It's no secret that I believe the iPad is an excellent business tool.  It's amazingly mobile thanks to a combination of Wi-Fi and 3G+, portable size and stellar battery life.  Unfortunately, like all new technology, it's not perfect.  Here are four areas that may frustrate business users.

1 - Fingerprints

You've probably heard (or seen) this already - iPad screens show fingerprints.  In fact, depending on the way you look at the screen, an iPad with only a small amount of use can look awful.  It's mostly a cosmetic issue for personal use, but for business users cleanliness is critical when customers are around.  Handing a greasy screened iPad to a customer or colleague is akin to a dirty glass at a fine restaurant.

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TTB Top Tip: Clean your iPad screen regularly through the day. Keep microfiber cloth close by and give the screen a wipe before handing the device to a customer.

2 - No multitasking

Business users do multiple things at the same time.  On a Mac or PC, the average person has multiple windows open and switches back and forth according to the task at hand.  However, with an iPad you can only run one app at the time.  For example, you need to completely leave the document you may be working on to search the internet for the data you need. Tasks across apps take longer, but more importantly the entry and exit disturbs just enough to break a productivity rhythm.

It should be mentioned that Apple has announced a new version of the iPad operating system (available this fall) that will enable multitasking. Highly anticipated!

3 - No printing

Although quantities have reduced over the past decade, most business users still need to print.  Whether it's an invoice, receipt or memo, printing happens.  Problem is that iPads cannot print.  In order to print you need to send the document or file to a full PC or Mac and print it from there.  Currently there is no way around this one.

4 - No external drive support

Many business users rely on memory sticks and external hard drives to transport data. Unfortunately none of these can be directly connected to an iPad.  Fortunately, there are simple ways around this including sending the files to the iPad wirelessly (by email for example).  It's also a good reason to use an internet based data storage system (in the cloud).

How about you and your business?  What frustrates you about the iPad?  Join the conversation by adding a comment below.