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PadLust...

J

jtcedinburgh

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 26, 2010
141
2
Hey folks...

I'm suffering a severe case of PadLust. However, I can't think of any earthly reason why I *need* one, and having just added a top-end iMac i7, I'd feel really guilty about spending more cash...

For you folks with a plethora of Macs, how do you justify having an iPad, and also has owning an iPad made any of your existing Macs redundant or diminished your usage?

I realise that this has probably been done to death, but, hey, it's Christmas eve and there's nobody in the office to talk to so I figured... why not? :)

Wishing a good time to all over the coming holiday time...

john from snowy Scotland...
 
Mine is my couch surfing machine. When I no longer need total strangers to tell me why I need to spend my own money I know it's a purchase I'm willing to make.
 
jtcedinburgh said:
For you folks with a plethora of Macs, how do you justify having an iPad, and also has owning an iPad made any of your existing Macs redundant or diminished your usage?
Click to expand...

Yeah it's kinda the other way around. How do I justify having a Mac when I've got an iPad? For those 5 time a year I can actually be bothered to do some heavy work (photography etc) it's fantastic having a 27" i7 iMac. The rest of the time, I use the iPad, or the MBP which is relegated to eyeTV HTPC duties now, although it is not really doing it very well (too slow/hot/loud. outboard storage PITA etc).

Anyway I'm giving my iPad at Xmas so I'll see how long I can survive without it (yes, iPad 2 coming). When I first got the iPad I used it all the time, even preferring to do word processing on it rather than the Macs. Since getting the iPhone 4 I find I use the iPad less. Now I've gravitated back to the Macs.

As an aside, the iPad is soo much nicer as a casual web surfer than the 27" iMac. The resolution/size of the 27" screen make it somewhat tiring to view for me. It's great if you are doing heavy work but for lazy web surfing etc it's not much fun. The writing is small and I find myself hunching forward to view. If I make the writing bigger it just doesn't look right. But hundled over the silent/cool iPad holding it like a novel it really works nicely. As they say. it's intimate. When it gets some more grunt and memory you could do some heavier surfing on it too.
 
Good one... perhaps I should wait a bit. I do like the idea though, and I'm a total gadget head with my own (very small) company which makes it even easier to justify tech purchases:

You see, until the end of 2010, I get 30% off any tech purchase (plus can reclaim the VAT tax and offset the lot against company tax). Which means that a £419 iPad would only ultimately cost my company £250, and that amount would be offset-able against tax too...

Bloody tempting it is... but the 30% thing is a local business incentive scheme for which my company has been accepted, but all purchases must be made before the end of the year... though I'd rather wait until a refresh....

Problem is that I find it difficult to justify it on business grounds although as a gadget to have around the house it'd be perfect...
 
Oh, I should have explained that all of my Macs are company machines (apart from the Blackbook which my wife uses). Blackbook is getting on a bit but plenty of life left in it. Could arguably justify an iPad as a Blackbook replacement and either sell it or give it away...

The iMacs are in my office which is separate from my home. My company is just me right now although I plan to involve a second person this coming year. In the meantime my MBP goes back and forth between the two locations and I can justify that machine entirely but I'm not so sure I could do that for an iPad...
 
If you do have the money, why not?
I use it a lot on the couch to read up on my business news, read some newspapers and so on. Works like a dream, better than sitting all night behind my computer. Now I'm in the living room, I can keep an eye out for everything that happens in my family, I'm more involved in my family and in a more relaxed way still a bit busy with work. Or I read some comics, macrumors or other funny websites.
Before the ipad I would often sit upstairs in my little home-office and read up on my business news, write some short replies to messages, and then get sucked in for answering long emails and before you know its 1 o'clock and you've still been at work all night. Without any contact with the family, beside the cat that likes to watch my fingers dance on the keyboard.

So for me the ipad has been wonderful.
And I sometimes use it as well when I travel, I travel a lot by car, about 2 to 3 days in a week. The distances are not that far, usual about 100-300km but it's nice to have an iPad if you want to travel light. I now have a Zaggmate that is in between everything and therefore not perfect at anything. It has a bit to small keyboard, it's not complete protection for your ipad, but it's unobtrusive, protects the screen has a stand and a workable keyboard. With a combined weight of ipad and zaggmate of less than 1 kg its much lighter than my macbook pro 13" that weights in at 2.2kg without the charger.
 
I have a 17" macbookpro (old version), iMac 24" desktop an iPod touch and an iPad (with 3G) and I honestly use them all.

My laptop doesn't have good battery life so I really only use it for iTunes and when I'm on vacation. The imac is my main computer. iPod touch is for gaming and music and its portable. iPad is used for school (I take all my notes on it) and the 3G is amazing for long road trips. (also use it as my couch surfing device haha).
 
Wait. Youve waited this long already. The incentive is nice, but you'll be kicking yourself early spring.
 
jtcedinburgh said:
Good one... perhaps I should wait a bit. I do like the idea though, and I'm a total gadget head with my own (very small) company which makes it even easier to justify tech purchases:

You see, until the end of 2010, I get 30% off any tech purchase (plus can reclaim the VAT tax and offset the lot against company tax). Which means that a £419 iPad would only ultimately cost my company £250, and that amount would be offset-able against tax too...

Bloody tempting it is... but the 30% thing is a local business incentive scheme for which my company has been accepted, but all purchases must be made before the end of the year... though I'd rather wait until a refresh....

