Using the iPad as an organiser

4PPLEM4C said:

Just want the opinions of iPad owners, if they think the iPad is suitable to use as a replacement of a personal organiser.

Currently I have a bulky FlioFax with appointments and contact address in which I carry around.

Is the iPad suitable to replace this, either on its own or with added apps. I know its not designed to be an organiser but if I could just carry around the iPad with everything in it then that would be ideal.

Thanks in advance

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Considering the iPhone has replaced all of the above why would the ipad not be capable? There have been lesser devices available for at least 12 years that could replace a filofax... on second thought, is this thread for realz?

4PPLEM4C said:

Just want the opinions of iPad owners, if they think the iPad is suitable to use as a replacement of a personal organiser.

Currently I have a bulky FlioFax with appointments and contact address in which I carry around.

Is the iPad suitable to replace this, either on its own or with added apps. I know its not designed to be an organiser but if I could just carry around the iPad with everything in it then that would be ideal.

Thanks in advance

Click to expand...

Hmmm....

I don't use my iPad as an organizer. Yes, I can view my calendar. Yes, I can view my contacts. Yes, I can read email. But I prefer to use my Blackberry 8830 as my organizer and when I sync it with my Macbook, MobileMe pushes everything to my iPod Touch and my iPad.

Would an iPad work as an organizer? I think so. I've used Sharp, Palm, Windows Mobile, iPhone OS and Blackberry. If there was such a thing as a Verizon iPhone, I'd probably put away the BB, but for now the BB is my main organizer.

Apple talked about enhanced versions of Calendar and Contacts on the iPad and while I have peeked at them, I haven't used them. I don't have my iPad with me 24x7 but I do have my iPod Touch and BB with me so I use them for my organizing and mostly use my BB because of its handling of push email and automatic update of my calendar when I receive an invitation via email.

I've been an avid Filofax user for about 12 years and my goal was to replace all of my sections in my very bulky Filo with apps on my iPad- and it has worked perfectly. It's so much neater, lighter, comprehensive and solves the whole backup problem of panicking about losing your Filofax.

Have never managed it with a Palm/Psion etc despite trying many times- its the App thing that makes it work....

First time I've ever been without paper diary....

iPad Organiser Apps

Would be grateful if you could share the name of the applications you have used on the ipad to replace organiser.

Hi there,

These are the following sections I had in my Filofax and the apps that I replaced them with:

Various different format diary sections - Calendar (native app)
Contacts - Address book (native app)
Personal details and info - Simplenote or built in Notes feature (will ditch Simplenote once the native Notes app starts syncing over the air like the iPhone version does now)
Todo lists - Ominfocus
Project Planning - Omingraffle and Ommifocus
Notes - iNotes and Dragon dictation for voice recorded notes
Music manuscript - Whitenote with imported manuscript paper
Articles on company website needed for work - Instapaper
London A-Z - Maps
Calculator - calculator app
Train timetable - National Rail and Tube Map
Print outs of work documents needed on a daily basis - Airsharing and iAnnotate for annotating them when needed
Sheet music needed on a daily basis - Fast PDF
Finance - haven't found my perfect finance app yet, but there are lots to try,

I also have the iWork suite and Docs 2 Go for work, and all of my work folders are in Dropbox and can access them from the Dropbox app, Docs 2 Go or Airsharing.

I also now no longer have to carry my hard disk recorder which used to live in the pocket of my Filo - I use voice Memos or Studio Track for capturing different types of audio.

I would normally need loads of print outs for meetings which would go into the Filofax, but now I just import them into Airsharing as pdfs to cut down on the wasted paper.

Most of these apps sync up with the equivelant iPhone app so if it's not appropriate to be carrying the iPad for any reason, I can get everything I need on my phone. Beats lugging round my heavy leather A5 folder!

There's plenty more you could do to create your digital Filofax too.... I've been really happy with this system since April, and have just sold all my Filofax paraphernalia on eBay!

Hope that helps,

Francesca

The iPad makes a damn fine personal organizer. I use...

- Built-in Calendar app, synced with MobileMe
- Built-in Contacts app, synced with MobileMe
- Built-in Mail app, synced with MobileMe and Gmail
- ToDo by Appigo for to-do list management, synced with my Toodledo.com account
- GoodReader by Good.iWare to keep copies of important documents. Syncs with Dropbox, MobileMe iDisk, Google Docs and others
- Penultimate by Cocoa Box Design for jotting down handwritten notes and diagrams
- iWork by Apple (Pages, Keynote, Numbers)
- PCalc by James Thomson; great scientific and RPN calculator


I use other apps, too, but these are the main "PDA" type apps I use.

franmatt80 said:

Hi there,

These are the following sections I had in my Filofax and the apps that I replaced them with:

There's plenty more you could do to create your digital Filofax too.... I've been really happy with this system since April, and have just sold all my Filofax paraphernalia on eBay!

