iPad – Part 6: File sharing and printing

The iPad became much more useful to me yesterday after attending a board meeting in Manhattan. A board colleague showed and I shared our experiences with our iPads and I learned about some new productivity tools. The iPad is great for reading documents of all kinds and when it comes to games, video, pictures, music and other media applications it offers most of what people need. When it comes to sharing, manipulating, moving, storing, and printing various documents, however, the iPad is not quite as easy. Apple makes things simple by making things closed. They don’t let you get yourself in trouble with technical tricks but sometimes that also limits what you can do. (See IPad – Part 4: What You Can’t Do). There are four tools (iPad apps) that I find essential to gain the control I want over documents. I use and recommend the following.

GoodReader is my primary repository for PDF documents. Serving on seven boards, I see a lot of documents. Browsing them as PDF’s on the iPad in preparation for meetings and having them at my fingertips during the meetings is essential. GoodReader allows you to create folders on the iPad for organizing your documents. When board materials are sent as attachments to emails, they can be opened in GoodReader and then moved to the appropriate folder. Documents can also be moved from your Mac or PC into GoodReader over your wireless network at home.

Dropbox allows you to sync your files online and across your computers. You install Dropbox on both your iPad and your Mac or PC. If you drag a file from your desktop and drop in the dropbox it then automatically shows up in your dropbox on the iPad. You can also go to any Mac or PC, go to dropbox.com and you will find the same file there. You can click on a dropbox file and send a link to the file to a colleague which then gives them access to the file. Very handy for sharing and there are no file attachments involved. Attachments are a bad thing of the past. Dropbox is a modern day answer that I highly recommend.

LogMeIn enables you to connect to your PC from your iPad. It actually gives you full control over your PC from the iPad. This is a nice thing to have. You can do most things on the iPad but not everything. Example: Quicken. More than ten million people use Quicken to keep track of financial transactions and investments. At some point it will surely be a cloud based application but so far the complexity and legacy nature of it have chained it to the desktop. With LogMeIn you can curl up on the sofa and log in to your Mac or PC from your iPad and use Quicken just like you were at the desktop. There are other less expensive solutions than LogMeIn but I have found that this is one worth paying extra for ($29.99).

Last but not least is PrintBureau. Also known as PrintCentral, PrintBureau allows you to print directly over your home WiFi netowrk. You can print any kind of document on any kind of printer. If you can print it from your Mac or PC then you can print it from your iPad. You do have to install a small program on one of your home desktops. I find less and less need to print things but from time to time the need arises.

There is some overlap with all four of these programs. They all provide a degree of file sharing. The way I think of it, GoodReader is the main repository for important reference documents. Dropbox is for ad hoc transisent files of any kind. LogMeIn is primarily for Quicken from the iPad and PrintBureau enables the paper.

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iPad – Part 5: Printing

The iPad is a window through which you can enjoy content. The clarity and interaction are really great. Why would anyone ever want to print this beautiful content? There are reasons. A boarding pass for your airline — at least until they all let you use your cell phone to authenticate and board. An email that you want to put on the kitchen table. A checklist of things to do in the garage that is going to end up with grease on it. Etc. The iPad has a few apps available for printing but they are not for the casual user. They require installing some software on your home or business LAN and that software has to be running in order to print from the iPad. Looks like Google has a better way. I just learned about this and am quite enthused about the solution.

Google Cloud Print has a simple but profound vision — enable any application (web, desktop, mobile) on any device to print to any printer. The concept is simple. An application — GMail, Safari, GoodReader, or any iPad app that has something printable — submits the print task to the Google print service.  Google Cloud Print then sends the print job to the selected printer of your choice as long as that printer is connected to the Internet via a built in network adapter and which the user has previously registered with the service.  The only catch is that the vision requires a new class of cloud-aware printers which to my knowledge are not yet available. No reason that they can’t be though and assuming Google does this in an open way, as they usually do, there would be no exclusivity and therefore other cloud services and all the printer manufacturers can participate. I suspect we will see cloud printing sooner than later. It just makes sense, just like the iPad.

Apple will no doubt have a solution also, probably with MobileMe. I was an early user of MobileMe, hoping to cut the cord with Microsoft Outlook with it,  but became quite disappointed with it. Steve Jobs made a public apology about MobileMe but it did not salvage thins for me. I moved to the Google cloud for contacts and calendar and began syncing to the iPhone over the air. It was flawless from the beginning and provided a blessing compared to Outlook. Cloud computing is clearly here to stay and it will be greatly enhanced with cloud printing. In combination with the iPad it moves the PC yet another step away from relevance. One of the final steps will be the move of iTunes to the cloud so new apps and updates can be accomplished without having to plug in to the PC or Mac.

