Most of the ipad reviews I have seen in our industry space have focused on this question – is the sleek new ipad a tool for real estate professionals, or a toy?
Since that question has been posed, I thought I would begin a series of iPad reviews by providing my opinion on the subject. Before we delve in, let me answer the immediate question a number of members have asked.
Q. Will the ipad work on the MLS?
A. No – not yet, not perfectly. Don’t despair, however, read on for a more complete answer – it gets better!
Now, let me weigh in on the device itself. Future posts will review more in depth.
Cost – ~$800: I was ‘out the door’ for $670 for the 64 gb version. Another $50 on the excellent Belkin rubberized bump sleeve to protect it from falls, and I am now spending money on apps. Budget for at least $100 on apps, and your total startup cost is around $800.
Unboxing: Getting started with the ipad is a snap. I was adding apps in about 3 minutes from sitting down with the wrapped package. The ipad ships with the device itself, a standard ‘idevice’ USB power brick (works for ipod/iphone as well, feel free to charge those devices from the brick), and a standard idevice USB connection cable (same cable as ipod/iphone, feel free to interchange).’
The good news there is that a fully charged ipad will give you a solid 8-10 hours of fairly continual use, depending on what you are doing. That is truly amazing. I am generally able to start using it in the am, use it heavily throughout the day, and then just set it to charge overnight.
One flaw to the ‘universal’ charging/cable situation. Unlike the ipod/iphone, the ipad cannot be properly charged from most computers. With the ipod/iphone, you can just plug the USB cable into a desktop or laptop and you are charging. With the ipad, you really need to use the power brick.
There is a decent ‘unboxing’ video here.
The reported problems: Some early critiques of the ipad have included:
- High glare from the glossy screen
- poor wifi reception
- expensive apps
- tough to type
- missing hardware
- missing software
High glare - This just in, if you stare at the sun you will go blind (please don’t test that). Sorry, but this critique seems really to be more a fact of life than a critique. The screen looks like gorgeous crystal. Of course it reflects light. So I have to disagree with this one. Sure, if you hold it at the right (wrong) angle outdoors in full sun, you can probably start a campfire if you wait a bit. But in practical use, indoors and out, i have never had really bad experiences with glare. I used the device for 6 hours on a cross country flight above the clouds, from the window seat, and had no issues. The iphone/ipod had the same challenge, and the matte surface screen protectors work great if it really bothers you in daily use.
Poor wifi – Here again I must disagree. The word was that the placement of the wifi adapter behind the metallic apple logo was causing poor connectivity. My experience with connecting to wifi has been very positive. I have not tested range of connection on a wide variety of wifi hotspots, but on my home wifi, at the CCAR offices, and on the mifi mobile hotspot adapter I have tested, I have good and immediate connectivity from very reasonable distances. Throughput, or the speed of data transfer is not phenomenal, but not bad.
From what i have read, there does seem to be a real issue here for some users, but it sounds as though Apple has been trying to address them quietly in the background. Believe it or not, according to an official Apple knowledge base post, having the LED screen of the ipad on ‘dim’ screen brightness settings can cause wifi interference. If that is true, i am not concerned, because i like the screen bright, LED’s last a long time, and the battery still lasts 10 hours on full brightness. Apple states they will address any outstanding issues with a software update.
Expensive apps - I have to agree here. Whereas apps for the iphone and ipod were typically .99-1.99 apiece, most ipad apps are between 4.99 and 9.99. Many are over 10 dollars. Still, this is understandable, as a good ipad app is not simply a ‘big’ version of the ipod/iphone apps. The much larger screen is allowing for a range of options in creating the app interface that were simply not possible on the smaller screens of the ipod/iphone. Pinching, stretching, and a whole host of other ‘gesture’ based interactions with the device present a new world of possibilities on this beautiful surface.
