Going all iPad for basic PC needs

[KimLA]

Hi,

I'm a new ipad 3 user coming from Windows world. I bought it to replace my laptop when I'm traveling and when I would need to do some basic tasks like:

- transfering pictures I took with my camera from my SD card directly to the iPad
- viewing and doing some basic editing of my pictures (does an app that can run Photoshop actions exist?)
- viewing and doing some basic editing of word/excel documents
- viewing PDF files
- playing avi (xvid) and mkv (x264) video files without having to reencode or anything. I found a VLC player for iOS but I don't know how to install it: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ios.html

Do you know some good apps that would fill my needs?

Regarding the video files thing, how do I transfer a 10GB mkv file from a USB key or HD directly onto the iPad?

My iPad is not jailbroken, and I would prefer not to JB it.
Thanks!
Kim

 

[Zcott]

Great news! You can do all of those things. You'll need to pick up the iPad Camera Connection Kit to transfer photos from your camera over, but once that's done, you can edit them in either iPhoto for iPad or Photoshop Touch. iPhoto is probably more feature-rich and is more powerful, IMO.

For PDF files, you can use iBooks or Goodreader (which I find to be an awful interface, but everyone seems to love it...)

For movie files, I think there's an app called CineXPlayer which allows format of non-mov video files. To use it, install it on the iPad then in iTunes on your Mac, go to your iPad, Apps, then at the bottom there's Documents where you just drag them over.

You will not be able to transfer video files from an SD card - you'll have to do this through iTunes on your desktop or laptop.

 

[MisterMe]

This is an old app. It was removed from the iTunes App Store years ago. Instead of a standalone VLC player app, now VLC now has remote control and streaming apps that work in conjunction with your personal computer.

 

[Night Spring]

Regarding the video files thing, how do I transfer a 10GB mkv file from a USB key or HD directly onto the iPad?

Can't do that. I'm afraid. You'll need to go through a computer with iTunes, or over a wireless network. But 10GB over wifi is very slow and prone to failures, so I'm afraid a computer is your only sure option.

 

[KimLA]

Thanks for all these answers!

What about:
- viewing and doing some basic editing of word/excel documents

Also I really would like to avoid installing/using itunes. There's no way to transfer a file from a usb key or a usb external hard drive directly to the iPad? How come there's a solution for pictures and not other file types?

 

[RobesNo1]

Thanks for all these answers!

What about:
- viewing and doing some basic editing of word/excel documents

Also I really would like to avoid installing/using itunes. There's no way to transfer a file from a usb key or a usb external hard drive directly to the iPad? How come there's a solution for pictures and not other file types?

You can view word/excel documents without any extra apps. There are a few apps that allow you to view AND edit office docs, Apples solution is two apps called Pages and Numbers and for presentations there's also Keynote. There are 3rd party apps that do the same thing also such as Quickoffice.

In regard to the pictures/videos, you can transfer pictures via the Camera Connection kit it also copies over videos but only in a specific format. The camera connection kit was meant only for connecting your camera really but people are using it for transfering videos to their iPads but it's a little fiddly and not ideal and the videos will have to be in mp4/mv4.

As for a 10gb mkv; I'm assuming that's a 1080p movie, if this is the case the movie won't play properly on your iPad in that format anyway. Both the iPad 2 and 3rd gen struggle to play even 720p mkvs so you'll either have to remux/convert or jailbreak to get this to play properly.

 

[arranjenks]

Thanks for all these answers!

What about:
- viewing and doing some basic editing of word/excel documents

I use Pages for word docs, and also use Numbers for excel docs.
They're both a part of the iWork package for all iOS devices as well as imacs etc

 

[KimLA]

In regard to the pictures/videos, you can transfer pictures via the Camera Connection kit it also copies over videos but only in a specific format. The camera connection kit was meant only for connecting your camera really but people are using it for transfering videos to their iPads but it's a little fiddly and not ideal and the videos will have to be in mp4/mv4.

