Is iPad a great business presentation tool? What else is needed?

iPad with its stunning resolution seemed like an obvious candidate for making business presentation but is it a good tool in all circumstances? Also what else do you need to make it into a great tool? The answers to these questions are provided based on my personal experience. Please share your experiences!

On a broad level, presentations can be split into three main categories

• 1-on-1 presentations
• 1-to-many presentations
• Remote presentations

In this blog, we discuss the first two of these situations and provide tools and tips and evaluate iPad usefulness as a tool for making business presentation.

1-on-1 presentations

iPad is probably the best tool here – way better than laptop since that barrier of screen is removed as you can see in the picture below. For this category let us assume any situation where one can sit across the table with couple of people. For this purpose no screen projection tools are needed and iPad by itself is sufficient. However, you need to make sure your presentation is readily available not just in an online but also in an offline mode. Even though there are many tools on iPads to create presentations, the best approach still is to create presentation on your computer and then transfer it to iPad. Also avoid animations as they don’t transfer well on iPad.

       

Transferring your presentation from computer to iPad – There are three broad choices here

• Email to yourself – inefficient and cumbersome
• Putting it in a cloud like Dropbox and then saving it on iPad – inefficient and cumbersome but slight improvement over the first one
• Use a tool like DocSync.Net from iTunes and just select the file from your computer or cloud and it is automatically available on your iPad as shown on the picture on the right above.

1-to-many presentations

Your laptop is still a better tool for these situations than an iPad. Why? It is assumed that you definitely need to connect your output to an external monitor or projector. Needless to say that kind of connectivity is readily available from most laptops but for the iPad, you need to buy another connector from Apple or a third party. These connectors are available with VGA or HDMI options. We had a chance to hook our iPad to a projector and found some issues.

If you own an iPad1, probably none of these connectors will work as was my experience of having tried two of these. However, if you have the new shining iPad3 that Apple calls “The new iPad”, there are no issues but HDMI is preferred if you have an HDMI enabled projector or monitor. With our iPad2, I had the most consistent connectivity with VGA connectors. If you tend to move a lot while making presentations, the wire mess can also cause issues. I just wish there are more Airplay type projectors available in corporate environments.

Conclusion

For 1-to-many presentations, laptop is still a better tool but if you must use iPad to project, you will have the best options with iPad3. For 1-to-1 presentations, iPad is the best presentation device. However, you need to make sure your presentations created on computer are accessible. Of the three options of using Email or putting in the cloud and then transferring to iPad or just using DocSync.Net app to get your application on iPad, the later seems to be the best and most efficient alternative.

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What is iPad good for? How does it compare to smartphones and laptops?

After reading Wall Street Journal’s Walter Mossberg and a Microsoft diehard on how great Apple’s iPad is and then other influencers like Vivek Wadhwa deciding to craigslist their iPad, I decided to find for myself and share my experiences with other prospective buyers and customers of iPad.

Let us first understand few key differences or killer features of iPad before understanding its usage

• Orientation – The mere fact that laptop creates screen as a barrier between two people while iPad allows you to be at the same level as the other person, iPad is a better media consumption device for individual and a co-worker.
• Instant On and Connectivity – Brooke Crothers, in his CNET article about Four Killer Features identifies this as a key one and I fully agree that it changes everything.
• Battery Life – Being able to watch movies throughout the intercontinental flight and still have battery left over is an achievement that makes iPad ideal for media consumption of all kinds.
• Size and Weight – Weighing a mere 1.5 Pounds and the size of a standard notebook, it is much more portable than a laptop but not as tiny as a phone.

iPad is a media consumption device and most of us are consumers of media most of the time with occasional commenting and replies. However, if you are a media creator like a writer, movie creator or database entry person then iPad is a wrong device for you. Once we agree it is a media consumption device, let us compare it with other devices for different media types so that you can make a more informed decision on whether iPad is the best device for you or not. When I hear stories like my 3-year old and my grandfather who have never been comfortable with a laptop are now enjoying the company of iPad, it just confirms my assertion that it is a good media consumption device even for non techies.

In my opinion, Table 1 below is a comparison of how each of the three devices compare for various media consumption functions. A is the best with C being the worst and B in the middle. I will expand on these points in subsequent blogs and look forward to hearing your feedback on these.

Conclusion

iPad is not a media creation device but is a media consumption device. As a media consumption device, it sure beats a laptop or a smartphone. It is not a replacement for either of these devices but an attempt by Apple to create a new category that will soon be imitated by many vendors.

However, iPad needs some major changes like inclusion of Flash (unless Apple can hire Harry Porter to use his wand and have all of the Flash sites converted to HTML5 overnight), new applications written for iPad like multimedia textbooks beyond just PDF version of books and inclusion of camera and facetime like application.

Table 1 – Rating of Media Consumption for Laptop, Smartphone and iPad

Type of Media	Laptop	Smartphone	iPad	Comments
Web Surfing	A	C	B	iPad’s lack of Flash limits its use on many sites
Reading Newspaper & Magazines	B	C	A	Reading Newspapers & Magazines is really pleasant on iPad apps – consistent with Cooper Murphy
Reading Non-Text Books	B	C	B	Kindle beats iPad here for its size and screen type
Reading Text Books	B	C	A	Lack of multimedia content is limiting iPad here
Enjoying Music	C	A	B	Smartphone smaller size better for music listening
Sharing Pictures in person	B	C	A	Great screen and orientation of iPad makes it the best portable Photo frame
Watching Movies	B	C	A	Excellent battery life and great screen makes iPad the best in its class
Using Social Networking like Facebok, Twitter & Linkedin	B	B	A	Using these apps from a couch or bed is just so much better on iPad
Playing Casual Games	C	A	B	Depends on the type of game
Running Enterprise Apps	A	C	B	VDI makes it easy to remotely run Windows Apps on iPad
Using on Airplane	B	C	A	Finally you can watch a movie even in economy

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