It is ironic that the technology writer who once said that the iPad is good for only two things is now offering a top 20 list for the same device. To be fair to Jason Hiner of Tech Republic he did add note taking to his first two uses, reading/viewing and multitouch interaction. So now that Hiner is offering a top 20 list we may assume that he has found many more uses for the iPad–or has he? If you look closely at Hiner’s list you will find that many of the apps fit into one of his first three use categories but he has unwittingly or unknowingly added a fourth and perhaps even a fifth category–organization and learning.
Apps like Flipboard, Kindle, Documents to Go, Pulse, Skygrid, Propublica, NPR, Guardian Eyewitness, Big Picture, Weather Channel, Netflix, WeatherChannel and NASA all fit into the reading or viewing category. Most of these apps are recognized as some of the best news, news aggregator or media apps in the Apps store. Since I have almost all of these Apps on my own iPad I can confirm his assessment. In addition, most of these apps fully utilize the iPad’s multituouch interface and when you add the the editing apps, iA Writer and Penultimate Hiner’s usage categories may initially appear to be complete.
But Hiner has included Evernote, which is by far the best organizational tool that can be found on any computer, smartphone, and tablet and Things which is arguably one of the best To Do list tools available so he has added something new to his category list. While these two applications do fully utilize the multitouch interface and allow one to view what they need, these apps do much more–they help one stay organized and make life much more efficient. I have often referred to Evernote as my external brain because it enables me to store and access so much more information than humanly possible and it functions as my external or augmented intelligence. Because, Evernote helps me to make so many more meaningful connections within the data than what I could do on my own, I also put this app into the learning category. This is not the only app in Hiner’s list that falls into this category.
The Rosetta Stone is clearly a learning app because it enables one to take advantage of the very popular language software that was originally confined to a computer. Mobile learning is perhaps one of the most powerful functions that the iPad supports because it can be used to help us learn all the time and everywhere. Whether one is using the Rosetta Stone app or augmenting one’s intelligence with Evernote the iPad is a useful tool that helps us make meaningful connections which is the foundation of learning. The iPad is also an powerful learning tool because its ease of use and efficiency enable the user to focus on what they want to do as opposed to the technology. For many years I have been predicting that technology will eventually mature to the point where it disappears and we then focus purely on the task at hand–we are finally getting to that point.
