I've just discovered a rather nice little app called MyMind for the iPad. It's very nicely designed, and works in a very similar way to Tapose, although it's actually much easier to use/understand.

Ironically, I discovered it while looking for the MacOS version of MyMind, which is an outliner/mind-mapper. But MyMind for iOS is a dual-pane note-taking app that can also access the web, Dropbox/Google Drive/iCloud, photos, audio, drawings and videos.

When I first started using it, it crashed a couple of times, but since then it's been very stable. It's beautifully designed, reducing the size of notes (which are rich-text, with a nice toolbar that appearing in editing mode) automatically as you drag the screen divider across the screen. You can take screen shots of websites (you can't drag and drop stuff out of them, unfortunately, or at least I've not been able to), and automatically paste links etc. After assembling your notes, you can upload them to e.g. Dropbox as PDFs. You can apparently also import PDFs, and you can view notes/PDFs side by side, anticipating the new Apple iOS 9 split-screen feature that won't be available for any iDevices except the iPad Air 2.

It's a lovely app, and I don't know why I haven't discovered it before. More details at:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mymind/id735422952?mt=8
or the developer's own website at
http://www.thisismymind.com

Wow. Great find. I thought I'd looked at every iPad notebook app there is. Thanks for the heads up.

Steve Z.

Slightly off topic-There are lots of apps out there that run on the iPad or iPhone or Android or even MacOs or Windows that use Dropbox. Most of the iOS apps these days can connect to iCloud. There are not nearly as many that can use Box. I have mentioned in the past that the University at which I work provides everyone-staff, faculty and students-with 50 gigs of storage space. With the 25 gig that I scored early on from Box, I now have 75 gig of storage on Box. All free. Why no support of Box, or at least, little support.

I realize that you have to start somewhere, and for iOS apps Dropbox and iCloud support right out of the box(So to speak.)makes sense. But even as apps mature, they seem to ignore the other cloud storage providers.

I have a huge amount of cloud storage space-25 gig on Onedrive, 15 gig on Copy, 25 gig on my personal Box space, 50 gig on my University Box space, and 15 gig on google drive. And I use all of them all the time. None is completely full(Except Dropbox, on which I only have 2.75 gig.)And I have a program on my Mac that allows me to access all of the different cloud storage systems like a local drive and transfer files back and forth(Cloud Commander). So, I can deal easily with the lack of support for other cloud services just by dragging things back and forth.

But it would be nice if Box was better supported by developers.

Jim

I took a quick look at MyMind and Tapose, and both look interesting. I am in the process of re-evaluating my notetaking on my iPad. I have a copy of Notesuite that I have been using and I also have the Mac program. The nice thing about them is that you can sync them up so that you have the same set of notes on both your iOS device, and your computer. However, I ran into some trouble a while back and lost all my notes from the program. Everything was backed up, but it gave me some pause and I have been looking at my current notetaking environment. I have Quip on my Mac, and I like it, but no iOS app(Hint, hint). I have run Onenote in the past, and it worked okay, but it was a tad slow on both the mac and my iPad. Both MyMind and Tapose look interesting, I will probably take a look at both.

On another note-when I pulled up some webpages that referenced Tapose, they all mentioned Courier, the project that Microsoft teased us with a few years ago. Apparently Tapose is intended to act like Courier in many respects. I loved the idea of Courier, and still do.

However, according to the pieces that I read-admittedly several years old now-Tapose is not that good.

Does anyone have experience with Tapose, and can you comment on how well it works? Also, some commentary on MyMind would not come amiss.

Jim

jamesofford wrote:

I have mentioned in the past that the University
at which I work provides everyone-staff, faculty and students-with 50
gigs of storage space.

(Of course, I meant that they supply us with 50 gig of storage space on Box)

Just wanted to clarify.

Jim

Hi Jim,

Re: Quip - actually, there is an iOS app (e.g. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/quip-docs-chat-spreadsheets/id647922896?mt=8 but on the Mac you have to run through a browser (i.e. there's no native Mac app). So maybe you meant the other way around?

Re: Tapose - I've been trying to love Tapose since it first appeared (like you, enthused by the idea of Courier). But it's not very good. Even now, it's not very good, although some of the ideas are great. The main problem is stability - Tapose crashes quite a lot, and how much of the data you're working on when it crashes is saved will vary from one incident to the next. The second problem is the interface, which just isn't very intuitive.

MyMind has taken the basic Tapose idea, streamlined it, and produced a much better product which does most of the same things (with the exception of links to Contacts; that's unique to Tapose). It's also much more stable - at least, it is if you switch off iCloud! MyMind asks you whether you want to use iCloud when you first start using it, and indeed it does sync between different iOS devices using iCloud. But it's much more unstable (as the developer kindly told me when I sent them a query). On the other hand, MyMind allows you to save notes as PDFs or MyMind files to Dropbox and Google Drive, so it's easy enough to switch off iCloud and (manually) exchange data via the two alternatives. I've just switched over on my two iPads, and it does make a BIG difference to stability.

Otherwise, MyMind is much easier to use than Tapose. It doesn't have the same drag-and-drop capabilities, but what it does it does neatly, quickly and elegantly - not something that's always true of Tapose, unfortunately. The interface is also tighter (IMHO). The developers are also responsive and enthusiastic (unlike, say, NoteSuite...), which is always a good sign!

I'd love to see desktop versions of both Tapose and MyMind. For my money, I bet MyMind get there first! ;-)

On the other hand, Scrivener for iOS is promising many of the same features (including split-screen working) in the uniquely powerful Scrivener format. So that's another one to consider.

It's possible that iOS 9 on iPads -- with Slide Over and Split View (especially Split View) will quickly make Tapose and its category obsolete.

I suspect it won't be quickly - after all, a dual-pane app becomes even more useful if you can also use slide-over views. And Split View is confined to iPad Air 2s for the time being, and it's clear that most people are still on earlier generations of iPad.

I do wonder how those features will affect take-up of the much-rumoured iPad Pro, however – it could be a runaway success, but I suspect we'll see a couple more features added to iOS before the iPad Pro is finally announced.

I love the idea of using MyMind with the slide-over function, however - accessing e-mails or a second web page while doing research or comparing two notes? Brilliant. As close to a multi-monitor setup on a Mac as you could reasonably get on an iPad. It would turn the iPad into a really serious tool.

Re: Quip - actually, there is an iOS app (e.g. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/quip-docs-chat-spreadsheets/id647922896?mt=8 but on the Mac you have to run through a browser (i.e. there’s no native Mac app). So maybe you meant the other way around?

Oops. As I sit here looking at the icon for Quip on my iPad, I notice that I made a mistake.

Thanks for the info on MyMind. It sounds nice. Though part of the user interface of the Courier that I liked was the fact that you could drag and drop things onto the bar that separated the two sides of the display, and then drag it off the bar to wherever you wanted to put it. Also, while I understand and use the touch interface on the iPad, there are many times when I would love to have a stylus(Other than those fat ones)that I can use on the iPad.

As I mentioned in another post today, I am not as big a fan of Dropbox or iCloud as the rest of the world is-mostly because I have more space on other clouds. However, it is good to hear that MyMind will use Google Drive.

I feel my CRIMPING itch starting up!

Jim