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New Ipad, what apps to put on it?
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Posted by Dr Andus
Dec 14, 2012 at 05:27 PM
Franz Grieser wrote:
>I find it good for notetaking and brainstorming on the go. Creating
>notes, moving notes, color-coding notes and even stacking notes is
>straightforward, exporting to a RTF file works fine.
Thanks for that, it does look interesting.
>Therefore I am still searching for an app that allows me to seamlessly
>work on files both on the iPad and on my Windows PC. Maybe the
>combination of Outline+ and Outlook 2010 will be the solution (until
>Scrivener for iPad is available).
SplashNotes Outliner (http://www.splashdata.com/splashnotes/) might be one option, as it has a desktop companion. [Disclaimer: I haven’t tried the iOS app.]
SplashNotes seems to have succeeded where Natara Software had failed: they managed to transition from the Palm world into the smartphone world. I have evaluated them back six or so years ago for the Palm+Desktop option.
The standalone Windows desktop version is very similar to Natara Bonsai, as it is a 2-pane outliner that can be used as a 1-pane outliner. I liked the way it looked but went with Bonsai as the latter was more feature-rich.
It seems that for the Mac version they’ve turned it into a 2-pane outliner, but I may be wrong. But it does look a lot less sophisticated than the Win version.
So SplashNotes can be added to the list of single-pane outliners (once you close the Outline File List):
http://www.splashdata.com/splashnotes/desktop/
Posted by Dr Andus
Dec 14, 2012 at 05:39 PM
Dr Andus wrote:
>The standalone Windows desktop version is very similar to Natara Bonsai,
>as it is a 2-pane outliner that can be used as a 1-pane outliner. I
>liked the way it looked but went with Bonsai as the latter was more
>feature-rich.
>So SplashNotes can be added to the list of single-pane outliners (once
>you close the Outline File List):
>http://www.splashdata.com/splashnotes/desktop/
Actually it gets a bit confusing (just like with the Bonsai downloads). It seems that there are at least two different Windows desktop versions around:
1) A ribbon menu version (that I haven’t tried): http://www.splashdata.com/splashnotes/desktop/ You can get this by e.g. opting for the iPhone/iPod Touch version of the desktop companion.
2) the classical version, which you can get by choosing the Palm or Windows Mobile version. This is the one that is similar to Bonsai:
http://www.splashdata.com/splashnotes/palm/index.htm
Posted by jamesofford
Dec 18, 2012 at 01:08 PM
A brief update on my search.
First, thanks to everyone who posted with suggestions. I am working through them and looking at my options.
Second, I am quite happy with my iPad. It has filled the niche that I thought it would, and it does it well. I am paperless, at least with regard to my work. I have been using Papers on the Mac and on the iPad to search, organize and read pdfs. The retina display on my iPad is very nice for this. Indeed, it is easier to read the pdf on the iPad than it is to print it out and read it on a hard copy. The text on the retina display is excellent. I was afraid that I would have eye fatigue from reading on the screen, but that hasn’t been the case. And figures are much better on the iPad than on paper.
The combination of Papers on the Mac and on the iPad works well. The sync between mac and iPad is good. All of my papers are now on the iPad, and the ability to organize them in Papers makes it easy to use. I am working through coming up with a way to mark papers that I have read so that I can keep up more easily with current stuff. Perhaps a Tag? At any rate, this is working well.
I also took a look at the outliners mentioned here. I think that I have settled on MagicalPad as at least part of the solution. (http://www.magicalpad.com/). It has the free-form text entry that I like from Onenote, but has more going for it than Onenote did. Rearranging and organizing things typed in to MagicalPad is easy to do. You can merge notes into an outline, or take pieces of an outline and make them free-standing. As a note taker it works very well, and I have started using it for that on a daily basis. You can use it as a task manager, though I haven’t done that as yet. It also has a Mindmapper built in.
I still need a more structured outliner for some of my work. MagicalPad is good for kind of ad-hoc outlining. I am still looking for something a little more heavyweight. Omnioutliner is looking that way at the moment.
As I progress through this thicket, I will keep the group updated on what I have been using. Also, when I have finally settled on a set of components for my day to day work, I will let the group know.
Jim
Posted by Dr Andus
Dec 20, 2012 at 02:15 PM
An overview of some to-do apps for iOS:
http://www.macdrifter.com/2012/12/a-task-management-vision-quest.html
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 16, 2013 at 11:11 AM
I’ve recently come round to the Pomodoro Technique but can’t stand the ticking noise of the real egg timer and don’t find PC apps for it convenient. Instead, I wanted to use my iPod Touch.
I did a quick search for Pomodoro apps and there seem to be a lot of bloated apps out there. But I just wanted the simplest Pomodoro timer possible. I found it in Repeat Timer Free.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/repeat-timer-free-repeating/id481229967?mt=8
The free version is limited to a cycle of 3 repeats but that’s good enough for me (you can just restart the next cycle of 3 Pomodoros with breaks manually instead). I do like the ticking noise for the breaks though, which it allows for.