Going back to university as an iPad only user

[The Samurai]

I finished uni around 2008/09 and I can remember the workload (trust me) on both my Bachelors and Masters degree in Business and Marketing.

All the coursework required me to have several different applications (pdf, mail, pages, safari) and multiple screens of each to reference back and fourth from.

Is the above achievable on an iPad? Yes.

Is the above the best device to carry out on an iPad? Hell no.

On the other hand, I could see the iPad being useful in lectures to take notes on but thats really about it. I wouldn't be writing my thesis or any report for that matter on iOS, period.

 

[Brammy]

A disappointing update for avid iPad only users.

Not disappointing for me, at least. The mantra I have used for going iPad-only is this: the more you control the output of your job for start-to-finish, the more successful you will be with an iPad.

Such discussions rapidly degenerate into the concept of "real work" which is unfortunate.

School, depending on your major, isn't a flexible environment for beating too far off an established path. I'm going for a version of an MBA, and so far there hasn't been much I can't do on my iPad. That said, having a MacBook has smoothed out a lot of the problems I encountered. There is nothing worse than working to get a big project done and finding out near the end your tool doesn't do well. For me, I hit a few problems using the iPad-only:

1. Word and Pages don't let you customize Styles and I like to use Styles to make sure my document is properly-formatted.
2. Word didn't let me adjust the document Margins
3. Office 365 didn't tell me if I didn't have a custom-font in the document..
4. Installing 3rd party fonts on an iPad is a PITA.
5. WebEx had problems with the PowerPoint file I was displaying. Not sure if this is fixed. We did a lot of group presentations and would use WebEx for group meetings.
6. I could not download marked-up papers from Canvas.

I was able to do about 95% of the stuff on an iPad, that last 5% is difficult. The iPad is still my main choice for getting work done, but it's nice also going to my Mac for areas it can't handle.

 

[Mainsail]

OP, Happy to hear that you found the right device for school. Best of luck with your studies.

It's unfortunate that you have to sell the iPad. I have found my iPad to be an excellent complementary device to my MacBook. I know every dollar counts when you are in college, but a $400 iPad amortized over 4 years isn't so bad.....just food for thought.

I have two kids in college (one just graduated), and they both have iPad minis. I see them using their iPads and MacBooks in tandem for school work. For example, with Handoff, you can copy text from a PDF or Book that you are reading on the iPad and then paste the text to a document you are writing on your MacBook....pretty nice.

 

[bingeciren]

This.

The onus is going to be on the user to ensure that his iPad works properly in all the required scenarios, since the school isn't required, and shouldn't be expected to bend over backwards to support your choice of device.

I am a teacher who has managed to integrate my iPad Pro into my teaching workflow. It took a ton of experimentation and trial and error, but I enjoyed the journey, and while I haven't been able to do away with my computers yet, it has well been worth it.

Wish the OP luck in his iPad endeavours!

Abazigal, what do you teach? I ask because I want to get a better feel about how you use your iPad for teaching. For instance, teaching history as opposed to math would be different. Math would involve a lot of formula writing and diagrams whereas history lessons could be accomplished with a collection of slides. Also what kind of a setup you use to project your iPad to a screen?

 

[Abazigal]

Abazigal, what do you teach? I ask because I want to get a better feel about how you use your iPad for teaching. For instance, teaching history as opposed to math would be different. Math would involve a lot of formula writing and diagrams whereas history lessons could be accomplished with a collection of slides. Also what kind of a setup you use to project your iPad to a screen?

I teach English in a primary school, but I have also taught science and maths before.

In my classroom, I have a 3rd gen Apple TV connected to my projector, which I use to mirror my iPad to the screen. This frees me up to move around the class and monitor my students while still being to control what is shown on the screen. I am currently using a 9.7" iPad Pro with Apple Pencil.

For apps, I use predominantly Notability. I have my lesson notes and worksheets in pdf format, which I import into Notability and annotate using the pencil. There are other apps which I cycle between depending on the situation, such as pages for typing, scanner pro (and now notes app) for quickly scanning documents on the fly, camera app as a makeshift visualiser (not as good as the real thing, but my principal had them removed to incentivise us to use the smart boards), VLC player for storing videos I want to show my class, just a few off the top of my head.

