Is an iPad helpful in PhD program?

[phdconfessional]

I'm getting ready to graduate with my MBA and head to a PhD program in the fall. My parents want to get my a nice graduation gift and they mentioned an iPad. I already have a Macbook and my husband has an iPad that he primarily uses. I'm just wondering if anyone has used one in grad school and found significant benefit or is more just frivolous usage and only periodically.

I know, I know, #firstworldpain. But I just know if my parents are going to spend that kind of money for me, I want to make sure it is beneficial. Otherwise, I may recommend them getting something else more useful.

[MoleMocha]

My parents just got me one, so I haven't really been able to completely benefit its usefulness yet. But here's my preliminary evaluation :-)

Pro: Lighter and easier to carry around than a laptop

Con: Can't really type a paper or anything too involved on an iPad. It's nice if all you have to do is check things on email/internet, but not if you need to type. (Though I do have a friend who bought an external keyboard for his.

Pro: If you download the iBooks app, you have an easy way to take books with you. You can also download articles in pdf form, and they go onto your iBooks bookshelf.

Con: You can't highlight (at least I haven't figured out how to yet). I like Adobe Reader X on my laptop, because it allows me to highlight pdf articles.

Pro: Good camera, lots of fun to use.

Con: TIME SUCK!!!

I really like it so far. I'm sure that the full power of the iPad will be revealed in time, so I'll let you know if I find out any new applications ;-)

[Eigen]

I bought a refurbished 1st gen model about a year and a half ago, and I've found it useful.

There's nothing that it does that I couldn't do on my laptop, really, but it's a nice device. I use mine to give presentations, to keep my PDF and document libraries on, and for mobile e-mail, etc. It turns on fast, and is easy to pull out and quickly access something to reference.

I still find myself doing a lot of reading on hardcopies, they just feel more comfortable overall. And although I've tried, I really don't like using it for heavy annotations on papers, or taking notes, so I end up using it more as a consumption device. But it's really nice to be able to quickly access any of my hundred's of PDFs, past presentations, pre-made graphics and handouts on my research, etc. to use in a meeting, when teaching, etc.

To add on to the previous post, GoodReader is a great app that will let you highlight/annotate PDFs, and then sync them back to dropbox. You can also e-mail yourself just the highlighted text and annotations, and all of the annotations are compatible with Adobe Pro.

Dropbox is also pretty much essential, imo, as is Keynote for giving presentations coupled with a Dock->VGA adapter.

Edited May 2, 2012 by Eigen

[fuzzylogician]

I got an iPad2 last year and I'm very happy with it. It's very light so I can carry it around with me to all my classes and meetings, which allows me quick access to all my papers and materials. I've recently also started taking notes during meetings on my iPad, so I have access to a summary of everything we said in previous meetings. I've also been taking only my iPad to conferences and short trips recently, and it's been very convenient. The long battery life allows me to watch videos/listen to music/read during the entire flight and during whole conference days, which is great.

It doesn't do anything my laptop doesn't do, and really it's more for leisure than for serious work - I certainly wouldn't write a paper on it - but I'm still happy with mine.

[katerific]

Well, I have a nook (completely different, I know), but having some sort of tablet has been AWESOME. I can read almost any paper on-the-go... or at home. Super awesome and way better than hardcopies.

Being able to lay back in bed and read/post on TGC and/or reddit is also pretty neat. Not quite the same with laptops....

[TMP]

For me as a historian, it's a godsend. I have far too many PDFs for articles and JPGs/PDFs from my archival research than I can manage on my laptop. It's just wonderful to have all of that in a tablet device that I can down put down next to my laptop while I'm writing/revising my papers. And that camera? The iPad is quite literally the only thing I ever need to bring into archives (as opposed to a camera, a laptop, a notebook, pencils...).

It really depends what you would like to get out of your iPad.

[Safferz]

For me as a historian, it's a godsend. I have far too many PDFs for articles and JPGs/PDFs from my archival research than I can manage on my laptop. It's just wonderful to have all of that in a tablet device that I can down put down next to my laptop while I'm writing/revising my papers. And that camera? The iPad is quite literally the only thing I ever need to bring into archives (as opposed to a camera, a laptop, a notebook, pencils...).

It really depends what you would like to get out of your iPad.

And this is just what I needed to make the decision to get the new iPad I think I'll also get one of those keyboard cases to take notes in class, it seems so much easier than taking a laptop everywhere!

[MashaMashaMasha]

I think its all about the apps. You can use iAnnotate to highlight and add notes to PDFs, and good reader is supposed to be a good app for that as well. Evernote is supposedly a godsend, and the Mendeley app is supposed to be great, too.

I plan on using mine to grade/read on my hour-long bus commute. I've also used it for things like home/garden design (Penultimate lets you draw over photos), language learning (you can get like 30 channels of streaming Russian tv for $5/year), and getting myself un-lost on the way to meetings in unfamiliar neighborhoods/cities.

Also, if you're an insomniac like me, you can keep it on your nightstand and just check horrific news at 3am when you can't sleep. Much less cumbersome than a laptop that way