Greetings folks:
Not exactly part of the mainstream discussions, but I am curious if anyone out there has bought an Ipad, and managed to integrate it into their information management workflow? I find the tablet formfactor quite intriguing, and have tried out the Ipad a couple of times in Apple stores.

As I have mentioned before, I have a large number of PDF files that are integral to my work.(Back off ma'am, I'm a scientist.). I currently keep them on my work PC, but would love to be able to load them up into something like Evernote, and have them available whenever I want. It would keep me from killing as many trees as I do, and make the information that I want immediately accessible. I have even gotten the okay from the family CFO(that would be my wife)to lay out the money for an Ipad. We are coming remarkably close to the day of universal computing, I am just not sure that the Ipad is it.

I am just not sure about the Ipad. I am no Apple basher. I currently own and love a Macbook as my only home computer.(Due to the fact that I am at a scientifc meeting I am, however, writing this on my work PC, a Lenovo Thinkpad T61. A reasonable laptop.)I have followed the Ipad saga for some time, and have been quite interested in the idea. But there is something that makes me hold back. It may be the fact that the machine has been touted as an entertainment device. It may be that I don't think I could type very well on it. I don't see it as necessary, but it sure could be helpful.

Anyone else out there feeling of two minds about this machine?

Jim

Jim

You may find this thread on the Literature and Latte forum interesting, especially druid's comments:
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=7588

H

I think it's intriguing that OmniOutliner will be released for the iPad any day now.

-- Chris

Jim wrote:

As I have mentioned
before, I have a large number of PDF files that are integral to my work.(Back off ma'am,
I'm a scientist.). I currently keep them on my work PC, but would love to be able to load
them up into something like Evernote, and have them available whenever I want. It
would keep me from killing as many trees as I do, and make the information that I want
immediately accessible. I have even gotten the okay from the family CFO(that would be
my wife)to lay out the money for an Ipad. We are coming remarkably close to the day of
universal computing, I am just not sure that the Ipad is it.

I have an iPad which is WiFi only and I'm a scientist. I'm finding this device to be extremely handy. Though I don't use it much, the Evernote app is quite good. The real strength of this device is the browser which is really excellent. It doesn't support Flash but I really don't miss it much and I'd much rather do without it than have the device freeze twice a week. If any of your data is in the cloud, the chances are good you'll find this device is a good way to access it. The Dropbox app is pretty good as well. I also recommend the Instapaper app which allows you to save web pages for offline reading. Its indispensable, especially if you don't spring for the 3G version.

What sold me on this device was when I went to the web and pulled up a pdf of one of my reprints in the store. When the screen is in portrait mode, the entire page is visible and though the type is a little small its quite readable. No more panning around, leaving the text to find figures on a page. The experience is a lot like reading the manuscript on paper. The eBook apps from Apply, Barnes and Noble and Amazon are all quite good though I must confess that I'm a science fiction/fantasy fan and haven't looked at any textbooks.

It may be the fact that the machine has been touted as an
entertainment device. It may be that I don't think I could type very well on it. I don't
see it as necessary, but it sure could be helpful.

You are correct. It is not necessary but it is helpful. It isn't an entertainment device. Its a device primarily for consumption of information. Its also good for email, short notes and maybe a short essay or something. When you find a lot of criticisms of the device, its usually from people who expected it to be a laptop replacement. This is a mistake. You aren't going to want to try to write a paper or, heaven forbid, a grant on this thing.

Having said that, my Apple wireless bluetooth keyboard is very light weight and pretty small as keyboards go. It hooks up to the iPad and works beautifully.

Bottom line, I'm glad I bought it and I'm happy with it.

Tom S.

why do you mention you are scientist?

does your "scientific job" entails so much browsing that you find ipad useful? in my case, browsing (for research papers) takes usually 10-20 minutes, and then i spend a good week reading the download paper (math).

Tom S. wrote:

I have an iPad which is WiFi only and I'm a scientist. I'm finding
this device to be extremely handy. Though I don't use it much, the Evernote app is quite
good. The real strength of this device is the browser which is really excellent. It ...

quant wrote:

why do you mention you are scientist?

does your "scientific job" entails so much
browsing that you find ipad useful? in my case, browsing (for research papers) takes
usually 10-20 minutes, and then i spend a good week reading the download paper
(math).