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iPad – Part 4: What You Can’t Do

There are many things you can do with the iPad and we are only at the beginning — but there are some things you can’t do. Although I have been accused in jest that my enthusiasm for the iPad makes some wonder if I am on the Apple payroll. I am indeed very bullish about the iPad but this story is to highlight some of the things that — at this stage — you can do or not do very well with the iPad. Will the iPad replace the laptop? At some point, yes, but at this point I am writing this post on my ThinkPad (running Ubuntu Linux with the Google Chrome browser and WordPress). There is a reason why I am unable to write the story on the iPad. Inhiibitor #1 for the iPad is the browser. Steve Jobs has said that Safari is the world’s best browser and the iPad was introduced with no other choice. Many people think that Internet Explorer is the #1 browser — some think it is the only browser. Let’s start with some facts. In 2005 IE had 65% market share — even though many people, myself included, think it is the worst of all browsers. Fast forward to March 2010. IE8 had 15% share, IE7 had 11%, and IE6 was at 9%. The total for IE was 35%. Firefox was 46%. Google Chrome (my primary browser) has gained every month since it was introduced in 2008 and now stands with a 12% share. Apple Safari is at 4% and Opera Software at 2%. I think Safari is a good browser but not a great browser. Perhaps it will become great if Apple continues to invest in it but based on the numbers they have a long way to go. When it comes to the iPhone and iPad the Safari share is 100% since that is all that is offered. One exception is that Opera Mini is now available on the iPhone. If they can get an iPad specific version approved that would be nice. So one thing you can’t do with the iPad is surf all the sites you can surf on the desktop. I have found a number of sites that do not work properly with Safari. That is what forced me to be writing this story on the ThinkPad.

Even if Safari worked flawlessly with WordPress and MovableType, writing any significant blog post (or other document) is not as productive as using a PC or laptop with a large flat screen. I typically have a dozen tabs open on my flat panel — gmail, iGoogle, calendar, a few spreadsheet projects, WordPress, wikiPedia, etc. It is easy to copy paste links and info from other pages into the blog post. You could do it on iPad but it is a lot more tedius.

I also have discovered that a number of iPad apps that have come from the PC or Mac world are not inclusive. For example eBay on the iPad is very nice but there are things like adding a reputation or preparing an invoice for the buyer, etc. that are not there. The Apple calendar, contacts, and mail applications are very nice and freshly updated from the iPhone versions. They are a joy to use but they do not have the full functionality of the PC versions — can’t send to groups in gmail, can’t add group designations in contacts, can’t add text message reminders in calendar. I use usps.com to do a mailing and stamps.com to mail packages. They both require printing. The iPad can’t print. Although it can handle pdf files in emails, it doesn’t support creation of pdf’s which is what both the mailing apps do. I did find one iPad app called PrintCentral that boasted that it enables the iPad to print without installing any printer software on the iPad. I bought the app ($9.99) and then found out that it does require software to be installed on your PC and then that enables the iPad to print to any printer on your LAN. Not even as easy as it sounds however, and to use it your PC or laptop has to be on and connected to the LAN. Handling of files, generally, is not a strong suit for the iPad. The file system is closed so you have no visible directories, you can not detach attachments and put them somewhere (except for pictures). Everything is handled through iTunes which is clearly not optimized for file sharing. I expect this to get easier as clever app developers find ways to get around the various impediments. GoodReader for example is a great tool for managing PDFs. You can access the GoodReader app from a PC, create folders on the iPad from your PC, and upload PDF files into the folders. This gives you a repository for documents to read offline on the iPad. I use it mostly for board papers and find it extremely valuable. Others at the conference tables are attracted to the idea — I should get an Apple commission!

Meanwhile I finished reading The Great Bridge by David McCullough using the iPad iBook reader. What a great book. After reading a few books on the iPad I can confidently repeat my enthusiasm for the Kindle. The light weight really makes a difference. It is also superior when reading out in the sunny weather we have been having lately. For now at least the optimum reading for me is to use the Kindle app on the iPad while on the treadmill and x-trainer or at the reading stand in front of my easy chair,  to use the  Kindle on iPhone while in a supermarket line or killing a few minutes at the train station, and the Kindle while curled up in bed. Once the iPad iBook novelty and fascination of the curling page flips with text on the back of the pages wears off, one thinks about the reason you read books — the content, not the page flips. the Kindle wins hands down — for now. On Wings Of Eagles was recently released on Kindle and that has been my read this week. Ken Follett doesn’t write much non-fiction and he did a spectacular job of taking a factual story of the EDS rescue in Iran in 1979 sound like a legitimate novel. One can’t wonder how the mission would have gone differently if iPhones had existed back then.

Bottom line, the iPad is a great device and I love it. It can’t do everything — no camera, no phone, no usb keys, weak printing and file handling — but it can do almost everything. And, it is very personal. You show it to friends and family but you don’t  let it out of your site. You let them play with it, but not much. It contains your personal information of all kinds. It knows where you are. In time, it will be watching you and you will be watching others with it.

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iPad – Part 3: Other Reading

Many of us have weighed in on the various aspects of e-books and e-readers. The jury will be out for quite awhile as the publishers, Apple, Sony, Google, Lenovo, Dell, and numerous others refine their strategy for what goes into a book, how it is displayed, and how it is priced. While the book war heats up, there are other dimensions of the e-readers to consider.

