After all of the Apple and other media hype around the iPad, I really thought that I wouldn’t buy one. The reason was simple: I just couldn’t see the need for one. I have a laptop, which is small enough to take with me when I go away and powerful enough to achieve as much as I can on my desktop. My laptop is also quite usable around the house. Why would I want something less functional and less powerful? Also iPads seemed pretty pricey at the time even for a modest model.

However, after speaking with a few friends, whose technology opinions I trust, I did buy one and I most certainly don’t regret it. Why? I have used it almost every day since I bought it. What for I hear you ask? Twitter (Osfoora), news (BBC news, The Times / Sunday times, FT) – the iPad form factor is, in my humble opinion, the future of traditional news media delivery. Also email, books (Kindle), even server administration (yes, there is an App for that: in fact I use two different apps for different purposes. The first is a Windows remote desktop client but it also does VNC – it’s called Desktop Connect; the second is an SSH / telnet / socket client and it is called iSSH).

Why is the iPad better than other means of accomplishing these things? As I have previously discussed, due to the restrictive Internet policies at my workplace, I can’t access my personal email at work so that leaves me with my mobile phone, which doesn’t really cut it for writing emails quickly (I still find touch screens inadequate for text input). The same goes for social networking, which isn’t allowed through the corporate firewalls even at lunchtime, although this is a less difficult to accomplish on a mobile phone as you don’t tend to be writing long messages.

An iPad is pretty light, so carrying it as a matter of course is much easier than carrying a laptop (its weight is almost unnoticeable when added to a gym bag). It also boots instantaneously, so using it on the tube to read a book is very easy. This is particularly good for reading technical stuff, as this genre of book tends to be very thick and heavy; an iPad is definitely lighter than a copy of Effective Java or UNIX in a nutshell. With the advent of the Kindle app, this makes other non-technical books very easy to procure and read too.

I started out thinking that the iPad was an extravagance and feeling slightly guilty about shelling out for one. Now, although there are probably other means of accomplishing the same tasks, an iPad just makes them much easier and more fun.