Over on Twitter, the LIfework team has started a Twtpoll asking, "Which iPad apps are helping you be more productive at work?" After much deliberation, and after coming back empty handed on launch day, Cerentha is about to pick up her 1st new iPad and she's looking for recommendations for apps that readers find useful on a day to day basis for work related tasks. And, no, Angry Birds doesn't count...
My husband is chief technology officer in the family. He’s my IT guy and general wizard when it comes to things you plug in (thankfully not in that weird Charlie Sheen wizard way). He is also a serious early adopter. I only realized how much I appreciated that when he decided we really should wait for the second generation iPad to come out. What!? We were going to have to wait for that gorgeous piece of design? Yep. Surely I need it for work. Surely. But after much discussion we agreed to wait. And the wait seemed eternal.
Tomorrow we have a date at the Apple store It’s our 11th wedding anniversary and we’re going to treat ourselves to the iPad 2. Romantic? For some, no. For us, yes! And let’s hope there are still some in stock. I am too old to camp out so we definitely wont be first in line at 5am when the store opens. I called Apple to find out if there was anything we could do to ‘book’ one and the guy just laughed at me. I even tried the wedding anniversary line and he wasn’t buying it. We’ll just have to line up like everyone else.
Let’s say that we will have that iPad in our hot little hands tomorrow. I would really like to know what apps you use. Which ones help your work life run more smoothly? I use Simplenote but there’s got to be so much more out there. Take the Twtpoll and I will report back in a week or so the results. Hopefully we’ll have a great list of apps to share.
Originally published at Lifework by Cerentha Harris
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I got Informant HD on sale some time ago, and love it to track tasks and manage my calendar and work hours. I'm sure I'm using its potential yet.
I also have Daily Notes, and if I were more disciplined about keeping it open I'd have a better record of what I actually do. Check it out!
Meant to post "...I'm NOT using it to its potential..."
from every article I have seen right now. If you are not in line early, you are not getting one. that is pretty much about it.
Going to generalize it a bit but stores seems to be getting about 20-50, people start getting in line as early as possible (when you can enter if it is in a mall etc) if it is not in a mall, then they are outside as early as 4am and have a line of 100 by the time the store is even close to opening. By that point the apple employees have already handed out vouchers to everyone who will be getting one that day. So ummm yeah, don't get your hopes up. There is a reason why there is a 4-5 week delay just to order them for apple.com.
The wedding anniversary line won't get you any help (in my opinion) because everybody can come up with a story on the spot about the sick kid they are buying it for, getting deployed in a week, it's their birthday, they have a week to live, etc. Most people aren't above lying.
I've been using and loving Evernote and combining it with HiTask. After trying all sorts of apps and online resources, these are working very well for me as I run my own design business and do business consulting and recruiting on the side.
Dropbox, GoodReader, Toodledo, Evernote, Instapaper, CalendGoo, DrChrono (EMR Software), Square
I'm a psychologist. I do almost everything on my iPad (except report writing and assessment scoring).
Oh! It's an iPhone app, but I use DropVox. Just came out, and it's DO EXCELLENT! Record audio, and it goes straight into your Dropbox. So nice for client meetings.
I use Evernote, OmniFocus (great if you're a GTD'er), Mindnode for mind mapping and Mental Note, I like that I can write with my fingers.
Also, get a Bluetooth keyboard. The iPad keyboard is pretty good but if your going to be doing lots of typing.
GoodReader is the best app for reading Word Docs, Excel and PDFs. Works great in conjunction with MobileMe or Dropbox.
My other top recommendations:
Screens (VNC client)
Wunderlist (Free To Do list)
Reeder (news reader)
Instapaper (long article reading)
Evernote (notes/braindumps/scanning everything)
1Password (pw management/generation)
Dragon Dictation (Free speech to text)
Another vote for Pocket Informant, which I have on both my iPad and iPhone. I sync it with Toodledo and Google calendar. My boss also uses Toodledo and Gcal: she can assign tasks to me (requires Toodledo Pro) and share calendars. PI has a bit of a learning curve, but is so worth it. I've tried just about every task manager out there and I always come back to PI.
Other favorite apps:
Dropbox (free and a true must-have to use with so many other apps)
Evernote
Pages
Keynote
Dragon Dictation
Writepad (wonderful handwriting recognition for taking notes in meetings)
Corkulous (fun, easy, creative way to storyboard ideas or create project/inspiration boards)
Pulse (free news reader that's highly customizable)
Goodreader (exceptional at handling PDF files)
PS - Unlike the iPhone, there's no native calculator on the iPad. I use Calculator HD, but there are many good ones.
Evernote which syncs between iPad and iPhone for keeping track of my sales, penultimate for meeting/customer notes (with the awesome stylus Griffin makes) and the native calendar app synced with my google calendars for tracking appointments and follow ups.
Thanks everyone for all your tips. We still don't have an iPad - so incredibly frustrating, I had no idea they'd be this hard to get hold of. But there it is - I will collect all this great info and be extra prepared when the iPad finally does arrive on my desk!
Cerentha
I found that the iPad browser app, Superstash, is incredible at keeping a library of all the images and articles that inspire me. It can take a screenshot from any site, be annotated, shared via email or saved to my library. It allows me to mark up the images, add notes, tags, name it and rate it.
Superstash has made me so much more productive with all my inspirations in one place to browse and add to. I LOVE this app!!
I'm a designer and I use Penultimate. I even think I paid for it! It is great for house calls, making notes, drawings, measurements, etc. It has both graph and plain paper books. Very easy to use and I love being able to email my notes back to my desk!