iPad does content creation.

[FloatingBones]

Obviously the iPad can create content, just not as well as a computer would let you

Or even a $300 netbook.

I don't know if that's the case. Everyone I know who was using an Eee PC with hackintosh has ditched their netbook and is now using an iPad. "As well as" is a very squishy term. The iPad works just fine for many cases of mixed content consumption/creation. Others may be happy with a netbook. The Red Cross said it best many years ago: it takes all types.

I know, it just seams that people are so insecure in their purchases that they need an arsenal of responses when someone insults the creation abilities of their iPad.

Different people have different insecurities. In 2007, Apple decided to keep their iOS web browsers (the iPhone, iPod Touch and now the iPad) Flash-free. They even took the extraordinary step of explaining their reasons for this business decision, but that didn't satisfy the critics.

While Flash was never universally available on browsers, it is now in serious decline. There are now approximately a quarter-billion iOS devices; they all came with Flash-free browsers. Any websites wishing to deliver content to everyone can no longer do that with Flash: they would have to ignore this huge chunk of users. Even Adobe recognizes this fact.

The decline of Flash -- coupled with the huge success of the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad -- seems to be a threat to the manhood (or womanhood) of some of its advocates. Many of them have clearly never read the memo. Some of them demonize Steve Jobs for Apple's decision; some discuss it in a wholly irrational fashion. The Flash-advocates will not deal head-on with the most important reason cited by Apple for ditching Flash. Do they understand that the platform-specific accessibility widgets will never ever work in Flash? I cannot tell.

None of my commentary is personal to those Flash-advocates. They are clearly passionate about the technology; they simply didn't realize the fundamental architectural limitations of their chosen technology. Apple -- and much of the web -- has moved on.

 

[urkel]

Agreed. It's a silly "debate." But to be fair to the OP, he/she did ask for examples of/experiences with content creation on the iPad and a couple of posters contributed some interesting comments.

Well, if thats the case then i definitely CAN create content, but as a photographer and new parent I am severely limited in creating the QUALITY content I thought I could due to limitations in the iPad.

We all know the internal camera is garbage so we have to rely on external cameras to fully take advantage of iMovie or photo editing apps. But the iPads handling of RAW files is poor and there are severe restrictions on movie formats/sizes/make/model that make external video imports difficult. And to top that off, once you finally manage to conform to the iPad's specific file format (by re-encoding and degrading quality through a computer) then it doesn't even show up in iMovie without some ridiculous hacking through 3rd party apps. I have made several movies and they took hours longer than it would've if I just used a computer. (My opinion may change when I get an iPhone 5 and can have better file format compatibility, but the fact that i require external equipment to fully utilize onboard software is ridiculous)

So while we can all brag that creating content is "possible", we shouldn't get too carried away and act as if it is "ideal".

 

[colinwil]

I do find it interesting that musicians are among the most numerous of those who use the iPad for content creation.

An iPad is ok for entering text. But not as good as a PC. Ditto for editing movies, doing spreadsheets etc.

But for musicians its often better than a PC, because of its interactive way of working with the touch screen. For instance, you can't really use a notebook to produce a song demo, with no other hardware. but you can with an iPad.

Also, the quality of iPad music apps - GarageBand (ofc), and also things like the Korg iM-20 synthesizer app are mind-bogglingly good.

Art is another thing. You can 'paint' with your fingers on the iPad screen -much more creatively than with a trackpad or mouse.

 

[musika]

An iPad is ok for entering text. But not as good as a PC. Ditto for editing movies, doing spreadsheets etc.

But for musicians its often better than a PC, because of its interactive way of working with the touch screen. For instance, you can't really use a notebook to produce a song demo, with no other hardware. but you can with an iPad.

Also, the quality of iPad music apps - GarageBand (ofc), and also things like the Korg iM-20 synthesizer app are mind-bogglingly good.

Art is another thing. You can 'paint' with your fingers on the iPad screen -much more creatively than with a trackpad or mouse.

That's mostly what I'm trying to get at, exactly.

 

[palpatine]

An iPad is ok for entering text. But not as good as a PC.

Not true. I actually think this is where the iPad truly pulls its weight. A text file in the iPad is pretty much identical to one in the computer. For those of us who spend most of our time writing text, it doesn't matter which platform we use.

The difference between the iPad and computer comes when you turn to formatting the text. At some point, with the exception of bloggers or some other users, you have to do some minimal formatting. The iPad is clearly inferior. Yet, if you leave formatting for the final step of the process, most of the "creation" can be done without a computer. In my case, for an essay that might take me a week to complete starting with a first draft and continuing on through several revisions, I only need to move to a computer on day seven. So, the vast majority of my content creation time can be spent on the iPad.

Why bother? The iPad costs about half as much as the MBA, it has about twice the battery life, it weighs about the same (with the bluetooth keyboard), and it can double as an e-reader. So, it brings you the benefits of both content and consumption. Admittedly, it isn't for everyone, but IF you spend a lot of time with text THEN it is a powerful content creation device. Practically speaking, this applies to most high school and university students, academics, writers, bloggers, etc. In other words, a lot of people.

 

[FloatingBones]

The difference between the iPad and computer comes when you turn to formatting the text. At some point, with the exception of bloggers or some other users, you have to do some minimal formatting. The iPad is clearly inferior. Yet, if you leave formatting for the final step of the process, most of the "creation" can be done without a computer. In my case, for an essay that might take me a week to complete starting with a first draft and continuing on through several revisions, I only need to move to a computer on day seven. So, the vast majority of my content creation time can be spent on the iPad.

