Holiday reflections

Posted by MadaboutDana
Dec 31, 2014 at 01:32 PM

The very clever design of the Logitech ultrathin keyboard (which basically does away with the ‘Tab’ and ‘Caps Lock’ keys, or rather conflates them with letter keys) means that the main keyboard isn’t much smaller than a standard keyboard – certainly okay for touch typing.

Sadly, Santa didn’t bring me one, but then I already have a Logitech K810.

While the Logitech K810 doesn’t act as a baseboard for iPads or any other device, being a completely separate keyboard, it’s worth mentioning that many of the aluminium, ultrathin keyboards available for iPads act as perfectly stable platforms that turn the iPad into an acceptable notebook alternative. That’s the case for my iPad 2 keyboard, for example, which was originally designed by Zagg (and then appropriated by Logitech). And as others have mentioned, there are growing numbers of ‘folio’ or ‘clamshell’ keyboards available, too, which turn iPads into fully fledged laptops.

For those anxious about multitasking: many two-pane apps are already available for iPads. Some of them are very basic, simply consisting of two side-by-side web browser panes (that’s already quite useful, of course). Others allow you to take notes in one pane while browsing in the other. Still others support multiple functions – Tapose is a good example (and it’s much more stable than it used to be!) What’s more, many people forget or don’t realise that you can swipe from one app to another on an iPad, using a four-finger gesture. It’s a bit clumsy, but it works perfectly well.

Other apps, such as OneNote, Outline, MagicalPad or Notability, allow you to write on a whiteboard-like page, meaning you can place your text anywhere on the page. That means you can also place it in two columns, if you wish, or write your main text in one column and put notes and references in text boxes alongside it.

Finally, there are a number of writing tools that allow you to swipe or tap quickly into an accompanying browser pane: Editorial, for one. The latter also allows you to automate the whole process of copying browser references into the document you are writing, and indeed, supports complex workflows involving multiple apps (for more on this, visit Federico Viticci’s website MacStories.net: he is an inspiring example of somebody who does almost all of his serious work on an iPad Mini). Another valuable app for multitasking is the recently released Workflow, which allows you to chain together multiple complex actions.

So despite the iPad’s reputation for single-tasking only, there are plenty of options for alternative ways of working! And iOS 8 is already capable of multitasking, although this functionality hasn’t yet been released to the public (it was recently unearthed by a researcher, who posted up a working example, but I can’t find or remember the reference). Meaning that iOS 8.5 or 9.0 will probably allow users to work in multiple apps simultaneously. I’m looking forward to it!

Cheers,
Bill