How difficult is it to do presentations on the iPad 2?

[ManBearPig]

My sisters a physician and needs to be able to do PowerPoint presentations...would this be very difficult? I told her for typing shit up like reports it's definitely wise to get the add-on keyboard since touchscreens are generally a pita to type long things on (I had an iPad 1 and have an iPhone 4).

Thanks!

 

[ubercaffeinated]

she'd have to use keynote to make and display the presentations. keynote is apple's slide presentation program available for both the ipad and for macs. i can't imagine her creating the presentation on the ipad itself - she'd probably need to do it on a actual computer first, and then transfer it over to the ipad keynote program.

she could make presentations on powerpoint first, and then transfer it over and have keynote on the ipad to display it - however, conversions don't always work properly, so i'd stick to keynote for everything.

 

[Eug]

A few colleagues have used their iPads for presentations. They don't anymore cuz it's a PITA.

They have to carry around their laptop anyway to do real work, and it's better for Keynote editing, so why waste the effort carrying around the iPad then in that context?

 

[Oric]

Compatibility with power point 2007/2010 sucks, although i find ipad to be very succesful in other aspects, microsoft can still sabotage other office programs

 

[runawayprisoner]

In terms of typing long stuffs, I don't think she'll run into anything like that with a presentation, so a bluetooth keyboard might be an unnecessary purchase.

In terms of actually presenting something, it depends. There are PowerPoint viewers on the iPad that can do fairly simple stuffs. But as noted, compatibility is pretty much... inadequate.

It's much better if she created the presentation right on the iPad itself, and not elsewhere. It might be a steep learning curve again if she had a hard time learning PowerPoint, but I think that if she can spare the time, it'll be an awesome tool for her.

I use mine to present images of projects I'm working on, or to propose planning and projections. Being able to zoom directly on the right spot, being able to connect to VGA, DVI or HDMI, and being able to control and see what my audience is seeing right in my hand is really important to me. Tried that with an iPhone, didn't work out really well because I always ended up staring too long at the tiny screen, and that's not good in a presentation.

 

[Eug]

Keynote is extremely easy to use. Not much of a learning curve.

HOWEVER, I still use PowerPoint much of the time these days for compatibility reasons.

In 2011, the iPad still isn't really a productivity tool. In fact, IMO the best productivity toolset for most situations even on Mac OS X laptops is Office, not iWork.