, built in LTE, and less weight. It's made me realize that I'm probably compromising a lot and would best be served by a static macOS device at home, where all of my macOS-only needs are anyway, and an iPad Pro for everything else.

 

[JD2015]

Use my iPad Pro 12.9 a lot for work as well as a MacBook. Prefer my iPad as like its simplicity, power, portability and touch interface. Some aspects for me are more satisfying on an iPad. Use the iPad Pro, ASK, Apple Pencil and iPhone plus together well. Don't get me wrong if I need to do some stuff on Word which IOS version does not offer then I open my MacBook. Also looking forward to RAW functionality. My criticism is the limitations of major file transfers to and from the iPad to say an external hard drive. The apps below are excellent and allow for professional work to be done.

Filing system
Dropbox
Flickr

Graphics/Artwork
Graphic
Procreate
Paper

Work/Document creation/management
Ithoughts
Ulysses
Word
Excel
Notes
PDF Expert
PDF converter
PowerPoint
Omnigraffle
Omniplan
Citrix

Photo
Pixelmator
Photoshop Mix
Photoshop Express
Skitch

Communication
Outlook

Reference/Research
Kindle
iBooks
Adobe Digital editions
Ref ME

 

[Night Spring]

With the iPad propped up like a laptop screen, do you guys feel significantly more wrist or arm strain after using it vertically like that for a while?

I think it depends on what you are doing. Most of what I do on my iPad Pro is writing text, so for that, I hardly ever have to touch the screen. I just do everything with keyboard shortcuts. For how it is with other tasks, you'd have to wait for other posters to chime in.

The more I think about it, the more I think that while I'll still need OS X, I just don't need OS X to be mobile at this point. Most of what I absolutely need OS X for that iOS can't do is stuff I could never be able to do on the go anyway,

This is exactly how I feel. iPad Pro is the perfect mobile work device for me, and whatever can't be done on iOS can wait until I get home to do on my iMac.
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My criticism is the limitations of major file transfers to and from the iPad to say an external hard drive.

Have you tried FileBrowser?