Actual productive uses & apps for iPads - work or hobbies?

[dulcamara]

A family member's unexpectedly generous Xmas gift has left me the proud owner of a new iPad. While I hadn't been in the market for a tablet I was pretty enthusiastic - it's a beautifully designed piece of hardware and I looked forward to figuring all the neat little tricks it could do both for entertainment & maybe even productivity.

But after playing with it for a couple weeks, the bloom's worn off the rose and it's just starting to feel like an expensive toy. Haven't found any solid hobby or work-related use for it (I do freelance writing/marketing/design/etc for work & have a pretty wide range of outside interests), the games are all just simplistic time-killers rather than anything engrossing, so far it's all a very "Lite" experience.

The one thing I've found it excels at is reading PDFs and browsing news, etc - the NYT app with a subscription is pretty damn nice. So far that's the only thing the platform seems ideal for.

So I'm looking for any firsthand recommendations - any apps or functions you've found to be productive, whether for work or just general interest stuff? General or obscure, anything that makes you think "ideal platform for this use" or "well worth the substantial purchase price".

 

[scifan57]

Have you had a look at the productivity apps forum?http://www.ipadforums.net/productivity-apps-forum/

 

[KevinJS]

Have a look at this thread. There is a mini review I wrote for MotionX GPS HD in there somewhere. All of the photographs were taken with my iphone, but could also have been taken with the ipad, and the thread was originally started, and added to, from some pretty strange locations in the Western Canadian oilpatch.

http://www.ipadforums.net/off-topic/89387-road-off-too.html

 

[LannyC]

Check out these apps:

GoSkyWatch Planetarium (one of the coolest things you can do with an iPad)
TV Guide
Pholium
Your favorite Peterson or Audubon field guide

I keep PDF versions of lots of instruction manuals on my iPad. I always know where they are (!) and most are indexed and searchable.

My one personal disappointment is lack of an iOS version of the software bird banders have to use for recordkeeping. That would be super handy in the field.

milliHelen: amount of beauty required to launch one ship.

 

[dulcamara]

Have you had a look at the productivity apps forum?

Ah, I didn't see that category, will have a look. Though maybe I should be clearer - while work-related productivity is surely something I'd be interested in, I'm broadly looking for iPad apps that send it beyond a 'content consumption device' and make you think "This is really the ideal platform/hardware for this particular task or pastime".

LannyC, using an iPad as a bird guide is an interesting thought (we do some birdwatching). Does it offer any advantages to just carrying around a book? I might be a little nervous taking my iPad into the field, though maybe I don't give it enough credit for durability.

If anyone has other suggestions, feel free to chime in...