My new constant companion.

So what item do you normally always have with you these days that you feel lost if you don’t have it with you. I’m sure most of you would say your phone. If it is a smart phone, of feature phone and you are into texting, you would probably find yourself looking/reaching for it to see who has contacted you or wanting to respond or tell everyone what is going on in your current situation. Well, for me, I have found that I have been neglecting my phone more and more to give my new companion most of my attention. Yes, I’m talking about my iPad and it is now my new favorite device that I can’t be without.

Why? Other than phone calls and texting, natively there isn’t much that I was doing with my phone that my iPad hasn’t done better or at least bigger… That is probably the real key, a bigger screen. So all the neat little things that I was doing with the iPhone for managing information and accessing resources is easier to work with on a much larger screen.

The biggest adjustment is the way that I consume podcasts now. BIPDA (Before iPad Acquisition), I downloaded most of the podcast that I follow primarily as audio files. That was because I was enjoying them by listening to them in the car, and when I was doing things around the house or as I fell off to sleep. Now I am downloading most of what I want in their video versions so that I can watch them as well as listen to them. With the bigger screen I want the added video feature that these shows provide.

I find myself reading more as well. That is quite interesting and I am still not listening to books as much as used to so I am beginning to fall behind in that area. But I have been fine tuning my RSS feed list to include many new subjects that give me some better insight in things like local news items, financial and global news and of course many of the tech sites that I like to follow. Problem is that I have started to add to the total number and I am having some trouble keeping up.

It will be nice when the IOS4 for the iPad becomes available to have the unified mail box and multitasking available. But I can survive until this fall for that. But programs that are jumping out for me are:

• Evernote (great note taking program that allows you to share information between many different internet connected devices both mobile and desktop)
• FastEver XL (allows you to quickly input text notes into your evernote database)
• Reeder (accesses your google reader account and presents all the RSS feeds that you have set up in that account. You can easily look at unread, starred or individual RSS feeds)
• Instapaper (webpage capture program that allows you to capture a page for later reading or reference)
• DocsToGo (MS Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint for your iPad. It hooks up directly to my Dropbox account so it is easy to drop documents or pull up documents from that location)
• Skype (I can make phone calls using my iPad)
• Penultimate (use this to turn my iPad into a writing tablet. I picked up a pogosketch and can write note quickly on the screen as well as sketches that I need to make while doing surveys)
• SketchBook (this application I am trying to learn how to use better. I think I need some drawing talent before though. Great electronic sketching app. If you are either into doodling or into more advanced forms of art this is a great application to test your abilities)
• TWC MAX+ (The Weather Channel, a much better rendition of the current weather forecast then the one that comes with the iPhone)
• GoToMeeting (this is the client version but I use it to monitor a session so I know what my clients are seeing)
• Kindle (almost like reading books better with this then the regular Kindle except when I am at the pool the ePaper screen on the Kindle outshines the iPad screen display)
• Barnes and Noble eReader (I have purchase some books here as well and this gives me access to them)
• iBooks (while I am primarily using this to build up a PDF document library that I always have available it will allow for collecting and reading regular books and ePub formatted books as well that you can acquire free from several sources.)
• YouTube (a great way to show off some of the videos that I have created as well as ones that have been captured from other sources)
• Twit Touch (I do love TwitTV so this is another app I use to keep up with his live programming.)
• Netflix (access to my streaming movie queue is awesome), Dropbox (I have talked about this program in the past but let me just say that it is the one of the ways that I share data with every device that I use.)
• LogMein (gives me complete access to my Office and Home Desktop Computers and my netbook)
• E*Trade (one must keep up with the failing stock market)
• Pageonce and Mint (financial apps to track current trends and conditions of my financial picture) to name a few.

All of these programs have iPad enhanced versions that keep getting better and make it easier to consume content and be creative as well.

In my last post I talked about some of the applications that I am using in my daily business functions and I am finding that as I am going out to sites now or sitting down with clients I am doing so with my handy dandy iPad. The ability to take notes during the conversation, or draw sketches or do a quick demo makes this kind of device a wonderful tool that I can use to increase my productivity.

If you have started using an iPad, I would love to hear how you are using it. Is it just an entertainment device or are you using it is a business tool as well.