iPad Global Road Warrior Experience, Six Months Later

Six months ago I wrote the blog posts iPad Global Road Warrior Experience I, II and III. About 1MM iPads had been sold compared to an estimated 8-10MM today. Re-reading the posts reminds me of how fast things are changing and yet how much of that change is not visible to the great majority. As I shared on Facebook today: “Holding on to the past is easier then imagining the future”. Never had that problem.

We rarely as a society go back in time to check if what was said, forecasted or just imagined have become true. In all meanings of the word. So why not, with a great bottle of Chateau Langoa Barton 1997 and a couple of minutes to spare I’m inclined to make that journey.

Below are the “shortcomings” I found when on the road with the iPad for the first time and what has happened since then:

• Exporting to PPT in Keynote was added a few weeks ago and makes a difference when working with enterprise clients
• Editing Google Docs online was released today but the offline experience is still very limited to downloading and editing but no really good upload or sync. Rumors say that Memeo is working on updating their Connect for iPad
• Skype introduced free calls over 3G a few months ago which works amazingly
• iOS 4.2 Beta (to be released November 24 to the public) introduced multi-tasking which enables Skype to run in the background for inbound and outbound calls
• The new native Google Voice app makes inbound messages (calls and SMS) easy to monitor and act upon - wherever in the world I am
• I did buy an iPhone 4 recently to use as on-the-move and pocket-friendly mini-iPad. The camera / video recorder is really the killer app with associated photo apps as well as the most basic communication tools
• I was tempted to buy the new Air to be able to download files and edit Google Docs on the road but thanks to iCab (an iPad/iPhone browser) and today’s new mobile editing I’ll stick to my iPad and iPhone
• And I did install the iPad in one of our cars using a ProClip mount, for road trips when Google Maps and other apps add value. Took 5-minutes and is just beautiful

The only of my “shortcomings” that hasn’t been solved as of yet - without jail-breaking the iPad - is to demo web apps or mobile apps live on an external screen via VGA out. The first is solved by iCab, the latter only for Steve Jobs or individual app developers by adding a string of code leveraging the built in mirroring in iOS.

Things are happening faster then we think! ;)