iPad Users (NOT a spambot thread...)

[ArtVandelay]

It's funny, because I was going to start this thread, then I logged on and saw all the spambots, and thought, "Wow... Everyone will ignore this thread now!" hahaha.

I won an iPad for Christmas from my company. I'm pretty happy about that, because it's something I would never have bought for myself. I always felt it was like my iPhone, but it is bigger and can't make calls. I felt like it's like a computer, but without all the functionality.

Well.... I STILL feel that way. What am I missing? There has to be a reason everyone is so happy to shell out $500 for these things. My laptop only cost me a little more than that. I've been using it, and the bowlingboards.com site works well on it, except I can't type nearly as fast on that touch screen as I can on my keyboard.

So I thought I'd ask for input. What do you use your iPad for? Are there some apps you can recommend that will change my outlook on it? Are there apps that can change my life? hahahaha.

I like it alright. It's pretty cool in many ways, and I can't argue the price! If these things were more around the $200 range, I think it would be worth the money!

[bowl1820]

It's funny, because I was going to start this thread, then I logged on and saw all the spambots, and thought, "Wow... Everyone will ignore this thread now!" hahaha.

That's why making proper subject titles are important.

I won an iPad for Christmas from my company............. What do you use your iPad for?

It's like a lot of tech you have to find the use for it, that fits you and justifies getting it.

The ipad is a good portable media player and internet access terminal and gaming device.

As for "Doing stuff" that is what the user has to find out. How to fit it in to what they do.

I like the gps and maps system, ibooks for reading, I have several astronomy apps (GoSkyWatch Planetarium, Moon Globe, 3d Sun and the Nasa app)

The bowling apps Best Bowling Free, Ball Speed app,

I have Photoshop Express,123D Sculpt, Sketchbook Express, Bamboo Paper, A simple spreadsheet app.

I use it in conjunction with my laptop, like sometimes I'll be online with it reading instructions on how to do something in a program on my laptop.

[75lockwood]

Honestly, i think the Ipad's use as a media player is completely ruined by a few things:

1. ipads only play mp4 files, apple keeps boasting about all the processing power, but they won't let you play anything but their files on it....
2. sync time, most other tablets have this down, they act like flash storage and you copy movies and other files extremely quickly. on an ipad, it only accepts one file format (mp4), but then they go ahead and re-encode those mp4 files when you transfer them from iTunes leading to unfeasibly long sync times
3. no flash, honestly flash is a crappy format, but the vast majority of videos online are in flash, so no flash = crappy browsing...


anyway, on to helping you:

the biggest thing apple has going for it is the vast number of apps, take some time and research some great apps. Jailbreak, jailbreak the thing, great way to get more out of it, haven't been on the apple scene in a while, but there is a lot of neat things jailbreaking allows you to do.

if not, then sell it, you can get a cheat android tablet that does a lot more and have a $100 left over

[J Anderson]

My friend Tim uses his as a coaching aid. He can record a bowler's shot and play it back immediately to analyze and show the player on a fairly good size viewer what they did.

[bowl1820]

Honestly, i think the Ipad's use as a media player is completely ruined by a few things:

1. ipads only play mp4 files, apple keeps boasting about all the processing power, but they won't let you play anything but their files on it....
2. sync time, most other tablets have this down, they act like flash storage and you copy movies and other files extremely quickly. on an ipad, it only accepts one file format (mp4), but then they go ahead and re-encode those mp4 files when you transfer them from iTunes leading to unfeasibly long sync times
3. no flash, honestly flash is a crappy format, but the vast majority of videos online are in flash, so no flash = crappy browsing...


anyway, on to helping you:

the biggest thing apple has going for it is the vast number of apps, take some time and research some great apps. Jailbreak, jailbreak the thing, great way to get more out of it, haven't been on the apple scene in a while, but there is a lot of neat things jailbreaking allows you to do.

if not, then sell it, you can get a cheat android tablet that does a lot more and have a $100 left over

To me these are non-issues
Sync time starting from scratch it only took 10 minutes to load 735 mp3's, 11 full movies and 2 tv shows about 10 gigs all together.

all the movies are from youtube (re-encoding is slow on most all computers it's not a apple/itunes/ipad thing, also you can download most videos from youtube as mp4's to begin with so no need to re-encode in the first place) or ones I ripped myself.

In all the time the I've had my ipad there was only a few times not having flash was a problem (or at most a minor inconvenience).

[UBowling]

The top two apps for iPad/iPhone I can recommend for bowling are:

Bowl Sheet
CoachMyVideo

I use the first one for score tracking and you would not believe how useful it really is. And the other for coaching. It is awesome being able to go frame by frame and do the split screen like it does. Especially when it is a free app.

[Rdmonster]

I use it mostly as a browser and to watch cool stuff on YouTube.....can't figure out how to post pics with it on this forum though...play music and stuff too. I don't uses regular computer much anyway though.

[ArtVandelay]

I found something great! Anyone remember those Sid Myers Civilization games? They have it updated for the iPad! It's just as fun as I remembered it from way back in the day. My only complaint is they'll end it on you after a certain amount of turns. I remember in the first game, it wouldn't end until someone either conquered the world, or made it to space (but making it to space didn't have to end the game). I had one that went on forever. I couldn't defeat the Myans, and they couldn't defeat me. It was brutal!

[Perrin]

The top two apps for iPad/iPhone I can recommend for bowling are:

Bowl Sheet
CoachMyVideo

I use the first one for score tracking and you would not believe how useful it really is. And the other for coaching. It is awesome being able to go frame by frame and do the split screen like it does. Especially when it is a free app.

Coachmyvideo is great. Iphone doesn't take very good video but this app is great. was able to get a good estimate of my ball speed and my revs thanks to this.