Now I know there are those who vehemently say the iPad is awful for college, but I have one and want to use it. So those who do use your iPad for college, what are your favorite apps?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
College Apps for iPad
- Thread starter BizRunner
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Notability is KEY, best note taking app in my experience. Pick up a $15 stylus and you have yourself an all in one note app that is just fantastic.
Dropbox, as mentioned, is also key. iBooks works great with PDFs, so if you have a PDF version of any of your texts it's great. I actually find this superior to the physical text, as you can highlight/annotate/etc the PDF, and it's fully searchable/bookmark-able.
Dropbox, as mentioned, is also key. iBooks works great with PDFs, so if you have a PDF version of any of your texts it's great. I actually find this superior to the physical text, as you can highlight/annotate/etc the PDF, and it's fully searchable/bookmark-able.
Taposé is a Kickstarter project that was just released today. I've used the beta and it is possibly the best note taking app I've used, at least in terms of functionality. You should really consider checking it out, especially considering it's a steal at just $2.99.
One thing I'm really enjoying with the new ipad is reading pdfs on goodreader. What I'm doing right now is just downloading any papers I find interesting and putting them into a dropbox folder, which I then sync with goodreader on the ipad. I can then read them on the ipad and annotate/highlight them there (which I much prefer to reading on a computer!), and it all syncs back to dropbox.
If you can get your textbooks on the ipad that would be great too. Unfortunately the textbooks I want at the moment aren't available as ebooks (and I'm not sure I'll be willing to pay twice - as I already own the paperback of the textbooks), but I'd infinitely prefer carrying around an ipad as opposed to 3kg+ textbooks...
If you can get your textbooks on the ipad that would be great too. Unfortunately the textbooks I want at the moment aren't available as ebooks (and I'm not sure I'll be willing to pay twice - as I already own the paperback of the textbooks), but I'd infinitely prefer carrying around an ipad as opposed to 3kg+ textbooks...
Get a good Dropbox text editor, something like Writeup or Notesy or Writing Kit or a good one for iPad only is Writings or Daedalus.
College & iPad
I had to register just to answer this.
I'm in law school, and I exclusively use an iPad for everything. Essentially, the hell we call law school requires copious amounts of reading and info synthesis in a very short amount of time. A typically day requires about 4 casebooks that are at least 1200 pages each, supplemental books to explain the casebooks, and various other useless crap. I just can be one of those "rollie" bag people, so I needed a better way. Paperless law offices are the future, so I decided to start a year early.
I started a website a few weeks ago with tutorials explaining my work flow, but since I'm unfamiliar with the rules here, I'll refrain from posting the link. But below is a very short list. This is not exactly cheap.... and importantly, not necessary.
Paperless:
I scan all my books with a Scansnap 1500 - best scanner on the planet. I cannot stress enough how amazing this scanner is. It take an hour to scan and OCR a casebook. I do this with all my books. I'll keep the complete book in iBooks, and break it up into daily reading sections.
Annotation:
For annotating text with OCR, I use GoodReader and iAnnotate. I prefer iAnnotate (killer with the iPad 3). Everything you highlight is captured as editable text which I export to outlining software - Omni.
Note-taking
I have purchased EVERY note-taking app there is.... seriously. None of them are perfect, but notability is my go to app as of now. I'm beta testing and things look good. You can also import PDFs into it and annotate, then OCR - but I found it redundant. It also records lectures.
Dropbox... obviously.
Remote Desktop access
Log-me In Ignition works for me. This is awesome with the new iPad. Leave your laptop at home. I access my home network and computers from anywhere.
Stylus
Touchy and subjective area... I've tried a few, and found that most suck - especially Targus. I found this mad scientist type guy that has created, what I think, is the best. Google iFaraday. They look crappy, but the makers is amenable to suggestions. He really just wants to make his customers happy.
Task-manager
2Do works well, but they don't have a desktop app, yet. I works with iCal, though. Syncs flawlessly with your iphone, iPad, and Laptop. I use a 4GS and SIRI - freaking awesome. "Remind me at 9:30 a.m. to brief Marbury v. Madison...." propagates to all devices.
I'll skip the legal apps....
Anyhow, undergrad is easy compared to law because we have no time; therefore, this is probably over the top for those unfamiliar. I like to get at least 6 hours of sleep. This is how I make time. Easier than it sounds. I've converted about 20 people at my school, and many more are planning on it.
I'll check back and post a link if it's permissible. Anyhow, good luck.
I had to register just to answer this.
I'm in law school, and I exclusively use an iPad for everything. Essentially, the hell we call law school requires copious amounts of reading and info synthesis in a very short amount of time. A typically day requires about 4 casebooks that are at least 1200 pages each, supplemental books to explain the casebooks, and various other useless crap. I just can be one of those "rollie" bag people, so I needed a better way. Paperless law offices are the future, so I decided to start a year early.
I started a website a few weeks ago with tutorials explaining my work flow, but since I'm unfamiliar with the rules here, I'll refrain from posting the link. But below is a very short list. This is not exactly cheap.... and importantly, not necessary.
Paperless:
I scan all my books with a Scansnap 1500 - best scanner on the planet. I cannot stress enough how amazing this scanner is. It take an hour to scan and OCR a casebook. I do this with all my books. I'll keep the complete book in iBooks, and break it up into daily reading sections.
Annotation:
For annotating text with OCR, I use GoodReader and iAnnotate. I prefer iAnnotate (killer with the iPad 3). Everything you highlight is captured as editable text which I export to outlining software - Omni.
