ipad apps

@Dropbox @airmailapp @mailbox @touchpress @thetunnelbear @echofon @wuala  @bamboo_apps #skype #filmon #ipadapps

today i had a chat with someone about tools, mainly computer tools which makes your life easier or worse, harder. that made me thought which apps do i use for which reason on which device. I am using most of my “business apps” like for accounting, time tracking (most important for freelancer), picture editing, etc. apps on the computer or laptop. and having not as much apps on the ipad as i used to have. the fun of searching and trying new apps is gone. pinterest, facebook, etc. the classic apps i use mainly via browser, the apps didn’t made it for me. but i thought i am going to share my thoughts about my ipad apps with you, so here we go. if you have a look on my ipad, i might look like i am very neat and tidy with applications, but itunes could tell you better, i love new apps, but i have gone very disciplined, if i haven’t used an app on side three for a while it gets deleted. i don’t have to allow an app to spy on me when it is of no use for me. ;-p

hardly a game! that is what I say if someone asks me what kind of applications I have on my ipad. my nephew tries secretly to download some which I always delete, because I think most of them are boring but addictive. but i do play on the phone sometimes.

but let’s see, what is there on my iPad:

 

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let’s start on the end, page three first.

bamboo paper – it was fun for 20 minutes, but i definetly prefer paper and pen. whatever hockney says, it is by wacom and they know how to use a tablet :-).

google earth and star discovery are my secret games, love to have a look on the earth and the sky.

than there are a few location based apps like the deutsche bahn app which is not as good as the öffi app, but that is only available for android, but great app, the best for directions and connections!

prezi I thought it is a good idea, because the linear way of presentations is so opposite my way of thinking and visualization but it didn’t got me so far… but they have some great presentations online you should give a try

day one is new, i was curious. i am not a journal / diary writer, never was, but liked the look, propbably never going to use it, just one more dead app body in my app download history, the same with the yoga app, one look and never again. but it is a nice app.

games folder- not sure but think in the moment it is in mahjong which my boyfriend likes to play and mill.

the folder appl apps, contains most of the pre-insatlled apple apps which one can’t delete but never uses.

 

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ok, now page two, here is a bit of the stuff i use from time to time.

the photos app by apple is pre-installed. i only use it store my wallpapers and if i go to visit a client i more and more often i take the ipad instead of the macbook and than i temporaly store the photos, illustrations or graphics i want to show in a folder there.

clock – pre-insatlled, don’t know what to say. don’t use it, don’t know what for. if you have a nice recommendation for clock app that shows the time in sleeping mode, pls let me know.

there are two google analytics apps on the ipad insatlled, to be honest i don’t use one of them. but that’s is not their fault. both are great and have a nice inter face, i just prefer to do the blog work etc. on the big mac (computer). here the links: google analytics dashboard and analytics

wordpress and tumblr app (but hardly using them on the iPad) google analytics and mailchimp, they still have the “new” symbol because I haven’t even opened them on the iPad.

ot an app, but an bookmark –bab.la is a dictionary, i use leo via browser or as android app on the phone but sometimes for phrases i like bab.la

aboalarm. – I don’t use it often, it is in german and it is one of the best apps I have on the ipad! this one I would absolutely recommend to everyone. it helped me to save money and trouble it is just amazing. it’s free, you have to pay for further features like fax copies etc. but I was more than happy to do that, compared with the work and money it saved for me. it is a most sucessful app to quit contracts with insurances and subcriptions.

blogs folder – bookmarks to my blogs

ds video – if you use a synolgy NAS server for your media files your mobile devices can be used as a video or tv station.

my fritz – having a fritz box for wifi, this app is useful for the settings of the server. i tried the myfritz call app as well, but that unfortunately didn’t work.

zattoo tv mobile tv I don’t use it. but I don’t have a tv and thought always I am oing to give. a try one day.

beethoven 9 -very playful way to learn more about beethovens 9th and to compare the versions from different conductors directly. very interesting. but the free version wasn’t fully satisfactional so I paid 9.99

moveeverfree, yep I am confused. it’s part of my personality. so moveoverfree helps me to re-organize some of my evernote notes. that it not more, but that quite effectively.

 

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the interesting stuff.

settings – nothing to say about. has to be here on page 1, use it quite offten.

calendar – i use google for the sync between all apple and android products (in between solution) anyways. on the ipad that isn’t working that great, have a bit trouble with google calendar and contact import. it is working, but needs quite often a reset. but i am using the calendar

facetime – there is only one single person i am using facetime with, it is pre-insatlled so can’t be deleted. but i would rather go for skyper or every other video call solution.

