Trying to get a workable solution for the tasks I want to do with my tablet. I am using it for business and personal (no games). Hopefully this list would help someone switching from Android... also looking for suggestions !
Calendar & Tasks
The built in Calendar and Tasks may be good but they miss one big functionality - showing Tasks (Reminders in Apple speak) in Calendar views on Due date. When I look at my day I need to see all I have to do on this day. So I went with Calengoo - the same app I used on Android. It has extra functionality (tasks in calendar views, repeating tasks, floating events, different views, icons). Unfortunately no combining tasks from different Google accounts, like it does on Android. Hopefully this is coming up.
An alternative is free Jorte - it can show Apple Reminders in Calendar.
Office
Viewing MS Office docs is easy and I don't think a special viewer is required; I did get Documents by Readdle that was free, but more to try things out.
Working with existing MS Office docs - there's a number of choices... I use CloudOn for more involved editing of Excel spreadsheets, or Numbers / Pages for simpler work where retaining complex formatting is not important. Google Docs for a quick and dirty small spreadsheet or word document. I don't do any powerpoint editing on the tablet so I don't know how good / bad Keynote is.
Notetaking
I need to take many notes in the meetings. I much prefer writing by hand. I tried all freeware I could find. MyScript Notes is easy to write in, and has surprisingly good OCR converting handwritten notes to text. However it's just one notebook (at least in the free version) and it had a few quirks I didn't quite like. Penultimate is free now and it automatically saves to Evernote, which is a big advantage. I would stick with it but there's a lag on startup; I need something I can start writing in within few seconds. GoodNotes is what I ended up buying; it is the easiest to write in (for me at least), has many features that make writing easy, and starts very quickly. Using it alongside with WebEx conferencing software, taking screenshots in WebEx, pasting them into GoodNotes, and writing my notes below / on them was almost effortless.
Protected file storage
Now, this one is a biggie; since I use a tablet much more than I use a home computer, I want to have access to my sensitive info (bills, statements etc.) without jumping through hoops. The iPad is hardware encrypted, which is great, but I need to share the data with my other devices. I used a Truecrypt container for this purpose for years, but I couldn't find a way to use it on Android, which I hoped to overcome on iPad.
Well, I found a great utility called Disk Decipher. It's only $.99 and it allows you to open a TrueCrypt container from Desktop (or locally) without downloading the entire thing - it only caches the files you read. Setting it up was a bit of a challenge (because I didn't read the f@king manual, which described all steps in minute details) but once set up it works. However, it's read only - you create container on your desktop, you put files in it on your desktop, you only read them on the iPad. To encrypt individual files, I bought WinZip. It offers AES256 encryption. The plan is to continue using Truecrypt container as my main document archive, zip individual statements I download, then move them into Truecrypt every few weeks.
There are other ways to do it - using a secure service like Wuala or SpiderOak is easier, but I prefer to handle encryption on my end rather than trust someone else to do it. Especially after the Dropbox fiasco when they left their users' accounts opened to the whole world for four hours.
Feel free to add useful utilities or other ways to use the tablet !
Calendar & Tasks
The built in Calendar and Tasks may be good but they miss one big functionality - showing Tasks (Reminders in Apple speak) in Calendar views on Due date. When I look at my day I need to see all I have to do on this day. So I went with Calengoo - the same app I used on Android. It has extra functionality (tasks in calendar views, repeating tasks, floating events, different views, icons). Unfortunately no combining tasks from different Google accounts, like it does on Android. Hopefully this is coming up.
An alternative is free Jorte - it can show Apple Reminders in Calendar.
Office
Viewing MS Office docs is easy and I don't think a special viewer is required; I did get Documents by Readdle that was free, but more to try things out.
Working with existing MS Office docs - there's a number of choices... I use CloudOn for more involved editing of Excel spreadsheets, or Numbers / Pages for simpler work where retaining complex formatting is not important. Google Docs for a quick and dirty small spreadsheet or word document. I don't do any powerpoint editing on the tablet so I don't know how good / bad Keynote is.
Notetaking
I need to take many notes in the meetings. I much prefer writing by hand. I tried all freeware I could find. MyScript Notes is easy to write in, and has surprisingly good OCR converting handwritten notes to text. However it's just one notebook (at least in the free version) and it had a few quirks I didn't quite like. Penultimate is free now and it automatically saves to Evernote, which is a big advantage. I would stick with it but there's a lag on startup; I need something I can start writing in within few seconds. GoodNotes is what I ended up buying; it is the easiest to write in (for me at least), has many features that make writing easy, and starts very quickly. Using it alongside with WebEx conferencing software, taking screenshots in WebEx, pasting them into GoodNotes, and writing my notes below / on them was almost effortless.
Protected file storage
Now, this one is a biggie; since I use a tablet much more than I use a home computer, I want to have access to my sensitive info (bills, statements etc.) without jumping through hoops. The iPad is hardware encrypted, which is great, but I need to share the data with my other devices. I used a Truecrypt container for this purpose for years, but I couldn't find a way to use it on Android, which I hoped to overcome on iPad.
Well, I found a great utility called Disk Decipher. It's only $.99 and it allows you to open a TrueCrypt container from Desktop (or locally) without downloading the entire thing - it only caches the files you read. Setting it up was a bit of a challenge (because I didn't read the f@king manual, which described all steps in minute details) but once set up it works. However, it's read only - you create container on your desktop, you put files in it on your desktop, you only read them on the iPad. To encrypt individual files, I bought WinZip. It offers AES256 encryption. The plan is to continue using Truecrypt container as my main document archive, zip individual statements I download, then move them into Truecrypt every few weeks.
There are other ways to do it - using a secure service like Wuala or SpiderOak is easier, but I prefer to handle encryption on my end rather than trust someone else to do it. Especially after the Dropbox fiasco when they left their users' accounts opened to the whole world for four hours.
Feel free to add useful utilities or other ways to use the tablet !
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