What do you get when you take one creatively-driven, entrepreneurial person and give them an iPad? An outlet for sharing, creating, cooking, and even a little gaming. Kicking off my iPad owner interview series, I asked a good friend, colleague, and client, Pat Ingelse about her iPad usage and how it fits into her part-time venture Escape Route.

Why did you get an iPad?

I truly enjoy my iPhone-it has become a critical part of the day. I also enjoyed my iPod a great deal. The iPad looked like it was/could become a viable replacement for the iPod expanding its use to a design or promotional tool as well.

Do you like it/love it?

I am definitely glad I made the purchase.

What need did it fill, or was it a want?

While I can say it filled a need I had with starting a craft business, I do think it was more a want than a need! Either way, it was worth it.

If you had to make the decision to purchase it again, would you?

Absolutely

How has the iPad changed your "normal" computer habits?

No so much changed as enhanced. If I want to quickly check something on the internet or my email, it can be done in a snap. It is an easier tool to use to demonstrate an item or show a product. What are you doing with the iPad that has made your life easier or has surprised you? I like to check my email and the news before heading off to work. This makes that a quick step in the morning routine. I also used it this weekend when cooking. I brought up the recipe and had the iPad right along side as I cooked. Can’t say it made the meal any tastier, but I didn’t kill a tree printing off the recipe!

Do you use it for personal use or have you been able to integrate its use into business?

Right now, its more personal use. However, as I start doing trade shows, it will be a valuable tool to show product.

How often do you use your iPad?

At least an hour a day – weekends more.

Is that use more that you'd expected?

Pretty much Do you still use other computers as much?

I do not use the laptop in the morning any longer, which is a definite plus!

What apps do you use or have you purchased?

iBooks, Think Ink, iTeleport, Quickmark, and several programs to assist in determining product markup, sales analysis, etc.

What would you change about it or what features would you add/take away?

I am trying to take more advantage of the Kindle app but I find it is a little heavy to hold up for any length of time. It is a bit challenging to read it in brighter light. An easier way to print would be great. Also, something similar to MS Office (Word and Excel type focus). Maybe that does exist and I haven’t discovered it yet.

How are you using the portability of the iPad to your advantage? Is it allowing you to write more blog posts or at least start ideas because of its mobility?

It fits nicely in a briefcase-not as bulky as a laptop. It was so easy to prop up on the kitchen counter to refer to the recipes using minimal counter space. I think at this point, I would classify myself as the “typical” user.

Are you using the iPad in any non-conventional ways? If so, how?

Not at this point.

What's your favorite app and what made you choose it?

I like using ColorSplash and Brushes on this. It allows better space for seeing the designs making it easier to get excited about the creations! Sounds crazy, but it does make a difference for me.

Has the iPad helped your hobbies at all?

I have been able to find a couple apps that focus on needlework. The upside is that it has also given me some ideas for other apps, demo recordings, etc.

A few weeks ago I put a call out to some folks I know that are iPad owners.  I wanted to get their thoughts on how the device fits into their lives and how they're getting the most out of it. 

I've posted, tweeted, and commented many times about how much I enjoy using my iPad for work, play, and everything in between.  My kids love using it almost as much as I do, and it's helped spark a rush of ideas for me in the form of posts and design solutions.  But that's just me.  What do others think about it.  Are they happy with their investments?  Has it altered the way they use their desktop or laptop computers?

Out of pure curiosity, I asked some people for their thoughts, ideas, and even some app suggestions.  I'm thrilled with the responses and can't wait to share them!

While I wouldn't describe myself as an avid outdoors-man, I do enjoy being around nature and getting out of the normal "rat race" from time-to-time. One escape for my family is to go camping a few times during the summer. The last two trips I've brought my iPad along and at the suggestion of a friend here are some notes on how it fared.

Clarifying the term "camping".
Wikipedia defines camping as "Camping is an outdoor recreational activity. The participants (known as campers) leave urban areas, their home region, or civilization and enjoy nature while spending one or several nights outdoors, usually at a campsite. Camping may involve the use of a tent, caravan, cabin, a primitive structure, or no shelter at all." Sorry, but that's not how I roll.

Let me get this out of the way first. We don't camp in tents or even a cabin. We camp in, what I like to call a small mobile home that happens to be located in a campground. It has running water, air conditioning, satellite tv, beds, and a functioning toilet. I'd be lying if I said we "rough it" when we go camping. I might be lying to myself by calling it "camping", but I digress.

With all of these creature comforts, I rarely find the need to pull out any electronic gadget aside from a digital camera because there's always some form of entertainment a few feet away from us at all times. The first time I brought the iPad with us on an outdoor outing I only pulled it out of my bag once and used it for all of 5 minutes. The second time is different.

