I’ve done a lot of thinking about how many creative professionals could really benefit from the use of an iPad in the context of ministry. For example, a number of really cool applications and usage for service programming, video production, and presentations are obvious.
But what about the IT professional in ministry? Is there a compelling use-case worthy of a purchase? Perhaps not.
The lack of a camera, multitasking capabilities, USB ports, and more would severely limit the IT guys ability to do much of his normal everyday work, right? And now that I come to think about it the “tablet” was never really a hit with IT pros anyways, right?
Maybe I’m missing something here though. Thoughts? Has the iPad found a place in your IT budget this year?
d3ft punk says
Depends on who the IT person is. For keeping up with the birds–eye view of your network, and for doing a lot of the point and click operations, this would be something nice to have as you get in the meatspace. But for serious hacking, this doesn’t really seem appropriate. Command lines and virtual keypads don’t get along well.
Tim Owens says
My day job is school IT and our church is too small to necessitate having an IT department but I can speak to the fact that LogMeIn on the iPad gives me remote access to any PC or Mac on our campus. Much lighter and better battery life than a netbook, not to mention the performance. Using LogMeIn on the iPhone was nice, but a bit painful to try and pan around a screen, the iPad fixes that with 10 gorgeous inches of space.
Stephen Bateman says
that’s a good idea. I’d like to try logmein on an ipad.
Will P says
John… you contradicted yourself in your own post. Besides that, Apple did not make the iPad for content creation at all. It is completely made for content consumption. Read: iBooks, iTunes, App Store.
However, there are a lot of applications of the iPad coming out as people get their hands on the device that no one imagined before. For instance, I watched an autistic girl with an auditory disorder use the iPad as a communication device. It was really amazing to watch her so clearly communicate with her mom through pictures and words on the screen.
Stephen Bateman says
Eventually, for the iPad to be viable, it *must* be useful to create or share content well. Or is there room in my satchel for another consumption device?
Tim Owens says
“Apple did not make the iPad for content creation at all.”
I disagree, with the development of the iWork suite released with the launch of the device I think they’re absolutely making a play at content creation. There’s no reason other developers can’t do the same (see Sketchbook Pro, Omnigraffle, etc for proof of this).
Will P says
The trump card in whole discussion the inability to reuse any content on the device… outside of a slide show with music. You can’t directly share data across applications. You can’t share your pretty sketches to your pretty mind maps. Hence not designed for content creation.
RevRod says
My initial thoughts are that for the ‘techy’ stuff I do, the iPad is not compelling enough. However, I just came out of a meeting with a potential vendor and, as I took notes, answered email/text messages and looked up the vendor’s site on my iPhone, my thoughts were on the iPad. I’m headed into another planning meeting this afternoon with our creative Marketing staff and the iPad would seem well suited for that task where content consumption is the main thing.
I’ll probably leave the content creation stuff to my main computer for which it’s better suited. I can definitely see the iPad as an increasingly useful accessory to the whole thing.
This will likely change as more apps become available and as everyone comes to grips with how this thing fits in the overall technology solution.
About the only other reason for me to become familiar with it is for our non-techy ministry staff. Something like the iPad could prove a boon or a bust but most of our ministry staff are looking at the I.T. department to help them discern which it is for them.