Serendipity and the Art of the Quilt

Creating with Brenda Gael Smith

My Favourite Ten iPad Apps – 2012

Filed Under: Gadgets & Notions

Despite being an early adopter of the Palm Pilot (remember those?!) in the mid-90s, I have since lagged behind on mobile and PDA technology. My phone is very basic and an iPad was not on my radar until the Laundry King presented me with one as a combined birthday and anniversary present. Wow, what a revelation! Now I can’t imagine being without it. As I celebrate my first year with my iPad, it seems like a good time to share my list of favourite app:

  1. Flipboard – as someone who follows hundreds of blogs, I find Flipboard (in conjunction with Google Reader) the ultimate tool for managing and reading my feeds. I also use Flipboard for reading Facebook and Twitter posts. I love skimming the latest updates in an attractive magazine format and then concentrating on the posts that really grab my interest.
  2. Facebook – when it comes to writing status updates or uploading photos to the Serendipity Facebook Page or the Beneath the Southern Sky Facebook page, I find the free Facebook app is the easiest and most efficient way to do it on my iPad.
  3. Photogene– there are numerous robust free photo editing apps but I have never begrudged paying the modest extra fee for Photogene. I use a SD card reader that comes with the iPad Camera Connection Kit to transfer photos from my camera to the iPad while I am travelling. Photogene not only offers comprehensive photo editing tools, it has a resizing function that means I can optimise images file sizes for online use and sharing generally. Most of the detail shots on the Beneath the Southern Sky Facebook page (including watermarks) were prepared using Photogene.
  4. Trip It – with my 2012 Craft & Sewing Show guest artist assignment and teaching commitments, I have spent a great deal of time organising travel arrangements. It’s great to be able to store all my airline, rental car and accommodation details in one place and to have the facility to share my itineraries with others online.
  5. Dropbox is brilliant for storing key files “in the cloud” and file sharing with others. It comes with a clean, intuitive interface AND automatic folder synchronization that is fully compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. This way I can access all my teaching notes, patterns and high res quilt images even when I am on the road.

dropbox

  1. Skype – not only can I make Skype-to-Skype calls to family and friends, I bought some Skype credit so I can phone anyone on their regular phone at very economical rates. This is ideal when I am travelling.
  2. Wunderlist – most time management primers highlight the importance of keeping all your appointments and action items in a single location for ready reference. I am still working on getting Pocket Informant HD, a consolidated task manager and calendar app that facilitates sharing with Outlook on other household devices, working in a meaningful way without funky synchronisation issues. In the meantime, Wunderlist is a simple, clean and useful task management tool where I keep various task lists. What’s more it’s free.
  3. TripView is a must-have app if, like me, you are using public transport in the greater Sydney metropolitan region and like to be punctual. Of course, it doesn’t make the bus, trains and ferries run on time but it assists me in working out the most efficient route
  4. Sydney Morning Heraldand New Zealand Herald – for now, at least, these apps are free and I can catch the headlines even if the Laundry King is hogging the hardcopy paper.
  5. ABC iview – I rarely watch TV in real time. The Laundry King does a commendable job scheduling recordings on the PVR but, if he misses something from the ABC (Australia’s public broadcaster) I can often catch up on iView.

There are many other apps that I regularly use (eg Zite and, my only game, Words with Friends) and apps that I think I should learn to use more effectively (eg Evernote) but these are my current faves. What iPad apps do you think I should check out?

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Ruth de Vos says

    Thanks for sharing, Brenda. I just downloaded Flipboard.
    I like MindMeister – a mind map program – for organizing my thoughts and and tasks

  2. Heidi says

    FlightAware is a good one, if you take lots of trips, or sending family/friends on a trip, it tells you when the plane left the tarmac, shows you where it is at all times, and you can also check from days/weeks past how often that particular flight was on time or not on time. My son is a pilot, he likes that one the best, as I think there may be a couple of others out there. I also love “Pageonce” where you can plug in your checking account, credit cards, also airlines that you have an account with, it keeps up with how much money you’ve got left in your checking account, notifies you IF you’ve made a larger than normal purchase on your CC, it will also notify you if your checking acct goes under $100. It will let you know about an upcoming flight. It’s a free app, there is also a more detailed version that is available at a cost, but this is all I need. I also love Evernote. With iCloud it all transfers to my i-phone as well. If you love to read, the Kindle app is great, all of my books are available to me at any time and place on my Kindle, i-Pad, and i-phone, love the Kindle.

    • Brenda says

      Thanks Heidi. I’ve downloaded FlightAware and it shows me that my upcoming flight has been late every day this week 🙁

      Unfortunately Pageonce is not set up for the Australian banking system. In terms of monitoring other service accounts (phone, airlines, etc), Consume is pretty good and apparently works in 18 different countries.