10 inch smart phone (Amazon Fire HD)

Surface Pro 7. Works nicely for shooting. Works ok with Stitch, but I’m thinking a mouse will improve with speed. Will try and let you know.

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Just wondering if you know you can use an iPhone as a hot spot? I paid for a hot spot for 2 years before I realized I had one on my phone.

Surface Pro 7. Works nicely for shooting. Works ok with Stitch, but I’m thinking a mouse will improve with speed. Will try and let you know.

I don’t have the patience for touchpad vs using a mouse. I’m so much more efficient with a mouse. I went as far as buying a laptop stand for my car to do editing – with a small extension to be able to use a mouse. One of the Windows Surface devices sounds ideal for this sort of work.

It’s very simple. Have you checked Apple’s support site?

Hi Kimberly and welcome to the forum. I like to use my phone as a hotspot when I’m somewhere like a restaurant or a hotel. I avoid public WiFi especially if I’m using passwords or credit cards. Then I only use my phone as a hotspot.

I only use my phone to create iGuides and it works fine. Honestly, I don’t know of any reason to get a large screen. I understand you can adjust your scans in the Survey app? I’ve never done it, normally I just use stitch to make sure everything is good.

Can anyone who uses a larger screen (iPad, Surface Pro, etc.) convince me as to why I would invest in a tablet as opposed to just using my phone?

I can’t think of a reason why anyone would want to spend time “convincing” you. The short answer is: do what works for you.

For me, the benefit of using a 12.9" iPad Pro is that it makes my onsite time easier, faster, and more convenient.

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I thought this was a place to gain help & learn from others, that’s why I assumed people would want to spend their time convincing me to get a tablet.

Maybe I worded it wrong, but what I’m looking for is (obviously) why other people would use a tablet as opposed to a phone, in case there are features I’m not yet using or taking advantage of being that I don’t use a tablet.

Thanks for your comment.

Personally, for me it’s the ease of fixing a scan that flys off into the black nothingness. Sometimes it’s easier to line up manually on a bigger screen because the snap feature doesn’t always snap to the right place. So while I’m at the house, I’d rather get the scan in the correct position while I’m there instead of trying to remember how I placed my iGuide and references in that room to line it all up.

I also feel it looks more professional using a tablet with it than using my phone. There’s a certain stigma with cellphones that some people don’t understand that my phone is a part of my toolbelt with my gear. This is just my personal experience with sellers/Realtors I’ve worked with.

Thanks Evan! Appreciate the comment. Is it just as easy to fix a scan in Survey on an iPad as it is to fix it on stitch?

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For me I find it’s a lot easier to adjust on my survey scan while in the home. After doing 2-3 shoots in a day, I can’t always remember which way I had my iGuide in a room if it’s off. The little arrow on the dots from each scan show which way your iGuide was facing forward. The tip of the arrow is the front of your iGuide. The back of your iGuide is where your power button/usb are. ( Sorry if you know this already, just explaining for those who don’t already know this :slight_smile: )

Some scans don’t always show the walls of a room too well if there’s a lot of clutter/shelves etc making wavy lines. That’s where I leave my iGuide in place before I move on to the next scan. I then can at least align the scan as close as possible based on the direction the arrow is pointing in my scan. Hope that makes sense? Worst case scenario… I hold my iGuide and tripod up to the ceiling and do a scan above everything to get a better scan of the room and just hide that scan later in stitch.

Awesome. Thank you so much for the tips. I never thought about holding the tripod up to avoid clutter, that’s smart. Shot a home once with a bunk bed and it totally screwed my scan up, in the end it was fine, just annoying.

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I think the reasons why many of us prefer using a tablet instead of a phone are already covered in this thread. In general, like I said in my previous comment, using an iPad makes my onsite time easier, faster, and more convenient. You see more of what you’re doing with less scrolling, pinching, zooming out, and more easily on a larger screen.

This is not unlike many people, myself included, find that using multiple monitors versus a single monitor or laptop screen makes us more productive, especially with larger monitors.

Is it just as easy to fix a scan in Survey on an iPad as it is to fix it on stitch?

In my workflow, I rough in the scans onsite and do the final, precise adjustments later in Stitch. On long days of shooting multiple properties it helps to have things close to done onsite.

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Thanks Leroy, appreciate the comment.

You’re welcome. If you can, borrow a tablet and see how it works for you.

If I can help it, I don’t shoot using my phone anymore. A tablet on a lanyard keeps my hands free for moving the camera and tripod and opening doors and closets. Occasionally I’ve done so many shoots in one day that my iPad battery has died by the end and I’ve had to use my phone to finish. Though that works just fine, I feel hamstrung.

I got the idea when I had to do a shoot in a hoarders house… Thankfully everything wasn’t up to the ceiling as I went through lol. Plus it gives me the piece of mind that I don’t have to go back and redo a scan :slight_smile: