iPad Bachelor

Could you live with just your iPad for a week?

Replacing your regular computer isn’t just about cost. Adapting to the spare or new work environment can be stressful. Using the iPad for a week while my wife borrowed the Mac Book Pro was an adjustment.

Leaving for a week to Tennessee, Sharon took along my computer, thus an iPad bachelor. Browsing the web, uploading photos, blogging, and the occasional game are my primary activities. Of those, web use was the one I felt the most crippled on.

Flash unavailable on the iPad a stumbling block? Sure. Broken Javascript? Much bigger issue. Several of my favorite sites, such as Flickr, still have drop downs and scrolling elements that don’t work on mobile browsers.

Uploading photos isn’t a one stop shop as in iPhoto. Photo manipulation apps abound though each has different site connections. No sites are connected to via Photos.

Color selectively in one app, crop and frame in another, then use the app that allows batch uploads to whatever. Lots of cheap or free effects but without the fallback iPhoto, more planning was required.

Lifesaving this week then? The Apple Camera Connection Kit was handy. Each day I easily dumped images from the camera to the iPad. Loading time is short, image quality is preserved, and it’s plug/load/go.

Blogging is straightforward with Blogpress for the iPad. Start the app and immediately editing a new post. Inserting an image is a few taps away. Typing on the virtual keyboard all week? I’m still not up to full speed. At least Blogpress makes adding tags and categories easy as well.

Social networking almost didn’t get a mention. Tweetdeck is working out well for Twitter. Twitter’s own iPhone app still needs some features before supporting my style.

Best tools of the week? Color Splash, Photogene, Photoshop for the iPad, Blogpress, and of course Tweetdeck.

If you’re surviving on just the iPad, what apps are key to you?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad.