What does iPad mean for designers?
Ivan | Thu, 2010-01-28 02:18
Now that the iPad is out let's think about whether it is a useful tool for us designers. Sure it can serve all the business and entertainment needs we have, but does it have the ability to help us professionally? Can the iPad makes us more creative, more efficient and can it help us with our everyday design tasks? Let's take each activity we do as designers and see if iPad has a place in it.
Being informed
As a designer you need to go through a lot of information. Part of it is inspiring and relaxing, such as looking at other people's work, reading about trends, etc. You can do this right now on a computer screen and some of it in printed magazines. You could try to use your laptop to be away from your desk too. The iPad however will allow you more freedom and flexibility. It's much easier to sit with an iPad in hand than trying to find space for a laptop on small table at a cafe.
The other part of being informed needs concentrated effort, like reading emails and doing tutorials. Emails can be done while commuting on the iPhone, but iPad will be much easier to use. Tutorials and other serious stuff will have to be done on the big screen.
Bottom line, the iPad has a place here and somewhat helpful.
Getting connected
Most of us gravitate to less phone calls and more written communication, in email, chat and various project management applications. The iPad can't make phone calls, but can do all the rest better than an iPhone or a laptop as it's more convenient to carry around.
The iPad has a place here too.
Doing research and background work
Must of our actual work is getting ready for work. Looking through what others have done in the related industry and finding inspirational and resource material for the job at hand. While this can be done on an iPad, it is more efficient to do it on the largest screen available to you. Also, saving files for reference needs to be done on the computer where the actual work will be done.
The iPad can be of help here, but will not be the primary device.
Sketching and ideation
It's easier and more intuitive to do this on paper, but I imagine your designers adopting the iPad for this purpose.
Limited use here.
Doing design work
Besides the fact that iPad can't run Adobe CS applications at the moment the screen at 1024x768 isn't suited for serious and efficient design work.
The iPad will not replace your big screen and computer until it has a larger version running all OS X apps.
Presentation
Most of us already show our designs on a laptop screen or on a projector when presenting. The iPad will be a great device to present your work especially when you're dealing with your client on a one-on-one basis. It's not suitable for large group of clients.
Showing your portfolio with the iPad's is also very effective and cool.
Clearly the iPad has a great role here. It can essentially sell you and your work to clients.
Recreational design related activities
If you like sketching and doodling for artistic release the iPad will be of great help as it's big enough for half serious work and small enough to carry around easily. You could of course do it with a simple pen and paper.
You may like reading magazines and books about design and art in general. The iPad can be helpful here too, but printed books and magazines can still be an easier and cheaper option at this point.
In short, the iPad is useful but not essential.
Conclusion
The iPad will save you time and effort in design related support activities and will play a huge role in presenting your work. It will not replace your phone, laptop or desktop. At the price of US$500 I think it's highly recommended for designers. You can earn that money back in just one job that the iPad helped you get.
Commenting on this Blog entry is closed.
First of all, I love the thrill and excitement that builds up when these apple events take place. its so fun!
As for the iPad, i think the fact that it has iWork is pretty cool and can be really useful. I think its a device that can be placed in the net book category due to its portability but isn't quite a laptop in terms of power. With that, it blows everyone out of the water for sure. having 3g is awesome so u dont have those stupid USB internet sticks in the way.
I currently own and iPhone and Macbook. I dont think the iPad will really change anything for me or make any task easier. I can still easily view photos and videos, listen to music, buy music, read books, and play games. But for $500 (no 3g) id probably get it for fun and not for design use.
I am looking at is using the iPad as a photo proofing device when in the field. Small 3" SLR screens are no good and there really is no need to lug a MacBook Pro around all day.
Along with the iPad Camera Connection Kit I’m hoping to be able to transfer photos and scan through and make sure the details are sharp and useable before moving on to the next shot. The biggest problem I can see with this for now is the lack of camera RAW format. I’m hoping there will be enough noise in the community that Apple will add this before it comes to the UK in june.
Not that I do, but if you work in photo journalism you could then send the best shot to your editor or reseller direct from the iPad.
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http://mijlee.com
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BFD! its a kindle with iphone/itouch functionality. i predict HUGE FAIL for apple. not quite as big as the lisa. but bigger than the newton.
and who gives 2 sh!ts about iwork? unless you live in an apple-only world. its more or less useless.
"Sketching and ideation"
did you REALLY just use the word "ideation" i really, REALLY hope you were being sarcastic...
I'm sorry, is that not correct English? By ideation I mean brainstorming. I have heard people saying it. Please correct me!
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideation_(idea_generation)
your usage is proper, i think he's just teasing you for using an overused buzzword...
Thanks for explaining. I can't think of a better work besides brainstorming. :)
didnt IBM use the word "ideation" in one of their parody commercials where they make fun of dumb business practices? the one where the guy turns on the light and everyone is lying on the floor in the dark on mats. the guy asks whats going on and some person says "we're ideating"
Don't worry, Ivan. It's a fine, upstanding word. It is, in fact, better English than most of us EFL (English as a first language) types normally use. You should see the looks I get from some people when I say "he and I were..." instead of "him and me was," and weird stuff like that.
If there is any hope for proper English usage, it will come from the ESL crowd. So, on behalf of snooty English grammarians everywhere, thank you :-)
Mara
The most interesting view of the iPad that I've seen is that, in terms of impact, it's more an iPod than an iPhone.
It won't change the way the market opperates overnight, but over time it will have a profound impact.
I can see it taking over (or at least changing) the net book catagory - and it'll be interesting to see what it means for Google's Chrome OS.
Apps are what will make it. I think that the iWork suite is mainly a show piece for developers - Apple is proving to them that real, useful, high quality software that helps users achieve things that would previously have required a laptop or desktop can be built for the iPad.
Only one application at the time and no flash? I'm dissapointed.
http://jackmancer.com/
http://twitter.com/jackmancer
No camera? No USB? No HDMI?
I think I'll wait for the third generation to come out before I buy.
Leaky Penny
Check out what I've been up to lately!
http://petersonjoseph.com
I'm going to print it out and eat it.
-Unknown Artist
Yeah, as it is now, I'm not that much impressed. Have to do a better Job(s)!
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http://twitter.com/jackmancer
My initial thoughts on the iPad were those of disappointment. Having had some time to reflect on things I think Apple has really messed up in how they showcased this device.
Everyone seems to be going on about how it's just a big iPod Touch, and it is a big iPod Touch. However what could a tablet mac have been beside a big iPod Touch? OS-X just won't work right on a touch device, just imagine trying to click on small buttons to close windows. In that sense I think trying to move software developers into building different types of interface by maintaing the iPhone OS is an intelligent move.
However the mistake was not having some new functionality to showcase. They essentially showed me everything I'm already doing on my iPhone but on a bigger screen. I think the reception to this device would have been much different had they put some interesting software on display. There are a lot of uses for this thing, especially for creative types. These things should have been center stage, then they could have gone into all the stuff the iPhone already does, and then closed with telling people their iPhone apps will also run.
So now the big question is can software come through and save this device?
For a while now I've been drooling over a Wacom tablet, looking at the iPad I wonder if one could in theory make an app that gives it that functionality. So then I lay it in front of my iMac and fire up Photoshop and use a separately sold stylus and get busy. I think these type of apps are needed to make this device take off. In a way it was a mistake showing it and not having some of these types of apps available.
It's going to be interesting to see if developers embrace this device. I think with the iPhone developers flocked to it because the user base was already there. I think with the iPad it kind of needs to happen in reverse. Apple needs developers to help bring in a user base.
Some other things I think are worth discussing:
- Will it be subsidized?
I say yes, I think in the EU you will be able to get this thing dirt cheap come September. I can go get an iPhone 3GS for a dollar with a two year contract. I expect I could get one of these things for 200 bucks with a data contract. In the US the situation is different, there is no cellular standard. AT&T stinks, and Verizon and Sprint are working towards moving away from their current standard.
- Lack of Flash
To me it's not a big deal, I've had my iPhone for close to 3 years and I've never found my internet experience hindered or held back by the lack of Flash. I also think that the tables could turn on Flash fairly quickly, both YouTube and Vimeo are experimenting with HTML5 and hopefully it is adopted by a lot of the bigger organizations. HTML5 and the video tag, could have video clips play in h.264 Quicktime on iPhones and Macs and h.264 Flash on PCs. It's really a more elegant solution, and it has the ability to downgrade, which Flash doesn't.
- No multi-tasking
I'm sure this will be corrected in a software update, most likely in a limited way. Allowing you to have 3 additional apps running in the background.
