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Imagine having your portfolio with you wherever you go. Imagine having photography books and guides at your fingertips. Imagine doing in person ordering. Imagine showing your customers their photos on a portable “pad.” Beautiful!
I have a MacPro, MacBookPro, and an iPhone. In many ways this appears to be an iPhone on steroids. I love gadgets and do love my iPhone. But for the most part, I am not sure, other than it being light-weight and modern, if there are huge advantages for me.
The biggest disappointment for me – No Flash. It is the main thing I long for in my iPhone. Apparently it will be a while since flash will not work on the iPad either. So this means you cannot view flash sites or video, and if you, as a photographer, have flash on your site, you will not be able to share it with others… Oh, and my other let down, no multi-tasking… As I write this, I have WordPress open, iChat, checking email, and reading on Facebook. How can I survive without multiple apps at once? And what about Photoshop?
So at this point, my opinion… This “gadget” has tons of potential long term in future versions. But the initial iPad leaves me longing for an iPad 2.
Will you buy an Apple iPad? How could it help you as a photographer? Share your thoughts and remember to tweet/digg and Facebook this article.
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I think the iPad will be a great device to show off your portfolio. With regards to flash I can understand why Apple chose not to support it. Flash is very cpu intensive and memory drainer. Within the next year I think we will be watching videos without using flash. The HTML5 specs supports streaming video. Youtube has started to support the HTML5 spec at http://www.youtube.com/html5.I wish more photographers would choose not to use flash based sites. They are bad for SEO and load slow.
I think the iPad is an interesting product, but it doesn’t serve much use for me. If I want a portable workstation, I need a regular laptop with a keyboard (and the ability to sit it on my lap or a table and look at it comfortably). And if I just want some touch screen web browsing, then the iPod Touch makes more sense because it’s small enough to fit in my pocket. I think the iPad looks impressive and is probably cool to play around with. But it doesn’t fulfill my needs, personally.
I am in the more optimistic camp. The photo album software on the ipad is pretty robust. So, I could set up an album with some of my best photographs from my portfolio OR pictures of some of my product offerings (albums, gallery wraps, large prints, etc.) and show them to clients. I don’t have a studio yet and I could see this being incredibly useful. Laptops are just too cumbersome if I am on a location shoot (not in a home). Flash would have been better and Adobe actually stated yesterday that they believe the iPad will run flash in the future….but in the meantime, I can see tons of uses for this device (not only for work, but around the home).
I tend to agree with your thoughts on this. Even though it might not be everything I want I know I’ll get one with that price point. It’s still a beautiful way to meet with a client and show them amazing images easier and larger than I can with the iPhone or even my macbook. Being able to access shootQ from it would be amazing and I could have clients fill out the contract and e-sign right there.
It seems like it will be a pretty expensive portfolio… I think it will just be flashy and fun to have for now but not very usable for me for the daily work. I was expecting a fully functional laptop – but in tablet form so I’m a little disappointed – maybe my expectations were just too high – but come on – it’s apple!
I am also a gadget/mac freak but I am just not sold on this one. I might need to read a bit more into it but it doesn’t even have USB posts. Hmf!
I meant…doesn’t even have usb PORTS. oops!
What would you need a usb port for? It does have the dock connector for an external keyboard or other devices
I for one am not impressed with the iPad nor its name. This is definitely one gadget I can wait and see what future generations bring.I do like your idea of a portable portfolio. I think a digital frame will have to do for now.
First thing I thought of was CLIENT VIEWINGS in the Studio. For that reason alone I want it.Gary.
As far as what it doesn’t have, there will be plenty of 3rd party app’s that will be phenomenal for showing off your portfolio. If you’re a photographer and dont have a blog or non-flash portion of your site, you’re missing out on search engines as it is. For the people wanting a DVD/CD or other things like that, that’s a laptop design. When you think about it, having a disc in the slot that you could very well be moving around quite a bit (as opposed to a laptop where more or less it’s sitting on a desk or…your lap) risks scratching the DVD. You can survive without multi-tasking as it is on your iphone! AND without photoshop! They made it abundantly clear that this isn’t supposed to REPLACE the phone OR the notebook, but to be a bridge. So I agree, those would have been nice, but I have my laptop for those. I’ll be getting one, all in good time. And, lets be honest, if you’re nose is that high in the air to the point that the name is a deal breaker, then you’re not an early adopter, not on the innovative edge, and you’ll (as a photographer) probably end up getting one anyway, and have to go back on all of the crass statements you’ve made about it’s poor name.
I would love to hand it to a couple during a consult so they could flip through my portfolio or offer it as an add-on for couples to purchase with their wedding pre-loaded.
C’mon guys, remember the price point – it’s not supposed to be a panacea, just another tool that Apple has successfully added to the photographer’s arsenal. How many of us use our iPhone to show off photos right now? Can you imagine the impact your images will have on an iPad? As with other things, they will probably add more functionality in their next iterations, but for a start, I think the iPad is a phenomenal tool. A game-changer for sure. 🙂 Well worth the $800 – $1000 in my opinion (but that’s just me).
The iPad is not a big iPhone, it’s a big iTouch. No phone, no camera, etc. Also, Apple doesn’t want users to use free Flash games on the web when you can buy the games from the App Store.
I don’t care if it’s Apple. $500+ is a lot to spend on something that’s lacking in so many ways. No multitasking, no USB without the use of an expensive adapter, no front facing camera…and that’s just the beginning. As it is, this is just a glorified eReader. I’ll wait for the MS Courier.
I have no interest in the ipad at all.
This will be an amazing hands on way to show clients their photos. Excited for this new toy!!!
No note of the latest generation ipod shuffle? The one where they figured control push buttons would jumble up the design, so instead you have to purchase special, expensive apple earbuds or earphones that are all cluttered up with inline controls and only cost ten times the cost of regular earphones?
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