Also, the ‘lite’ version of apps are often still applicable, so you can try before you buy, or sometimes even just enjoy the free ‘lite’ trial long term. Finally, and related to the first point, the apps I buy are just better. Sure, I take more time to review before I buy; no more ‘well, it is just 99c impulse buys. But that just means that I am buying less garbage apps that were made just to snag my 99c. I would much rather pay $5.99 for a quality app that will get more robust over time, and therefore get used, than pay 99 cents apiece for 6 ’shovelware’ apps that were just shoveled together to make a quick buck.
Tough to type – For the most part I have to disagree with this critique as well. I am a pretty solid touch typist. I can do a solid 80 words a minute, and productivity at a keyboard is a big part of my day. So I think I am a good test case here.
For my part, I find the keyboard overlay fairly convenient. The word recognition and learning are quite sophisticated. True, it cannot compete with the genuine keyboard experience just yet, but I actually enjoy typing on the ipad for most uses. NOTE: this only applies when sitting in a good position with the ipad supported on your lap, or at a desk using the right type of stand. Laying flat on a surface, or at odd angles, the onscreen keyboard puts you back into a ‘hunt and peck’ mentality. Is it a real typing experience? Almost, but not quite. Still, this post was entirely written on the ipad. It probably took me an extra 35% of the time it would have taken on a pc. As a mobile blogging tool alone, with all the other perks aside, it is worth the price of admission for me.
Missing hardware - I was honestly shocked when I saw the first production ipad reviews. There is no integrated camera, and no USB ports. I think this is a bit annoying and limiting. First, the camera. One of the things that I saw Apple doing with the ipad was creating a drop dead simple video chat built in tool. Instead, they have apparently relegated this to third party app developers (requiring you to buy a bluetooth connected external camera).
This may be just a ploy, and future hardware versions of the ipad will likely include an integrated camera. Video chat is a great tool to connect people over distances, but on a pc it is a bit annoying. Most chat engines (yahoo IM, Gmail chat) have video chat software, but it is hardly ’simple.’ When technology is difficult to use, it doesn’t get used. This has been Apples forte; take an existing technology and make it perfect – feng shui for technology. I was really hoping the ipad would address this. Even the still camera only hardware of the original iphones would have been better than nothing.
As for no USB ports… again, this feels like a bit of a ploy to force a new round of device creation and purchase. USB is a wildly successful standard with broad adoption. Why force users to buy a new round of wireless devices if they don’t want to?
Also, a kensington lock mount would be nice… There are times when I would want to be able to lock the device to a table during event registrations, etc. I personally love the ipad so much, I would wear it as a necklace, if there was a decent way to support the device (but with apples typical smooth stylings, there is simply nothing to grab on to).
Missing software – No Flash??? Are you kidding me? Forgive me while I rant for a moment. Apple/Steve Jobs, please stop forcing your technology morals on users. Enable Flash now. Give me a toggle on my settings page just like the one for airplane mode to turn flash on and off.
For those of you who don’t know the full story, you can read a sanitized, somewhat revisionist history of it here on Apples website. Apple’s logic falls short for me. Yes, flash is a cpu hog (and therefore a battery drain), but it makes up for it in the most elegant use of bandwidth around. And frankly we are all suffering under the strain that the idevice revolution is placing on AT&T’s network, and the internet in general. A little efficiency there might be a nice thing. At the end of the day, if you follow Apples own logic, the worst case scenario of enabling flash for users of idevices is that the end users experience might suffer – not the platform, not the network, the user experience. So give me the choice. If flash sites and flash enabled apps don’t work well for me, I likely won’t use them.
I am looking forward to watching the Android based devices challenge this logic. Android based smartphones are starting to make a convincing case that they are in some ways superior to the iphone. The HTC Droid Incredible is a good example. Up next are ipad like competitors running Android, unencumbered by the Apple politics on this issue. If the end user experience is as rich as I expect, then Apple may have to follow suit.
So, is it a tool, or a toy?