I mentioned it because Jim did. But, as you point out, there are special problems associated with the profession. You spend the rest of your week reading a paper that I would contend is more easily read on this device. That means it could be particularly useful to you.

Tom S.

To answer quant; no I have no interest in browsing on the Ipad. I use a browser on my PC at work to do searches through Pubmed because that is where I have access to most of the journals that I read. As things go now, I might search for anywhere from a few minutes if I am looking for something specific, say a single paper, to longer if I am looking to try to find a large amount of literature. The papers that I find I usually download as PDF files. These I then store on my computer and print out to read.
What I would like to do is to be able to copy the PDF files over to a reader like the Ipad so that I can carry them with me, read them, and annotate them. This way I would have the papers that I need to read and refer to handy without carrying around a lot of paper. I currently have about 1600 PDF files on my computer. Of these there is a core that I refer to frequently. Some are references that I have used for papers that I have written, some are references for proposals that I have written. I don't need to carry around all of these, but I would like to carry around the ones that I am trying to get through on a current basis. It would keep the amount of paper that I carry with me from place to place much smaller, hoperully my bag would be lighter, and my desk would be neater as well.

Jim

that's exactly what I already do, on Samsung Q1 Ultra with combination of pdf-xchange viewer/archivarius/UR where X61 tablet would be too big to use/carry around. The clear advantage of using Q1 over say ebook reader or ipad is full operating system, the same I use on X61, so that I can run the same apps with same setting etc ...

Jim wrote:

To answer quant; no I have no interest in browsing on the Ipad. I use a browser on my PC at
work to do searches through Pubmed because that is where I have access to most of the
journals that I read. As things go now, I might search for anywhere from a few minutes if
I am looking for something specific, say a single paper, to longer if I am looking to try
to find a large amount of literature. The papers that I find I usually download as PDF
files. These I then store on my computer and print out to read.
What I would like to do is
to be able to copy the PDF files over to a reader like the Ipad so that I can carry them with
me, read them, and annotate them. This way I would have the papers that I need to read and
refer to handy without carrying around a lot of paper. I currently have about 1600 PDF
files on my computer. Of these there is a core that I refer to frequently. Some are
references that I have used for papers that I have written, some are references for
proposals that I have written. I don't need to carry around all of these, but I would
like to carry around the ones that I am trying to get through on a current basis. It would
keep the amount of paper that I carry with me from place to place much smaller,
hoperully my bag would be lighter, and my desk would be neater as well.

Jim

Jim wrote:

What I would like to do is
to be able to copy the PDF files over to a reader like the Ipad so that I can carry them with
me, read them, and annotate them. This way I would have the papers that I need to read and
refer to handy without carrying around a lot of paper. I currently have about 1600 PDF
files on my computer. Of these there is a core that I refer to frequently. Some are
references that I have used for papers that I have written, some are references for
proposals that I have written. I don't need to carry around all of these, but I would
like to carry around the ones that I am trying to get through on a current basis. It would
keep the amount of paper that I carry with me from place to place much smaller,
hoperully my bag would be lighter, and my desk would be neater as well.

Jim

Jim,

Have you considered Dropbox? You could have access to your PDF files on your PC and a device like the iPad, and Dropbox will keep them in sync.

--Ken

Jim wrote:

Greetings folks:
Not exactly part of the mainstream discussions, but I am curious if
anyone out there has bought an Ipad, and managed to integrate it into their
information management workflow? I find the tablet formfactor quite intriguing,
and have tried out the Ipad a couple of times in Apple stores.
As I have mentioned
before, I have a large number of PDF files that are integral to my work.

Now that some time has passed since this discussion, has any of you managed to come up with a satisfactory workflow involving a tablet (iPad or any other tablet) for the reading and annotating of PDFs (especially books and scientific journal articles)? There is obviously a lot of buzz right now about tablets and I'm wondering if anyone has managed to come up with an interesting workflow that involves the synchronisation of PDF files between a PC and a tablet, reading and annotating PDFs and possibly taking notes outside of the PDFs as well.

