Impact of the New Mac iPad on Photography

[shoturtle]

I will wait for them to put a camera in the ipad before getting one and a usb port. It makes for a great travel companion.

[frank-in-toronto]

I used to be thinking they needed usb. Lately, my view is no. wireless is everything. I don't have one as it doesn't match up with any of my needs right now. Other people have different needs. There was a movie where the coffee table was a touch-screen. Wouldn't that be great as a "storyboard" to arrange pictures in whatever order you wanted? There's lots of tablets being released. and other s/w. and less restrictive o/s. I think the future will have me holding an iPad-like device. In a year or two.

[shoturtle]

only reason it needs a usb, is to dump sd card data on it as a backup, but I would settle for a sd card slot. And if there is any firmware update, it makes it easier.

[mtngal]

I notice that this thread was first started in January. It's now over 6 months later and I wonder if anyone here has bought a tablet (iPad or other) and what they think of it.

[peripatetic]

I bought one right out of the gate.

I use it for 2-3 hours every day on the train. Mostly for reading (Kindle app), watching video, and playing chess.

It's good for reading email. It's bearable as a web browser. It's quite nice for showing photos.

Not great for typing anything on, but you can always get a keyboard if you want to use it for that. And as bad as it is, it's a lot better than a phone for typing.

I absolutely love mine. Not because it's Apple, but because I've always wanted something like it. When the Android tablets come out they would suit me just as well. Wouldn't trade it for a netbook - had those, not the same kind of device at all.

[Mark1616]

I'm not sure which site it was now but one of the many wedding photogs I look at to try to get better and more ideas etc is now offering the iPad package as one of the options, where they get the iPad as the album fully loaded etc. Sure not to everyone's taste but for the techno couple it's great. I'm tempted to make this package one of my options as an excuse to buy one so I can show it to prospective clients. Hmmmmm, possibly I will do the BMW package where they get a car, yep, I will run that past the wife too.

[RioRico]

Mark,
Good luck with the car! I think I'd prefer a Lotus, heh. Pic-pak+iPad is quite smart, like selling loaded iPods at concerts. Load that iPad with stills, videos, music, interviews, geneology, whatever. It's today's Wedding Album, a cherished keepsake... till it (or the marriage) fries.

What to do with a tablet/slate? For me it would be a book-reader, loadable with any files I want, like my Project Gutenberg library of TXTs, HTMLs, PDFs, etc. But for a reader alone, my top price is ~US$100. The Lenovo is intriguing (and lists at US$1k) because it's both a slate, and (when docked) a thin laptop with keyboard et al. Then it's a single tool for both editing and display, as well as all the other laptop functions.

Will tablets/slates change the world? The world changes anyway. A netbook is rather more capable than my first laptop, a Toshiba T1200 (DOS, stiffy disc, 80x4 screen) way back when, which itself was rather smaller than my first 'portable' Osborne 1, which could do more than my Sinclair ZX-80 (which was about the size of a netbook). Moore's Law drives ever-denser capabilities. In ten years we'll grouse that our 1gpx slatecams don't do holograms, as we lust for the iHolo (implant optional). I can hardly wait.

[mtngal]

I like the idea of the iPad wedding album, very cool idea.

I've never tried typing on the iPad, but i have typed on a smart phone. While I'm more likely to hit the right keys, I still find it difficult.

My other half bought an iPad not long after they came out. He uses it for solitaire and reading, though he seems to not be interested in the gutenberg books. Too bad - I've read several books using my phone while waiting in doctor's offices etc. Better than year old magazines!

I really like his iPad, its fun to play solitaire on it. However, I can't see using it to edit photos and right now it's storage is somewhat limited for raw files from a fairly large mp camera. So while i can see how they could be really useful for photographers in the future, I'm not sure they are "there" yet.

Just dreaming, I could really see using one for "tethered" shooting only connecting wirelessly instead of by USB. It would be cool if you could both control the camera and review the pictures on the iPad's screen.

[TCav]

Originally Posted by frank-in-toronto

I used to be thinking they needed usb. Lately, my view is no. wireless is everything. ...

Yeah. Including unsecured.

[frank-in-toronto]

Originally Posted by mtngal

...Just dreaming, I could really see using one for "tethered" shooting only connecting wirelessly instead of by USB. It would be cool if you could both control the camera and review the pictures on the iPad's screen.

Not quite there yet but we can auto-transfer pics to an ipad/iphone in the field. I see the novelty value, but usually we'd want to do some pp before sharing the pictures.

http://www.eye.fi/blog/from-eye-fi-to-ipad