iPad for academics?

It may have been gleaned from recent posts that I mentioned iPads as if I had one. And indeed I do; I made the jump last fall, with the then-newfangled iPad 2. I did not mention it on this blog because I thought I would use it a bit first to see if (1) there was any point to the purchase at all (I had previously weighted iPad vs. MacBook Air and found the latter to be a better investment in terms of weight vs. usefulness. And yet, I fell for the lure), and (2) figure out what kind of useful purpose I could actually put it to. A toy, certainly, but also for my academic work? Any point in bringing it in to the office?

So, I held back from commenting on "would I advise you to buy one", and in the meantime, that question has almost become obsolete. Each time I go to a seminar or meeting, some more of my colleagues are whipping up their new iPads (Apple only, competitors need not apply, apparently -- although most of my colleagues are PC people; some had not even heard of iTunes and therefore did not understand how to turn on their iPad, since the first question was "please connect to iTunes on your PC/Mac". What?) By now, iPad penetration in average teachers' meetings and graduate seminars hovers around 50 per cent, as far as I can see.

Thus, most of them have probably found their own way of working, their own apps. Also, apps reviews are all over the place, so the need for another may be minimal. Still, I will hereby give my own version. How do I use the iPad for academic work as a university  professor, and what apps do I currently prefer for each purpose?

Save a tree
My first purpose was exactly what my colleagues do; to use it as reading pad for papers at meetings and seminars. In fact, the final push for me was one of my phd students who sent me his third 700-page draft for his thesis, for me to go through before submission, and I just did not want to print that out again. So how does that work?

We are talking about two things, background papers for committe meetings, and student drafts for graduate seminars and similar. Both are distributed to participants beforehand by email, and I read and, at least for student drafts, make comments on the papers so I want them in front of me when we are in session.

In the meeting, I could just open and read them in Mail, then, but I cannot be certain that there is a good wifi connection in the meeting room, so I prefer to make sure they are stored on the iPad. Thus, I use a combination of the two stalwarts for the academic aspect of the iPad, DropBox and GoodReader. 

I have earlier discussed how I now use Dropbox as the hub for everything I do on my Macs; all current projects as well as Filemaker databases I refer to are stored in my Dropbox folder. That means that, with the Dropbox app on my iPad (free), I already have access to all these files. Unlike on the Mac, however, the app does not download everything automatically, since the iPad / iPhone normally has less storage capacity; so I have to remember to download relevant files while I am online.

I can read PDFs, Word documents, etc., directly in the Dropbox app, but its viewing tools are limited, and I cannot comment on the papers in that app. So I normally use Dropbox as way to get files on and off the iPad, and then pass the files on to the other relevant apps for further use. Many apps can also access my Dropbox account directly, bypassing the Dropbox app, so when I edit and save, the changes made on the iPad are directly available on my Macs.

The app I mostly use then, for this save a tree purpose (reading and commenting drafts) is GoodReader ($5). It is a very versatile app that can read many file formats, but of particular importance for me is that you can edit PDF files in it: Highlight text in a colour, write comments in the margin, and even use handwriting with your finger or iPad marker (I never do that, it normally becomes unreadable). PDF editing actually has become so practical that when students send me drafts as Word .docs, I normally print them as PDF (on my Mac) for GoodReader instead of as Word files. GoodReader only lets you edit & highlight PDFs, not Word files; and pagination etc. is also only preserved in PDFs, not in .doc files. On the Mac, I can do the same thing in Preview, it too, unlike Acrobat, allows you to highlight & comment on PDFs, so Acrobat has been scrapped here. It is actually more convenient in Preview than in GoodReader, the latter could make the editing process a bit more straightforward. Anyway, I thus go back and forth between working on the Mac and iPad, on the same file.

This is because GoodReader has a separate sync folder in my DropBox folder, and everything I want to read and comment on goes directly there (subfolders "Meetings", "Student drafts" etc.). Again, I have to remember to press a "Sync" button inside GoodReader while I am online to up/download the latest version I have edited on Macs/iPads. But that done before I go to a meeting etc., it works automatically.

So, that is the technology. How does this work in practice? Is it just a gimmick, and what do I lose by switching off the paper mill?

For committee meetings, it works swimmingly. I need to have the structure of the relevant papers clear before the meeting (everything in the same app / folder), because it is much more distracting to search through apps on the iPad than papers on my desk, but otherwise, the experience is no different from reading on a dead tree.

For student drafts, you do lose something. However cleverly done online commenting has become, it is still quicker and easier to correct a typo, cross out a word, or write No! in the margin with pen on paper than switching tools, opening a text box and typing on-screen. So, students get less feed-back of that nature after the digital switch. Clearly, they should not suffer, so my current solution is two-fold: For a seminar, where everyone discusses a draft orally, I go digital only; the students there need not see my notes, and I can present the same oral comment whether I have used one tool or the other (I remember why I highlighted a word). But when a student comes for one-to-one supervision, I want to give him or her a more detailed commented paper copy, which she can take away and understand even if she forgets what I said. So, there I still print out the paper, comment in "longhand" with my scruffy handwriting, and give to the student. We must not become fanatics.

