One thing I noticed while attending this year’s VMworld in San Francisco was how many people attending the event had iPads. Actually, it was the hottest item being given away by almost all the vendors in attendance at the show. I was lucky enough to get one of the iPads that EMC was giving away. I recently heard that the iPad is the hottest selling tech item in history so far. During VMworld I got a chance to see the VMware iPad application to control your virtual environment and was really impressed. I really think the iPad might have a chance to become the tool of choice for the IT admins to monitor and administrate their environment. I am hoping that by VMworld 2011 we will be seeing a lot more client applications written and ported to the iPad and/or other mobile devices.
I have had my iPad for a little while and the ease of use I have with this device is absolutely amazing. I have had to travel to do a couple of presentations and it was so much easier to pull out the iPad, instead of the laptop, on the plane and review my slides for my presentation. No pulling out the laptop and waiting for it to load as well as watching the clock for how long my laptop battery will last. I was able to get what I needed done on the iPad and still had plenty of battery life left for the rest of the day.
I am not sure about anyone else but my laptop is pretty beefy and pretty heavy to carry around everywhere and the thought of not needing to carry it around everywhere I go may still be a dream but the hope is alive and the direction of technology seems to be pointing in this direction. Now that I have added the Bluetooth keyboard with the iPad the limitation of the device for day to day computer needs has shrunk dramatically. All my most basic needs are answered. I have the ability to check email, surf the web as well as have an application to handle word processing, spreadsheets and PowerPoint. The only thing missing is client applications to control the virtualization technology I need to administer and that application is on the way.
I have to admit when I first heard about the iPad I thought it would be a really fun toy, but the more I saw how it was being used for just about everything, I really got excited about the future of this device.
I was also one of the lucky ones to receive “The Golden Ticket” to win one of the Emotiv EPOC Headset. I do not have anything to report on this yet since it has yet to arrive but did get an email that it should be here by the end of October.