Problem is that I find it difficult to justify it on business grounds although as a gadget to have around the house it'd be perfect...
Click to expand...

I also run a small business and I find my iPad very useful. I don't use it for anything that I couldn't do using my iPhone or laptop - so obviously it is not an essential tool - but it is certainly more pleasant to use than an iPhone and a lot less cumbersome than a laptop. I suppose it depends what your business is, but I would struggle to think of any small business where an iPad would not be of some benefit!
 
jtcedinburgh said:
Hey folks...

I'm suffering a severe case of PadLust. However, I can't think of any earthly reason why I *need* one.....
Click to expand...

NEED = Air, Water, Food and Shelter. Everything else is just a degree of want.:D

Lust is a powerful want and often needs to be fulfilled in order to have contentment. So if you want (temporary :eek:) contentment then by an iPad?
 
I use my ipad constantly for both business and pleasure. My calendar is crucial and with iPad it's readily accessible; I use various apps to take notes about conferences (I meet with a lot of individuals and need to have that info readily available); I just put 50 student papers on it (as PDFs) and thus didn't have to haul around a ream of paper (could also annotate them); I check e-mail and websurf as well as play games. I sometimes use it as a reader, though I prefer the Kindle for that.

I have a 15" MBP which is usually attached to an external monitor (unless I'm traveling, like now). Am typing this on my MBP, but have my ipad at my side. My university bought both devices, which helps $$$$wise. Tech for me is a lifeline, makes my working life much easier. YMMV.
 
It's an addition not a replacement for me. Thus is supplements what I do on my mac ( mainly browse on the sofa). Remember you need a mac at the end of the day for syncing and transferring media.
 
Let me give you a viewpoint from "the other side". I went through the same struggle as you around August. My GF & I live together and have 5 macs and 2 iphone 4s, so I could not justify buying one. But I wanted one....badly. I eventually broke down and bought a 32gb 3g in September. I used it all the time. I read books, I surfed the net, I used it to control my mac mini HTPC, I played games, I remote desktopped, I watched movies......and one day towards the end of November, I realized it had been in my kids room for 4 days. I hadn't missed it a bit, because all of my other devices actually fit my needs fine.

The ipad is gone now. The nice part about those suckers is resale value. I bought it used for $600, and sold it for $650.

So, if you want it that bad....go for it. But know that if you decide you don't want it, sell it before the next generation drops. If not, you might lose a few more bucks.
 
jtcedinburgh said:
Hey folks...

I'm suffering a severe case of PadLust. However, I can't think of any earthly reason why I *need* one, and having just added a top-end iMac i7, I'd feel really guilty about spending more cash...

For you folks with a plethora of Macs, how do you justify having an iPad, and also has owning an iPad made any of your existing Macs redundant or diminished your usage?

I realise that this has probably been done to death, but, hey, it's Christmas eve and there's nobody in the office to talk to so I figured... why not? :)

Wishing a good time to all over the coming holiday time...

john from snowy Scotland...
Click to expand...


Aw I wanna be in snowy Scotland...:( No snow here in Pennsylvania :(

Anyway here are my macs and my uses for each one. Each has a specific purpose:

Mac Pro - workhorse

Mac book pro in my sig - portable workhorse that is on long term loan to a friend at the moment

Macbook Air- my laptop that I take with me when I need a full computer (to run XCode and Unity).

iPad - My lay on the couch, travel (when I don't need a full laptop), bathroom, etc companion. I LOVE my iPad and use it daily.

If you want one, just get it :D They are completely worth it and you will have a blast with it. Make it a Merry Christmas to yourself ;)
 
colmaclean said:
What's the deal here? :)
Click to expand...
It's a small business incentive scheme in the Fife area. Basically, if your company qualifies, you can claim back up to £5k or 30% of eligible tech purchases (whichever is the lower, based on the amount requested on application). In my case, I run a small software house which needed a dev server and a new iMac, plus some ad hoc bits. I over-estimated how much the server would have cost by roughly the cost of a new iPad, so I still have enough to do the claim.

And, in the end, it turns out that the 'end of 2010' deadline was arbitrary - it's actually more a case of 'all claims should be received by the end of January 2011).

I'm keen not to take the mickey by claiming things that have absolutely no business justification, but in the case of the iPad there's a compelling argument that any micro ISV (independent software vendor) should at least evaluate it to see what opportunities might present themselves, although the reality is that I've got enough to do without taking on a new distraction...
 
Update: if you cast your eye down to my profile, you'll see a 'blackbook' listed. This is effectively my wife's machine, and I've provisionally found a buyer for it so it makes the iPad easier to justify. I still have my business laptop (the MBP) and she can borrow it if she needs a laptop, but 99% of the time with her it's Facebook, Email, YouTube and online shopping. Which means that she'd probably be just as happy using an iPad, which I'd be happy to have her use (even though it'd be a business purchase)...

Haven't done anything yet, as the 'end of 2010' limit was my mistake - I have a couple of weeks remaining. Not enough time to wait for a 'bumped' iPad but there's not so much that the current iPad doesn't do to make me hold off other than perhaps more internal memory or a higher resolution screen. As most developers will continue to develop for the 'lowest common denominator' machine (the 16Gb iPad) come the Rev 2 release, I don't see so many apps requiring any extra features....
 
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