Running Your Business via iPad

Part One: Email

The general consensus among my pals is that the UK iPad advert makes the device look very cool and trendy, but it probably wouldn’t be any use as a work tool, just for ‘play’ – looking up things, reading sites and blogs, looking at photos and the like. That kind of surprised me, as I thought the opposite – I considered it a game-changer that would allow me to work away from my desk, being far more portable than my laptop and faster, through not needing to be booted up every time I want to use it – although I didn’t realistically expect it to allow me to do all the things I can on a full-blown laptop or desktop PC.

I’ve now had my iPad for a month, so have been using it day in, day out for work and play. How good a work tool is it? I’ll be discussing its’ suitability for various aspects of work over the coming days and weeks.

Today, we begin with Email. Note that I have blurred out personal details in many of the email client pics.

I work in digital media, helping businesses grow through better use of the Internet and Web & Mobile technologies, so my business framework is already very ‘cloud-oriented’ i.e. I use a lot of web applications like GAPE (Google Apps Premier Edition), Freshbooks and WordPress. I use a lot of graphical tools, web design tools and clients for my work, and most of all, word processing and email.

As many of you know, prior to the launch of the iPad, I delivered mobile business services using the iPhone as the primary device. With the advent of the iPad, it caters for a much larger audience, as the screen and virtual keyboard, are both much bigger and easier for the average person to use. I reckon my typing speed on the iPad is about 90% the speed of my typing on my desktop PC. The screen and keyboard make it much easier than the iPhone to use to type e-mails and documents, simply due to their larger size.

Email on The iPad – The Built-In Client

iPad Email Client

The built-in Email client allows you to link up to several email clients easily – Microsoft Exchange, MobileMe, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL, and POP and IMAP servers. The process of setting up each is simple, and you can have multiple accounts – currently I have 2 Google Premier Apps email accounts, a MobileMe account and a Yahoo Mail account all accessed through the same simple interface.

The interface is a step up from the iPhone – where you have a single panel display on the iPhone, you have a 2 panel interface on the iPad, allowing you to select your email account, then see a list of your folders or messages in the left panel, and a view of the selected email in the larger right column. This is very similar to the interface in most desktop/web email clients, so feels very natural and is picked up really quickly.

I find myself using the iPad to pick up and deal with emails in a much wider variety of locations – it’s easier to use in bed than a laptop (which matters a lot when you have a back condition like mine!), and it’s very convenient in other locations – I answer lots of emails these days from my hammock in the garden (in fact, I’m writing this article from said hammock, laid back with the iPad perched on my lap… It’s been such a warm and muggy day today I can’t stand to be inside!).

Web Clients – The Google Mobile Client (Gmail)

GAPE Mobile View

Anyone who has an iPhone probably has the Google Mobile app already.

It’s a great way to access many of the tools from your Google Account on the go. For email, Google’s mobile interface works so much better on the iPad, once again due to the larger screen size and two panel display.

Your email labels become folders in the mobile client, making them more like traditional email folders. It took me a while to get used to labels after years of using Yahoo mail’s folder-based structure, so it makes me laugh that they use the labels as folder names here. The labels also show in your inbox as they do in the desktop app.

GAPE Basic HTML View

You can choose the format of your Gmail at the bottom of the screen – mobile (as pictured), basic HTML, and Desktop.

Desktop is the only one that gives you access to your 3rd party apps through Google Premier Apps, but it doesn’t really work as you can’t scroll the screen to see older messages. Not a big deal, but it would be more useful to be able to access all my business apps I access through my Google Premier Apps interface from the mobile interface.

The mobile interface gives one click access to my Google Docs, Calendar and Talk – but none of the multitude of 3rd party apps I also use though GAPE (Google Apps Premier Edition)

GAPE Desktop View

Overall, it’s a very well designed and easy to use interface, but lacking the 3rd party app integration seen in the desktop version of GAPE. I tend to use the iPad’s native email client to access the same emails more.

Yahoo Mobile

Yahoo Mobile Client

I have history with Yahoo. For many years, while others cried Google, I stuck with Yahoo… I still have a Yahoo Pro email account for my main personal email address. Unfortunately, I think my time with the Pro Account might be coming to an end.

Why? It’s a number of things – for email it’s this.

I have the Yahoo Mobile app on my iPad, but it only loads my email once in every 3 or 4 tries. It then displays them in a ridiculous single panel across the entire screen – can’t see my folders. And to cap it off, it only loads and displays 11 emails at a time. It’s like the 1980s took over an app!

It’s the same app as on my iPhone, and it wasn’t great on there. I don’t use it if I can help it – I use the iPad’s client instead.

Yahoo Mail Desktop Client

The Yahoo Mail web client looks exactly the same as it does on my desktop – BUT that’s where the similarity ends. Like the Google Desktop Client, it fails to scroll, whether you try single or multi-touch, so you can only see the first 12 emails from any folder, and when you select one, you can only see the very top of the message!

As you might be able to tell, I’m not a fan of Yahoo mail on the iPad as either a mobile or a desktop app – to access my emails from my Yahoo account effectively, I route them through the iPad’s native email client.

Summary

As an email device, the iPad is really convenient – you can check your emails and reply almost anywhere. It’s a lot more convenient to manage your emails than powering up your laptop and going online – it’s also waaaaaaaay faster.

It takes me around 3 minutes to turn on my laptop, log in and access my emails, it takes me around 7 seconds to do the same thing on the iPad.

The built-in email client is very easy to use – with push notifications and audio alerts so you know when a new email comes in. It’s fast, simple and flawless. I’m very happy with it, and easily run multiple email accounts through it.

Mobile clients from the big providers vary in quality – some are still iPhone apps enlarged, but some like Gmail are iPad focused and a pleasure to use.

Would I recommend you use an iPad for your email? Without a doubt – I manage my emails mostly using the iPad now.

Rob

That’ll Do, Pad