At first when the media began hyping the iPad rumor machine I thought ‘NO thanks!’
However, skeptics be damned I know that I was not a fan of the iPodTouch when it first appeared. I honestly thought what do I need an iPod that let’s me read email, surf the web and a hole host of other things via WIFI for? Over time as the application base grew I began to warm up to the idea. Eventually when remote system tools like issh, vnc and rdp became available I decided it was certainly worth the investment.
Over the years I have owned a number of supposedly ‘SMART’ phones and PDAs; in fact still have my Treo 700p. However, when I upgraded my digital life to the IPT I found the perfect PDA. I generally carry my IPT with me everywhere.
I know where all of the ‘FREE’ WIFI hot spots are. I have it configured to sync my contact and calendars over the air. Sure I still carry my phone, but only use it to make calls and hit twitter when I’m out of WIFI range. I even use my IPT from time to time to connect to my FreeBSD servers to perform light maintenance when I don’t feel like digging out my laptop. My laptop a PowerBook G4 that weighs considerably more than the IPT, therefore; any time I can function without the LT I do.
This of course leads me to the iPad and were it not financially prohibitive for me at this juncture I would be camping out to get one. Consider all of the raw potential that the keynote/demo video offers. Full MS Office compatibility via iWork, and MS Exchange server syncing of email, contacts and calendaring via mail, iCal and address book. To this add some of the IPT’s awarding winning remote systems admin tools and you’ve got a pretty strong case for the traveling consultant’s triage machine.
Of course the lack of either a direct USB device connection or ethernet for that matter does make it far more difficult for one to say perform router maintenance and I doubt the that handful of bluetooth enable serial devices out there will be supported on the platform anytime soon. Let’s face it Mac admins have always had to think different in order to work around some of the bone headed hardware limitations imposed by Apple. However considering the entry price tag of $499 adding another $120 or so for a bluetooth serial adapter is not an extraordinary sum, and of course there’s still the issue of someone porting miniterm to the iPad.