Mostly, if you find yourself doing a fair amount of writing, the iPad can serve as a great alternative.

 

[Smeaton1724]

I experimented with going iPad and desktop only a few years ago with a wifi iPad 4 128GB model over a 3 month period waiting for the 2015 Macbook Pro refresh. My conclusion was that it was possible even then. I primarily used it for reading PDF's, report writing, notes in meetings, photos, web, music etc. I synced over my music and photos prior to selling my 2012 Macbook Pro, then restored my new machine from a Time Machine backup.

My issues were:
- I wanted a good keyboard rather than a stand alone bluetooth one - it was tacked on.
- I also felt a stylus would really help for good quality hand written notes in meetings.
- I used Dropbox and uploading documents was a pain, I then migrated to Goodreader that had a sync to cloud drives, a fantastic feature at the time.
- Some apps felt slightly under developed.
- Device power/iOS didn't feel particularly intuitive.

Since I experimented my uses have changed slightly. Firstly I have stopped using iTunes, my music is uploaded to Google Music and I have Amazon Prime Music, I have iCloud drive for photos and everything is ''cloud based'' and syncs across via iCloud Drive/Files - 200GB plan. The stylus (pencil!) and keyboard I wanted have been released, generally apps have developed in to more feature rich experiences - Affinity photo on the iPad is a great example. iOS 11 is a game changer too with keyboard short cut features.

Granted the iPad Pro, or any iPad for that matter can't run established 3D modelling software such as Maya, 3DS Max, Revit etc. and doesn't have Xcode or iBooks Creator either BUT it literally can do everything else that the majority of people want and need a computer for.

So far studying an Accounting degree (accredited by all the big UK and Ireland accounting bodies btw - so not some Mickey Mouse course in case it seems that way) and there’s nothing yet that requires more than basic Excel functionality - even iOS basic. No need for Sage or anything else that I may not know about yet.

It’s literally theory - writing out manually, you know, the old way of accounting to understand the fundamentals and being tested on them through written exams. Same with all business degrees at my university too. I get that in Computer Science when you’re tasked with building databases etc there’s no way the iPad could work. But in the UK, degrees like mine certainly don’t require those software packages. I’d imagine art etc and other non science and non computer intense topics are the same. From my work experience, working as a Chartered Accountant in practice - not as an owner or manager - but as an employee, will also not require you do work at home or require a ‘personal’ device as such - I know this because one of them managers was a senior accountant who only had an iPad at home which seemed to reflect her technological interest! (Had a dumb phone Nokia too! But it worked for her).

Since February I was without Mac, and my brief time with a new ThinkPad came after my last university exam. So I was iPad only during my second semester of Year 1 and had no issue whatsoever! I just happened to be at university when I had tests of BlackBoard Learn and did them there, not because I had no faith in the iPad, but because I just got out of a two hour revision lecture and it was fresh on my mind! But this year, I’m making a point of *trying* to use the iPad, and I’ll feedback my result.

All I can do is continue to relay back my experience as it goes on - I welcome all criticism and objections as well as people who are agreeing with me.

But as of now, my view is still that the iPad is 100% capable because I don’t depend on specialist software. I can imagine in ten years time max, ALL of the specialist software being native on iPad. But I’m aware we’re not there yet!

 

[bingeciren]

I teach English in a primary school, but I have also taught science and maths before.

In my classroom, I have a 3rd gen Apple TV connected to my projector, which I use to mirror my iPad to the screen. This frees me up to move around the class and monitor my students while still being to control what is shown on the screen. I am currently using a 9.7" iPad Pro with Apple Pencil.

For apps, I use predominantly Notability. I have my lesson notes and worksheets in pdf format, which I import into Notability and annotate using the pencil. There are other apps which I cycle between depending on the situation, such as pages for typing, scanner pro (and now notes app) for quickly scanning documents on the fly, camera app as a makeshift visualiser (not as good as the real thing, but my principal had them removed to incentivise us to use the smart boards), VLC player for storing videos I want to show my class, just a few off the top of my head.

