Work on an ipad and backing up

koolpc · 10 May 2012 at 19:01

After trying my wifes ipad2 i really love how it feels etc. Now, i have tons of pics on an external hard drive and videos of daughter etc etc.

Can i connect to that with an ipad and transfer to it or from it? If so, how?

Reason i ask is that i am seriously thinking of ditching the 'pc' and getting an ipad myself.

Thing is, i do use office a fair bit and would need to produce documents etc and backup to ext hard drive. Also be able to look at photos and slightly edit them.

Any help wuld be great.

Disco Boy · 10 May 2012 at 20:53

An ipad is not a good device for doing a fair bit of office work.

As for remote backup on an ipad, you can use dropbox or similar.

theheyes · 10 May 2012 at 21:00

As above really, I couldn't recommend you go with an iPad for office work. At least get your iPad first and then decide whether you want to ditch the pc (not the other way round)

lamboman · 10 May 2012 at 21:11

Why not just get a MacBook Air if that is what you want to do? The iPad is a terrible device for proper work; it doesn't...work.

koolpc · 10 May 2012 at 22:26

I love the portability and the touch screen

Disco Boy · 10 May 2012 at 22:29

Of course, they are two things which make it ideal for doing office work.

koolpc · 10 May 2012 at 22:38

I find it easier to type on for a start. So fluid.

koolpc · 10 May 2012 at 22:55

Am I right in saying that the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 would be a better choice due to being more flexible? That can be used with an external hard drive and with office software etc?

QwaF · 11 May 2012 at 01:28

You may be able to use external storage on that, but the office software is probably better on the iPad just like all the rest of the third party application ecosystem. Pages, Numbers and Keynote are all pretty good.

Also, if Microsoft were to release Microsoft Office for either iOS or Android, history suggests they would do it on iOS first, and it makes sense to do it with paid applications, they make a lot more money on iOS.

Pug · 11 May 2012 at 05:27

every time i do any serious work on my ipad in numbers i just give up. Needs a mouse tbh

durbs · 11 May 2012 at 16:57

QwaF said:
Also, if Microsoft were to release Microsoft Office for either iOS or Android

Rumour says Office has been spotted running on an iPad which would be nice! (Microsoft deny it but makes good sense to me, its a huge market for them).

For the OP - the Apple offerings of Pages, Keynote etc on the iPad are very good and I use my iPad for quite a bit of documentation writing that would have been previously done on my laptop. You can transfer stuff using Dropbox and Microsoft's new Skydrive app also looks good and is integrated with desktop Office. Photo viewing an editing - theres loads of options for that, even complex editing is possible on the iPad.

As to whether its a PC replacement - NO, you'll still need both but they work together beautifully and both fill their own niche.

durbs · 11 May 2012 at 17:01

Pug said:
every time i do any serious work on my ipad in numbers i just give up. Needs a mouse tbh

Have you tried with a stylus? I bought a Mediadevil stylus and its great for finer navigation where a finger is a bit clumsy.

Took me a while to get used to but the missus, who is used to a Nintendo DS took to it straight away and uses it for everything now and is uber speedy.

pdw8 · 11 May 2012 at 17:28

i use my ipad a lot for work now, email is OK with Outlook Mail app (although no search is a real pita) I can create/read/view MS word/Excel etc in another paid app.I can use dropbox to store docs and share between my laptop and ipad.
However, I still need my laptop for half the things I need to do espcecially on the company VPN and shared drives.