iPad — mtellin.com

I’ve had my iPad now since April 30th, and I have to say – I’m using it a lot more then I thought I would be. It’s hardly out of my hands when I’m at home. I had both a Kindle 2 and a Kindle DX but returned both as I wasn’t satisfied with the PDF support. When I saw iAnnotate PDF for iPad I knew I’d be buying one. I knew when I got it I’d be using it to read a lot (Instapaper, GoodReader etc, all things I do now with my iPhone) but I didn’t realize how much I’d use it for other things.

Apps I Use

Evernote: synchronize notes/recordings/screenshots with iPad/iPhone/Mac
iSSH: Allows me to SSH into my home lab, I like iSSH because it’s for both iPhone and iPad. This is one app where not having arrow keys is a PITA. I haven’t tried connecting an external keyboard yet (I have the older Apple Bluetooth keyboard which apparently is not supported) to see if the arrow keys work then.
Instapaper: LOVE this app, install a bookmarklet in your browser and it will convert it to a nice and easy to read version. Also works on both iPhone/iPad
Wyse PocketCloud: Lets me connect to VMware View environments (as well as RDP). Works much better then a lot of the other RDP apps I had tried, but it still takes 10x longer to do things then just using an actual computer
iAnnotate PDF: This was one of the apps I was most looking forward to, being able to highlight and make notes in PDF and them send them back to myself. Unfortunately the interface isn’t really the best and I find myself just using GoodReader instead
GoodReader: Great PDF reader and supports connecting to Dropbox
NewsRack: RSS Reader that syncs with Google Reader. I use Reeder on my iPhone which I love but unfortunately they don’t have an iPad version. NewsRack is a good alternative (and has an iPhone version as well).
1Password: Great for securely storing logins (work, personal, home lab), WIFI connection info, etc. iPhone and iPad versions
Wolfram Alpha: I end up using this a lot as a calculator but it’s also nice to be able to do quick conversions with – downside of course is it requires internet access to use. I wouldn’t consider this a must have but it’s a nice app.
SharePlus: I’m only using the free version but it works really nice for connecting to our corporate SharePoint site, I can view MS Office docs with it (although it was a little tricky to figure out how to do this!). v2 Should have editing support as well. Viewing SharePoint calendars does not work well at all, it just displays them in a large list and seems to be sorted by when the event was added to SharePoint, not when it actually occurs.
PaperDesk: I looked at quite a few note taking apps and kind of settled on this one, I wanted one that can do more then just write (eg Penultimate) and the latest update has the ability to use the VGA adapter and display the whiteboard on a projector. I don’t like that you can’t just make text boxes wherever you want, you are stuck in a word processing mode (Sundry Notes can do this) which can be a pain if you use text notes and diagrams together. Note: I just started using Notetaker HD which deals with handwriting a little better in my opinion (there is an entry box at the bottom instead of writing directly on the page).
Videos: This is just the default app that comes with the iPad but I love that I can have all of my TrainSignal, VMworld, NetApp Insight etc videos on here. I tried this with my iPhone but the screen is just too small for a lot of the presentations.

Apps I’d Like

Tweetie: Love this app on my iPhone but I personally don’t like any of the current native iPad Twitter clients.
Delicious: I use delicious.com quite a bit for my bookmarking and it’d be nice to see a native app for this too, for now I’ve just been using the web interface which can get the job done.
Skype: I use the iPhone version of it now but I’d love a native Skype (especially one that supports push notifications). The microphone on the iPhone headphones works with the iPad (and it obviously has Bluetooth) which could make for a great VoIP solution – and just think if iPad v2 has a front facing camera
OmniOutliner: This app is on its way from what I read on their blog but I still can’t wait. I use this app all the time on my MBP.
OmniFocus: Currently using the iPhone version of it but I’d love to get a more desktop like iPad version, I use OF pretty heavily with my GTD setup

Features I’d Like

Better support for getting data between apps, example: GoodReader can tie into mail so I can open attachments in GoodReader which is great, however I wish I could then save it to Dropbox without needing to use my laptop. I’d love to be able to save from iAnnotate PDF directly to my Dropbox account (and really this could be solved if Dropbox had an email address associated with your account similar to Evernote).

Accessories I Use

I had a hard time finding a case I liked, I purchased the Apple case but I personally am not a fan. The edges are a little “odd” and I wanted something that could hold a few business cards, business receipts etc. I finally found this case on Amazon and though I haven’t received it yet I think it will be what I’m looking for: