Why am I not using IWork on the iPad?
Wednesday, September 22, 2010 at 12:31PM
A new wordprocessor appeared for the iPad today - 
IA writer for iPad. It's a very clean, minimalistic writing tool that's meant to just get out of your way and allow you to concentrate on just creating text.
It's very good!
One thing I liked especially was the seamless integration with DropBox. Link the app with your DropBox account, create a new file and it will sync with the cloud. Want to retrieve it on my Mac and it's already there before I lift my fingers from the iPad.
Just how it should be.
This made me think about iWork for iPad. I just don't use it.
It's not that the applications are in anyway bad (although I have to say, they are prime candidates for a ScreenCastsOnline show) it's just the difficulties of transferring files in and out of the iPad. Horrendously compromised and a huge barrier to using the apps.
Please Apple, when you're adding in AirPrinting functionality to iWork, please add in iDisk sync, or even better, Dropbox sync!
Reader Comments (15)
I am using Habilis so that I can email documents I work on in iWork on the iPad and have them sent back to my dropbox. It's a bit cluncky but it seems to work ok.
Surprised you don't use SimpleNote given its Dropbox integration with Notational Velocity.
I do use SimpleNote and NV.
Always like trying new things though ;-)
Just saw IA Tweeting about Writer this morning, immediately bought it - beautifully done.
And *anything* that syncs to my Dropbox is always worth a look, although Writer appears to require me to press the little sync icon for it to actually do it (have you found that?).
Also... they had me at Spiekermann - Typographic & Design superhero ;-)
I have used Pages, but after trying Numbers on a pad in a store I downloaded Quickoffice onto my pad which is much more intuitive to use especially with sheets saved in Exel.
What are the advanteges or what do you prefer over something like Evernote?
I agree with you Don. Indeed, I really like Keynote for the ipad but getting the documents in and out is quite problematic. Apple lost money on this one, I decided not to buy the other two iwork ipad apps for this very reason.
Apple will never support DropBox. Not as long as they have mobile me. I love iBooks but I hate the fact that I can't purchase an ePub formatted book online and get it to my iPad immediately to be read by iBooks. I can do it with Good Reader however. Apple wants to keep us in their little world. After all, Steve probably thinks DropBox adds confusion to the iPad.
Completely agree with you, Don!
Although you have to say that despite the syncing issues, Pages is a really great word processing application. The only reason I can't use Pages is because it doesn't support footnotes. I'm exclusively writing scientific papers and those are simply not possible without footnotes. I've written Apple via Forum, email and the official feedback service but they just don't include it. So it is utterly useless to me, as are all the other word processing apps in the App Store. None of them do support pages documents and footnotes at the same time.
As for the syncing issues: I think the syncing over iWork.com does work quite well. It is not as comfortable as you described it with IA Writer but it is useable. I think, sometimes we are just a little bit too spoiled by Apple :)
I found and have been using an iPad app called "ELEMENTS". It is a simple text editor that uses DropBox as its storage medium. ELEMENTS creates a folder in your DropBox called "Elements" where it stores files you create from within the app. You can move text files into that folder to access them from within ELEMENTS.
The only real current con for ELEMENTS is that you can't use your entire DropBox hierarchy. It would be nice to be able to access any location in your DropBox instead of "files" within the folder "Elements" created by the App.
That con aside, ELEMENTS is the best $4.99 I have ever spent on a text editor ever!
Have you tried Elements by Second Gear (http://www.secondgearsoftware.com/elements/)? This is much the same idea. I have used it for several weeks now and it is a great text writer that syncs with Dropbox, implements TextExpander and just works. It can also email within the app and it has a useful scratchpad to drop in odd's and sod's. It is spot on. It can also email from within the app ...
IA Writer is a neat app. I especially like the dedicated keyboard. Tnx for the heads up!
Apple listened in a matter of hours. iWork can now export to iDisk on the iPad.
I definitely agree - I use iWork on my iPad and my primary complaint is its inability to sync with my iDisk. If Dropbox can do such a fantastic job, why can't my iDisk? It's very disappointing and I hope it's a flaw that's fixed ASAP.
If I'm not mistaken, Apple could learn a few things about simplicity and "just working" from Dropbox. Maybe they should buy them out and make iDisk the "paid" version. That would be way better than iDisk.