OK – the iPad is amazing. I can totally  justify it as an information consuming device. But I’m in Higher Education so it needs to be somewhat of a creation device and flexible sharing device. Initially I was stuck in the my old file based operating system box. How do a print? How do I upload an assignment to Moodle? How do I save my work?

I woke up at 4:00 am – OMG – the operating system is the Internet. http://www.iwork.com is one of the most well thought out web file sharing platforms I have ever used. I was trying to figure out how I was going to upload a file to our Web storage service based on Xythos. No – now I realize Xythos has to figure out how to let me upload from an URL rather then assuming it is coming from the old file system based OS. The URL is now truly the file. This is just an example for interacting with the current file based OS world. You really do have incredible sharing and interaction with the iPad Internet based operating system.

Here is a document produced on Pages by my recent college graduated daughter minutes after she touched the iPad for the first time. I intentionally let her first try it with the wireless keyboard.
http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p147015419&d=IPad_Pages_Doc.pages

Here is a presentation created by same daughter shortly there after, first time she had ever used Keynote and done entirely on iPad in a half hour.
http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p147015419&d=IPad_Presentation.key

Disclosure: I do not know why my daughter immediately gravitated to these two tests. She is not tech savvy and the rest of her iPad time she was on FaceBook not realizing that there are some Flash limitations via the browser. I do thank her for how she helped me understand this though.

Email is the communicator which is a natural, that initially bothered me since email tends to carry a bad taste due to years of misuse. But this iWork.com tool is a good solution and I’m sure it will evolve. We will probably see options for easily integrating this into Google Apps, etc. But the playing field is clear and it is and it is the Internet. And yes the optimal environment is an iPhone for total mobility, an iPad for primary consuming device and the Mac for creation and master organization. And yes this is expensive and probably considered unnecessarily extravagant. And that is true. I guess I equate it to why some people shop at Saks when you can get almost the same products at KMart. And you know what, you can’t justify it, but consider who shops at Saks and who do you really want to be?

OK – Good Night and Happy Easter