- No USB
This is in my opinion the biggest omission. Good god would it have killed them to stick some USB ports on that thing? Anything you want to attack needs an adaptor, joy!
iPad, as I assumed on 2007 by MADtv http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTzhXMbOWHE
Thanks!
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RANAMAJU
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Seeing how foamy-mouthed the PCers are getting over this latest fine Apple product tells me Jobs has another WINNER on his hands. Yes - absolutely. Has anyone seen a Kindle in real life? Or one of those things Sony makes? That's the iPad's REAL competition - not some non-existent imaginary tablet conjured up in the minds of Bill Gates' minions that has firewire connections, flash compatibility, video capture and free Netflix. The other tablets are good for reading books. The iPad is one small step below a powerbook. Winner? Apple. What's really turning off these Windoze people is the idea that Apple is already well on their way to owning the tablet/netbook market (as well as the mp3 market, the cell phone market and - eventually - the computer market). Take Art's advice and do exactly what I'm doing...
A) Log onto financial site.
B) Go to brokerage account.
C) Buy Apple stock until your bank account cries "Uncle!"
so... if you think the competition is kindle and other ebook readers, are you saying that the ipad is a glorified ebook reader? cuz i wouldn't say that's "one step below a powerbook."
i don't think the competition here is ebook readers. and i don't think the competition is necessarily netbooks (or laptops). i think apple is trying to create a different niche that encompasses several areas (ebook, web surfing, very basic work tasks (iwork), and media machine.
the long-term success will be based on whether it does enough of those well enough (and/or better than the competition) and combines devices well enough to justify the cost differential. or that they can justify to the users who want, say, an ebook reader, that it's worth the extra couple (to several) hundred dollars more to get the additional features.
i think the jury's out on that so far. i wouldn't bet against apple, but this isn't a slam dunk kinda thing like the iphone.
the ipad has two things that will make it sell millions.
1. Applications. Look at the iphone at launch, nobody could have anticipated the huge variety of genuinely useful, now integrated into everyday life, apps there would be. 'Theres an app for that'
2. Entertainment. Imagine sitting on your sofa, browsing your music//tv/movie collection, blasting out beats through airtunes, whilst reading a new book/magazine/newspaper, that you've just bought through the integrated store.
It's going to be a hub for everything you do while relaxing. It'll take time. It's the ultimate remote control.
At first I was hoping for an all singing, all dancing mackbook in tablet format, but I understand where they are going with this.
At the end of the day, just as itunes made ipod the best, the app and ibook store will make this durable. They already have the infrastructure and developers to take this a lot further than what we have been shown.
Want.
living on dreams and custard creams.
if i'm sitting on my sofa, i have a TV for the entertainment stuff. i can browse on that. ;)
or use my iphone to browse music and play it.
i see niche markets, without a doubt. but i'm not sold yet on mainstream markets. not at that price point.but time will tell.
Actually we agree on this in some respects, gwells. I don't see the iPad as a "glorified book reader" - I see it more as you do... a hybrid between a netbook and a reader. I'm sure Apple will downplay that latter aspect in order to make the obvious sales pitch - instead of buying JUST an ebook reader or a stripped down low functionality netbook - why not an iPad instead? The Kindle displays books. The iPad does that and 100 other things. What Jobs and Apple are doing is marking territory - they don't want to be left out of the reader/netbook equation (like Gates). It's not that you and I will want one - it's that there are plenty of people out there who will. So what if it's missing a few things in this initial start-up version? Jobs will address those issues in time. Think about the iPod and the iPhone - everyone thought those were way overpriced and under-featured when they were introduced... now they own the market. Quality products and "perceived value" (shout out to mintsauce) make a heck of a combination at the cash register.
meh. i think the original iphone looked a lot more feature-filled and a big step beyond where smart phones were at the time than the ipad does today. same with the ipod (i owned a first-gen 5gb ipod). they look less feature-filled now than they did then.
there's a lot more negative reaction from fanboys on the ipad than there ever was for ipod or iphone.
is it possible the ipad will take off and become more than a niche market? sure. but i don't think we can really say that for sure right now. and that was my point. let's not anoint it until it actually proves itself, instead of presuming that the features/functions that will make it a success will just happen.
Mmmm... I think I'll wait until this has been out on the market a while before I jump on the bandwagon.
