It’s barely 6am here in Sioux Falls and I’m sitting outside security at our airport b/c I am morally opposed to pouring out my coffee from home before I go through security. Today is an experiment. Actually the next 4 days are an experiment.
I’m working from an iPad for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I have my $1.99 iPad stand (I’ll have YouTube video of that soon) and a $69 Apple Bluetooth keyboard to help me along but no laptop, no mouse, and only a 16GB hard drive. Oh yeah, my version of the iPad is WiFi only so you’ll only get updates when I’ve got wifi.
Pros: My bag is really light. It sounds dumb but those 5-6 pounds of computer, (I have macbook pro 13 inch), mouse and charger sure seem a log heavier than the ipad and keyboard. The ipad has a charger too of course but even that is considerably lighter than the Macbook charger.
I feel cool. Let’s just say it folks. I’m sitting here and people are looking at me. I like that. Sorry if that’s not Christian of me but I like it when people look at me.
I’m single tasking. Until later in the summer when the ipad gets the OS update I’ll be single tasking. I’m a multi-tasker on my laptop/desktop and it DOES NOT help my productivity and focus. When I’m on my ipad I can do one thing at a time except that I can have music playing in the background of my web surfing (but that’s not a task so I’m not calling it multi-tasking).
Security speed. I don’t have to take my ipad out of my bag when I go through security. It might seem small but it’s an advantage for sure. It would be funny if they made me put the bluetooth keyboard through but not the ipad. We’ll see.
I’m excited. It’s a technology challenge and those are two words that you don’t see next to each other in a positive way very often. I’m excited to see if I can pull it off. And I’m excited that my wife can have my laptop while I’m gone. She’s watching our two very young kids alone for four days so mobility around the house is at a minimum.
Cons: I’m nervous. I’m worried that I’m going to “need” my laptop for something. I’ll be sorrouned by laptops all weekend and I’m sure I can borrow someone’s. My best friends Pierce Marrs of MarrsCoaching.com and Justin Lukasavige of CoachRadio.tv will both be at the same event with their macs so I know I’ve got that option. The cloud makes it a lot easier for me to use someone else’s laptop but it still feels like you’re borrowing someone’s car (which always makes me a little nervous).
Limited programs. In reality I don’t think this fear is that legitimate. Since I can access about 99% of sites I normally frequent on the ipad I don’t see my internet experience being adjusted. The issue I run into in my head is the Photoshop or other larger programs I use every day on my desktop/laptop. I’m on a work trip though so I wasn’t planning on using those anyway.