A digital Swiss army knife
For starters, I used it to type this post. I'd call that progress, wouldn't you? It's also been used it to offload photos. Not even a full camping day in and it proved itself to be invaluable. While I've only scratched the surface as far as what I can do with the iPad in the great outdoors, a great friend of mine has taken his iPad with him on many camping trips this summer. I'm hoping he'll share some of his insights soon.

This is a pure what-if, "it'd be cool if they did it", "hey, if I was in charge of Apple..." post.  Quick, little-known fact: I started out my college career as an industrial design student.  After a good round of soul-searching, I decided it wasn't the best fit for me and I went on in search of a new major, finally settling on multimedia design.  Though I changed gears, I've never lost my passion or interest for industrial design and still deconstruct and reconstruct objects that I'd like to see made better in one way, or another.  This constant "tinkering obsession" of mine has set it's sights on what might be the single-greatest piece of technology I've ever purchased: the iPad.

I'd imagine the task that Apple's design team have to accomplish must be, to put it lightly, quite daunting.  How do you improve on products that, in most cases, are game changers, and might be the best-in-the business?  

These aren't changes for the sake of change.  After using my iPad for countless hours, these are the small changes I'd like to see made to make this product really rock.

A quick mock-up of my iPad 2 concept.

Front-facing video

While using the iPad as a traditional camera would be an awkward experience (imagine holding up a camera the size of note pad to snap a picture), a front-facing camera on the iPad would be a great addition to not only the device, but the progression of FaceTime devices that Apple is planning to roll out.

This would also be a nice feature to fire up when you're sitting at home watching the Daytona 500 and chatting via Skype with your friend in MN.  Not that I've done that for the past 2 years...  It'd also be useful for other, less-geeky things too.

Touch-sensitive home button with orientation-specific placement and pressure-sensitive activation

I've lost track of how many times I've held the iPad in landscape orientation and tried pressing my index finger or thumb through the center of the bottom bezel, thinking the home button was there.  This might be the biggest what-if in my dream redesign list, but why not remove the mechanical home button and replace it with one that's touch-sensitive?  One bonus to the non-mechanical button would be the possibility of it relocating itself when the iPad's orientation changes.  To avoid any accidental taps, I'd make it pressure sensitive as well to avoid inadvertent contact (since we're shooting for the stars).

Thinner chassis and a flattened glass/plastic back panel.

If you look at it, the iPad is quite thin. At at half an inch thick, it feels great in your hands and it's ultra-portable.  But if you set it down on a table, you'll notice it's hard to type on (unless you're using a case).  The curved back makes for a rockin' time, but not in a good way.  My vision for the iPad 2 includes removing the curved back and giving it a flat, iPhone 4-esque back panel of either glass or plastic.  The material change would also make the iPad easier to grip.  I'd also make the chassis thinner, especially after looking at how thick the edges would be if they were drawn out to the full thickness of the device.  

Retina Display

This one is probably the most-likely to show up in the next revision of the iPad.  The crystal-clear display that is included on the iPhone 4 would look gorgeous on the iPad.  That is all.

After recently skimming through some of my iPhoto albums from 2003, I came across some photos that I'd made at a local car show. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but during another session of Mower Meditation, I came up with a use for those photos. A majority of the photos that I'd taken at this car show were more abstract and detail-oriented in nature, so I had a feeling that they'd make for some interesting iPad wallpaper.

Taking another look at my library, I found more abstract, "artsy" photos that I'm not displaying publicly so this is shaping up to be an ongoing feature for my site. I'm also working on iPhone and other mobile wallpaper images as well, so stay tuned!

My earlier iPad sketchbook post got me thinking about what could be done to make my iPad sketching experience better than it already is. The answer, my friends, was hidden in a grid.

Here are two packs of grid "paper" background images (each with various grid colors and two grid sizes, 25px and 50px) that can be used on the iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch. Certain sketching apps (Adobe Ideas and Brushes (iTunes links) are two of them) will let you pull in photos from your iDevice's photo library letting you draw on it or add the photo as a layer. Simply add the grid photo to your drawing and you can then add a layer above it and sketch out your idea. Works great for logo ideations, layouts, and anything else you can dream up.

iPad Grid Sheets - 25px

• Gray Grid
• Light Blue Grid
• Bright Blue Grid
• All Three Colors (Zip file)

iPad Grid "Sheets" - 50px

• Gray Grid
• Light Blue Grid
• Bright Blue Grid
• All Three Colors (Zip file)

iPhone/iPodTouch Grid "Sheets" - 25px

• Gray Grid
• Light Blue Grid
• Bright Blue Grid
• All Three Colors (Zip file)

iPhone/iPodTouch Grid "Sheets" - 50px

• Gray Grid
• Light Blue Grid
• Bright Blue Grid
• All Three Colors (Zip file)

If you want it all...

