Can you replace your laptop or netbook with a iPad?

June 1, 2011 - PRLog -- There were tablets before the iPad, but the runaway success of the Apple release is without a doubt the chief instigator behind an entirely new consumer hardware market slotting in comfortably between smartphones and laptops. The iPad offers the best of both platforms while making a few notable feature sacrifices; they are not as transportable as your average smartphone and they don't have the program or hardware flexibility that laptops or netbooks do.



Still, that has not stopped the iPad-using world from looking for ways to cast aside laptops in favor of tablet computing. We are still not there yet - Apple's obstinate refusal to embrace Flash support is a substantial hindrance, for example - but the dream of an iPad-as-laptop-replacement can be achieved, as we'll lay out for you now in this tiny primer.

The Accessories You'll Require
The first actual step you ought to take in laptop-ifying your iPad is gathering your necessary peripherals. A keyboard ought to be thought about essential. There's multiple options obtainable, including travel case mounts with built-in keyboards which fundamentally give your iPad the form factor of a netbook.



In case you require to go the keyboard case route, the most popular options range between $50 and $100 for both first- and second-generation iPads. Alternatively, Apple offers keyboard options that ditch the case but are worth taking a look at. There is an iPad keyboard dock ($69), which features tablet-specific function keys and the ability to charge as you type. There is also Apple's wireless Bluetooth keyboard ($69); in addition to offering the flexibility of Bluetooth support, which works with much over your iPad, this keyboard also gets points for being highly transportable and having an impressive battery life. There is also no change of a future iPad release not supporting it, since Bluetooth is not likely going to be removed as a feature.

The only I/O port on the iPad is its charge point, a proprietary Apple connector, so there is not a whole lot in the way of wired peripheral options. While it is not officially supported, users have discovered that the iPad Camera Connection Kit - a pair of dongles which connect to the charge port, adding either an SD card reader or a USB port to the tablet - is lovely for over connecting cameras. While these are unsupported by Apple, the USB dongle will recognize USB keyboards, headsets, microphones and even hubs, in case you require to wire up over tool. The truly fearless who go the jailbreak route even have the choice of connecting an outside hard drive, though it is a complicated install method and it carries a few notable caveats.



Of coursework, the iPad is at base a wireless tool, which means you have some peripheral options that don't involve connecting it to anything other than a Wi-Fi network. AirPrint was added with the iOS three.2 update, bringing support for Hewlett-Packard's line of Wi-Fi-enabled ePrint printers to Apple devices. Setup is simple and the functionality is built right in to iOS, meaning it requires no additional app purchases beyond the printer. Of coursework, there's also apps you can purchase that expand wireless printing capabilities to other Wi-Fi printers. Print n Share ($8.99) and Print Magic HD ($4.99) are of the more popular options, both having four-star user ratings in the App Store.

The Apps You'll Require
Which apps you'll require to utilize your iPad as a laptop computer replacement will depend largely on the kind of work and play you intend to make use of it for. There's a few baselines that everybody ought to look to as beginning points, however. Most importantly, you'll be wanting a proper suite of office productivity tools: word processor, spreadsheet application and presentation creator. Apple has its own trio of iWork productivity apps of coursework: Pages (word processor), Numbers (spreadsheets) and Keynote (presentations), which are priced at $9.99 apiece, however, there's options.



Documents To Go ($9.99) and its Premium counterpart ($16.99) are popular options, offering the functionality of all of Apple's productivity apps at a lower cost. The Premium edition adds the ability to generate PowerPoint presentations (you can only view them in the lower-priced version) and sync with files stored online in places like Google Docs and Dropbox. Both versions support Wi-Fi syncing with a local PC using a third-party application obtainable at no cost from the developer, DataViz. QuickOffice ($14.99) is another, equally popular iWork alternative, offering the same basic functionality as Docs2Go Premium at a slightly lower cost.

You ought to also think about Air Sharing HD ($9.99), which lets you wirelessly connect with a desktop and access your iPad as if it is an outside hard drive. This means simple drag-and-drop file sharing between desktop and tablet, but that is only a beginning point. Air Sharing HD can interact with a variety of file formats and perform definite operations the are not otherwise feasible (or need other apps) on the iPad, such as zipping/unzipping files (and browsing through archives), move/copy/paste/rename functions, downloads from URL links and more.

Moving away from the laptop computer and onto a more transportable platform, which will at least occasionally have its information cleaned for reason or another, you'll also require to have some kind of backup in place to protect any work you might do on the iPad. The answer is simple here: Dropbox. It is a free app to start with and a free Dropbox account gives you seven GB to play around with, which ought to be plenty if you are only worried about backing up documents. Every month subscription designs are obtainable for those who need more storage space, but the maximum $9.99 per month for 50 GB of storage is probably way much for your average iPad.



Another universal require for office productivity is being able to take comprehensive notes. Evernote is a very popular free app, allowing you to generate text, photograph and audio notes, sync your work with other computers or web destinations and keep everything neatly organized. If you are willing to spend a tiny money, SoundNote ($4.99) is definitely worth the investment. In addition to the basic note-taking, the app also including a drawing tool for making speedy sketches inside your notes as well as an audio recording feature that syncs up what you have written with timestamps in the sound file.

Ironically, the bloggers of the world have the toughest time in the event that they require to abandon laptops for an iPad. There's only viable apps for actual walking a blog, and  in case you depend on any CMS that is not WordPress. The WordPress app is free but, as you have probably guessed, it only works with that platform. BlogPress ($4.99) has more flexibility, playing well with a variety of platforms, but both apps tend to be light on features unless you have got administrative access on the weblog side to set up the proper support.
There's a selection of free and paid instant messaging apps, such as AIM, IM+, BeejiveIM and Meebo. Same goes for Twitter; TweetDeck is by far the best free option, with a layout that is well-suited to the iPad display, though some prefer Twitterrific. Twittelator gets high marks as the best of the paid apps, with a great layout and enhanced social media integration features. Rounding out the basics, you'll also probably require to nab some kind of photograph editing app. Photogene ($2.99) is an excellent option, as is FX Photograph Studio HD ($1.99). In case you prefer to go the free route, PhotoPad by ZAGG is the most popular option.

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