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Published: January 15, 2011

The iPad is the perfect business device that facilitates all business related activities and with its small form factor is easy to hold, use and carry. The latest tablet computer from Apple is giving laptops and notebook computers a run for their money. With quick connectivity and apps that extend its potential and capabilities, it proves its worth to everyone who invests in it. It has a superbly long lasting battery, making it convenient to use anywhere without having to recharge it frequently. Apple claims that it can last up to ten hours but actual users have seen it continue for over eleven hours.

The iPad functions like a dashboard, a whiteboard and a briefcase all combined. It is a novel device and the first of its kind that blends the convenience of a mobile phone with the functionality of a laptop. It helps to have numerous apps that make the iPad the perfect companion for work and personal tasks. Some of these apps facilitate business much more effectively than others. These include:

iWorke Suite

iWorke Suite is a set of three programs from Apple that meet all kinds of office requirements. iWorke Suite is one of Apple’s best selling applications, easy and productive for all business needs. The three programs that have been put together to make iWorke Suite include Pages- meant for word processing, Numbers- helps to make graphs and charts and Keynote is needed for making presentations.

WebEx

WebEx is a great app that allows business people to attend online meetings from wherever they are and get simultaneous access to audio and data information, besides active participation. WebEx can be used even without an account. It provides a full screen view of the meeting along with free Voice conferencing through VoIP. Users even get the call back request facility so that they can communicate more effectively. They can view documents and other content from any computer.

Instapaper Pro

This is an excellent iPad app meant for saving online documents so that they can be used for reading offline. This proves to be an effective method of keeping in touch with latest updates and information through blog posts or white papers. The app helps to download the document in a text format for good readability on the iPad screen. Its latest version 2.2.6 allows the integration of Address Book that facilitates emailing. The app also allows creation of folders to organize the articles that are constantly downloaded, eases article sharing, and adjustment of controls for better viewing.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a backup application for synchronizing files on multiple computers and enables remote file access and file sharing with other users. It facilitates PDF file and document reading. Dropbox allows checking of contents at any time, uploading of files, videos and photos. It also eases sharing of links. Dropbox permits documents to be transferred to native iPad applications like Pages and Keynote.  About 2GB of file storage on the cloud comes with Dropbox with no charge.

Square

Square is the latest “killer” app for the iPad to be approved by Apple. It converts the small, lightweight and slim iPad into a money accepting machine since it helps small business owners accept credit card payments. Square comes with a card reader that can be plugged in to the iPad. In some cases all that is needed is punching the credit card number for the payment to be accepted.

While there are hundreds of apps available, these five apps listed above are the ones that make the iPad a complete business device that can handle all business needs.

This is a guest post from one of the readers of Philippine Almanac.