• iPad - All Three Colors with 25px and 50px squares (Zip file)
• iPhone/iPodTouch - All Three Colors with 25px and 50px squares (Zip file)

Happy sketching!

I’ve realized that my iPad has become my sketchbook on steroids.  It's been a while since I've cracked open the pages of my notebooks, largely because of some great apps that have let me skip the pen & paper route and go with a completely digital workflow.

There are many apps that can let you sketch out ideas and get thoughts down on...glass.  Here are my favorites.

iDraft - Free

I just picked up iDraft (iTunes link) a week ago and it's been my go-to sketching app ever since.  What I'm the most drawn to with this app is the ability to make individual "project" notebooks that I can then email the entire book or just a few pages to anyone I'd like.

The drawing tools and markings are very natural, in fact, the pen width decreases the quicker you move your finger over the canvas.  I've found this app to be a great alternative to my traditional sketchbook with some great benefits.  It should be mentioned that the ability to zoom is missing from iDraft, an omission that I've noticed on a few occasions.

Pros

• Grouping of project sketches with notebook sharing as a PDF
• Differing width based on speed for a somewhat realistic feel
• Simple and intuitive UI
• No photo importing

Cons

• No ability to zoom
• Limited color choices for brushes

Adobe Ideas - Free

One of the first apps I downloaded for my iPad was Adobe Ideas (iTunes link).  This is a great app if you use Photoshop, Illustrator, or any other app in Adobe's Creative Suite line.  Sketching out quick ideas is easy and the app tries to "correct" or straighten out your lines.  One big appeal of this app is the ability to export and mail the sketch as a PDF that retains the vector imagery for further development in Photoshop, Illustrator, or your vector app of choice.

As with any drawing app worth it's salt, you can choose pen colors and erase lines so that goes without saying.  One nice, added feature is the ability to zoom into the drawing or zoom out to reveal more drawing space. 

Pros

• Vector drawings that can be tweaked in other full-blown apps
• Photo importing
• Layers (minimal)

Cons

• The "auto-correcting" can get annoying if you're not used to it.
• While Ideas has the ability to do layers, there are only two. A few more would be nice.

Brushes - $7.99

Last, but not least on my list of sketchbook fighters is Brushes (iTunes link).  I bought this app for my iPhone and found it fun, but also a bit frustrating due to the small screen size.  With the iPad, I decided to give it another shot and have grown to enjoy the experience more and more. 

With a robust toolset of multiple brush types and sizes to great zoom and detail control, Brushes is more geared toward creating an artwork vs sketching out a layout but you never know what an might grow into.

Pros

• If you want to create a great work of art, this is your app. I guess that's a pro, right?
• Great variety of brushes and tools allow you to push the limits of this app and your imagination.
• Ability to import photos.
• Zoom in and out to make fine, detailed adjustments

Cons

• Bitmapped final image

The winner?

What kind of a shootout would this be if there wasn’t a winner declared?  Truth be told, I can’t pick just one app, they’re all great and excel in different areas.  Some shootout this turned out to be.  More like a love-fest.

I'm guessing that most of you have a wallpaper or desktop image on your computer.  They let us express ourselves and customize what would be an otherwise bland experience.  If you have a custom desktop image for your brand, there's no doubt that you'd like it to say more and do more than show off your logo.   Below are some examples of how you can use your desktop image as a tool as well as a decoration.

Make a date with a calendar.

If you're like me, your always looking for a calendar to see what the date is or working to estimate a timeframe for a project.  Adding a calendar to your desktop is a great way to help with that.

There are a few ways to add add dates to your desktop.  There are software add-ons that will dynamically update the calendar to he current month and can also highlight the current day.  These add-ons come in many flavors, so you're bound to find one that works for you.

• Windows
• Mac OS X
• Linux

If you're looking for a more customized look, you can add your own static calendar to your wallpaper.  The only drawback is you'll need to swap the imaged out every month, but you can craft the calendar to match any look you choose (like your branding perhaps?).  Check out some examples.

To-do list or project board.

Another great way to benefit from your desktop image is to create compartments that can hold folders, apps, or whatever you need to help you with a project.

Taking this to the next, crazy step would be to develop something like Panic did for their project board.  You could call it desktop image-ishe-sque, or you could just call it hardcore. 

Create a mini-portfolio or a featured work board.