So you mean I can transfer mp4 video files directly into the iPad using this Camera Kit? Is it also working with mp3 files?

If it doesn't, is there a way to transfer mp3 into an iPad without using itunes? Back in the day when I had an ipod nano (2nd gen), I used a portable soft called Yamipod, it was light and I was able to stay away from itunes. Is there the equivalent for iPad?

 

[RobesNo1]

So you mean I can transfer mp4 video files directly into the iPad using this Camera Kit? Is it also working with mp3 files?

If it doesn't, is there a way to transfer mp3 into an iPad without using itunes? Back in the day when I had an ipod nano (2nd gen), I used a portable soft called Yamipod, it was light and I was able to stay away from itunes. Is there the equivalent for iPad?

Yes you can transfer MP4 videos using the CCK but they need to be named in a specific way and they'll only play through the Photos app, not the video player, it's all a bit messy. No to the MP3s, it only does videos/pics.

Sorry have not looked into a alternative to itunes for syncing so cannot answer your other question.

 

[Night Spring]

If it doesn't, is there a way to transfer mp3 into an iPad without using itunes? Back in the day when I had an ipod nano (2nd gen), I used a portable soft called Yamipod, it was light and I was able to stay away from itunes. Is there the equivalent for iPad?

I'm afraid not. If you are really set on staying away from iTunes, there are apps that can handle mp3 files, but I doubt any are as full-featured as the native music app. I suggest you just bite the bullet and use iTunes. I know it's a bloated piece of scum software that can be painfully slow at times, but there's so much more going on with iOS devices -- the Nano is just a music player, iOS devices have apps, ibooks, videos, photos, contacts, calendar, etc. -- it's just much simpler to use iTunes than to try to cobble together some other solution. If you are going computer free with an iOS device, that's one thing, but if you want to transfer files onto it from a computer, then you should bite the bullet and use iTunes.

 

[KimLA]

I guess that's what I'll do.

Just one question about the CCK, does it only read pictures from SD cards, or does it actually transfer the files from the SD card to the ipad so my raw files remain unaltered on the SD card?

 

[porcupine8]

I guess that's what I'll do.

Just one question about the CCK, does it only read pictures from SD cards, or does it actually transfer the files from the SD card to the ipad so my raw files remain unaltered on the SD card?

You can do either, but I'm pretty sure to edit them you have to transfer them to your iPad, I don't think photo apps (of which there are a million in addition to iPhoto and photoshop - some are fun to play with) can access the CCK directly. But thn, I've never tried it....

 

[RobesNo1]

You can do either, but I'm pretty sure to edit them you have to transfer them to your iPad, I don't think photo apps (of which there are a million in addition to iPhoto and photoshop - some are fun to play with) can access the CCK directly. But thn, I've never tried it....

You're right, you can't edit direct on the card on any apps. but you can delete from the card, which is handy.

 

[noteple]

I guess that's what I'll do.

Just one question about the CCK, does it only read pictures from SD cards, or does it actually transfer the files from the SD card to the ipad so my raw files remain unaltered on the SD card?

Photos are imported and not disturbed on the SD card.

RAW photos come in at full Resolution but use an embedded jpeg representation for editing and printing.

 

[KimLA]

Thanks, I have a Panasonic TZ7 so there is no RAW format, only JPEG.

 

[h00ligan]

Filterstorm pro will batch adjust.

Goodplayer for video. It handles everything and browses shares.

Filebrowser to access shares.

 

[xraydoc]

I've been iPad for basic computer needs since I received the original iPad on day 1.

I read the bulk of my email on the iPad, do most of my web browsing, play most of my games do basic image editing/cropping and view the majority of my PDFs and other written work on the iPad.

But I still keep an 11" MacBook Air for the more sophisticated stuff-on-the-go and I've got a 27" iMac at home and a dual monitor Mac mini at work for the heavy lifting.

All that said, it's been three weeks since I've touched my MacBook Air.