So a few weeks of fun with your brand new iPad have worn off and now that the new sparkle has somewhat worn off you’ve started thinking, “So what exactly am I supposed to be using this for again?” Or maybe you haven’t bought one yet because you still can’t quite see how it fits into your everyday routine. No worries! That’s why you have the experts at M/C/C helping with all of your marketing needs Let’s take a look at that “revolutionary” piece of hardware and dive into how some of the application developers are making it easier for marketers to take advantage of the iPad’s capabilities and features outside of just “wowing” a few presentation attendees.
1. QuickOffice HD 
– While Apple’s iWorks may have stolen the spotlight at the iPad unveiling, it’s also been regarded as one of the most disappointing software packages available for the iPad. We’d recommend saving yourself a few bucks and headaches and skip over the iWorks suite and just go for QuickOffice HD. Unlike iWorks, it’s fully compatible with Microsoft’s Office suite and offers direct integration and support for popular cloud storage platforms such as DropBox and Box.net. In addition, you can wirelessly share documents through your wireless network as well as organize files through an intuitive folder tree option rather than Pages’ one folder approach to organization. If you’re looking to edit marketing plans or releases on the go, but don’t want to deal with the hassle of pulling out and setting up your laptop in the airport lobby, this is a great option.
Another option you’ll find in the App Store is DocsToGo from DataViz, which will also bring support for PowerPoint (the developers from QuickOffice have said PowerPoint is coming in a future update); however, DataViz was just purchased by RIM so future support for non-BlackBerry platforms is still up in the air.
2. iAnnotate PDF – Word and spreadhseets are all good and fine, but in marketing we often have to deal with another file type: PDFs. If you’re really only reading PDFs and not editing or using any mark-up features, then save yourself some money and just go with GoodReader. For everyone else, turn to iAnnotate PDF. This is the ultimate PDF mark-up tool. With a full suite of editing capabilities and tools as well as a fully customizable layout for toolbars, this is a mobile user’s dream. In addition, you can quickly and easily send the edited PDFs to people through one of its many sharing options.
Also, you can import PDFs from multiple places on the iPad (without having to plug the iPad into your computer and transfer files through iTunes’ cumbersome file transfer feature) including email, file manager systems including our number 3 pick FileBrowser, cloud storage options like DropBox or using iAnnotate’s integrated Web browser to pull PDFs from the Web.
3. FileBrowser – The iPad may be magical, but like the iPhone, its file management and file structure . Luckily, FileBrowser offers a bit of assistance with this. Essentially, FileBrowser brings Windows Explorer or Mac Finder to your iPad and allows you to access, copy and stream a wide variety of file formats to and from your iPad. This works over wireless networks to remote computers or through Network (NAS) drives. You can copy the files straight to your iPad or actually open straight into an editing app like QuickOffice HD or iAnnotate. What sets FileBrowser apart from the other remote browsing apps is its ability to leverage your iPad’s surprisingly decent VPN capabilities to access files from a remote drive. Essentially, you can still access your corporate network files from anywhere via your iPad so you can quickly and easily reference a proposal or a release in a meeting, on a conference call or sitting at Starbucks.
In addition, you can actually stream video and audio files from remote computers or NAS drives on your home network such as a home media server. This is all instant and doesn’t require any kind of downloading to your iPad, which is great if you bought a 16Gb and don’t want to clutter it up with marketing videos or 12MB PhotosShop files.
4. Analytics HD – Analytics was featured in our iPhone write-up and now its big brother is featured in the iPad write-up. There’s still no other app that comes to close to matching Analytics’ in-depth Google Analytics reporting. With every aspect of marketing being influenced by website analytics these days, regardless of your specific marketing field, if you’re running Google Analytics you should have this app. There’s nothing better than being in a meeting and being able to immediately reference the most recent site statistics for how many visitors you drove to the site with the latest e-mail blast or which keywords users are using to find your site. Heck, even if you’re not running Google Analytics, it might be worth considering switching over to it just to be able to use this app – it’s that good.
5. DropBox – This one also made the app list for the iPhone, but it’s back in a big way on the iPad. While little has changed in terms of functionality, DropBox’s open API has made its integration with other third-party apps a must- have for the iPad to be considered a true productivity device. No one wants to deal with Apple’s crippling wired syncing and file transfers through iTunes and DropBox makes it so you don’t have to. In addition, users are finding all kinds of ways to leverage the power of DropBox to make their iPad work for them and marketers are no exception.
Believe it or not, iPad note-taking apps are pretty limited. They either are too limiting in formatting and functionality (Evernote, I’m looking at you) or they only allow you to export to PDF or JPG which renders the notes useless for many who were hoping to incorporate them into Word or PowerPoint documents. As a result, I’ve actually started creating “Notes” folders in my DropBox and creating notes inside of QuickOffice HD. Leveraging the DropBox integration, I can easily save the notes into DropBox and they are automatically synced with my laptop, desktop and home machine for quick and easy use with my document editor of choice. In addition, I use the “Share” feature in DropBox to provide every member of my team with access to the folder so they have a copy right away. I don’t even have to be back from the meeting before they are already working on the next steps.
Been using an app that you think is perfect for marketers but didn’t make the list? Let us know in the comments.