iPad

[juilletmercredi]

I also can type pretty quickly on the on-screen keyboard in landscape, especially since my iPad's case also functions as a stand in a working position. Usually I bring it for notes for lab meetings and individual meeting with my advisor since I am horrible with keeping up with paper. However, if I were going to take notes for a 2-hour lecture several times a week, I'd want to use a portable keyboard. I'm actually contemplating buying one anyway; Apple has a folding one on the website that costs about $100 but folds down to a little bigger than a smartphone. I think there are other brands on Amazon.com too.

[juilletmercredi]

I also can type pretty quickly on the on-screen keyboard in landscape, especially since my iPad's case also functions as a stand in a working position. Usually I bring it for notes for lab meetings and individual meeting with my advisor since I am horrible with keeping up with paper. However, if I were going to take notes for a 2-hour lecture several times a week, I'd want to use a portable keyboard. I'm actually contemplating buying one anyway; Apple has a folding one on the website that costs about $100 but folds down to a little bigger than a smartphone. I think there are other brands on Amazon.com too.

[fumblewhat]

So, I just got my iPad 2 and I'm really thrilled with it! I've marked up a few academic articles in iAnnotate, and I can already tell it's going to be a huge asset this fall!

Now I have to replace my primary computer. I'm stuck between some incarnation of the MacBook Pro or an iMac. I think with a Bluetooth keyboard, I could do a lot of my in-the-library writing on the iPad. But I've heard that Pages for iPad can't yet handle footnotes. That'd mean I'd always have to finish a paper on a "real" computer. I'd prefer an iMac because of its superior hard drive size, processor speed, cost and life-span... But is lack of portability a deal breaker?

What do you all think? Would you depend on your iPad as your only portable machine in grad school?

[juilletmercredi]

Personally, I would not. I like my iPad a lot, but there is too much that I have to do on my machine that I need to be able to take it with me. For one thing, I'm in a quant program and you can't exactly put SAS or SPSS on an iPad. I also travel many weekends to visit my SO and I take my laptop with me so I can get real work done down there. The iPad is great for reading/annotating PDFs, doing some email work and maybe editing a paper, but I wouldn't rely on it solely for heavy-duty stuff.