A fascinating middle ground for formatting is the markdown language: a means of marking up text with visible directives in the plain text. The iPhone and iPad app Elements is a great implementation of plain-text editor that can also preview the text in markdown mode. Markdown predates the iPhone by many years, but this tech works very well for handheld devices.

I don't recall if Elements was on the list of apps you posted in the other thread. If not, please add.

 

[palpatine]

A fascinating middle ground for formatting is the markdown language: a means of marking up text with visible directives in the plain text. The iPhone and iPad app Elements is a great implementation of plain-text editor that can also preview the text in markdown mode. Markdown predates the iPhone by many years, but this tech works very well for handheld devices.

I don't recall if Elements was on the list of apps you posted in the other thread. If not, please add.

I will add Elements to the list. Thank you. It looks like a wonderful app.

Markdown is something that people ought to know about, and I am glad you brought it up. Personally, I don't use it because I want to strictly separate the text from style (keep clutter out of my text), and my main issue has to do with footnotes. But, there is a markdown workaround for this, and maybe I ought to reconsider it, especially in light of elements. I will give it a think. Do you know if Scrivener and Elements play together well?

 

[FloatingBones]

Markdown is something that people ought to know about, and I am glad you brought it up. Personally, I don't use it because I want to strictly separate the text from style (keep clutter out of my text), and my main issue has to do with footnotes. But, there is a markdown workaround for this, and maybe I ought to reconsider it, especially in light of elements. I will give it a think. Do you know if Scrivener and Elements play together well?

Scrivener is mindful of multimarkdown. You may wish to read what is said about multimarkdown in the Scrivener Manual.

If you search for

ipad elements

on the Scrivener Forums, you'll see what Keith has to say about Scrivener compatibility with elements and the iPad in general. It's very useful to get sense of how this guy thinks on a topic that's near and dear to you. There's extensive commentary about how to use dropbox for coordinating your documents.

I also recommend digging through the forums and seeing what has been said about footnotes. If you don't see your particular questions or concerns addressed, feel free to chime in the discussion there. Keith, his team, and the community there are very knowledgable.

Between the screencasts.com tutorials, other videos, the user manual, the tidbits.com e-book, and the forums, you've got some incredibly good support for Scrivener.

 

[palpatine]

Scrivener is mindful of multimarkdown. You may wish to read what is said about multimarkdown in the Scrivener Manual.

If you search for

ipad elements

on the Scrivener Forums, you'll see what Keith has to say about Scrivener compatibility with elements and the iPad in general. It's very useful to get sense of how this guy thinks on a topic that's near and dear to you. There's extensive commentary about how to use dropbox for coordinating your documents.

I also recommend digging through the forums and seeing what has been said about footnotes. If you don't see your particular questions or concerns addressed, feel free to chime in the discussion there. Keith, his team, and the community there are very knowledgable.

Between the screencasts.com tutorials, other videos, the user manual, the tidbits.com e-book, and the forums, you've got some incredibly good support for Scrivener.

thanks for the advice. briefly, is there an app that provides support for footnotes in ipad? i haven't been able to find this anywhere on the forums yet.

 

[darngooddesign]

Different people have different insecurities...

You really can't answer any post without talking about Flash. You must have several textfiles sitting on your desktop just so you can paste them into responses to whichever users weren't talking about Flash in the first place.

 

[musika]

Not true. I actually think this is where the iPad truly pulls its weight. A text file in the iPad is pretty much identical to one in the computer. For those of us who spend most of our time writing text, it doesn't matter which platform we use.

The difference between the iPad and computer comes when you turn to formatting the text. At some point, with the exception of bloggers or some other users, you have to do some minimal formatting. The iPad is clearly inferior. Yet, if you leave formatting for the final step of the process, most of the "creation" can be done without a computer. In my case, for an essay that might take me a week to complete starting with a first draft and continuing on through several revisions, I only need to move to a computer on day seven. So, the vast majority of my content creation time can be spent on the iPad.

Why bother? The iPad costs about half as much as the MBA, it has about twice the battery life, it weighs about the same (with the bluetooth keyboard), and it can double as an e-reader. So, it brings you the benefits of both content and consumption. Admittedly, it isn't for everyone, but IF you spend a lot of time with text THEN it is a powerful content creation device. Practically speaking, this applies to most high school and university students, academics, writers, bloggers, etc. In other words, a lot of people.

I really agree. The struggle I have, whenever writing on my iPad for school or for work is not the creation of that content, it's actually the manipulation of it. But the important thing, for me at least, is to get the ideas or my thoughts onto the iPad and worry about formatting later, which makes the iPad a contender.

The MBA vs. iPad argument has been my biggest argument with myself. And while it may look like we are just trying to justify our purchases, you make great arguments. Much cheaper, more portable, longer battery (seriously I only charge it like twice a week, it's madness). Another advantage that you didn't mention, however, is form faster. Something about the tablet is very inspiring to me in terms of the great things it can do outside of it being a computer. The technology disappears to the point where we don't have to worry about the computer. Instead we focus on using it as a companion to what we have, or a replacement for tools that are outdated. It's inspiring, for some. For others, maybe not. It depends on what you intend to use it for.

 

[FloatingBones]

thanks for the advice. briefly, is there an app that provides support for footnotes in ipad? i haven't been able to find this anywhere on the forums yet.

The best bet for now is to use MultiMarkdown (MMD3) on the iPad. The forums for Scrivener have a separate area discussing MultiMarkdown on Scrivener. There are discussions about footnotes in that forum.

AFAIK, markdown is the only support for footnotes that exists on the iPad right now. There may be value in starting a separate thread and re-asking the question there.