A few of my favorite things with the iPad

The other day I wrote about the iPad being great for consuming content. Which it is! I also wrote about how the iPad is not a great tool (at least for me) for creating content. As I mentioned in that post … I am a HUGE FAN of my iPad … for so many reasons. So, as promised … below are a few of my favorite things

This is an homage to my mom’s favorite movie ---

The Sound of Music. 

Full disclosure: It’s one of my favorites too

A few of my favorites Apps
(I tried to get the iTunes links below to make it easy for you to try ‘em out)

For Consuming

• News and Information: Pulse and FlipBoard – both are great readers for news, blogs and lots of other content that you can take with you on the go.
• Education, Edification and Illumination: TED --- the TED app is great for so many reasons, but one of the best features is “Save for Offline Viewing” so you can take TED on the go. I get a lot of questions from people on planes about TED. I may be one of their biggest advocates.
• Netflix is my kids favorite for consuming content … what they want, where they want and what they want.

Travel:

• TripIt --- Simply Awesome. A fantastic tool for storing and viewing all of your travel details in one place. TripIt is seamless across all the devices I use daily … my PC, my LackBerry and the iPad.
  • I have heard Kayak is quite good too.
• PhotoBucket – A great app for posting and sharing pictures and videos.
• Weatherbug – Simple … Pick a City … Know the weather.

For Composing

Yes, in my previous post Why the iPad is NOT a PC replacement ... Yet! I mentioned iPad’s are NOT good for composing / creating content. I still stand by this point, but the iPad is decent for the doing the initial work of creating core content and initial notes. The following apps are very good for this effort.

• Evernote – Easy to use, easy to sync and portable between my iPad, LackBerry and PC.
• Microsoft OneNote – Very similar to Evernote, but it’s part of the Microsoft Office Suite and has good integration with Office.
• NeuNotes+ is an app that allows you to use your finger or a stylus.  I use both --- I have a Targus Stylus. Side Note / Factoid: This is the first app I ever purchased.
• Skitch --- A great app for editing and adding notes to screenshots and other pictures. Great for doing website design reviews … take a screenshot … add comments and notes.

For Interacting

• Hootsuite is my preferred app for Twitter on the iPad.
  • I had heard about Tweetbot --- it was hyped up a fair amount. I bought it (much to my chagrin) and only used it a little while before going back to HootSuite. Save yourself the $2.99 and don’t bother with Tweetbot.
  • Which brings up a question --- Do people EVER ask for their money back? For $3 I didn’t bother. Ironically, Tweetbot won the monetization war, but Hootsuite won the usage and praise award. I wonder which one is worth more?
• Facebook has gotten better and continues to improve. The user interface is similar across the iPad, the PC and the LackBerry. For me … I like that.
• Google+ is still quite weak on the iPad. I still try to use it, but the interface is kludgy and not intuitive.

For Storing and Sharing Content

• Dropbox – Simple, easy to use and very easy to share files and folders.
• Phaste --- A simple app for storing commonly used and re-used information – login information, fileshares, etc.
• Mint – An incredible app for combining all your financial data in one place.

A few apps I have dropped

• CardMunch – Prior to being acquired by LinkedIn this was a pretty slick app for scanning and OCR’ing business cards. However, since the acquisition the app has become increasingly flaky and now it unusable.
• SugarSync – Great app, but I only needed one place to drop files

What’s Missing?

What I’d still like to see in a Tablet Device (and on a PC too):

• Real-Time Siri … on a Grand Scale
  • I’d still like to see a great Speech to Text tool / application. Dragon is decent, but it only works in short bursts and it requires network connectivity. I’d like to use it in the car and on the go. Kind of like an old school dictaphone … but without the person taking the notes manually.
• What would you like to see?

What do you think?

• What apps do you use?
• What apps would you like to see on the iPad
• What apps are indispensible?

Thanks for reading this far. Please, please drop me a note here. I’d like to hear what you use. I always learn something from other iPad users about apps, features and functionality. If you ever see me please show me how you use your iPad. I’m always fascinated with the diverse ways in which people use their iPad to get stuff done or just to have fun.