mail – pre-installed. read more about mail app later

tunnelbear! if you think the Internet is free and without any borders, you are wrong. sorry to destroy your hope. every second youtube recommendation from friends from all over the world I try to open is blocked by right things. from sony, universal etc. and it is NOT possible to watch English films in Germany on iTunes, lovefilm, etc. so they are crap!! sorry I would only in a case of emergency in my whole life borrow or buy a film there. you pay the same or more than in a video shop or when you buy the film but get only one language???? if I buy a film for 9.99 in a supermarket I have at least two languages and four subtitle possibilties to choose from. yeah of course again they blame the country laws for that. I just wonder why plain DVD’s are not criminal than they offer more languages. I am pretty sure they just don’t pay or the language rights, so in the end the online films are ALWAYS more expensive. so tunnelbear is for people they are to lazy to set up or use more geekish vpn server, it is absolutely easy to use. and in the small version free.

music – pre-insalled and used quite a lot.

filmon yep, going for that. I love British tv like QI, top gear, and the simpsons and that is where I watch it.

there is iBook of course, but I installed kindle, and prefer it over iBook. if I have the possibility to choose, I always choose kindle.

youtube – what might be tv for you is youtube for me. I have subscribed to some channels and watch documentaries, agatha christie, midsomer murders, QI, etc. like when I need a bit of tv-kind of relaxation. youtube is not pre-installed anymore but definetly worth the download.

for twitter i use echofon! my favorite and if you wonder why I am not as busy anymore on twitter, it’s because the add on for firefox from echofon retired. still trying to recover from that shock! by the way, do you follow me on twitter? the easiest way to subscribe to all the news: follow aboutcuriosity and follow me.

Evernote! I use evernote for almost everything. when pinterest came up I stopped using it to save plain links, because it doesn’t catch the pictures and later I never remember what the link was for… but it is still and again my favorite app for many things. actually I am writing all my longer posts on it. now that it has remeinderrs it works even better for me and my workflow. the two missing points are still it is not as visual as I am, like pictures with a link and no collaborative work as there is in google drive.

iA writer – the first writing app i installed on the ipad. i am a lover from the omm writer, which is the most beautiful text editor ever, but i don’t like it on the ipad. iA writer i think it was 4.99 but not sure anymore and it has some really great features like cloud storage on various platforms, text formatting, it is available (and used by me) on ipad, mac, and iphone etc. i like it very much and have no idea, why one day i installed plain text what makes the same, is a bit slimmer, i didn’t liked the free version because the adverising really went onto my nerves and no cloud storage. but a very nice etxt editor and it is free if you don#t mind the advertising.

browser – safari is pre-installed but I use chrome on the ipad as well. I am a firefox lover but not really thinking its a good mobile browser.

skype my favorite! was worrying when microsoft bought them, don’t know what the future brings. but so far the best. facetime, fring, tango, viber etc. aren’t not as good as skype and if you love to travel you need a skype account.

dropbox – I use dropbox for syncing my pictures, documents, pdf’s and ebooks over all platforms and devices, and to bring some PDFs etc on the ipad. there is still no way to upload simple files like an PDF or Dokument onto an ipad so there they are, in my dropbox folder. it is the easisiest way to share or sync your files.

wuala – the same like dropbox but better security, so I use it for work documents (download)

google drive. I used to use it for EVERYTHING! because I used to love google and the open source spirit. now that google is the evil and sells not only my contacts but my thoughts as well I am more carefull … I used to even manage my bills in google drive, made huge contact lists for sponsoring, or projects, my pr contacts were all there, and my blog posts, my templates and texts I worked with others together, my accounting etc. etc. now I use different apps for all of that, but still use mainly google mail for email and google drive for collaborative work.

mailbox, yeah, here we go, the important things. to understrand about my thoughts about mail apps you have to know about my email workflow. I have disabled all notifications on all my devices about email. I check  my emails in the morning and in the evening on the ipad. if I am on the computer doing work and being stuck I might check them again to distract myself from the things I really have to do and also doing the proper answer emails and doing email business work. I am using emails also as kind of todo lists and note-to-myself tool. but that means on some days my inbox is cluttered by my own emails! so I made a folder (aka gmail label) read later and what happens? I never again have a look into that folder. than there are some emails I have to deal with at one day but not today so I am missing the reminder function from outlook. so mailbox seemed to be a very good solution it is clean and lean, it has a very nice and easy to use interface, you just swipe the emails in some action and has also a beautiful reminder function! I mean really beautiful. but, and there is always a but with the good things it is only an ipad/iPhone app. no android and no mac app. on the mac I have installed another nice app, it’s called airmail. it is beautiful, honestly it is. it has also a nice reminder function and some other nice features, but – of course it is not available for the ipad or even android (hoenstly who the fuck buys an iphone?) and I am not going to use it anymore because you can’t drag and drop emails from one account to another, something I do quite often on the computer. therefore the different applications in the end lead mainly to more confusion, i am now back to the plain apple email app. but not happy with that!

that’s it … on the ipad. this post needed quite some time. so might be a while before i find the time to write about some of the amazing aps on the mac and especially on the android platform!

little update: just when i finished this post i installed the bloglovin app, nice one!

anything missing? recommendations? I love app input so let me know I you have thoughts and other ideas.