# iPad for College - yea or nay? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 24, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipad-for-college-yea-or-nay/544360 "2010-06-24T14:59:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipad-for-college-yea-or-nay/544360/21 "2010-06-25T02:10:35Z")
You could also get a [Digimemo](http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2659034&CatId=140). It uses standard letter sized paper, but it’s got sensors to track writing and records everything you write. Plus you have the paper copy. But you can’t surf the net on it. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipad-for-college-yea-or-nay/544360/22 "2010-06-25T03:17:17Z")
I’m thinking that the iPad would be good for carrying around PDFs of textbooks, not for taking more than very small notes. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipad-for-college-yea-or-nay/544360/23 "2010-06-25T13:24:30Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I’m testing out an iPad and really can’t see it having much practical use. The textbooks might be useful, but you’d probably be better off with a Kindle or other reader: they’re better for reading books – lighter, less glare, and cost less. > > I wouldn’t use the iPad for entering any data – the touchpad keyboard is about the slowest input device since the [dial typewriter.](http://staff.xu.edu/polt/typewriters/dial.jpg) By the time you enter anything as class notes, you’ve lost the gist of it. Also, it’d be madness to try to type a paper on it. I don’t know how long you have been testing, but my wife has gotten amazingly fast on her iPad since getting it in April. She won’t let me use it that much, but I find typing to be very different than a physical keyboard, but am learning the differences and am getting better. The main thing it to learn to keep your fingers off the home keys (against what we were taught in high school). ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2010, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipad-for-college-yea-or-nay/544360/24 "2010-06-26T05:48:35Z")
I have to agree. I haven’t done much typing on the iPad, but even with the little I’ve done I’ve gotten quite a bit better. I’d guess that my typing speed is maybe half of what it is on a regular keyboard, but I’ll bet with practice I can get it to 80% or so. That’s plenty good enough for taking notes in a class. Or, you could simple use something like Adobe Sketchbook and a pogo stylus, and write our your notes using the ipad like paper. Then you can capture drawings and all. Later, export them and OCR them if you want text notes, or just organize them by date and use your iPad as your notebook. Finally, Dragon gives away a free speech-to-text application that has very good recognition. I’ve tried using it with the iPad microphone as well as through my car bluetooth speaker phone, and it transcribed my voice into text with really high accuracy. You don’t want to use that in the library, but it might be useful for studying at home - talk to yourself while studying when you want to capture some specific information in your notes. It’s a whole new way of note-taking. When studying a text, when you get to a critical piece of information, just start reading aloud. Then you’ve got a set of printed notes to study from. And for that application, who cares if the odd word is wrong? If you’ve already got an iPad, I’d suggest giving that a try as an experiment, and see how well it works. The Dragon app is free. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2010, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipad-for-college-yea-or-nay/544360/25 "2010-06-26T06:49:18Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > Next semester I’ll be seeing math. Math, math and more math. Since it’s mostly math, I suppose a laptop won’t be as helpful in taking notes as just plain old pen and paper. I’m leaning towards using the iPad for quick reference/to follow along in the texbook along side paper and pen to take notes. In that case you might want to consider a convertible Windows tablet like the HPtx2500 which comes with an active digitizer and stylus. Great for taking notes using One Note or similar software. Plus it comes attached with a keyboard and can be used as a regular Windows laptop. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipad-for-college-yea-or-nay/544360/26 "2010-06-26T21:00:55Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > ios4 is not true multitasking anyway. Only certain things can run in the background, not all apps. I don’t want to hijack this thread, but will add this [link](http://db.tidbits.com/article/11378) because it is a great explanation of iOS 4 multitasking for the non-technical. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2010, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipad-for-college-yea-or-nay/544360/27 "2010-06-26T23:45:54Z")
> [@jasg](#): > > I don’t want to hijack this thread, but will add this [link](http://db.tidbits.com/article/11378) because it is a great explanation of iOS 4 multitasking for the non-technical. So it works just like the original MacOS. Yay. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipad-for-college-yea-or-nay/544360/28 "2010-06-27T01:05:00Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > So it works just like the original MacOS. Yay. Not really. But, you already knew that, didn’t you? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipad-for-college-yea-or-nay/544360.md?page=1)