Six Weeks with the iPad – Part One

Despite not owning one, I have own felt the iPad is a superior tablet, and the Android experience was lacking in some key areas which held it behind the iPad. During my stay in Uganda, Susan kindly lent me her iPad 2 so I could better function in my role here. During this time I have had plenty of time to evaluate the iPad and draw conclusions about its assets as well as it’s pitfalls. I’m aware the hardware is out of date (not being the latest iPad), but as the software is running iOS 8 the experience isn’t too different to using the latest iPad.

I hardware on the iPad I can’t really fault, its well designed, the screen is good quality and there is very little plastic, which is in abundance with it’s android counterparts. Although it can be sluggish when running multiple apps, this is a limitation with using hardware that is several years old and an operating system that is shiny and new (relatively).

The Microsoft suit of apps has served me well, and in partnership with the wireless Apple keyboard I brought, it makes quite a nice writing experience. Writing using the on-screen keyboard is also comfortable, with the iPad at a sensible angle.

Sadly there are a lot of things that have made my life difficult, because I’m using the iPad.

1. Transferring documents to other non-iOS devices

This has been hard work. Out of the box, there is no way to transfer files between two devices, unless they are in the apple family. Airdrop is a great feature (in sure), but useless at the same time. Any other device or platform can talk to each other through common standards (e.g. bluetooth, USB), but with the iPad it has been a nightmare transferring documents to my Android phone. Now the simple way to do it would be to go via the cloud, but here in Uganda we don’t have the infrastructure in place for affordable internet, so every byte I use costs me money. And when your transferring a file from one hand to the other, you should need to go via the world wide web.

Solution: I use an app called Zapya (free), to transfer files from my Android to the iPad, this only works one way by default. I still can’t, for example, send a word document to my Android, from my iPad (without the cloud), unless I go via a third app, Documents (which I will talk about more in my next post).

What fustrations do you have with using an iPad or a Andorid tablet? Share them in the comments below.

By Andy Galpin

Strategy Consultant for IBM. Passionate about God, and equipping His church to fulfil the great commission. Blog on mission, life and leadership. My opinions are all my own and do not represent IBM.

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