I’ve just returned from a five day break in Spain. On past holidays I have taken a whole array of kit with me including various laptops. This time I left it all behind bringing only my iPad with me. To supplement this I also brought along my keyboard case, camera connector kit and chargers.
While this was supposed to be a holiday there was a possibility that I might be needed for any support issues that might arise at work. I was fairly certain that the iPad would be able to cope but I couldn’t be certain until I put it into practice.
One thing I immediately needed to do once I arrived was to make a change to the apache “sites-enabled” file on my webserver. Fortunately I was able to connect using the prompt app using an ssh connection and directly edit the file. Something that took seconds to do. A promising start.
I had also decided that I wanted to continue to update my personal blog while I was away. Over the years I have used a number of blogging apps such as BlogPress and Blogsy but have come back to the official WordPress app as it now works much better than the original versions ever did and allows me all I need to do in a distraction free way.
As I mentioned earlier I also brought my iPad camera connection kit which allowed my to transfer pictures from both my camera and my iPhone. Being able to view them on the large iPad screen was great. I was then able to edit and enhance with the excellent Snapseed app before finally uploading to Flickr with FlickrStackr.
As for work I had only two requests for help while I was away, one of which I could deal with using prompt again to go onto a server to delete a file. The other request required me to VPN onto our company network but I am not able to do this on the iPad as we use OpenVPN which the iPad doesn’t support (without jail breaking). I could have connected to one of our machines using the Ignition app from LogMeIn but in this case it was just as easy to explain what to do in an email!
So can I survive without a laptop and live by iPad alone? Yes I think I can but I do want to add a good sFTP client into the mix and that should see me covered.
Has anyone else tried living by iPad alone? What were your experiences?