Introduction This is the second part in a multipart series1 about using an iPad to do information gathering and processing. In the first part, I focused on using iCab as a web browser. While iCab is an excellent general purpose browser, there are some other tools I rely on for specific tasks. This post describes those applications and their strengths.
Dictionary That's right, a dictionary is still one of my primary reference sources.
Safari on iOS is my preferred browser. I use it every day. It's fast and perfectly fits 90% of what I need to do. However, when I am doing actual research (gathering links, copying text, jumping between tabs) it's a little too thin. I prefer iCab($1.99).
This review will be given in the context of how I actually use iCab. This is not intended to be a complete review of the application.
There's a lot of speculation about the Apple TV display. I think there will eventually be one but I also think there are greater opportunities for Apple. A computer display with built-in Airplay would help to transform iOS into a full fledged computing platform. But the display must be paired with a changes in iOS mirroring.
I agree with Viticci's assessment of the iOS-ification1 of OS X. But there is one feature missing from iOS that will prevent it from ever being effective with an external display: a cursor.
I've been noodling away on a review of Twitter clients for the iPad, but Viticci did a great job. Read his instead.
Clark seems to like the official client. For me, I've stopped using the official client because I no longer trust Twitter's design sense. I've been using TweetCaster Pro on the iPad for basic twitter use. I like the simple conversation and attachment view. On the iPhone I use Tweetbot.
WritePad is probably the definitive handwriting recognition app for iOS. It’s been updated to version 6. It’s a very capable note taking app. WritePad supports Dropbox syncing and Google Docs access. There is also support for Spanish and French recognition (in app purchase) as well as a user dictionary and shorthand support. There’s really no training necessary although it does allow some minor tweaks to how recognition is performed.
There’s a good round of discussion about the appropriate way to implement a mute switch. Gruber favors the current design. Andy doesn’t.
I agree with Gruber on this one. According to Andy’s design, I would have to go in and manually disable all audible alerts in the settings every time I wanted to use an alarm. Otherwise, the damn phone would be dinging every few minutes from incoming email. Yes, I have audible email alerts.
I typically shy away from standard project management tools and mantras. I think most of it is a bunch of marketing gimmicks to sell software and seminars. However, I do get significant value from a WBS (Work Breakdown Structure). A WBS is kind of like a todo list for a large project. A WBS can be as simple as a list of tasks or it can include assignments, timelines, predecessor task assignments, etc.
The Escapers (makers of Flux, Stuf and more) have an interesting new task management service called Instruktion. Or maybe it's called "New York Minute", it's not clear to me. It is cross platform and the apps are free. It requires a $20/year membership which sounds like a good price.
It looks very nice on all of the application platforms and works offline too. I'm an OmniFocus user but I'll keep an eye on how this evolves.
My previous look at a beer inventory system focused on Bento. In this overview, I’ll explain my experiences while using Apple’s Numbers for the same purpose.
Using the Mac Numbers already stands out as the best general spreadsheet application on any platform. But this is not a Numbers review. How does it work as an inventory application?
Not surprisingly, it works like a spreadsheet. That’s not necessarily bad. The Numbers interface is nice.
It’s the golden age of plain text editors. While Microsoft Word is bloated like a victim in a scene from Se7en, the geekier writers are moving to plain text en masse. One of the advantages of this golden age is that there are terrific apps like Elements[1] and Nebulous Notes[1] for editing plain text on iOS. Not only are these apps powerhouses as text editors, but they were built to integrate with Dropbox.