I have heard of people syncing their Macs with iPad using PadSynch, then using GoodReader to read and annotate, as well as using a stylus with Penultimate to take handwritten notes (though I imagine one can't yet do both at the same time, as the last I heard iPad couldn't do multitasking). I have around 1600 PDF files (mostly journal articles around 20-30 pages, but also some books with 100s of pages) and I have been dreaming of being able to at least read and annotate them on a tablet and synch them back with the desktop PC.

I have considered Kindle DX but apparently it's still very cumbersome. So far I haven't heard of any decent Android PDF annotating software. I did try GoodReader on my iPod Touch and I was very impressed, so iPad could be a good candidate, if it can indeed handle 1600 files (4-5 GB). The other interesting option is the new Dell Inspiron Duo (a hybrid netbook/tablet) that runs Windows 7, which of course could do everything I wanted it to do, but I'm reluctant to do the plunge until I actually see one and am convinced that the tablet mode can handle PDF reading and annotation. I've seen that some other pretty good looking Windows 7 tablets are coming out in the next few months, but some of these will cost multiples of what the iPad costs.

Anyway, I would be curious to know if anyone has managed to crack this and has been using a tablet for reading and annotating PDFs as part of their regular work. It seems to me that many of these tablets are positioned as consumer electronics, and generally very little thought seems to go into productivity software for business professionals and the education market.

doctorandus

Just to clarify what I mean by workflow in this context, here is what I do currently (using a PC). I open EndNote (referencing software), which is a database that has links to each PDF. I open the PDF in PDF-Xchange Viewer and read, highlight text, and annotate by adding the notes within PDF-Xchange. I also have Whizfolders Organizer open and with the "Watching Clipboard" function enabled, so every time I copy any text in the PDF, it is automatically pasted into a Whizfolders topic or as a new Whizfolders topic. So I use Whizfolders to collect quotations basically and also to construct a summary of the article, which then can be worked into an outline etc. I also use Allway Sync to synchronise my annotated PDFs (and everything else really) between my main PC and other PCs, a laptop and a netbook. Occasionally I also use my iPod Touch to read PDFs (and as of yesterday to annotate with GoodReader), but really just at bedtime or while waiting somewhere. It's too small for serious work.

Originally I thought that I could use my Asus netbook as the platform for reading and working with the PDFs comfortably in an armchair or on a sofa but the screen is just too small and the notebook computer format is not really suitable to read something for hours or pretty much all day in my case.

doctorandus

In this article http://davidhewson.com/2011/01/07/can-you-really-revise-a-book-on-your-ipad/#more-6685 the author David Hewson semi-recommends PDF Expert for his purposes. And waiting for the iPad 2, which is I think what I'll do!

It has been some time since I started this thread, and I have not taken the leap into the tablet world. However, I do have one update. The company for which I work is beginning to institute an "open space" policy. By that they mean that a subset of the people in the company will not have assigned desks. This means that they will also have no place to store things like the PDFs I mentioned earlier. Those who are currently in the open space are piloting a program whereby they use Ipads to keep documents that they need handy. I am not one of the open space people, but as this goes forward I will try to keep the group informed as to how this works.

Jim

Tom S. wrote:

It isn't an entertainment device. Its a device primarily
for consumption of information.

I think that this is the clearest description of the iPad/tablet concept that I have come across.

Even if Apple positioned iPad as an entertainment device (which makes sense from a marketing point of view), I'm still hoping that with the right software it can be turned into a productivity machine. I have not bought mine yet, but so far I figured that I could import my 1500 PDFs into an iPad using DropBox, and then use the iPad as an e-book reader, reading and annotating PDFs with GoodReader or PDF Expert. I was already able to do this on my iPod Touch and the whole process works pretty well. Apparently it is also possible to map the iPad as a drive on your PC, so syncing PDFs shouldn't be a problem. Also, GoodReader and PDF Expert can directly access servers such as Dropbox, box.net, Google Docs etc. There are also note-taking software with handwriting recognition. The use of a stylus might further increase productivity.

So if iPad can work as an e-book and a notebook (for taking quick notes) and it can free me from my desk and office chair, so I can do hours and days and weeks of reading in an armchair or a sofa, it already sounds worth it. I've tried reading off a laptop and a netbook on the sofa, and it just doesn't work in the long-run. Here I'm talking about reading for work, not for leisure. As an academic, I need to read for 8 hours or more a day sometimes, and so the ergonomics of the whole thing matters a great deal.

