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Traveling with an iPad: The (big) downside | New York to Nomad
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Traveling with an iPad: The (big) downside

Posted by on September 7, 2011
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My laundry list of to-do’s for the less than two weeks I have at home ranges from the fun (Target shopping: yay!) to the tiring (laborious Rosetta Stone Spanish lessons) to the downright frustrating, including getting our iPad RTW travel-ready.

We had debated between getting a netbook and an iPad, but ultimately went with the iPad because Eaman had enough American Express points to get it virtually for free. Plus, with my hen-peck typing tendencies, the lack of a real keyboard wasn’t really an issue. Plus, iPads are so pretty! There are, however, some downsides, like the lack of a proper backup method.

See, with this trip, we’re going to have roughly 302,292,988,287,651,002 photos and the thought of keeping them all only on each of our 16GB SD cards is more frightening than contracting Dengue fever…almost.

As some of you may know, the iPad doesn’t have a USB port or an SD card slot, so in order to get your photos straight from your camera to your iPad, you have to buy Apple’s Camera Connector Kit. (It’s an Apple world, and we’re just living in it.) With the kit comes two different connectors: One lets you transfer photos via SD card, the other via the camera’s USB connector cable.

Oh, but surely you can connect an external hard drive or, at least, some empty USBs to that USB connector to back up, right? Unfortunately, no. The iPad may recognizes an audio USB here and there, but, in general, most non-camera USBs don’t work. No USB port, no CD drive, no proper Facebook app…I’m beginning to think the iPad is good for just one thing.

I ventured to my local Apple store yesterday to confirm the USB glitch, and ’tis true. As for other options? They’re phasing out MobileMe, so we’re left with Flickr, Picasa or an online storage tool like Dropbox. Since the Apple “Genius” was less than helpful, I did my own Google search and this article seemed to be the best in breaking down the facts. But it’s still not crystal clear.

Does anyone in the blogosphere have any recs? Clueless girl would love to know.

–Archana

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4 Responses to Traveling with an iPad: The (big) downside

  1. Christina Lara

    Get the MacBook Air!!!

  2. Tony

    We’re still browsing for the right computer to get for our trip in January, but the ipad did tempt me for awhile. I think the lack of a keypad is swaying me to get a sturdy travel laptop and combine it with a small external drive and then a dropbox subscription. Gotta have backups of our backups!

    PS I got rosetta stone 2 yrs ago when we moved to miami and even though our trip is around the corner… I still haven’t gotten past unit 1! It’s so boring!!!

    • Eaman & Archana

      The keyboard thing can be such a drag with an iPad. My hen-pecking is finally useful though! And I totally agree about the Rosetta Stone but I think it’s finally clicking for me, since our trip is so soon (a little more than a week away). I’m actually going to do a post on that soon!

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