In June, this column proclaimed "Alan Zisman gets an iPad".
At the time, I found the iPad neat but
not yet ready for business.
Apple's touchscreen tablet is not going to function as your only
computer. Too many things - getting documents on and off, as well as
connecting to printers, scanners, projectors, etc. - are at best
limited compared with even a low-end laptop or netbook.
But don't despair. You can still justify an iPad as a business
expense. Here are several software add-ons - apps - that let you use an
iPad for more than surfing the Web or watching downloaded video.
Typically, you'll get documents in or out of these programs using
Apple's free iTunes
app on your computer (PC or Mac). With the iPad connected, open iTunes,
click on the iPad icon on the left, then click on the apps tab in the
main window. Scroll down to a list of "file sharing" apps, clicking on
each to upload, download, and delete documents for that app.
Office Suite
Apple offers a trio of productivity apps, iPad versions of the
programs in its (Mac-only) iWork
suite:
Pages word processor,
Numbers spreadsheet, and
Keynote presentation program ($10 each). All let you create, view,
and edit their respective types of documents and import files in the
corresponding Microsoft Office formats (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
respectively).
You can export or email saved work as PDFs or in iWork formats.
Pages also supports Microsoft .doc file exports, but Keynote can't
export presentations in Microsoft's popular .ppt format.
For work with Microsoft Office documents, a better choice might be
DataViz' Documents to
Go ($10 for the
standard edition and $15 for the
premium edition). The company has versions for iPhone, BlackBerry,
Android, and more.
While the program started out as a way to view documents on a PDA or
smartphone, it's grown in abilities and can now be used to edit
documents. The iPad version makes good use of that device's large
screen.
Instead of iTunes' file sharing feature, DocsToGo users need to
download and install a free Mac or Windows utility to transfer
documents. Optionally, it lets you set folders on your computer to
automatically sync with the iPad.
Alternatively, DocsToGo supports multiple online file sharing
repositories, including
Dropbox, Google Docs, and Apple's Mobile Me. Like Apple's apps, you
can also email documents directly from the program, and you can set it
to automatically open email attachments received in the iPad's Mail
app.
Also nice: If you already have a copy on an iPhone or iPod touch,
the more capable iPad version is free. (And it includes a word-count
feature - a must-have for things like this column.)
eReaders
While an update to Apple's free iBooks now
works with PDFs, I find
GoodReader (99¢ - also available for iPhone) a better tool for
viewing those and a variety of other file types - PDFs, text files,
Microsoft Office documents, photos, and sound files.
Like DocsToGo, it can import files stored online at Dropbox, Google
Docs, et al, and can read email attachments. It can also read PDFs
online or stored on local servers (via a WiFi connection).
When viewing a long document, it can be set to move directly to,
say, page 128. (As a musician, I find it handy to jump around fat
e-books of sheet music). Maybe Apple's iBooks can do that too, but I
haven't found out how!
Running Your Computer from Your iPad
Mocha VNC Lite is free and lets me connect to a Mac (with Apple's
screen sharing enabled) or Windows or Linux PC (with any of a large
number of programs making use of the free VNC protocol installed);
doing so gives me my computer screen on the iPad and lets me pop up a
keyboard to control the remote computer.
Finger movements on the iPad screen translate to the mouse on the
other computer awkwardly, but with practise, it's possible to run
programs remotely that lack iPad equivalents.