You've just designed an amazing Website and branding solution for a client and can't wait to show it off and generate more business.  Why not create a scene, on your desktop, and make your recent projects the highlight?

By displaying your work on your desktop, you can quickly and easily give an example of what you can do to help an organization reach their goals. 

I've even gone as far as posting projects that are in-progress to my desktop for critique and examination.  One of the best ways to decide if a solution works is to see if you can live with it.

Add a QR code.

A new technology that is slowly crawling into mainstream view is the QR code.  Simply put, a QR code is a barcode that many mobile phones are able to read and decipher using a variety of apps.  When the code is scanned, it can redirect someone to a web page, twitter profile, a SMS message, email address, or other forms of digital content.

In a recent project for Escape Route, I incorporated a QR code into iPad and iphone wallpaper images.  Now when the client is at a convention or trade show, they can display their iPad and let a prospective customer capture the code for later use.  In this case, it will direct someone to the Escape Route site. Think of it as a business card on steroids.

I'll be the first to admit that QR code use in the United States is just in it's infancy and there's no telling how long it will take to catch on, but it's a great way to add some cutting edge tech into long-standing piece of static imagery.

Aside from the presentation on Wednesday, I was also looking forward to seeing what new product Apple would release at their media event.  If all of the rumors were to be trusted, we could expect a tablet computer that could cure all disease, save the world from destruction, and would allow for easy integration into our digital lifestyles.  What we got was something else entirely.

I want to get this out of the way before I go any further.  Contrary to popular belief, I don't own every Apple product ever made.  I don't have the Apple logo tattoo.  I don't have a shrine to Steve Jobs in my basement.  I do like the occasional shot of apple-flavored Kool-Aid, but only because I find it refreshing and delicious.  While it may seem to some that I'm an Apple fanboy, I'm not.  I've come to that realization over the past year, noting many areas that I'd like to see Apple improve not only their products, but some of their practices.  That being said, the idea of an Apple tablet computer didn't interest me at all.  Until yesterday.

I have yet to watch the full video from the presentation.  Wednesday night was the earliest opportunity I had to dig into the details a bit more and talk to a few people to get their impressions of the new device.

After a spirited Twitter conversation, and reading reviews and thoughts of the iPad, I had written the device off for my own use.  Apps are limited to those found in Apple's App Store (as opposed to being able to freely install anything I'd feel like installing on a typical computer), no Web-cam, no multitasking, no replacement value for any device I already own.  I didn't need it.  It was too restrictive.  I didn't have this and it doesn't do that.

I quickly found my feelings for the device changing.  Between some more conversation in the hallway at work and listening to other thoughts on the device, my interest is turning around.  I also stopped focusing on what the iPad couldn't do and turned to what it can do.  While it still doesn't replace anything that I have or fit into any area of my life that isn't already covered by an iPhone or laptop, I can think of many people who's lives it does fit into.

• The Traveler - With a screen that's larger than a smartphone as well as many GPS units on the market, this may be a perfect device to take with you in the car or on a hike.  Not only can you find your way with it, but you'll be able to entertain yourself and others along the way.
• The Educator (and the Student) - There will be a time in the future when paper books will no longer exist.  I'm not going to venture a guess as to when this will happen, but we've already seen the beginning with the Kindle and Nook.  Take that a step further with a device like the iPad.  Teachers can have their plans and itineraries on them while their students can use them as text and workbooks.  When working in groups, the tablet style is much more inviting than that of a laptop, making conversation and technological tools great partners rather than awkward neighbors.
• The Businessperson - Right after my hallway chat, I found myself needing to print out a booklet for an afternoon meeting.  With a device like the iPad, that could go away.  Relying on email and the built-in PDF reading capability, countless reams of paper could be saved.  Drawing from the earlier student "group-work" example, I have a feeling a tablet device would be received better in a meeting environment than say, a smartphone or laptop.  I've tried using a laptop in face-to-face meetings before.  The key word there is <i>tried</i>.  Not only was it an awkward experience for all parties involved, I felt like I was alienating a person that I wanted to share ideas with, simply because of the monitor that was propped up in between us.  Imagine running an app like Bump on an iPad during a meeting, and quickly exchanging information in an interactive way.
• The Doctor - Saw this one coming a mile away, didn't you.  Monitor patient information as well as get any other type of info you'd need on something that's slim and relatively lightweight.
• Families - One minute it's a digital photo/movie frame, the next minute you can pick it up and take it with you to read the latest news or share photos with family members.

All that being said, I'm excited to see where this device goes, and who takes it to new heights, whether it be developers or consumers.  Regardless of the vehicle, I can see many paths that the iPad can take, and most of them point upward.