I had some PC friends as they left the church service today just shook their heads with disgust. Not only have I switched from PCs to Macs but I am quickly becoming zealous. After all, if you are going to do something then be obsessive about it, right? My friends were shaking their heads in disgust because not only have I purchased an ipad, but I was actually preaching from it. So this is a quick blog entry for anyone out there who gives presentations and is considering using an ipad for that purpose.
Out of the box it quickly connects with a wi-fi source and everything (just about) has to be done through itunes wirelessly. So in order to get my word documents from my Macbook Pro to the Ipad I had to set up a Drop Box account (online data storage) and pull it down when I need it. The drawback is that you can not edit it, only view it. But it automatically resizes the document to fit the screen and you can do some fine adjustment with your fingers on the screen. So today it worked really well. There are other apps available — Evernote, for example. But after looking around I like Dropbox the best. Also, you can not store Word documents on it (as far as I can tell), so you have to have internet access at the location where you will give your presentation. This is becoming less and less of an issue as time goes by.
My immediate issue is that after about 2-3 minutes of me talking (and not touching it) it cut off. This is nerve wracking for a presenter (or preacher) who is heavily dependent upon notes, only to lose them. No amount of touching the screen will turn it back on. You have to touch the “on” button and go through the process of opening it up again. This happened three times while I was preaching. So this week I will see if there are any apps (like Caffeine), that will keep it awake.
I also have seen some nice looking ipad “pulpits.” But instead of spending the $600-800, I am going to attempt to make one myself.
9-7-10
I have discovered on the “settings” and under general you can set the power down time to “never.” this should deal with the lost notes mentioned earlier.
Patrick says
You go Pastor…
Picked up my iPad last Sunday after church and will be using it to teach from this Sunday…
And I will probably get the looks and comments also. I am using a music stand as a pulpit… We will see how it goes…
Bless you sir…
Patrick Wellins
Senior Teaching Pastor
FHL Christian Fellowship
Drew Boswell says
Thanks Patrick, aren't music stands wonderful, especially when hey need to be tightened! God bless you my brother.
Chad says
I have been preaching from my iPad for a couple of months now. Do yourself a favor and buy the Pages app. With it you can easily use your finger to navigate through your notes as you preach. If you use pages on your computer you can just email yourself your notes and they open on your iPad with no trouble. It is well worth the 9.99!
Steve says
If you "fav" a document in dropbox, it will download it to your iPad and store it locally… eliminating the need to have wifi so long as you planned ahead!