[vip_students] The advantages of owning an iPad
- From: "NCBI Support" <support@xxxxxxx>
- To: <vip_students@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2012 16:16:11 -0000
The advantages of owning an iPad
Submitted by brianhartgen on Fri, 11/30/2012 - 16:09
I've been incredibly lucky recently as my partner L has just bought for me
an Apple iPad 2. I had heard a lot about them, and I often work in large
offices where people are around me showing off their iPads and talking about
them. When this happened recently, I felt I really wanted one and, as I say,
I was lucky enough to have it purchased for me.
The question I've been asked is, as a blind person, what advantages will
there be over having an iPhone 4S, which I also have?
I do a lot of travelling each week and so I wanted to lessen the number of
things I have to carry around not related to the work I do. The iPad would
give me, hopefully, a longer battery life than the iPhone, together with a
better quality speaker for listening to music or books as I am a prolific
reader. Because of the battery life,, I could also manage all my email and
talk to people on Twitter, Facebook and Skype if I had access to a wireless
internet connection. This issue of the length of battery life seems to have
been confirmed as I am already getting more time from it than I do the
iPhone.
The iPad really is a mini computer. It delivers no background sound at all
and I have found using it a real pleasure. I am comfortable using Safari to
manage our web content on Team-FM, together with the rest of the above. I
have also been introduced to iBooks, which if you don't know gives us as
visually impaired people acccess to a huge range of books including the
latest best-sellers, and this is going to be excellent. There's such a wide
variety!
But, I hear you say, you can do a lot of this on the iPhone, so what else is
there?
The most obvious advantage is the physical dimensions of the iPad as against
the phone. The iPad of course is much larger in size. This means that typing
text is far easier I think on the iPad. I have a bluetooth keyboard, (which
I will write about in a moment), but because of the placement of the
characters on the iPad it is much more like a QWERTY keyboard than can be
accommodated on the iPhone. The physical resemblance is very similar. I have
now become far more confident in terms of the placement of items on the iPad
including the keyboard. This means for example if I want to send a tweet or
a Facebook post, I can easily do that on the iPad's keyboard without the
need for Flexi or the bluetooth keyboard, just using the one device. I like
that a lot.
The other advantage relates to webpage layout. I can appreciate and
conceptualise tables on web pages far easier on the iPad because of the
greater space which is available.
So to the keyboard. I did purchase a case for the iPad with a keyboard
incorporated. But I didn't like the feel of it. The iPad is such a well-made
piece of hardware and I wanted a good case to go with it. This case with
integrated keyboard just wasn't suitable. The keyboard could only be charged
using a USB cable connected to a computer, added to which I felt
uncomfortable in terms of the way the iPad fitted into the case.
Eventually, I got a conventional leather case for the iPad which
accommodates it very well and I am very pleased with that.
So in summary, I am very pleased with the iPad and I know I am going to gain
a great deal of use from it. I haven't used Facetime on it yet, but I have
tested the built-in microphone using Skype's test calling service and it
seemed of a good standard. It is important to note that Siri does not exist
on the iPad, which is fine as I rarely use it.
If anyone has any questions about the iPad, please do let me know. But as a
final thought, with the iPad being so readily available, it is very
difficult these days to justify the cost of specialist "note-taking"
devices, particularly if the user only requires speech output. If you
purchase an iPad, possibly a bluetooth keyboard and some suitable apps, you
have everything at your disposal many such devices have offered in the past,
and a great deal more!
--
I am using the free version of SPAMfighter.
SPAMfighter has removed 1495 of my spam emails to date.
Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len
Do you have a slow PC? Try Free scan
http://www.spamfighter.com/SLOW-PCfighter?cid=sigen
Follow us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ncbiworkingforpeoplewithsightloss
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ncbi_sightloss
Check-out NCBI's Micheal O Muircheartaigh appeal on the following link.
http://youtu.be/25P2tiuCi0U
********************************************************************
National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) is a company
limited by guarantee (registered in Ireland No. 26293) .
Our registered office is at Whitworth Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.
NCBI is also a registered Charity (chy4626).
NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments
is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended
recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of
the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify
the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to
delete it and any attachments from your system.
NCBI endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated
by its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants. However,
it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are
transmitted. We therefore recommend you scan all attachments.
Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email
and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily
represent the views of NCBI
********************************************************************
Other related posts:
