Ipad

Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 10, 2011 at 02:23 PM

Jim wrote:
>Greetings folks:
>Not exactly part of the mainstream discussions, but I am curious if
>anyone out there has bought an Ipad, and managed to integrate it into their
>information management workflow? I find the tablet formfactor quite intriguing,
>and have tried out the Ipad a couple of times in Apple stores.
>As I have mentioned
>before, I have a large number of PDF files that are integral to my work.

Now that some time has passed since this discussion, has any of you managed to come up with a satisfactory workflow involving a tablet (iPad or any other tablet) for the reading and annotating of PDFs (especially books and scientific journal articles)? There is obviously a lot of buzz right now about tablets and I’m wondering if anyone has managed to come up with an interesting workflow that involves the synchronisation of PDF files between a PC and a tablet, reading and annotating PDFs and possibly taking notes outside of the PDFs as well.

I have heard of people syncing their Macs with iPad using PadSynch, then using GoodReader to read and annotate, as well as using a stylus with Penultimate to take handwritten notes (though I imagine one can’t yet do both at the same time, as the last I heard iPad couldn’t do multitasking). I have around 1600 PDF files (mostly journal articles around 20-30 pages, but also some books with 100s of pages) and I have been dreaming of being able to at least read and annotate them on a tablet and synch them back with the desktop PC.

I have considered Kindle DX but apparently it’s still very cumbersome. So far I haven’t heard of any decent Android PDF annotating software. I did try GoodReader on my iPod Touch and I was very impressed, so iPad could be a good candidate, if it can indeed handle 1600 files (4-5 GB). The other interesting option is the new Dell Inspiron Duo (a hybrid netbook/tablet) that runs Windows 7, which of course could do everything I wanted it to do, but I’m reluctant to do the plunge until I actually see one and am convinced that the tablet mode can handle PDF reading and annotation. I’ve seen that some other pretty good looking Windows 7 tablets are coming out in the next few months, but some of these will cost multiples of what the iPad costs.

Anyway, I would be curious to know if anyone has managed to crack this and has been using a tablet for reading and annotating PDFs as part of their regular work. It seems to me that many of these tablets are positioned as consumer electronics, and generally very little thought seems to go into productivity software for business professionals and the education market.

doctorandus