iPads and other Pads are all the rage these days. Everyone seems to be lining up to have a new way to surf the web and download music videos; brochures; and movies. In addition to the early success of the Apple iPad, there is a host of a dozen or more similar pad products by Cisco; HP; Dell; Samsung (already with the Galaxy); and many others. Only difference is that Apple still does not do Adobe FLASH or Java. Hence its major limitation to business uses no matter how slick it looks. But in slickness, it is still superior to most of the others… so far.
There are also a host of new smart PDA phones coming onto the market. I just bought a new HTC Android 4G and it is slick, powerful, fast, and with more capabilities than I can learn in many months. And viewing CAD drawings, doing data entry, scrolling through maps, not to mention getting emails and making phone calls is pretty cool. And feature for feature, Android is just as good as the Apple iPhone now. Oh, and did I mention that you still have to hold the iPhone a certain way up to your ear in order to make phone calls?
Finally, there are many new pad and tablet products coming onto the market. I just saw a review of a great remote tablet by HTC that links right into your laptop computer when you are in the office… and then works as a fully functional and powerful stand alone PC out in the field. It has all the requisite tablet PC functions such as signatures; stylus editing (such as on CAD drawings); full Adobe FLASH capabilities (html 5 is still way behind FLASH); and able to run most industry standard enterprise software such as AutoCAD and Revit; ARCHIBUS and IBM; and of course NAI CLAS.
What this means, is that on a slick pad or smart PDA device you can view information over the web and download music videos. But if you want to do real work, take a look at the uPComing new tablet devices that are stand alone full PCs as well as having cute web surfing capabilities. Doing condition assessments or BOVs; verifying properties; entering lease or property data; red-marking CAD floor plans; adding document attachments; managing your data; still requires a functional type of PC. And most large companies are now deploying dozens of such devices for their field staff.
But there is a cost difference. PDAs run a few hundred dollars depending on the service plan. Pad products run from $400 – $900 depending on the device and included features. And tablet PCs still will run about $2,000 to do real computing remotely.
But to have such great choices for different levels of tasks in quite amazing… and it is only going to get better… and cheaper.
