Guy Creese

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Guy Creese
Research VP
4 years at Gartner
32 years IT industry

Guy Creese is a vice president and research director for Gartner Research, within the Gartner for Technical Professionals division. He covers a range of topics at the intersection of collaboration, content management, and communications. Read Full Bio

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Traveling with the Apple iPad

by Guy Creese  |  September 1, 2010  |  2 Comments

At the end of July I purchased an Apple iPad–and then took it on a week long family vacation in the mid-Atlantic states.

And it was great. I was able to:

  1. Stay up to date with work e-mails, Twitter, and RSS feeds.
  2. Monitor the local weather (via WeatherBug, The Weather Channel, and WunderMap).
  3. Find close gas stations (via Gas–I bought the 3G version that includes a GPS).
  4. Watch and avoid slow traffic (via BeatTheTraffic).
  5. Find nearby restaurants (via FastFood).
  6. Decide which of several restaurants to go to by previewing their menus online.
  7. Book a hotel while driving down the road (actually, my wife was driving while I booked a hotel at Marriott.com).
  8. Find the Admissions Office at Vassar amidst a bunch of poorly labeled buildings.
  9. Find locations and maps of local shopping malls (via Point Inside).

The interesting thing is that from a feature point-of-view I could have done the same thing with a 3G notebook. However, it’s the usability of the iPad (instant on, weighs very little, tablet interface, custom built tablet apps) that makes all the difference. What would have been a laborious, “Let me wait three minutes while my laptop boots up and then I’ll start typing” process turned into, “Let me open up my electronic book and then I’ll just do a little pointing and clicking.”

So, yes, I have an Apple iPad and am loving it. It works with me rather than against me.

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2 Comments »

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2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Andrea Rubei   September 1, 2010 at 9:14 am

    Guy,
    I had exactly the same experience.
    I have traveled throughout New England for 3 weeks with my brand new iPad. It was great, even without 3G, as free wi-fi in the US is fortunately a lot more common than in Europe.
    I was a bit disappointed though by how many websites do not work properly (or at all) and honestly the flash issue was annoying at times.

    The day that I will “dare” to travel for business without my laptop it will be probably my point of no return!

  • 2 Jaime Gonzalez   September 2, 2010 at 11:04 am

    Very interesting description. You should be able to do just what you described with a smartphone, either I-Phone or Android. They are both capable of doing every task you mentioned.

    Having a Phone instead of an i-Pad gives you the confort of carrying it on your belt without worrying of crashing that beautiful screen.