1. One use will be to transfer documents from our iMac to the iPad so they can be edited when away from home. On returning home, they'll go back to the iMac.
Is the actual transferring process going to be a pain?
Asssuming you use iCloud there is really no transferring
per. se. you simply store the documents in iCloud and access them from your Mac or your iPad.
Many documents will be MS Office so I assume I'll just be converting them to Pages and back to Office. Yes? No?
Unless Microsoft elects to write a version Office for iOS — which should
happen right after Satan has to buy a pair of snowshoes — the answer is
YES2. When we travel we will want GPS. We like the idea of buying an actual GPS device that could talk to the iPad via Bluetooth.
I have traveled often on trips covering thousands of miles and the GPS built into the iPad has always been far more than adequate. The only time it ever lost the satellite was in a mile long tunnel, but then no GPS would work under those conditions. Secondly I suspect the GPS/Map apps available for the iPad would have to be substantially rewritten to recognize an external GPS unit.
The only accommodation I make for using either my iPhone or iPad GPS in the car is to keep it plugged into the car's power outlet. The GPS does use a lot of battery power to operate — but that is true of stand alone GPS units as well. Generally I have the GPS displaying the map and providing turn-by-turn voice guidance while simultaneously playing an audio book. I have the iPad paired with the bluetooth connection to my car radio so both the audio book and voice guidance audio comes through the speaker system of the car and not through the iPad's more anemic speakers. As a side benefit input from my GPS app halts the audio book playback momentarily so I don't miss anything from either unit. I could attach the iPad/iPhone to my car's sound system via USB, but for no particular reason I have aways chosen to use Bluetooth.
Does that require buying a particular version of iPad?
AFIK an iPad is an iPad the only difference being whether or not it can connect via both WiFi and the data network or only via WiFi.
Personal opinion: I have a MacBook Air and it has not left the house since I got my iPad. The iPad is lighter, smaller, easier to carry, and I can do almost everything on my iPad that I can do on my iMac.
Note that is
almost everything. There are a few lesser used functions in one or two apps that have corresponding apps on my iMac. So far it has never proven to be a shortcoming.
[b]Personal opinion 2:{/b} If you are going to be doing a lot of documents on the iPad take a look at one of the wireless keyboards for the iPad. There are several out there from Adesso, Targus, Logitech,
etc. I have the Zagg keyboard with backlight and I find it very useful. My wife has smaller hands than mine and she finds the on-screen keyboard more than adequate.