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5 Ways to Use the iPad for Business

May 18th, 2010

Since the iPad’s release in early April, we’ve drooled over its modern, minimal, and sleek design.  It just looked so fun to play with.  However, people since then wondered how they could apply this device into their day-to-day life for getting things done.  Not many were willing to drop at least $500 on a new toy.

I have compiled a list of top 5 ways to use the iPad for business:

1. Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations: Apple offers its iWork suite for sale in the iPad AppStore.  Priced at $9.99 per app, you can get Pages (Word alt.), Numbers (Excel alt.), and Keynote (Powerpoint alt.).  These apps are fully capable of composing rich, beautiful looking documents while on the go.  For those not willing to bang out large documents on the virtual keyboard, you can get the iPad Keyboard Dock for traditional typing.
2. Notetaking: The iPad is great for note-taking in meetings.  It doesn’t take up much space like a laptop does, plus you look really cool using it (that is until the “newness” of the glass slab run its course).  There are many great note-taking apps available now.  My favorite is the free classic, Evernote.
3. Nearly Full Web-Access: One of the iPad’s strongest features is the fast, and elegant web browsing experience through Mobile Safari.  This is my favorite iPad app, and it’s ready out-of-the-box.  The Apple A4 processor makes for a very snappy browsing experience.  Add 3G connectivity to it, and you have a winner for the traveling businessman.
4. Presentations: Imagine how slick it would be to use this device as your portfolio.  Picture going over to meet a prospective client, and whipping out the iPad to show your previous work, or a digital brochoure of your company.  This makes great use of the Keynote app- just build a Powerpoint style presentation on it, and present it using the iPad instead of that overkill projector.
5. Remote Computing: You can use the iPad to control remote computers thousands of miles away.  There are several apps that allow you to sign into your multiple remote desktops, and get to work from the iPad.  I recently purchased ConnectPC for $4.99, which does a beautiful job of allowing me to administer multiple remote machines all from 1 app.  I was using my server at home right from my hotel room.  If you think about it, this is like running multiple OS’ on the iPad.

   Feel free to tell us how you use your iPad for work!

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Entry Filed under: Apple,iPad,Lists