iPad for a day – For on the go computing, can the iPad stand in for a laptop?

The challenge – An 8 hour shift away from my desk on a mobile connection. 

My day includes a couple of online meetings, competitor and keyword research, a review of adword, and Google analytic insights, the usual email, note taking, scoping out and research for a new article. I’m also being sent a mock up of a website in Figma, which I’ll need to see. Alongside this, I’ll be bombarded with messages from Slack, Google chat and I have to manage at least two Google Workspace accounts, as well as my personal email. 

Can the iPad help me stay on top of all this without weighing down my backpack, or my resolve?

iPad workday – What’s in my bag?

The ultimate portable iPad mini 6, all 297 grammes of it. A Zagg Trifold keyboard (177g) with trackpad to give thumb typing a rest. Iv3 also packed w  a Penoval pencil for taking written notes. I’ve also thrown in the lightest portable Bluetooth mouse I own at 55 grams. So all up I’m saving a not inconsiderable 741 grammes versus a Macbook Air M1 at 1290 grammes. I’m also carrying my iPhone SE 2020 and a 10,000 mAh battery pack. Both of which I’d carry in any event. 

The online meeting

The iPad mini 6 killed it. Not only was the HD camera showing me off well, I even managed to perform a quick screen share. All this using either the installed data sim, or via a hotspot set up from my iPhone SE. I tried both – In fairness my iPhone battery took a big hit here, so I had to top my phone off from my portable battery bank. The iPhone SE is not world renowned for battery size, so this is more than understandable. The iPad also took quite a battery pasting, but I resisted using my precious battery pack. Instead I wanted to see if I could make it through the day on a single iPad charge. 

General communications – email, notifications, and staying in touch

Once again, the iPad mini 6 kept me in good shape and on top of the Slack, Google Chat and  a variety of collabparative comms spaces. Making sure I was logged into all of the apps with ‘all’ my accounts was key to this. As far as I know, I didn’t miss anything. I also appreciated the upcoming meeting notifications and also a reminder to take my lunch which my employer had scheduled into my diary. 

Working on a 4g connection

I’ll be honest, this was my biggest fear. Everything in my work-day world revolves around being connected. My umpteen dashboards and cloud based services all need a decent internet connection. My phone and iPad have 3 out of 4 bars showing for 4G. Would this be enough? The answer is, totally yes! At least in my use case. My online meet, including a screen share with three others worked like a dream. Staying connected via my browser accessed services all day was more than fine. 

Adword and Google analytics 

Figma collaboration 

iPad mini for research and article scoping

Multitasking

iPadOS multitasking takes a little getting used to, but is surprisingly good. A simple upwards drag up from the bottom of the screen opens all my open jobs, so moving from one task to another was really no biggie. The I pad mini 6 also offers a split screen view of two apps simultaneously, and has a slide over for quick access to a third app, which I occasionally used for notetaking during my online calls.

General comments – iPad only for a day

Overall – was I as productive? Yes, overall I believe I was as productive. In some ways more so. The iPad forced me to focus on each single task in my field of view at any given time. I could still toggle or switch from task to task in multitasking view, but generally focused better on the one task. Occasionally I had to stop for a few seconds to think about the best approach as iPadOS is not my most familiar of operating systems. On the whole I more than survived. 

The mouse circle was a constant annoyance, being generally not ass prcise as a pointer – using a bright orange colour helped.

Battery kept going and going, although I did need to charge as soon as I landed home. 

The only real ‘problem’ was that the aspect ration of the iPad meant that for some of my browser based workflows I was missing a small section of the right hand view. This was mostly rectified by zooming in, and setting the Safari browser to ‘desktop’ view. However, there were still a couple of instances where this still didn’t fully resolve things. I did find an app which was helpful on these rare occasions, Zoomable Desktop, for anyone going iPad only would be an app to take a peek at (no affiliation by the way). 

Design collaboration using the Figma app worked fine. I could also see, adjust and create in Figma in teh browser view. The screen size on this iPad was a little small for any serious work, but great for viewing and collaborative comments. I also noted that designs shared in Canva folders were fine also. In a pinch I think thumbnails and similar could be created on the fly. 

Round mouse pointer

Annoying. Setting the pointer to a hollow middle helps. I’m sure I’ll get used to it. 

Screen size for two up, side by side viewing

Okay, so I don’t have the best eyesight these days, so I’m maybe not the one to ask – however, side by side viewing is okay close up. Looking at the side by side web pages when placed on a table half a metre away was not th best experience for me. Admittedly I have Safari in ‘desktop’ website view – mobile view is much better when using split screen. This is a 8.3” screen after all so we can forgive. Probably using one app or screen at a time is the way to go on this device. 

Battery life 

Setting off with 100% charge, and rounding out my day at a respectable 37% charge was more than adequate. I avoided using the iPad Mini 6 throughout my lunch break, reverting to my phone. I also turned down the brightness to below halfway. On full brightness I used around 20% of my battery charge in a single 35 minute online meeting. I’m not entirely sure if this was to do with screen brightness or whether online calls use a huge chunk of power. In any event, supplementing the iPad with an coffee shop top off, or a quick charge on a portable power pack might ne needed to power through the longest of days. An hour on a 20-wat tcharger when I returned home left me ready to keep me entertained throughout the evening. 

What couldn’t I do?

Largely I managed everything. Attending to my workflow either in the browser, or via supported apps on the app store. There were however several tasks which were surprisingly difficult. I’m not sure why, but toggling the Safari Browser to desktop mode still did not allow some of the desktop browser services to work properly. These issues occurred using Google analytics explorations and when making Squarespace adjustments. I ultimately found workarounds by downloading and paying for Zoomable, a desktop browser service. This Zoomable browser correctly rendered my report. As for Squarespace, I accessed the site via the app, rather than the browser and managed to make a few quick adjustments. It’s clear I would say it would be optimistic to envisage building a Squarespace site on an iPad only. Perhaps we should try this as a future experiment.