Currently, I don't see any real benefits to it. As someone else said, it just appears to be a giant iPod. Makes for easier reading of web sites and e-books and watching movies - yes. But until it'll support full on software like Office, Adobe Creative Suite, etc., It's not worth it, to me. I'm content with my iPhone and my iMac.
Apple has taken a big leap that I believe will really take off. Right now it's a big iPod touch, because developers haven't developed anything specifically for the iPad. Just like how iPhone will brought the billion dollar industry of app creation, iPad will do things similar in my opinion.
I think a better name would have been an iPod Pro
hahaha.. better and better gadgets for Apple...
anything that can't replace Cintiq accuracy will not be designer's REAL dream gadget.
and now there is room for light pen compartment but maybe they don't want to wake up Newton's ghost under Cupertino headquarters.........
I really loved Apple own 1GHz processor that could improve speed and power efficiency on next generation iPhones.
That's all folks! Time to dream again. xD
yes I'm brazilian xD
Consider that this is just version one - I'm keen to see how things like Autodesk's SketchBook works on it out of the box as a scaled up iPhone app and then a little later when Autodesk have a chance to make a iPad specific version.
It's not a design tool, but subsequent versions may well be.
Yes man, I prefer INKINESS app simplicity and pen cursor than Autodesk's SketchBook and still wait for proprietary stylus for some "iPad PRO" version. It's annoying to sketch on iPhone reduced screen area.
iPad is really better than iPhone in this situation but don't you think some professionals need stylus to don't injure the screen or for when pointing precision is needed?
this is not the case for people that hate mices and keybords, or data collectors, selling agents. This product started to satisfy this bigger target with "focused" apps.
yes I'm brazilian xD
well well... there are people still excited:
"4 REASONS WHY THE APPLE IPAD IS GREAT FOR DESIGNERS AND ILLUSTRATORS" - Neil Bennett | DigitalArts
Thursday 28 Jan 2010 - 09:24
http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=13468
yes I'm brazilian xD
The iPad underwhelms me. It's too big to be a handy book reader, although I must say it's aesthetically a lot more pleasing in that role than the Kindle. I'm not so wedded to the Internet that I need to have something lighter than my laptop with me everywhere I go, and without a "lid," I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want an iPad to serve that function for me anyway. If it allowed me to use it as I use my Wacom tablet, for drawing in Illustrator or just to use a pen in place of a mouse or fingers for all my usual design tasks in the apps I already use, then we'd be talking.
I see this as more of a toy than a tool.
Mara
I'm ready to evaluate the iPad. Someone buy me one.
I'm waiting... d-_-b
Thanks!
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RANAMAJU
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"i think apple is trying to create a different niche that encompasses several areas (ebook, web surfing, very basic work tasks (iwork), and media machine."
the way i see it is that anyone who really NEEDS this functionality would be better served with either an ipod/iphone OR a MUCH more able macbook air.
the iphone fulfilled a set of features missing from the marketplace. from where i sit, the strongest feature of the ipad is the bigger screen. but if im going to carry around a device of that size, im going to go ahead and just get a macbook air and get a REAL browser, REAL connectivity and REAL applications.
i can see where it would be a neato thing to have lying around the house. and i do think that app developers will uncover handy uses for it, but overall - i just dont get it.
If it does not run MSPaint '10, it means absolutely nothing at all!
http://stevefakeballmer.wordpress.com/
I am not Steve Ballmer pretending not to be me!
Nor Flash content ;-)
In fact if you watch the movie on the Apple site, the part where they show the browsing experience, the user scrolls down and scrolls past some Flash content. That horrible blue cube is shown! Naughty Apple, that should never have made it into a promo vid!
Steve
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Graphic Designer and Founder of fu•gu
http://www.fuguagency.co.uk
it would be so cool to make the iPad a replacement for graphic tablets. I just hope that the iPad will become better and better with updates and maybe in the near future to have the capabilities of a MacBook.
http://i.imgur.com/wApCi.png
:)
KNOPPIX.net
FROM ZERO TO LINUX IN 5 MINUTES
I can see this being a great resource for us designers... although I would definitely wait at least 6 mths to 1yr before purchasing... because we all know Apple and their games... so let them come out with 7 versions before you buy!
::Hire Insphyre Fire Performers::
i juust love it alot...
got it 2 weeks ago and it very handyyy
Founder of Lebanon Web Design and seo in Beirut