Note-taking
I have purchased EVERY note-taking app there is.... seriously. None of them are perfect, but notability is my go to app as of now. I'm beta testing and things look good. You can also import PDFs into it and annotate, then OCR - but I found it redundant. It also records lectures.
Dropbox... obviously.
Remote Desktop access
Log-me In Ignition works for me. This is awesome with the new iPad. Leave your laptop at home. I access my home network and computers from anywhere.
Stylus
Touchy and subjective area... I've tried a few, and found that most suck - especially Targus. I found this mad scientist type guy that has created, what I think, is the best. Google iFaraday. They look crappy, but the makers is amenable to suggestions. He really just wants to make his customers happy.
Task-manager
2Do works well, but they don't have a desktop app, yet. I works with iCal, though. Syncs flawlessly with your iphone, iPad, and Laptop. I use a 4GS and SIRI - freaking awesome. "Remind me at 9:30 a.m. to brief Marbury v. Madison...." propagates to all devices.
I'll skip the legal apps....
Anyhow, undergrad is easy compared to law because we have no time; therefore, this is probably over the top for those unfamiliar. I like to get at least 6 hours of sleep. This is how I make time. Easier than it sounds. I've converted about 20 people at my school, and many more are planning on it.
I'll check back and post a link if it's permissible. Anyhow, good luck.
scrivener(Mac) -> Dropbox -> Notability (ipad) + stylus -> Dropbox -> Back into scrivener.
Scriveners file management works well for me to keep things in order. Before now I was printing out my readings, annotating them, and then filing the hard copy away never to be seen again. Can't wait for Scrivener to release their iPad app, but not sure whether it will knock off Notability.
edit: mdbutler71 could you please put up the link? Or pm it to me. One of the reasons im trying to reform my study workflow is cause im doing undergrad with a few law subjects and want to do do law JD in 2 years. info would be very relevant
Scriveners file management works well for me to keep things in order. Before now I was printing out my readings, annotating them, and then filing the hard copy away never to be seen again. Can't wait for Scrivener to release their iPad app, but not sure whether it will knock off Notability.
edit: mdbutler71 could you please put up the link? Or pm it to me. One of the reasons im trying to reform my study workflow is cause im doing undergrad with a few law subjects and want to do do law JD in 2 years. info would be very relevant
Last edited:
I just picked up GoodNotes and it has support for the retina display. It's like Noteshelf and Notability combined! Because it has a shelf-like home screen and it supports PDF import and annotation (from Dropbox etc). Go pick it up!
I graduated last year (law), and found Dropbox to be essential. Textbooks and casebooks only made up a small part of my required reading... the majority probably the cases in full* and lots of journal articles. I saved cases and articles as PDFs in Dropbox, and read/annotated in GoodReader/iAnnotate (they kept hopping over each other feature-wise, but thankfully the PDFs were synced in Dropbox so I could switch between apps at will). Being able to export all your annotations and highlights was immensely useful when it came to essay writing and finding the salient points.
I tried pretty much all note-taking apps, and right now I'd place my money firmly on Notability. Evernote is a great central repository for everything you've exported thanks to its powerful filing and search features... a much-welcomed aid to revision. Instapaper was excellent for reading relevant news stories, and I could send them to Evernote if they were worth keeping.
For scanning handwritten notes (unfortunately I did an awful lot of these!), I relied on DocScanner on my iPhone.
Mail was obviously essential (it was the way pretty much everybody communicated at my university... losing email access for a few hours often meant you'd miss something important), as was a judicious use of Calendar (keeping track of lectures, supervisions, deadlines, meetings, sports, you get the idea).
Edit: Essay form varied from supervisor to supervisor. For those I could send a PDF or print-out, Pages was fine. For those who requested .docx and relied on track changes, Word for Mac. For those who preferred handwritten, pen and paper it was.
* I'm not dismissing the significance of casebooks (it's impossible to read every case in full, and in many cases pointless), but they largely focus on what the law is and miss some of the nuanced arguments. My supervisors could tell if I had only read from the casebook/textbook/lecture notes... and believe me, I did try to get away with it.
I tried pretty much all note-taking apps, and right now I'd place my money firmly on Notability. Evernote is a great central repository for everything you've exported thanks to its powerful filing and search features... a much-welcomed aid to revision. Instapaper was excellent for reading relevant news stories, and I could send them to Evernote if they were worth keeping.
For scanning handwritten notes (unfortunately I did an awful lot of these!), I relied on DocScanner on my iPhone.
Mail was obviously essential (it was the way pretty much everybody communicated at my university... losing email access for a few hours often meant you'd miss something important), as was a judicious use of Calendar (keeping track of lectures, supervisions, deadlines, meetings, sports, you get the idea).
Edit: Essay form varied from supervisor to supervisor. For those I could send a PDF or print-out, Pages was fine. For those who requested .docx and relied on track changes, Word for Mac. For those who preferred handwritten, pen and paper it was.
* I'm not dismissing the significance of casebooks (it's impossible to read every case in full, and in many cases pointless), but they largely focus on what the law is and miss some of the nuanced arguments. My supervisors could tell if I had only read from the casebook/textbook/lecture notes... and believe me, I did try to get away with it.
Last edited:
I'm in med school and find NotesPlus and Dropbox to be invaluable. I have all my textbooks, cases, slides and everything else all in one place. Can't imagine med school without it. Also, once a day I like to take out NotesPlus and write "thank God I'm not in law school." (Dig for my poor bastard law school friends who read this site.)
Me too. Also interested in the legal apps, as I am starting law school this fall.