Trying to replace Filofax with iPad

[caribmilly]

Hi, I recently became the proud owner of my very first iAnything - a new iPad.

I am a busy mother of 2 and was hoping to replace my beloved filofax with my ipad and use it to run my life and the house etc. I'm struggling! My first impressions of the basic ipad apps are that they need to be "pimped up" via other apps to work well. For example, I need to use distribution list on e-mail a lot but had to download an app to do that.

I am wasting a lot of money downloading apps which i then find do not quite meet my requirements.

I have a lot to learn but would be grateful for any hints or tips you can provide. Things I am looking for are:

organisers - I don't quite like the look of the pre-installed calendar but it has better functionality than others I have bought. i use the calendar for entering all clubs, appointments, events etc for all members of the family

task lists?
party planning!
shopping lists!

anything to make life easier. At the moment I am tempted to pick up my pen and my faithful filofax again.

thank you in advance!

 

[ernbrdn]

Pocket infornant is a pretty good choice. Personally I use Awesome Notes for all of my planning, task lists, shopping lists, meal plans, etc. I have it so that all the information I need for everything is at my fingertips.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[eric6052]

My wife and I use a shopping list app called Buy me a pie, there's a free and paid version so try the free out if you want to take it out for a test drive.

 

[TurboTiger]

My wife and I use OurGroceries.
It's free and works well.
Multiple people can have access to it via the web froms any device.

Good Luck

 

[cjdaniel]

One of my requirements is that it go from iphone to ipad to Desk at work:
Toodledoo - To Do List for many years, since my Treo days, and I have liked it the best of many I have tried, it is not the easiest to learn but, the most versatile and powerful. I use it for work, home, health so it is scalable. Works on my pc, mac, ip, ipad..(all sync) It has notes (shopping lists) and folders, contexts...

That being said, I really like my friend's app called "Clear" it is beautiful, and really fun to use. It is not cloud based.

For planning I love One Note, which is scary for me to say as I generally am not that keen on MS products. But very flexible, cloud based goes to any web browser, ip, ipad. Syncs to cloud. Very nice App. Not rated well, but I like it a great deal.

 

[Scottm42]

Hi, I recently became the proud owner of my very first iAnything - a new iPad.

I am a busy mother of 2 and was hoping to replace my beloved filofax with my ipad and use it to run my life and the house etc. I'm struggling! My first impressions of the basic ipad apps are that they need to be "pimped up" via other apps to work well. For example, I need to use distribution list on e-mail a lot but had to download an app to do that.

I am wasting a lot of money downloading apps which i then find do not quite meet my requirements.
<snip>
organisers - I don't quite like the look of the pre-installed calendar but it has better functionality than others I have bought. i use the calendar for entering all clubs, appointments, events etc for all members of the family

task lists?
party planning!
shopping lists!

anything to make life easier. At the moment I am tempted to pick up my pen and my faithful filofax again.

thank you in advance!

The default Calendar app is really quite good now. I used Calvetica for a long time but now with a long press on a time in the calendar to set an event (I set default event length to 1 hour, default alert at time of event in Settings), Calendar works well for me. Events are easy to push around to a new time, change length etc.

Calendar is my main organizational tool. I scatter things I need to do in my time path along with appointments etc. Two alarms per event can be quickly set.

For shopping lists, party lists etc, try the default Reminders app. It is very good now as well.
Using grocery list as an example:
1. Open Reminders app and click on the Edit button (top left).
2. Click on "Create new list" and enter the word "Grocery".
3. Click the Done button (top left).

All set. When you need milk, open Reminders, select "Grocery" and add it to the list that appears. There will be a tick box beside milk for when you have bought it. You can also add times with alerts to these items. A "today" list is available by default which will show today's items from any list you have.

Voice trickery:
IOS 6 is available now which adds Siri to the new iPad. Go to the Settings app > General > Software Update to install it. Once you have iOS 6:

Long press the Home button on your iPad whenever you think of something to add to a Reminders list and Siri will come up. Say "Add bread to my Grocery (note exact word as one of your lists) list."
Siri will say, "Ok, I can add this to your Grocery List in Reminders. Shall I go ahead?". It will display "bread". Say "yes" or hit the confirm button. You can also give a time to remind you at ( eg "in one hour", or "tomorrow at 8 am" ).

You can also use Siri to enter Calendar items. Eg say, "Make an appointment to get a haircut tomorrow at 4 pm".

Give these 2 included apps a try. They are free and installed already. Using default apps will ensure timely app updates and the chances of these apps being orphaned is very remote. It will also simplify data migration to future devices, assuming of course you stay within the Apple ecosystem. Not necessary, but if you happen to have an iPhone 4S or 5, iCloud works very well to keep appointments and lists in sync effortlessly between these devices. With the phone, you can add locations to reminders (eg, "check the school lost and found shelf for water bottle" will ding when you arrive at your kid's school). Mountain Lion can also sync Reminders etc over iCloud as well but I'm not using that. I'm giving "post PC" a good try.

 

[A S]

Caribmilly,

At the moment I am tempted to pick up my pen and my faithful filofax again.

thank you in advance!

Looking at the other responses to your post I think that's your best option. I've looked at some of the other offerings, but I'm not impressed by any. A pity, because the iPad, and other tablets, seems to lend itself to replacing the Filofax concept. Instead we have a collection of apps, mostly disconnected, which come nowhere near matching Filofax ability.

Many years ago I was lucky enough to have a copy of Lotus Notes on my work PC. That was an excellent imitation, even visually, of a Filofax - you could even choose the colour of the leather cover. Maybe a match will be produced for the iPad one day, although it may be a bit pricey.

Anyway, I'm glad I didn't throw away my ancient paper Filofax. The iPad will still be used, but mainly for reading eBooks and BBC's iPlayer.