In
two previous blogs I dealt with the iPad. Now after more than two years of experience I am still convinced that this tablet fulfills all my mobile computing needs in particular when bluetoothed to the
Logitech keyboard. The keyboard when not in use serves as a perfect cover for the
iPad3 screen. Reading e-books in bed on the
iPad3 however becomes "heavy" with time. So why not get an
iPad mini?
I received my pre-ordered
iPad mini on December 7 and started loving it right away. During its initial setup I simply copied the content of my
iPad3 to the
iPad mini but immediately became more selective with respect to applications. I keep on the mini only those programs I am likely to use. It is convenient to have two machines that are programmed alike but fulfill different purposes. The
iPad3 is the tablet I now use at home as my "
notebook" whereas the
iPad mini is the ideal travel companion and e-book reader. Hence, should I ever change my
iPad3 to a newer edition I shall choose a WiFi only model.
As far as the arrangement of apps on my
iPad home screens is concerned they both look the same. However,
compared to the display shown in my previous blog there are some changes:
For managing my appointments, tasks and contacts I still adore the eventually matured
Pocket Informant. I now use iOS calendars only that perfectly synchronize in
iCloud with all my devices (Desktop PC,
iPad3,
iPad mini and
iPhone5). Cloud services make all the difference in modern computing. There are no longer any "lost" appointments nor double entries for tasks.
Contacts in
Pocket Informant are also kept in an iOS database except for group e-mails as
Apple still does not provide a decent possibility to build groups from single e-mail addresses. There is a third party application available in the
Apple store but setting up groups with more than ten people is a lengthy operation and bound to crash preferably when I had just entered 90% of the names. So I still manage my e-mail distribution groups in
MS Outlook on my desktop.
The many third party apps for managing tasks in the
Apple store without any decent synchronization are not worth the download.
Apple offer their frugal
Reminder application so until lately I rather used the task database of my favorite
Pocket Informant that I keep synchronized between my iOS devices using
Toodledo. Luckily things have moved. Two months ago in a mayor update
Pocket Informant incorporated iOS
Reminder intö their platform. Tasks are now accessible and editable in PI and synchronize in the cloud. The only thing still lacking and I like to see is the fusion of iOS
Notes with the notes in
Pocket Informant.
Mail is the next icon in the first row of applications with, as mentioned above, the restriction of offering no group mail.
The next icon on the screen marked
Launch hides an
iPhone only application that runs on the
iPad too. When you tap on it a panel opens with nine programmable fields you may assign to apps and actions. Instead of moving to and struggle through menus and other pages to launch less frequently used apps with
Launch in my case
YouTube, my
Wikipedia watch list,
Google Maps, Toggle brightness, the
Kindle book reader,
Quickoffice that can handle
MS Office files,
Wikipanion (switching easily between the German, English and French versions of Wikipedia), the
iBooks reader, and
PCalc, a RPN-calculator, are just two clicks away. It seems that
Launch is one of those applications
Apple dislikes for the authors of the app so far hesitated to launch a dedicated
iPad version.
Nothing is to be added about
Apple's Safari browser.
Facebook still allows me to follow my son's travel.
The first application in the second row remains
Flipboard that gorgeous news reader. With
Flipboard I follow the most important national and international news. However, for futher reading I replaced the
Pulp reader with the somewhat faster
Newsflash app. The next icon launches
PhatNotes my most cherished carryover from my Windows Mobile days. The database contains all my personal information and passwords. Of all those browsers available in the
Apple store I eventually retained
Google's
Chrome as fast and stable in case
Safari is compromised.
I still jot down my ideas with the simple text processor
Nebulous (they changed their icon), synchronizing the texts into
Dropbox and retrieving them with
TextPad on my desktop. The additional row of freely programmable keys in
Nebulous stays on the screen when the
Logitech keyboard is connected via
Bluetooth but I changed the disposition of these keys slightly.
The fourth row starts with my now favorite weather application.
Meteogram is a graphical presentation of the development of temperature, rainfall etc. detailed for the next two days and spanning the coming week. The following icon marked
Wetter contains my collection of nearly all of these weather applications I accumulated with time when I used to look up the best weather forecast available. In
Utilities I keep stored useful apps some of them I described previously. In the meantime both my
iPads are delivered with a camera I never use. Don't people simply look ridiculous taking photos with the
iPad? Should one day the need for a camera shot with my
iPads arise the
Camera+ app features more possibilities than the native one.
Notizen is what is called in English
Notes.
On the last row the
SPORT1 app and the
DB Navigator are known to those who have read my earlier iPad blog. New are
ReaddleDocs and an alarm clock (
Wecker) the latter chosen among a dozen others.
ReaddleDocs is special for it allows me to view in a single application all my files stored in my clouds. Yes, in addition to the old and faithful workhorse
Dropbox I am hooked up to
Google Drive and
Microsoft Sky Drive services too. I have not yet made up my mind on the possible use and even usefulness of these various cloud services hoping that
ReaddleDocs will eventually help to spark my ideas on this matter.
On the apps bar at the bottom there is one newcomer:
Bluetooth on/off again is one of those applications Apple does not like. Without getting astray in the submenus of
iPad Settings just hitting the button will toggle
Bluetooth on and off connecting or disconnecting my
Logitech keyboard instantaneously..