When I first got an iPad, I was so enthused that I put together an earlier version of this page “One logician’s iPad” (in July 2010), with some perhaps over-blown thoughts about more work-orientated uses for my new toy. Now, over six months on (February 2011), I am still much enthused, but my iPad-use has settled down into a more limited pattern. Still, some things it does quite brilliantly. This page is about what still works for me. (Note: I plan to keep this page a personal one rather than attempt a more comprehensive overview: but I’ll very happily put up links to other iPad-for-work pages, or to reviews of other potentially useful apps. Just let me know!)
The iPad is, of course, an absolute delight for “sofa surfing” — sitting back and browsing the web, catching up with online newspapers, watching the BBC iPlayer, answering a few emails, and the like.
But I do use the iPad quite a bit for work purposes too. That’s mainly because the experience of reading PDFs on the iPad beats reading on a laptop screen (even a lovely new-version Macbook Air screen). It is, presumably, something to do with the difference between being separated have a screen at a slight distance, a keyboard between you, and holding it rather like a conventional book, “turning” its pages with a physical gesture, etc. It’s difficult to say exactly why this should make such a difference, but I know that many agree (and a bit of early research found that readers rate the experience of reading on an iPad and reading a printed book much on a par, and both way ahead of reading on a computer screen — so it isn’t just me). If I’ve a lot a reading to do, I certainly make sure that I’ve got it available on the iPad if possible. So what do I use for reading and note-taking?
The ‘must have’ application for any philosophical Mac-user has for a while surely been Papers (I’ve known people convert to a Mac just to be able to use this). If you don’t know it, think of it as an iTunes manager for all the PDFs you’ve downloaded from Jstor and the like. It isn’t perfect and a version 2 has now been promised for a rather alarmingly long time: but it is still terrific. And there’s an iPad app that syncs seamlessly with your Mac (either your whole library, or a selected portion) so you can read papers on the go. You can also pin notes to particular locations, and highlight passages (at least in properly generated PDFs); these new features need some tidying. But Papers is just indispensible. (Yes, yes, I do know about the Mendeley project, but I find Papers much nicer.)
One current snag with Papers is that it natively knows just about papers, not about PDF books (well you can import PDF books, but you have to cheat with the metadata) But no matter: iBooks does now download PDF books as well as books in the ePub format. And unlike some of the PDF readers available for the iPad, iBooks seems rock solid even on very long documents; and it gives a very nice reading experience. (Goodreader is also a solid PDF reader which can be recommended: but, since iBooks was enhanced, that has migrated to my last page of apps which I find I’m no longer using.)
If you do want to annotate PDFs and find Papers too limited, then iAnnotate seems very good as far as I’ve played with it (and it has been recommended by others). But I don’t find annotating by more than a bit of highlighting very useful and I prefer to write notes separately. So I use Evernote for notes and clippings on both the Mac and the iPad (more seamless integration, of course). Another “must have” app.
You must know about Dropbox? Keep your current work projects (or symbolic links to them) in the Dropbox folder on your computer — Mac, Linux or Windows — and the current contents sync to “the cloud” so that you can access them over the web. There’s a nice iPad version, so you can read your current workfiles on the go. (I also keep a library of ebooks linked into my 10 GB Dropbox, and can thus access them on an as-needed basic from the iPad without importing them into iBooks via iTunes. Magical!)
Not just for work of course, but a fancier browser than Safari. Atomic Web is not quite as pretty perhaps, but it has proper tabbed browsing, which can be particularly useful in serious academic surfing. There are also other enhancements compared with the iPad’s default browser. This has been very well reviewed, seems rock solid, and is dirt cheap.
Another app not just for work, but useful when browsing any sort of site where there is a lot of text you want to read, but which perhaps comes wrapped up with distracting sidebars. Instapaper (not just on the iPad but as an addition your computer’s browser bookmark toolbar) let’s you save stuff you want to read later in a clean, low noise, format. Another classic, if you don’t already know it.
Finally, something I do use a fair amount but I’m not sure I would want to recommend in the way I recommend all of the above. Things is a ‘To Do’ manager for the Mac, implemented in a very elegant Apple-like way. Unlike other such programs, it is beautifully clean and simple, which means that I actually do use it. There is a corresponding iPad app which syncs with the Mac, and is equally clean and elegant. But it is limited (though that is fine for me). And I got the Mac version when in beta, signing up pre-release for a cheap deal: it is now, however, very surprisingly expensive. There are no doubt cheaper (and better?) alternatives.
And that’s it, I think, as far as the basic work-related apps I actually still use in a regular way. A pretty minimal collection, but then why try to make a thing whose essence is sheer simplicity of operation into something complicated?
So over to you: comments? recommendations? suggestions?
I must again say that I’m ever so happy with iAnnotate — though I’m praying for better integration with Papers. (The file naming systems incorporated into each clash which leads to annoying import/export issues.) One they get that fixed, I’ll be a very happy man.
Everyone knows about it, but Pages is also really good, and it’s probably a must have for many, since many will want a word processor for quick, on the fly, document creation.
I’ve not tried out Keynote “in the wild” yet, but some of the uses are really cool.
Keynote is handy. I’m a student and have used it to browse PPT’s made by professors. It tends to complain about a few fonts, but everything works well enough.
I randomly downloaded some slides a website and glanced over them the other day while waiting for a meeting, and they looked good. I like grabbing slides online when I need a quick intro or refresher on a topic to justify deeper analysis (slides and Wikipedia).
Never use Pages, but I have it. Thanks for the TeX editor tip, but it doesn’t look a bit like my right-hand man, vi. I think I’ll edit on my real computer.
I also vote for iAnnotate. I use it with Zotero (www.zotero.org) the open source software rival to papers, mentioned above.
I have roughly 3500 PDF files, organised through Zotero, and downloaded onto my iPad using the wifi server that comes with iAnnotate (a separate programme for mac or pc that you download and install – much better than trying to do file transfer using apple’s appalling file management through iTunes approach).
I use iPad to read and annotate – highlight, draw, text, bookmark, etc – and then upload it again via the wifi server to my computer. You can set the server so that it automatically replaces the original pdf file with your iAnnotated one. And you can set it so that it syncs perfectly with the Zotero file management system. Brilliant!
I am sort of shocked to not see the inclusion of any of Hatzic Intellectual Software’s apps, which include Logic 100, Logic 101, Syllogism, and Doublets. The first three are designed to aid a course using Bergmann’s Logic Book, but could be used by anyone interested in an on-the-fly way to check an argument’s validity. If you’re interested, the software is over at http://www.hatzicware.com. Also, they have a nice series of equipment called the Logician’s Toolkit that does all sorts of neat things, like constructing truth tables and derivations or checking syntax and consistency/validity. Definitely a neat set of tools.
In the meantime, I’ll hold off on the iPad until a nice Android tablet hits the market (some are out there already!). Froyo (Android 2.2 OS) will bring Flash support, so all of the Logician’s Toolkit will work without needing an app. Also, a lot of the programs mentioned above have Android counterparts, so if you’re an Android user, don’t feel too left out! =]
My favorite application right now for \LaTeX (as a beginning TeXer) is called Detexify. I’m not sure if it’s available on the iPhone/iTouch/iPad, but it is for Android. One simply just draws the symbol they want to know the input for (so, you can draw an infinity sign), then hits “Show LaTeX Symbol” and it’ll output the code for the symbol they’d like (e.g. \infty). It’s turned out to be quite useful!
Thanks so much for this very useful post, Peter. I’m just in the middle of my first bit of academic writing since the invention of web 2.0, and upgrading my toolkit accordingly. Your post is very helpful, especially since I see you share my love of Evernote; perhaps I need to write a “10 ways for academics to use Evernote” to go with my “10 ways to use Evernote” for journalists (http://bit.ly/10jnote).
I’m curious to hear how you integrated iAnnotate, Papers and Evernote..or what you use for what. (And does Zotero fit in there anywhere?) Like you I find it awfully handy to keep PDFs in Evernote but I wouldn’t have thought of using it to look at PDFs on the iPad. And GoodReader, which I like for doc reading on the iPAd and esp b/c it’s so easy to move a folder full of PDFs over wifi using its built-in file manager, doesn’t allow me to annotate. But I’m worried that iAnnotate is just going to create one more site for my notes…and wouldn’t I rather have those annotations in Zotero or Evernote or (as you now make me wonder) Papers? I’d love your advice.
I wish I had more to offer in the way of must-use iPad apps but I actually use mine primarily for the “sofa surfing” you describe; if I’m using it for work it’s bc I’m away from wifi (or worse yet, separated from my macbook) or because I want to read on document on one screen (the iPad) while writing something on another (the macbook). If you are a Twitter user (I think not?) then I do recommend HootSuite’s client for the iPAd; I’ve also been trying out a whole bunch of Google Reader-enabled iPad RSS readers but nothing that really rocks my world.
Great to discover your blog and if you ARE on Twitter please say hi (@awsamuel) so I can follow you and keep track of your further discoveries.
I’ve recently finalised a similar setup myself. I’d been reading a lot of PDFs of journal articles on my small Kindle, and knew that I could do with a bigger screen. Upgrading to an iPad meant I could link things together much more smoothly. It’s great to know annotations and citations are persistent and retrievable, provided I take a few simple steps at the beginning. And great to be able to annotate in colour!