I would be very grateful if anyone out there who had a positive experience of using the iPad as an e-reader could confirm that it is indeed suitable as a workhorse for reading and annotating PDFs.

why would you try to turn an ipad into "productivity tool" when there are dozens of tablets with full operating system?

quant wrote:

why would you try to turn an ipad into "productivity tool" when there are dozens of
tablets with full operating system?

Well, I'm not sure what you're referring to. The Windows 7 tablets I've looked at were either a lot more expensive, or twice the weight, or slower, and still awkward to use (e.g. trying to close documents with your finger). The Dell Inspiron Duo hybrid netbook/tablet is about the same price as the cheapest iPad, but it suffers from all of the above. As for Android tablets, I haven't heard of PDF readers with annotation that match the sophistication of GoodReader or Expert PDF on iPad.

Also, I didn't actually mean a full-on "productivity tool," rather a suitable PDF e-book reader with annotation and sync capabilities. Sorry for the confusion. For me such an e-book reader would be a major productivity boost. Actually the Kindle DX would be perfect but it's very limited when it comes to dealing with PDFs.

for example, viliv x70 is great, and one can do everything that can be done of the pc, use the same apps, the same settings, etc ...

I own an iPad and and use it a good deal every day, but so far I haven't been able to integrate it very successfully into my work pattern.

Though I occasionally read PDF files on it (and GoodReader is really excellent), my main need is to take notes, and there I am held back by lack of suitable software and a physical keyboard. This frustrates me, because I would like to carry my iPad (rather than a laptop) to libraries for that purpose.

My main note-taking program is MyInfo, which is superb, but the developer has so far shown no interest in creating an iPad app for it. (I desperately wish that someone else would.) I can of course use some other app for typing notes in the library and then transfer them into MyInfo when I return home, but that feels rather awkward.

As for the keyboard, there may be a solution on the horizon, because there are more and more portable bluetooth keyboards becoming available. I'm waiting for one that will fit comfortably in my pocket and yet fold out to something approaching normal keyboard size.

quant wrote:

for example, viliv x70 is great, and one can do everything that can be done of the pc, use
the same apps, the same settings, etc ...

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm in the UK and unfortunately it doesn't seem to be available yet here. But it's going to be at least ?200 more expensive than the iPad, and because I'm mostly planning to use it as an e-book reader, I'd a bit reluctant to shell out ?600 for it.

WSP wrote:

Though I occasionally read
PDF files on it (and GoodReader is really excellent), my main need is to take notes, and
there I am held back by lack of suitable software and a physical keyboard.

I was advised that Penultimate with a stylus is pretty good for note-taking apparently.

x70 starts at ?430, so reasonable price and can offer much more than ipad can. The only problem might be that you won't be "in" :)

I don't know much about this one, might be worth checking, offers dual boot with Win 7, and it's reasonably priced as well
http://uk.dynamism.com/notebooks/viewsonic-viewpad-10.shtml

Windows Hits the Road
The ViewPad 10 offers full productivity with Windows OS based upon the Intel Pine Trail N455 1.66Ghz CPU, mobile MN10 express chipset, integrated Gfx/Dx9 and DDR3 1GB SDRAM. The SSD 16GB provides ample storage capacity and is super lightweight. Windows 7 Home Premium OS (Upgrade model with Windows 7 Professional) supports multi-touch on the 1024x600 LCD screen with high contrast ratio of 700:1 along with application software of Adobe reader, Adobe Flash Player and WinRAR.

Dr Andus wrote:

I was advised that Penultimate with a
stylus is pretty good for note-taking apparently.

I appreciate the suggestion, but I want to be able to type. I gave up handwritten notes when I acquired my first computer in the eighties.

There are other possible note-taking solutions on the iPad, by the way, but none of them meets my needs. The Evernote app is powerful and handles syncing smoothly, but I don't find Evernote very useful for actually organizing notes. (It's great for just storing them.) I've also played around the Simplenote app: like Evernote, it syncs nicely, and you can then edit the notes on your computer with ReosophNotes, but the latter program does not display the folders you created in Simplenote. In other words, even the simple structure possible in Simplenote disappears when you look at the notes on your computer.

quant wrote:

x70 starts at ?430, so reasonable price and can offer much more than ipad can. The only problem might be that you won?t be ?in? :)

I'm no Apple fan boy and I don't need to impress anyone. But I've researched the tablet and e-book situation quite thoroughly in recent weeks, and what I hear is that Windows 7 tablets that are currently around tend to struggle with the OS, are sluggish, with loud fans kicking in etc. Also, it seems that Win 7 was not designed for tablets, as the iPad's OS was, thus making navigation or certain functions awkward. As for the Android machines, I hear that many of them have all kinds of limitations depending on how the OS was configured and which version it is, with people having problem accessing Android Market etc. (plus there is a lack of a dedicated PDF annotation software).

