My usage of my iPad is really evolving. When I went to Fuller two weeks ago for two weeks of class, I only took my iPad. This was a big test for it. Would I be able to capture notes in class and do work that I needed to do for tasks back home…plus staying connected. I even had thought through how I would get Mer to ship my MacBook to me if I got in a bind. I didn’t. The iPad actually was amazing and was much lighter to carry around than my MacBook. It wasn’t perfect and there were a few moment where I had to work around issues or make adjustments but for the most part, the majority of the time, I had no issue.
The iPad got me through the two weeks of travel. But it didn’t come without some investment & tweaking. So, here are my essential apps and I guess hardware & how I’m using them.
Hardware:
Bluetooth Keyboard: Anyone who has an iPad knows that you can type short items on it but anything over a paragraph for me becomes too tedious on the pop-up/on screen keyboard. So several months back I bought the bluetooth keyboard. It’s incredibly light; it’s easy to connect & works great. It’s well worth the $$.
Pogo Sketch Pen/Stylus: This was one of the surprises of my trip. I had some money left on an Apple gift card & I picked up this little jewel for $15. It allowed me to sketch notes during my classes (think diagrams & such). I am now using it in teaching during our worship gathering. I Love It!
iPad to VGA Connector: This was my second purchase on the trip that really changes how I’m using my iPad. This connecter allows me to plug straight in to a projector (or switcher) and now instead of using the Keynote Remote app I’m actually just running my Keynote from the iPad version. I can easily switch between Keynote, Penultimate (the sketch app) and Prezi or several other apps that work on extended screens. This has been great for teaching and really fun. I draw on my iPad and it shows up on the screen. Me likey!
Apps:
Keynote for iPad: $10 version of the larger software that has so far done everything that I need it to do. I even did some more intricate work on my MacBook this past week & sent it over to my iPad (including videos) (through DropBox) and it worked perfectly. I am completely switched over now from that Microsoft product.
Logos for iPad: Best Bible research software out there period. And to be honest, I like my iPad version better than my Mac version.
Penultimate: Sketch app that will capture the screen when you use a connector so what you draw on the sketchpad shows on the screen. It has multiple export options which is really nice.
Toodledo: A Task manager. Syncs with my phone & computer. Simple. Clean. Works.
LiveStrong: There may be better trackers out there but this one has worked really well for me on my latest weight loss journey (only 7 more pounds to go 
Yelp: A must if you travel and I love that they have integrated Open Table. Yelp has not led me astray on a food choice yet.
Netflix for iPad: You know what this one is. I stream movies more than the Mississippi streams water. I love this app and not for behind it is Hulu Plus. I was skeptical at first about the cost but it allows us to watch shows we want when we can. This has been worth it – think treadmill and after 8:30 time when the Guice children are in bed & the old Guice’s catch upon TV & reading & such.
Dropbox & ZumoDrive: Cloud services that I use. I love them both equally but Dropbox seems to be more readily available & connected to other apps.
Evernote: The one app that I couldn’t live without. It is the ultimate note, image, memo, voice memo capturing app. If you are a teacher, you’ve got to have this one. And I love the syncing. My ideas and moments are available everywhere I can get to the internet.
QuickOffice: Spreadsheets, PDF’s, Documents, Presentations. Syncs with DropBox & Google Docs (opens Microsoft & Apple versions of the afore mentioned files)
PlanningCenterOnline: For planning our worship gatherings. They’ve done a bang up job with this one.
AudioNote: Capture Audio and add typed or written notes with time signatures so you know when they were in the lecture/teaching/recording.
Reeder: My favorite RSS feed reader. I’ve tried a bunch and this one just works for me. Handles a large number of feeds well and meets all of my needs for sending the posts/articles to other services like Instapaper.
Instapaper: A life saver when you want to be able to read posts offline. I scan a couple of hundred posts every day and send the ones I’m interested in to Instapaper where they are ready for me whether I’m online or not.
Kindle: Wow…the money you’ve saved me & now you have page numbers! I buy every book that I can on Kindle & have not regretted it once. I’m helping trees, not buying more bookshelves, saving all kinds of money on books, the list goes on & on.
PhotoShare: A cheap little app that let’s me connect phone to iPad & swap pics without going through iPhoto.
AirSharing: For moving files around between machines.
Splashtop: For remote accessing my MacBook and even watching video that streams on my MacBook…on my iPad.
GV Connect: I text & call through my voice account on my iPad. Saves me when I’m in a situation where a phone is inappropriate or I may not be getting mobile service. And Finally…
SkyFire: A web browser that converts some (actually a lot of) flash movies into HTML 5 so that you can watch them on the iPad. I have been really impressed by how many sites that it actually converts flash files so that you can view them. It also has very nicely integrated Facebook and Twitter feeds + numerous sharing mechanisms. This is by far my favorite iPad browser. I do wish it had real tabs though.
That’s it. I’d love to know what apps you can’t do with out.
Peace ~
wm
One of the things that the Guice’s found out during our journey through Mer’s surgery & recovery is that…how do I put this nicely? Our health insurance is crap. That feel’s about right. (We only owed $6000 not $60,000. I guess we were lucky.) We are beginning to shop around for other options and someone sent this group to me…
