My iPad mini is pretty useful for me. I use it for all kinds of random stuff, nothing too serious. It's not absolutely indispensable, but very nice -- and fun at that.
Getting away from my cubicle to sit somewhere nicer with a cup of coffee and plan/brainstorm with SimpleMind+, a great little mindmapping tool whose touch interface is really slick.
Calendar and mail works great. It's like a little secretary.
Sitting in my armchair in the morning with a cup of tea reviewing todos and stuff is nice.
I'm comfortable enough with writing on the iPad mini (in portrait) to write stuff in Drafts (great app). Sitting somewhere with the tablet makes it easier for me to focus on just writing. I usually write in Markdown and save to Dropbox, then I can do whatever with it on the computer later.
Reading articles on Instapaper. Not "productive" in the narrow sense, but I don't really subscribe to this dichotomy!
I also use it as a remote for my music player... Meditation timer... I play music with some friends and it's awesome to be able to just pull up the chords & lyrics for any song. (Plus Propellerheads has a fun iPad synth that I play some silly leads on...)
I didn't really have any idea what I was going to use it for when I bought it, I just needed it to do some mobile web app prototyping. But it's delightful! My laptop is pretty stationary now -- the mini fits in my inner coat pocket.
> it's delightful .... yet ... not "productive" in the narrow sense.
I totally agree. I like the idea of tablet very much and I own an iPad 3, but I don't use it at all. My MacBook Air is the same size and weight and gets 99% of my time.
Getting away from my cubicle to sit somewhere nicer with a cup of coffee and plan/brainstorm with SimpleMind+, a great little mindmapping tool whose touch interface is really slick.
Calendar and mail works great. It's like a little secretary.
Sitting in my armchair in the morning with a cup of tea reviewing todos and stuff is nice.
I'm comfortable enough with writing on the iPad mini (in portrait) to write stuff in Drafts (great app). Sitting somewhere with the tablet makes it easier for me to focus on just writing. I usually write in Markdown and save to Dropbox, then I can do whatever with it on the computer later.
Reading articles on Instapaper. Not "productive" in the narrow sense, but I don't really subscribe to this dichotomy!
I also use it as a remote for my music player... Meditation timer... I play music with some friends and it's awesome to be able to just pull up the chords & lyrics for any song. (Plus Propellerheads has a fun iPad synth that I play some silly leads on...)
I didn't really have any idea what I was going to use it for when I bought it, I just needed it to do some mobile web app prototyping. But it's delightful! My laptop is pretty stationary now -- the mini fits in my inner coat pocket.