Hope that helps,

Francesca

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Apart from the music stuff I have followed the same path. I also use Evernote for note taking, Sheet HD for financial management and iXmpenseIT on the iPhone for tracking my finances.

I love the feel and aesthetics of a filofax and love pens too, but the iPad has finally killed all that for me. Sad really.

I ditched my Filofax in favour of a iPhone and a iPad. I use the native apps for calendar, contacts and notes (short memos and nice to have info). I still use a Pelikan fountain pen and Moleskine for note taking during meetings as I haven't found any good note taking app yet (I've tried several) and because of the lack of Swedish keyboard on the iPad ( comes in november)

I've already bought the Pocket Informant HD as it will rock with the release of iOS4.2 (integration with iOS calendar db). PI will handle my schedule and all of my to-do's.

I use MobileMe to sync iPhone, iPad and desktop. Works great!

I got completely rid of a paper-based organizer back in the Newton days. Both iPhone and iPad are great tools to facilitate your personal and professional organization needs.

Honestly, my iPhone is my organizer. Easier to enter data and always with me. However, I think the iPad would be ridiculously useful (haven't had a meeting where it was required yet) in a meeting. What would be really cool (assuming this hasn't already been invented yet) would be voice to text software where you could simply set your iPad down to record during a meeting, jot some notes and then have all of that coalesce into meeting notes.

Jaro65 said:

I got completely rid of a paper-based organizer back in the Newton days. Both iPhone and iPad are great tools to facilitate your personal and professional organization needs.

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Definitely! I think I replaced my Franklin Day Planner way back in the days of 1995 with my Palm Pilot Personal, then PP Professional in 1997. Then moved onto PocketPC's in the early 00's. Don't miss those, now that iPhone/iPad is out.

This was the main reason why I just bought my iPad. To use it as an organizer on steroids.

I use the native apps as much as I can and I find they get the job done very well.

I have yet to buy any apps and so far have used a few free ones.

iBrainstorm - basically just a cork board you can mind map post-it notes and draw lines between them. Is on ok app for brain storming in meetings.
Tactillis - funky app for drawing. It doesn't do much yet since it is free but it has a few cool features for drawing lines and circles as if you were using a ruler and compass.
Operations - Cool calculator that stores a list of the calculations you made. Very handy when adding up a bunch of bills as so forth.

We just had a production meeting for a new client and I used my iPad in the meeting. I was able to write notes from the client and jump back to Tactillis to create mock up sketches for the client and our team members. I'm sure there are better apps to do this but it has proved to be an awesome tool for meetings. Well worth the price in my opinion being able to keep sketches and notes for projects in one location that I can email to the rest of the team.

As a self-employed musician, the iPhone is fantastic for using as an organiser. Having instant access to gig records a year in the future or two years in the past is really handy, and getting bookings through email makes it even easier to create events, add invitees (most of whom use iPhones) and send out reminders.

Best thing, though: syncing. If I lost a paper diary I'd be sunk. With the iPhone, it's all backed up on Google Calendar.

My daughter is an organizing fiend and she is in love with Things for iPad -- a pricey app at $19.99, but apparently it does everything.

Yes, it is my organizer. I also use a journal app to take notes for my daily devotionals, personal coaching sessions, and meetings.

The iPad along with the ToDo app has replaced my Franklin Covey organizer that I used for years.

Filofax gathering dust

I use the iphone as my organizer and have completely jettisoned by filofax. I use all the native apps plus "notebooks" application to keep my notes. I synch everything on moibleme so that makes my IPad my backup organizer.

tekchic said:

Definitely! I think I replaced my Franklin Day Planner way back in the days of 1995 with my Palm Pilot Personal, then PP Professional in 1997. Then moved onto PocketPC's in the early 00's. Don't miss those, now that iPhone/iPad is out.

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It was similar for me. I eventually stopped using my Newton and moved on to a Pocket PC. The iPhone felt like a breath of fresh air after going through several Pocket PC devices!

I'm moving over to using my iPad as an organizer.

Gradually more of what I need is being moved from desktop and paper to the iPad.

franmatt80 said:

These are the following sections I had in my Filofax and the apps that I replaced them with:<snip of good list>

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Thanks for the list.

xraydoc said:

- PCalc by James Thomson; great scientific and RPN calculator

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Agree. PCalc is nice on the iPhone/iPod touch. On the iPad, it really rocks.

Cool stuff