We often focus on how technology is transforming the way we share finished ideas with a global audience. Easily overlooked is the role they now play on the other end of the creative process. When many of us are ready to begin a project, sketch out an idea, or draft a few paragraphs, mobile apps are now the tools we turn to first.
Here are a few of our favorites.
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#1 – Pages
Apple’s iWork app was among the first mobile tools to expand our view of how a desktop application could be adapted to a mobile device. Pages is more than a bare-bones word processing app. Document templates, text styles, find/replace, and editing tools all made the mobile version as well.
The app is easy to work with on an iPhone or iPad, but version 1.5 added iCloud integration which makes it that much easier to pick up where you left off on your computer or second device.
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#2 – Notes Plus
The first of two iPad only apps we’ll start with, tablets are emerging as a third platform with particular needs and benefits. A tablet is far easier to take into a meeting or class for occasional notes. Notes Plus makes efficient use of zooming to make efficient use of a page with handwritten notes and adds the ability to record audio associated with a particular page or notebook.
Stylus recommended, but if you prefer to type, Notes Plus lets you blend handwriting and sketches with typed text.
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#3 – Whiteboard HD
One other iPad only app we’re offering this week offers the best way to sketch out ideas quickly, whether individually or as a group. You may have noticed we have a certain fondness for whiteboards in the LS—with 12 of them in our group rooms and another 16 rolling around upstairs. Most ideas don’t appear neatly organized into clear paragraphs or strong images without some work. A whiteboard gives you the space to see how an idea takes shape before beginning to focus it into some final shape.
Whiteboard HD also allows you to project it on an external monitor in a classroom or collaboration room using an iPad VGA adapter. This spring we’ll also be experimenting with an Apple TV in the Screening Room for wireless video mirroring from an iPad or iPhone.
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Free Essentials
Though our #12apps giveaways will focus on paid apps, there are a few free apps we consider essential to basic productivity around campus.
Dropbox – great app for keeping 2gb of files synced across devices and your desktop
Evernote – the standard “digital brain” for capturing and remembering almost anything
SimpleMind+ – a strong mind-mapping app for developing idea maps on an iPhone or iPad
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So what’s missing?
We’d love to hear from you in comments. What apps do you turn to when it’s time to begin a project?