How many of you use your iPads as much or more than Tim Cook? Find out!

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

Apple's CEO, Tim Cook says he does 80% of his work on his iPad, and that means 80% of running one of the most valuable companies on earth. You've got to imagine that includes handling his mail, likely his calendar, and probably a lot of information reading, including a lot a numbers. How much of the rest is on his iPhone vs. his Mac is interesting to ponder, but the bottom like is he gets not only most of his daily work done on iPad. So we asked the question — how much can you? — and here are your answers!

Turns out, as of publication time, almost a third of you can do as much — or more! — than Apple's CEO. Here's the breakdown:

8% can do 100% of their work with their iPad, 20% can do 80%, 23% can do 50%, 29% can do 25%, and 21% can't do any.

Dozens of you took the time to add your comments as well, and the diversity of responses was intriguing. Many of you would love to use your iPads for more but either your work's policies, or the software and services used, won't allow it.

I could do more on my iPad but the web based case management database administered by the state I work for is optimized for IE 6 if that tells you anything. Some functions work on desk top Chrome or Safari but not well. I do use my iPad in the field or in court to look up case info when I need it and greatly lighten my load that I have to carry.

Some of you have gone all in, replacing dead PCs with iPads and becoming incredibly productive in the process.

My old outdated PC finally went blank last winter, January or February, and I've used my iPhone and iPad only since. For getting things done, it's the iPad with the Zagg Keys Cover keyboard for me. Love them both.

Others still want giant-sized screens and multiple windows all open at once, making the iPad more for casual time than work time.

For me to do "work" at work on the computer requires many excel spread sheets open at once and an additional 2-3 pieces of instrument/analysis software; spread across two 27" monitors. In addition I always have Outlook, a browser, and something else open as well. Full windowed multitasking is absolutely required. The iPad is useless for me to do work.

Go check out all the replies and then let me know — what would it take to make the iPad an 80%-er for you?

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.

14 Comments
  • Well, my work consists of managing virtualized Citrix servers/troubleshooting/building servers/deploying apps and obviously all THIS cannot be done on iPad. My iPad is used for - 1) Emails
    2) Surfing the internet
    3) Youtube
    4) Editing/Managing photos
    5) Facetime
    6) iMessage
    7) Reading books
    8) Games
    9) Scanning documents
    10) Sometimes attend meetings through Cisco app I do love my 1st gen iPad mini and will buy 3rd gen iPad mini in December this year! Sent from the iMore App
  • Unless it can do 100%, then it's a poor choice for work. Obviously I could do some things for work with an ipad but even those things would be done poorly and just wouldn't fly. Jobs said this about Netbooks: "They're slow, they have low quality displays and they run clunky old PC software. They're not better than a laptop at anything, they're just cheaper: they're just cheap laptops. We don't think they're a third category device, but we think we've got something that is, and we'd like to show it to you today for the first time. And we call it, the iPad," he said. I think of tablets the same way for work purposes. Not better than a laptop at anything. I'm guessing more mainstream users are coming to the same conclusion as tablets sales have declined and PC's have picked up again. I think of an ipad as more of a peripheral for a computer. But capable of replacing a computer for those with simple needs.
  • PC sales did not pick up again.. only APPLE PC sales picked up..
  • http://m.thestar.com/#/article/business/tech_news/2014/07/24/pc_sales_re... Fwiw, I meant macs too when I said PCs.
  • Sometimes I'll wake up my iMac and it opens to something I was doing like 5 days ago. And I'll realize I haven't touched my Mac all week. Sent from the iMore App
  • I'm finding that my iPad is perfect to replace anything I used to use a notebook for. Surfing, playing music, light document crap, that kind of thing. I value having a nice desktop and a huge screen over having a nice notebook - always have - and as such, having an iPad lets me have something that does exactly what I need without the hassle of the half burned out battery and limited software support of an old crappy lappy. Farewell ball and chain! Now things just work.
  • There are many times when I use my iPads 100% but I can say I do more than 95% of my work on them! the iPad2 and iPad3. The only work I still do on my desktop are major photo editing sessions and video editing sessions.
  • I don't use a computer at work, but at home, I use my iPad for almost everything computer related.
    My PC is now almost exclusively used to stream movies from Netflix and HBO. For gaming, surfing the web, writing on forums and making music on, I now use only my iPad.
  • In my experience, the higher up a person is in a company the less applications they use. The CEO at the company I work for has M$ Office on his PC, thats it. I could imagine him being able to work completely off an iPad, no problem.
  • Actually, I do 80% of my work in my iPad. The other 20% is to write large documents in my MacBook, but my iPad / iPhone has become my portable office to do researches, scan documents and even I sign documents with them and keep my documents in the cloud. I run my daily operations virtually paperless thanks to IOS. Sent from the iMore App
  • I design powerplants and refineries so no tablet or laptop can substitute the desktop used at the office with 2-4 monitors.
  • nah, wait. Theres gotta be an app for this, too :o :D
  • Love my iPad Air!!!! Sent from the iMore App
  • Interesting, thank you for posting the results. I use my iPad Mini retina a lot like Tim Cook, and, I use it in conjunction with my workstation.