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Posted by MadaboutDana
Sep 8, 2013 at 05:20 PM
That, alas, is how Apple makes all that lovely money - the mayfly-like lifespan of their products nowadays! Actually, that’s not fair to their notebooks and desktops, but iPads are notoriously short-lived - a whole bunch of features in iOS 7 will be unavailable to those with iPad 2s, like me. And as my daughter - and now you - have found, iOS 6 is entirely unavailable on iPad 1s. Having said that, I do a lot of serious work on my iPad. This usually involves compromises - I am, for example, currently sitting in Starbucks typing a translation in GetInfo, which allows me to load a PDF file into one window and type text into another, smaller window - but it’s not exactly state-of-the-art, especially compared to a netbook. On the other hand, I have complete Internet access, I am able to consult various online reference sources, at any time I can copy and paste my text draft into a more serious application and synchronise the resulting Word document with my office systems (which run on Soonr.com, a business-oriented version of Dropbox and also available as an iOS app). So from a slightly different perspective, I have as much as I need. And before you ask - no, I don’t have and wouldn’t buy a 3G-enabled iPad. I use a MiFi instead, which supports multiple computers/devices simultaneously and also plays nicely with my micro-NAS, a 32GB SanDisk Connect WiFi Flash Drive, which in turn plays nicely with my colleagues’ - andy my various other - iPads and mobile devices. Rather than using an Apple keyboard (large, clunky, not very portable), I use one of Logitech’s little numbers, which also acts as a case for the iPad.
I’m not actually wittering on about these things in order to impress you with my mobile lifestyle (forced upon me by the fact that my children need constant ferrying to and from the many classes, competitions, events, get-togethers etc. that young people get dragged into); it’s simply to demonstrate that a whole new working model is rapidly becoming feasible that has nothing to do with specific software and everything to do with interconnected resources - especially in the preparatory stages. Of course you’ll always need specific applications to produce the final, refined output (the final copy for the magazine I’m translating for will eventually go into InCopy, which I use to edit files on a client’s server in Germany - there’s no way I could do that from an iPad… or at least, not yet!). I loved my netbook, and still occasionally use it. But the iPad is so fast and convenient, has such astonishing battery life, and even in a relatively lowly form (as I said, it’s only an iPad 2), is so powerful, that I feel no need to drag slow, balky, short-lived computers around with me any more.
Just as well, really, because I managed to empty a glass of water all over my Windows notebook yesterday, and am currently waiting for it to dry out…
Posted by MadaboutDana
Sep 8, 2013 at 05:23 PM
And in reply to Alexander - yes, Editorial is amazing. What’s especially impressive is that you can use it as a perfectly standard Markdown-capable text editor if you want to, but if you really want to push the envelope and develop extensive cross-app workflows, it effortlessly obliges. Even better, a huge number of custom-developed macros/scripts/workflows are appearing, many of them enabling sophisticated interaction with other apps and web apps. These are useful in their own right, of course, but even more useful as templates for those who wish to experiment with complex scripts.
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Dr Andus
Sep 8, 2013 at 08:20 PM
@Bill
Many thanks for the detailed use case scenario - iPad does make sense for that. I’m itching now to try out Editorial, but I’ll need to wait until iPad 5 comes out to see what happens to the prices of the others and whether I should get 5.
My mobile scenario is very different - I need to go away for a month at a time, and so I need to have a mini version of my desktop PC with me. But at home or in the office I do use iPad for certain writing tasks, and I could see how Editorial might help. E.g. I stopped blogging on Wordpress because the whole process of preparing a post with all the links etc. is just too longwinded, Wordpress is slow, and I just don’t have the time. But if it can be knocked out real quick on Editorial and posted to Wordpress immediately then I might do it more often.
When you say “Getinfo”, do you mean this app? It hasn’t been updated for over a year and there aren’t many reviews, but otherwise it looks interesting:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/get-info/id502509034?ls=1&mt=8
Posted by MadaboutDana
Sep 8, 2013 at 09:55 PM
Yes, that’s right - it’s a bit old now, and in fact as I was writing about it I was reminded of another two-pane app that’s actually almost identical, also supports PDF files (and indeed other file types) and a web browser as well. It’s called Side by Side, and there’s a free version you can try out, as well as an (inexpensive) Pro version. It appears to be regularly updated, which is more than GetInfo is (shame, because according to his roadmap, the GetInfo developer had some nice ideas).
Side by Side can do multiple windows, in fact - four is perfectly feasible - and doesn’t take up much space (about 2.5 MB). But on an iPad, I think two panes is plenty!
Editorial has a built-in browser, but doesn’t appear to support other file types (and doesn’t do a two-pane view in any case).
Another nice two-pane app is Circus Notebooks, which I like very much, but it’s hampered by (a) occasional instability and (b) erratic compatibility with files. I keep it on my iPad in the hope that eventually it’ll turn into the perfect app, because it does two panes really very well (plus one-pane outlining, in fact, which not everybody is aware of). It’s a lot more reliable than that other interesting but infuriating app, Tapose, which pops on and off my iPad like a jack-in-a-box (I reinstall it when an update comes out, then uninstall it in a fit of rage a couple of days later!).
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Paul Korm
Sep 8, 2013 at 11:29 PM
LOL, I have folders of “maybe someday it will be great” stuff on my iPad—in fact I keep Circus Ponies on the main screen just in case it becomes useful.
MadaboutDana wrote:
>I keep [Circus Ponies] on my iPad in the hope that
>eventually it’ll turn into the perfect app