Mostly, if you find yourself doing a fair amount of writing, the iPad can serve as a great alternative.

Super. Thank you.

 

[CrystalQuest76]

Abazigal, what do you teach? I ask because I want to get a better feel about how you use your iPad for teaching. For instance, teaching history as opposed to math would be different. Math would involve a lot of formula writing and diagrams whereas history lessons could be accomplished with a collection of slides. Also what kind of a setup you use to project your iPad to a screen?

If you are teaching Math and need to draw out formulas, I recommend MyScript's MathPad. It exports out images as well as LaTeX and MathML. No I don't work for the company, but I am amazed by their products.

 

[the caveman]

Problem with the surface, i had the surface 3 pro, is that it tries to do many things, its not a good tablet and not good at being a laptop. Try to watch youtube for instance, a rudimentary task, but it gets hot, fans start spinning up, battery life is awful, it doesnt have auto brightness etc. while ipad is limited in what it can do, perhaps the biggest limitation is a lack of a file system, it absolutely trounces surface in the tablet section.

 

[Titus]

Yes, QB Pro is designed for small businesses and, with little knowledge of accounting, it can be big trouble. Garbage in, garbage out. You always have to learn the theory first, then you can proceed to actual practice. QB has an online version but I've found that the desktop version is more versatile, especially for payroll.

CPA is the equivalent of your Chartered Accountant. I'm also a Certified Internal Auditor and Certified Management Accountant.

Sometimes you have to jump in and then figure out which devices and software serve you best. Good luck with your studies.








QuickBooks - is that the online service that can do accounts for you that my classmates are joking will make our profession worthless within our lifetime?! Lol. So far, so good. It’s all written exams and theory. Though one of the UK Tax books which updates annually that we have to buy is around £38 .. eBook edition is £21... though it’s not your standard .ePub it’s some proprietary online or Adobe Desktop Software version of a book that won’t go well on the iPad. Certainly don’t want to make the investment to find out anyway!

I appreciate your comments as women who actually taught finance! CPA is the US version of our Chartered Accountant status, right? [/QUOTE]

 

[maflynn]

[MOD NOTE]
We're getting off the bunny trail, lets focus back on the iPad/iOS as a replacement for a laptop in school.

 

[solarflab]

My personal experience with going iPad only was rather bad. I noticed that all of sudden I was forgetting most of what I was taking notes of, that didn't happen to me when I was paper only. I learned that typing on a keyboard does something to my brain that prevents it from easily remembering details, had to go back to paper only in class.

 

[DarkSel]

My personal experience with going iPad only was rather bad. I noticed that all of sudden I was forgetting most of what I was taking notes of, that didn't happen to me when I was paper only. I learned that typing on a keyboard does something to my brain that prevents it from easily remembering details, had to go back to paper only in class.

Gotta get the Apple Pencil

 

[Brammy]

Gotta get the Apple Pencil

I'm a believer in the proper way to kit out an iPad Pro is with the Apple Smart Keyboard and the Pencil. Especially if you want to use it for something other than a normal-iPad.

I also recommend some sort of fast charging.

My next Master's class starts the 26th. I will try and go iPad only and report back on this thread how it is going.

 

[mk313]

My next Master's class starts the 26th. I will try and go iPad only and report back on this thread how it is going.

Looking forward to it. I always enjoy these posts to see how others experiences going iPad only work out.

 

[CrystalQuest76]

My personal experience with going iPad only was rather bad. I noticed that all of sudden I was forgetting most of what I was taking notes of, that didn't happen to me when I was paper only. I learned that typing on a keyboard does something to my brain that prevents it from easily remembering details, had to go back to paper only in class.

I do recommend that you read the NPR story about the recent study about handwriting vs typing lectures. There is also a link to the actual study and its worth reading.

 

[solarflab]

I do recommend that you read the NPR story about the recent study about handwriting vs typing lectures. There is also a link to the actual study and its worth reading.

Interesting, that explains a lot then. I wonder if using an Apple Pencil has the same effect as using pen and paper.

 

[kipwheeler]

Interesting, that explains a lot then. I wonder if using an Apple Pencil has the same effect as using pen and paper.

