I have been an iPhone user for last two years. I love my iPhone4 and the ease with which you can buy Apps, Movie & Music in iTunes (though I hate the Photos management in iTunes). For many months now except for presentations I don’t use my laptop much – when in office it is Office Desktop and at the house, it is Home PC and in between I do my emails with iPhone. Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync keeps my email synced between the Office PC, Home PC, Laptop & iPhone. Windows Live Mesh syncs the files between the PCs & Laptop effortlessly. Whenever I am reading a book or a magazine I keep my iPhone next to me to refer in Wikipedia or browse the web about the topic I am reading. Even while watching TV having iPhone and turning to it for some information has become a habit – whether it is to find a song in YouTube I just remembered or to IMDB to refer on how old is an actor or buy a book from Amazon/Flipkart that you just read about in the Newspaper today. As you can imagine I am a heavy user of my iPhone, I have an Amazon KindleDX as well, so I was sceptical whether I need an iPad2. My friend who has been having an iPad for last one year kept telling it is a lifestyle device and I couldn’t see how.
Now after having been using an iPad2 for last few days, I can understand why the world loves this device. I bought an iPad2 64GB Wi-Fi model through my US office in Washington. Apart from the device, I bought a VGA Cable, the SmartCover (Light Blue), Apple CarePack giving one-year additional warranty and adding WA State Tax it came to $927. The form factor, weight, display & audio are ideal for consuming content, it is not much of a Productivity Tool or Content Creation tool. There is a vast difference between what I read & visualized about the device, it feels a whole lot better to actually have the device in your hand and use it. Playing Videos on YouTube, Photo viewing, Web browsing, reading FaceBook/Twitter/Blogs with Flipboard is addictive.
Following are the 3rd Party Apps I am currently using in iPad, most of them are the same I use in iPhone4, but few of them only work in iPad.
- Social: Twitter, Skype, Flipboard (this one app is worth the iPad price)
- Books: Google Books, Kindle
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News & Magazines: BBC News, MaalaiMalar, Bloomberg BusinessWeek (I am a paid subscriber)
- Reference: LIFCO Tamil Dictionary (from my firm LIFCO Publishers), Dictionary, Google, Delicious Bookmarks, IMDb, Wolfram Alpha
- Photo & Video: VLC Player (to play WMV and other formats), iMovie (paid app works in both iPhone4 & iPad), WiFi Photo Transfer (to share photos without a cable)
- Utilities: MyKeePass (I can’t live without this one), iRDesktop (to remote desktop to Windows), Sellinam (to type in Tamil), Microsoft OneNote (works but is an iPhone app)
- Games (mostly for my son): Solitaire, JellyCar3, Angry Birds HD, Zoo Story, Farm Story, City Story, Bakery Story, Missing Letters (from my firm Vishwak)
- Travel: TripIt, TripAdvisor
Sir, we have returned back from US after 12-13 yrs as well and settled in Chennai. Your blogs are very informative and both me and my hubby enjoy reading it. Thanks for all the details and pls. continue your good informative posts. thanks
You must try iAnnotate for reading PDFs. Also try world of goo, an addictive game. Pulse is an excellent rss reader by 2 indian students from stanford.
I have tried Maalai Malar, it is good. Actually TOI is also have the same design (may be same designer or copied!) of MM.
@Sudharshan
1. Yes I have registered Apple ID with US Address & US Credit Card of my relative in USA.
2. I will try Times of India App. Have you checked out Maalai Malar Tamil News Paper App for iPad
Have u registerd Apple ID with US address ? Since some of the applications are not available outside US
Most of the things what you said is true. Nowadays never felt i miss my laptop. Please try Times of India for iPad, its fantastic. Sad, Tamil Paper/Magazine is not coming with apps for iPad/iPhone (ya in India is still in the early stage only).
For kids learning apps like ABC, learning Tamil language (for people living outside TN) etc are very good. My son learning Tamil using the Flashcards and various other apps available. Read somewhere, kids grasp iPad/iPhone apps quickly. Its true. My 3 year old son operates very well his all apps.
Angry Bird is big fun for him. Sometimes its a better alternative to watch Mr. Bean, Cartoon etc
Your writings are simple and very good.