February 26, 2013

So, aside from a complete flirtatious betrayal last fall with a Google Nexus 7, I have been an iPad fanatic since the days of the first generation iPad (it took me about six months to get my hands on the first one). Though on a couple of occasions I have tried to convince myself that I would be better off with a laptop, the truth of the matter is, I love the portability, the convenience and the computing power of my iPad. I take it everywhere and I use it for a myriad of reasons.

I love it.

When I went on my business trip last week I brought my iPad along for the ride. Since we were traveling in Canada, I felt a little stifled due to the lack of cellular data availability (US carriers have some of the stupidest cellular plans known to the world, and yes, I realize that is a ‘first world problem’) but I still brought it along, figuring I could use it in the hotel room. There’s something very nice about being able to FaceTime with your loved one back home. I didn’t think I would bring it along for the meetings that we were traveling for; I’m often the only one in a conference room with my iPad and sometimes I feel self-conscious about that. Besides, with the lack of data connectivity, I worried that I wouldn’t be able to access the documents I needed for the trip. So I printed what I needed and brought along my leather binder with a fresh pad of note paper.

Imagine my surprise when I sat down at the conference room last Thursday morning and came to the rapid realization that I was the ONLY one at the table without some sort of computing device. The vice-president that I was traveling with had her iPad 2, complete with a portable keyboard. The vendor representative had his iPad 3 and a Lenovo laptop. The others in the room all had some sort of Windows XP power laptops.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious of the fact that I did not have an iPad with me, I started fiddling with my iPhone 5. To compensate, I asked the host, “do you have a wi-fi hotspot for public use?” The vice-president was happy that I asked, though the answer was to the negative.

After the meetings and on our way home, I asked the VP if she liked her portable keyboard. She answered in the affirmative and that led to a lengthy discussion about iPads and Macs and the like. Outside of the building that I normally work at, it seems to be standard operating procedure to bring along an iPad or a laptop. The company is definitely headed in that direction and the culture of the company is following suit. In fact, the use of personal iOS devices is leading to Macs becoming much more prevalent throughout the corporation I work for.

I find this all very exciting.

So when I leave for the next round of business travel on Sunday, you know that I’ll have my iPad with me and that I will be ready to use it in the training seminars and at the meetings that I will be attending. To make it all the better, my Apple Bluetooth keyboard case will be arriving from Amazon today (yay Prime membership shipping!).

I’ll have to share a photo with the gentle readers.