iPad Questions

[itoddm]

I am ready to buy an iPad. One way I am helping to convince myself to get it, is so I can incorporate it into work. My home life is Macbook, Nano and iPhone 4. My work life is PC (bleck). I am a teacher.

Can I do Powerpoint presentations, put these on the iPad and hook it up to a flat screen TV and use the TV as a screen to show the presentations?

DOes the Powerpoint have to run through Keynote? (Guessing I would buy Keynote App to use?).

Do I need to have Keynote on my Macbook?

Is there anyway that Outlook calendar can "communicate" with the iPad?
Meaning can I get information from Outlook calender to the iPad and vice versa?

I can remotely access my email on my Macbook using Citrix applications. Can I do this using the iPad also?

My place of work has wi-fi available if that makes a difference.

Overall I am wondering if I need to purchase MobileMe and/or iLife.

 

[Tulipone]

I don't believe you could use Powerpoint on this - maybe Office HD would allow but I have not tried. Keynote is an App available and is pretty good for starting a presentation but I tend to go back to my iMac for anything other than outlines.

You can get an adapter to plug the iPad to a TV/Monitor.

The syncronisation of iCal is done through Mobile Me.

I think that there are thin client/Citrix solutions for iPad. If it works on a Macbook and the same software is supported through an app....?

I have found printing to a WiFi Network printer a challenge and I can only get it to work through shared printing.

Hope this helps.

 

[itoddm]

That does help. I was told that Keynote would open Powerpoint presentations. I will check on this.

Could I create a whole keynote presentation on the iPad and then transfer it to my Macbook for safe keeping? Or do I need to purchase iLife for the macbook?

 

[MikeTemple]

You can use your ipad to show Powerpoint slides. Either by opening in Keynote for Mac and converting, or by saving as a PDF and showing that. Be warned though, the conversion to Keynote is not perfect, and if you've done anything fancy in Powerpoint, particularly with transitions or charts, they might not be exactly the same.

There is an app called MightyMeeting which claims to display Powerpoint presentations without any need for conversion.

You can get your Outlook data onto the ipad in a variety of ways. Do you use Exchange? If so, you can simply create a connection from your iPad, and you get two-way synchronization via wi-fi or 3G. If you use Outlook without Exchange, then you can sync your calendars via iTunes.

Have you thought about using Google calendar instead of Outlook? If you are just using Outlook as a stand-alone application, Google calendar syncs with the iPad over wireless and has the advantage of being available anywhere you have an Internet connection.

For email, you can simply connect your iPad to your email server over wireless, and use the built in mail app. Use Exchange or imap to do this, and everything keeps in sync nicely.

For remote access, there are various VNC apps around that work like Citrix. I find they are a bit of a compromise depending on how much you want to use keyboard/mouse.