The Ipad is a constant business companion for me and as I wrote some time ago, I have learned to integrate it into my business activities.
Here is a list of my top used apps for business or business-like purposes.
iwriter. Writing on an ipad may not be your thing, but if it is, this is the app that really makes you focus. Think of a modern version of a typewriter — just a blank piece of paper and your typing. No added clutter or functionality. As the app itself sells itself “Our goal was to create a writing app without settings. When opening Writer, all you can do is write”. I use this to brainstorm my blog posts. Much better than Paperdesk, Moleskin, Simplenote.
Cube. An effective timesheet tool that is ideal for a consultant who wants a tool that is easy to use but has enough advanced features to be able to track time for particular tasks within a project as well as compare time used with the time budgeted for a task. With useful, cool graphs and the ability to produce project or time-based reports this is the best time tracking tool in the app store.
GoodReader. There are a number of reading and annotating apps out there but GoodReader seems to have the best interface and very easily works with cloud services like box, google and dropbox. PDFs, word documents and pretty much anything you need to read can be read with this app. It is $4.99, which seems expensive. But in my opinion, it is worth the money and cheaper than some specialty pdf readers and annotators.
The cloud. The most effective way to combine off-site backup with constant access to your key files is the cloud. There are several options — google docs, Box.net and dropbox. Although google’s application is the most integrated with the Internet, box and dropbox have much cleaner and easier to use ipad interfaces. They also have the look and feel online of your own server. My preference is box.net.
Evernote. One of the best ways to keep information that you pick up in your daily life organized and in one place. Whether the information is notes, a picture, a document from the web, Evernote keeps it secure in the cloud and delivers it to you — on your ipad, your computer or other mobile device.
Mendeley. Really an academic app designed to store pdf versions of articles and make them available for future reading and importing the citation into documents, I use this app to store other types of reports that I want to keep organized by theme, author and key words. Since the documents are stored online, I am always able to download it onto the ipad and go from there.
In contrast, I have not yet found a good, reliable mindmapping tool. Ithoughts is good but a little awkward to use.
Do you have any recommendations?