My suspicion is that it does--it's the same kinesthetic movement, same neurons being fired in the noggin.

 

[perezr10]

A lot depends on how progressive the university is towards supporting mobile. My daughter is an iPad Pro-only college student and it hasn’t been any problem. She hates the idea of juggling both an iPad and a laptop and likes everything on one device. With her Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil she says the only thing in her backpack is her iPad and food. All her textbooks are in iBooks.

I keep asking her if she’d like to take her 13” MacBook Air and she always replies with an emphatic No. The teachers are all moving towards using Apps and cloud based file movements for turning in assignments.

But schools are moving very quickly towards supporting mobile platforms. So just because it was a pain a year or two ago doesn’t mean it will be this year or next. As prices come down on the iPad Pro I’d predict that within 3 years 25-50% of students will be iPad only.

 

[spiderman0616]

My suspicion is that it does--it's the same kinesthetic movement, same neurons being fired in the noggin.

I learned toward the tail end of college, while taking my second shot at Western Civilization, that if I took the list of possible exam topics and just wrote out everything I could find in the text book about each one, I could remember virtually all of it with no problems. I got nothing less than an A on every one of my tests that semester. (I wish I had learned to study that way in high school and maybe I would have gotten better grades.)

Once laptops and smartphones became ubiquitous, I forgot how much easier it was for me to pay attention in meetings, conference calls, etc. if I just took handwritten notes. I also loathe keeping stacks of old legal pads laying around just to archive all my notes. The Apple Pencil solved that, and still has the same effect as pen/pencil and paper for me. I stay more alert in meetings and I tend to remember more of them later without even having to consult my notes.

Fun side effect--in those truly pointless meetings, doodling with the Apple Pencil instead of taking notes is SUPER fun.

 

[Freyqq]

So far studying an Accounting degree (accredited by all the big UK and Ireland accounting bodies btw - so not some Mickey Mouse course in case it seems that way) and there’s nothing yet that requires more than basic Excel functionality - even iOS basic. No need for Sage or anything else that I may not know about yet.

It’s literally theory - writing out manually, you know, the old way of accounting to understand the fundamentals and being tested on them through written exams. Same with all business degrees at my university too. I get that in Computer Science when you’re tasked with building databases etc there’s no way the iPad could work. But in the UK, degrees like mine certainly don’t require those software packages. I’d imagine art etc and other non science and non computer intense topics are the same. From my work experience, working as a Chartered Accountant in practice - not as an owner or manager - but as an employee, will also not require you do work at home or require a ‘personal’ device as such - I know this because one of them managers was a senior accountant who only had an iPad at home which seemed to reflect her technological interest! (Had a dumb phone Nokia too! But it worked for her).

Since February I was without Mac, and my brief time with a new ThinkPad came after my last university exam. So I was iPad only during my second semester of Year 1 and had no issue whatsoever! I just happened to be at university when I had tests of BlackBoard Learn and did them there, not because I had no faith in the iPad, but because I just got out of a two hour revision lecture and it was fresh on my mind! But this year, I’m making a point of *trying* to use the iPad, and I’ll feedback my result.

All I can do is continue to relay back my experience as it goes on - I welcome all criticism and objections as well as people who are agreeing with me.

But as of now, my view is still that the iPad is 100% capable because I don’t depend on specialist software. I can imagine in ten years time max, ALL of the specialist software being native on iPad. But I’m aware we’re not there yet!

For some majors, this could work. For others, it would be challenging. Writing-heavy majors with lots of research papers, for instance. I remember for my major I had 10+ PDFs open and 30+ tabs open when writing a research paper in Word, so it would have been challenging to handle that level of multi-tasking. Also, Word for ios is a bit basic. I used a lot of referencing features like cross-referencing on footnotes and more advanced formatting.

 

[Freyqq]

For me, it's a duplication of effort. I would rather take notes directly into the final medium. For me, this is OneNote.

We have people at work evenly split on handwitten notes vs electronic. It's just more efficient for me to capture all the information as succinctly as possible in one pass.

I felt exactly the same way when one class required handwritten notes. I took worse notes and it seemed like a chore.