The simple beauty of the device may elevate it to the level of ‘tool’ if used properly. Listings look great shown on an ipad, period. Similarly, the amazing variety of niche ways to take advantage of the device; as an email client, as a notepad, as a movie player, as an artpad (and on and on), may elevate it to a real estate ‘tool’ for some.
But to understand the real answer to the tool/toy question, we need to recognize that while we are asking the right question, we are doing so at the wrong time.
The reality is simple; while the ipad is a beautiful, incredibly intuitive device, the toy vs tool question does not really depend on the device. We need to see what a new generation of surface apps will look and feel like, and what may be in store with the new ‘i-OS.’ Access to an exploding variety of apps is what made the ipod/iphone less a device than ‘a lifestyle.’ The same will be true of the ipad. At the time of this writing, there are only a few apps that i would say are a must have. In a few months, that number will grow by a factor of ten. And then again in a year.
By spring of next year, I suspect I will crave at least 100 very solid applications. Probably a dozen of these will be directly related to real estate, and another 2 dozen will augment the real estate experience (imagine, for example, a drop dead simple paint/drawing app to let you import a listing photo and quickly change paint schemes, furniture layouts, etc.). Note: read reviews before purchasing apps! There is still a lot of ’shovel-ware,’ apps shoveled together to get a quick buck.
Real Estate Applications:
Very briefly, if you are hoping to convert to the ipad exclusively on the go (no laptop, no stops at a desktop computer), prepare to be frustrated. If I was buying and selling real estate, I would probably allocate ~$1200 to hardware… $400 for a ‘netbook’ laptop, and $800 for an 64gb ipad with about $100 in apps.
The netbook would be for logging into the MLS and other core real estate applications on the road, at least until they catch up and offer a robust mobile experience. The ipad would be for receiving emails with the results of my netbook searching; data (stats for example), and links to listings, etc. It would also of course be the ‘go to’ way to view virtually any type of visual information, especially with a client. But for now, it may not be the best way to gather that info.
For example, our current MLS platform cannot be viewed properly using the ipad. Not even close. Late this year we will upgrade that experience, but after testing it myself, the system is not quite right yet, and may not be ipad perfected when the platform goes live. This market, the advanced mobile experience, is still a niche, and optimization and bug fixes for that niche will likely be addressed after the core desktop/laptop experience.
Purchasing tips:
UPDATED 6/1/10 10:27am: Asus announces new Android based competitor in early 2011, the eeePad.
Consider waiting. As competition in this space increases, costs will come down. Hopefully we will see some of that late this year. Certainly by next year. Similarly, you will likely get more bang for your buck in 9-12 months when ipad v2 is released, hopefully addressing some of the hardware issues. Finally, hopefully software will also adapt and improve.
What we are starting to see is the appearance of a whole new niche of robust mobile devices. They are creating a demand for a ‘lite’ version of applications like the MLS. I am not talking about the common approach which is to offer a simple, cell phone optimized search. I am talking about a genuine MLS experience made for devices like the ipad, whether we are talking about an ‘app’ in the apple store, or just a browser based search.
If you absolutely have to have it, feel good about it, because it is an amazing experience. Don’t buy the 3G version, buy a mifi instead. A number of real estate practitioners will want the ability to connect on the go, and the ipad data enabled version certainly allows for that. But given the cost of the data plan, you should strongly consider getting a ‘mifi’ device from Sprint or Verizon instead. This will enable you, and 5-10 other users to connect just as seamlessly. It has the added advantage of servicing your or other users laptops on the go, not just the ipad. True, you then need two decices, but the sleek little ‘mifi’ devices fit anywhere, keep a 4 hour working charge, and are simple to use.
Get the 64gb version (or larger when available), if you are going to use the device, you will want it. Apple does a phenomenal job updating its software (the devices operation system) and firmware (the devices basic hardware level programming). But they cannot remote upgrade your hardware. Apps are growing larger and richer every day. Trust me, you will want the space.
Now that we have done a brief introduction to the ipad, future posts will focus on detailed practical uses for real estate, configuration tips, must have apps, and more.