So I'm drawn to the iPad, as I'm very happy with the way my iPod Touch can handle PDFs with GoodReader. Also, for an e-reader, screen size matters, the bigger the better. iPad has almost 10'', while viliv x70 is only 7". But thanks for the suggestion anyway. I know this is supposed to be the year of the tablet, so I might terribly regret if I jump into the iPad 1 bandwagon too soon. But it is emerging for me as the top candidate for a PDF e-book reader at the moment...

I'm still looking for my ideal PDF reading and annotating device. I need it to be reasonably light, so I can use it in comfortable sitting positions in an armchair or sofa for long hours. But I also need it to be reasonably sophisticated, so I can annotate the PDFs, possibly capture quotes (copy and paste), and synchronise with my other computers.

One option is iPad 16GB wifi + PDF Export (or GoodReader), which would cost me about GBP400. I hear there is now multitasking on the iPad, so I could possibly copy and paste quotes to some other app (the standard Notes would be fine).

The other option I just found is Zoostorm SL8 (http://amzn.to/fyyOzE Apparently this is only available in the UK for now. It costs GBP500. However, it runs Win7 Pro, and got an 11.6" screen (compared to iPad's 9.7"). Resolution is also slightly higher on the SL8. Another upside is that I could use my desktop workflow (locate article in EndNote, read and annotate in PDF XChange Viewer, automatically capture and organise quotes with Whizfolders, while developing an outline in Natara Bonsai). I could even try Citavi on it. The downside is that it is a bit heavier (990g vs. Ipad's 680g). Plus battery life is only 3hrs vs. 10 hrs on iPad. There is also very little user feedback so far. The following is the only decent one I found and it highlights some problems with Windows 7: http://bit.ly/eNsUD1 So iPad scores higher on general usability.

I'm still playing the waiting game, waiting for prices to come down, more products to come on the market and more user feedback becoming available. But I thought others with similar needs might find this reflection useful in the meantime or may have some other advice.

Actually I also came across the (apparently Canadian) ExoPC Slate which seems to get some good reviews (some say it's a year ahead of Zoostorm SL8), but it's way overpriced in Europe. Toshiba Libretto W100 7" is another option, but I'm not willing to pay GBP900 for that.

It's interesting actually how there are these UK and Canada-based tablet manufacturers suddenly. I thought we don't do this sort of manufacturing in the West anymore :)

I have now trialled Zoostorm SL8 (http://amzn.to/fyyOzE with Windows 7 as a possible e-reader for reading and annotating PDF articles and books. The hardware itself is very impressive and in theory it should be able to do everything that a desktop PC can. Unfortunately, I could not replicate my desktop workflow because it turned out that many of my key software were not specifically configured to work in the tablet mode and Windows 7 doesn't offer workarounds.

E.g. I couldn't view a PDF in full screen view in PDF XChange Viewer and then with a flick of the finger move to the next page (as you would do on an iPod Touch for instance). I had to call up the onscreen keyboard and use an arrow or the page down key to move, which of course covered up half of the screen and disrupted the reading experience. Similarly, copying, highlighting and adding notes turned out to be an ordeal. A whole lot of extra steps had to be taken to do what I can do in an instant on my desktop PC. Now, in Adobe PDF Reader I could turn the pages with the finger, however that doesn't have the annotation features and I'm not willing to have to buy a whole lot of new software just so I can use a Windows tablet. The whole attraction of it was that I thought I'd be able to use my existing Windows-based software.

I would rather read and annotate a PDF on my iPod than on this 11.6" screen, and that says everything. I've returned it now to the shop. My next try is going to be the iPad. I love Windows 7 on my PC but I found it frustratingly inadequate as a tablet OS.