I personally learn better writing it in Onenote, then rereading the notes afterwards, and then making an overall outline.

 

[0989383]

For some majors, this could work. For others, it would be challenging. Writing-heavy majors with lots of research papers, for instance. I remember for my major I had 10+ PDFs open and 30+ tabs open when writing a research paper in Word, so it would have been challenging to handle that level of multi-tasking. Also, Word for ios is a bit basic. I used a lot of referencing features like cross-referencing on footnotes and more advanced formatting.

I think it's on it's way there, though it's always been a slow process on iOS. And after using it myself, I must say, some features that were fine when introduced are no longer convenient with the big range of options added. For example, the black menu bar when you touch, hold and copy / paste text. You can swipe on it now 2-3 times to uncover other options.. something not many people realise sadly. And when you do it's tedious.

My conclusion, in case you didn't see, was that yeah it's possible and it's been good but I'm off to a Mac again. Thankfully I found the resources money wise to do so. Though I feel guilty for letting down the fellow iPad community that backed the idea.

 

[Brammy]

For some majors, this could work. For others, it would be challenging. Writing-heavy majors with lots of research papers, for instance. I remember for my major I had 10+ PDFs open and 30+ tabs open when writing a research paper in Word, so it would have been challenging to handle that level of multi-tasking. Also, Word for ios is a bit basic. I used a lot of referencing features like cross-referencing on footnotes and more advanced formatting.

I've found writing papers to actually be one of the tasks the iPad Pro lifestyle works best on. Now, granted it depends on the paper. If you need to use LaTek or something to format equations you're going to have a problem.

Word (and Pages) I've found between the two apps I can usually at least work around some of the issues. I do use footnotes, but don't get into a lot of cross-document references, or bookmarking locations within a document. Pages does let you add bookmarks, I think. But Word I can't see the option to do so.

 

[Brammy]

So, a quick write up of my first week of the new grad class.

First, a word about the program. It’s is an MBA-lite Master’s Cert program done in conjunction with work and a local institute. It occurs at my place of work, is paid pretty much entirely through work, and is comprised of co-workers in my department. A lot of the work will be done in groups. This may impact how much I use the iPad, but more on that later.

It’s a 10 week class. I’m not going to report on every week, but I wanted to at list give an update. As I said earlier, I’m going to give going iPad-primary a decent shot as a data point for the thread.

Out of the gate, I ended up using my MacBook for something. We needed to buy these course packs off the Harvard Business School web page. There were about 30 of them. I bought and downloaded them on my Mac because I was short on time, and just wanted to get the task done. I’m glad I did. Instead of coming down named something like ‘Course Study A” they were 7834943.pdf. I renamed them in the Finder and imported them into iBooks. I could have done it on the iPad, but opening and renaming the files is a pain on OSX.

While I’m being honest, I also submitted the assignment via Safari on my Mac. I’m pretty sure I could do it on the iPad, but was coming down the wire on submitting. Next time I will try it on the iPad. I did view the scores on the iPad, though. I also just created the template file for how he wants his papers formatted on the Mac since I can’t edit styles on iPad.

The actual assignment was reading two PDFs and creating a short PowerPoint presentation with some bullet points. I did all of this on the iPad. Obviously, reading on the iPad was easy. However these PDFs come down resist marking them up in iBooks, PDFPen, or PDF Expert. I couldn’t use the text highlight tool, but could get around it by just using the Pencil.

PowerPoint was fine, but it felt like there were a few extra presses needed. Not a show stopper. Since we need to submit the actual PPT files, I can’t go too crazy on the fonts as is my wont. Given the pain in installing fonts on iOS, this is for the better.

In class I used OneNote to take notes. I did not take many of them. All of the lecture materials are on the Canvas site. I just took a few notes about assignments and the like.

From this week, I feel if the class was just a class with individual work, I’m pretty sure the iPad could cover 99% of what I need to. My concern is the group assignments. My gut feeling is we will be throwing files around work network shares, using Visio, and workflows I can’t even do on my Mac, much less on my iPad. If I go solo, I an use Graffic or OmniGraffle to create my diagrams.