Reading magazines and newspapers on the Kindle can be quite convenient  – especially if you travel a lot — but I can’t say it is enjoyable or even natural. On the iPad reading magazines and newspapers is enjoyable and increasingly will seem the natural way to read them. The New York Times got good press at the launch of the iPad but I find it weak. The WSJ, however, is quite good. Easy to navigate and you get the full “paper” as it was published in the morning plus updates during the day. The ads are annoying and it doesn’t take long to realize that it takes two swipes to go to the next page if the page you are leaving is an ad. I would rather not have the ads but having them is the publishers only hope of making money which they need if we want good journalists. The NPR and BBC news apps are pretty good also. The Zinio ipad app is home to a large number of magazines. A few are free. Pricing is reasonable — Popular Mechanics, for example, is $7.99 for tweleve issues. Flipping Zinio pages is smooth and natural. Bottom line is that reading newspapers and magazines on the iPad is a pleasing and natural experience. My friend Jim Kollegger at Genesys Partners says “the iPad will do for publishing what the ATM did for cash”.

Aside from books, magazines, and newspapers there is an infinite amount of material to read on the iPad. Even the uninitiated organizations of the world are distributing their documents in PDF format. Not my long term favorite format but it is far better than receiving a doc file that wants to open some “bloatware” to be read. In cases where I must receive a fax I have it sent to my efax number and it shows up in the gmail inbox as a PDF. When checking out of a hotel I ask the desk to fax a copy of my room bill “to my office, no cover sheet required”. The PDF in my inbox can then be archived or used for reimbursement purposes. For more significant PDF’s that are important for future reference or even a board packet for a meeting I use the GoodReader iPad app to store and read the files. I would prefer that things were synced in the cloud rather than iTunes but the process of moving PDF’s from my ThinkPad to the iPad over the home LAN is easy now that I have done it quite a few times. The storage of the iPad allows nearly unlimited documents for most of us and having the documents “local” is nice for travel plus partaking of the great zoom and pinch features lets you have whatever the optimum view for you may be. This is especially important for charts and graphs.

In preparation for a board meeting this past week, I received the normal FedEx package containing the agenda and board papers. It was 38 pages, and including the binder clip, weighed a half-pound. I emailed the person organizing the meeting and asked for a PDF. After saving the attachment on the ThinkPad and uploading it over the LAN to the GoodReader app on the iPad I was good to go. Both reading the papers in a comfy chair the day before the meeting and following as needed at the conference room table were a welcome approach compared to fumbling with the paper. I reminded some people about the time, cost, and environmental impact of the old approach. In theory the same thing could be done with the iPhone but I have to admit that it is difficult with tabular information and graphs. It has certainly been feasible with the laptop but then you have to worry about battery life and the bulk of the device on the table. The iPad fills the bill really well. Another handy document reading tool on the iPad is the Memeo Connect Reader which syncs your Google Docs folders to the iPad app. This is really nice when you are on an airplane or somewhere that doesn’t have a WiFi signal.

And then there is reading what bloggers have to say and the thousands of news feeds. I am using both NewsRack and Early Edition on the iPad. Both are evolving, listening to feedback and continuously improving their products. You can read patrickWeb, BusinessWeek, The Economist, Engadget or any of the millions of feeds that are out there. You can add new feeds on the iPad or use Google Reader on the desktop and have the feeds automatically sync to your iPad reader. The size and clarity of the iPad makes it quite enjoyable to scan through the feeds and read stories of interest. Another nice iPad app is the Wiki (squared). You enter a word of interest, read the article about it just like an encyclopedia but then follow the links and read to your heart’s content. A real bargain for 99 cents.

How about creating documents? There are more tools to read than there are to write but there are some incredibly sophisticated writing tools available on the iPad. Apple itself features Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. I was skeptical about creating and manipulating a spreadsheet on the iPad but with Apple Numbers and no training I have learned how to do it. It is mostly intuitive. What surprised me is the breadth and depth of the functionality. I have a couple of other favorite iPad tools for writing. First is the CarbonFin Outliner. I have always liked outliners as a way to organize thoughts for a meeting or discussion agenda. You can add bullets and sub-bullets and then move them up or down or promote or demote them in the outline. The Outliner is available on a web site and you can sync your outlines. That enables you to make a change on any computer or on the iPad and everything is synced. This is the beauty of the Cloud and the way all applications should be (and will be). I have been using the Outliner for more than a year with the iPhone and I can highly recommend it. Another nice app is Things. Aside from being way overpriced ($19.99), Things provides a well organized way to capture your to do’s in buckets — Today, Next, Scheduled for a specific date, Someday, and Projects. As things get completed or moved around they show up in the Logbook. I have tried dozens of task list managers over the years and end up using scraps of paper and email as the dominant tools. Maybe Things, with the personal relationship people will have with their  iPad, will make it a winner. I especially like the “Someday” category as a way to capture those things you think of that you want to do but you know you are not going to do anytime soon.

Meanwhile I am still reading The Great Bridge by David McCullough. Among my friends and recent acquaintances it seems I am the only one who has not read this great epic book. Both the political and engineering complexities encountered in the project are mind boggling. Even though I can’t seem to find the time to finish this great book in a timely manner, I am getting used to reading on the iPad.

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