There is still a loss; there had developed a habit in the larger seminar that all students made written comments on each others' drafts correcting typos etc. and gave their printout to the presenter at the end of the seminar, for her to ignore or not, as she saw fit. That does not happen anymore, since so few people print out the drafts. Of course, they could email their comments, but again a bigger hurdle, I doubt it is much done. How much is lost there (since the main comments on content and structure are always discussed orally), I am not sure.


On the road
The other big thing, is of course that the iPad is always accessible, because I generally lug it along with me always in my backpack (and if I do not have the backpack, I can access the same apps on the iPhone in my pocket). Here, Dropbox then gives access to current documents, but it is not the only way.

I discovered another only a few days ago, actually as a side effect of a backup issue I had a couple of weeks ago. My TimeCapsule has acted up on me twice in the last year, it has reported either "Problem with disk catalogue" or "Disk full" (when it was nothing of the sort), and just deleted all old backups, starting all over again. I wasn't terribly happy, although I do have alternative backups, so in addition to buying a new FireWire hard disk for TimeMachine, I also installed a separate backup plan, recommended by the always careful TidBits.
This was CrashPlan, a swiss-armyknife backup system that allows you to back up both to a local disk, for rapid access, and at the same time, to their remote server, for safety (at a price; I took the max plan of  "back up ten computers, unlimited space, 4 years storage", which set me back about $200, mostly because of the four-year storage). Backing up my complete Documents folder (it does only that folder by default, but that is enough), of perhaps 120-160 GB on each machine, took ... time. I pressed the settings for maximum throughput, but still it took ten full days and nights to complete the first backup. Once that done, however, it works quickly and unobtrusively.

Anyway, the point here is that there is also af free CrashPlan app on the iPad. And, since all your up to ten computers belong to the same account, the app allows to access your backups on all your computers, irrespective of whether they are on, off-line or whatever. Point to a file, and you can download it to your iPad. Not just your current project, everything on all your Macs. Then pass the file on to an app which can read it, and you have full access to your desktops Macs (or their backedup files, which comes to the same thing).


Assuming, of course that you are online. Here, mileage will vary depending on personal preference and what is offered in your country, on whether it is useful to go for the less expensive wifi-only iPad, or take the wifi+3G model. It depends on how you use it, and on cost. Wifi access is almost always less expensive (or free), faster and most convenient, so the iPad will always choose wifi if both are available. The 3G mobile phone net is more limited in use, but is available almost anywhere, unlike wifi which of course you may have in your home and office, but not when you are walking about in the wilderness. However, using 3G for internet access may be pricey, and while some companies offer "unlimited" access, there is actually almost always a real limit for how much data you can download in a month, a ceiling that it is often not difficult to reach if you e,g, watch movies online. (And just in case you wonder: 3G access is only for the data part of the mobile phone network. Even if you put a SIM card into an iPad, that does not turn it into a mobile phone - unless you use Skype or similar, like a PC/Mac.)

The thing is that you have to make that choice before you buy the iPad; you cannot later "upgrade" neither to add 3G support, or for that matter more storage space. The situation for me, and not untypical, was that I have wifi access at home and at my office, and more and more often in hotels, airports and other locations. Since I (correctly) assumed I would not be walking the streets with the iPad in hand, I decided I would not need 3G support. That has turned out, for me, to be a correct assessment, even if I use the iPad probably rather more than I expected I would (like reading newspapers on the bus), I have not missed 3G much.
       But on the occasion where I do feel I need it, I can easily use the iPhone as a relay. This is called "tethering", in the US you pay the phone company extra for some strange reason; in my country you do not. On the iPhone, you turn on "Shared Internet" in Settings; then on the iPad, you select the iPhone as nework, type in the password you see in the iPhone, and the iPad is online (the connection from iPhone to iPad is through Bluetooth). Once set up, the iPad will remember the password, so just slide "Shared network" to On in the iPhone to put the iPad online. It just drinks from your iPhone data subscription, the same way as if you had used the iPhone itself to access the same services over 3G. (I expect this will work also with other Bluetooth-equipped smartphones.)

One very useful thing for academics particularly in Europe, incidentally, is a continent-wide cooperation for wifi access. It is called the eduroam network, and seems now to include most universities and colleges in Europe, at least I have found it in all I have visited lately. At your home institution, if you see "eduroam" as a network option, connect to it (at my university, all staff and students are given access with their regular network password), and click Accept. Then, when you go to some other university in another country, you can connect to the local (free) university network under eduroam; the iPad will most often recognize and connect to eduroam directly. Hassle-free and a great boon. It started out in Europe and is most universal here, but is also spreading in the US, although more sparingly there so far.


Productive apps
So, I have access to my files, and I use GoodReader to read other people's PDFs. But what about my own work, what can I do productively on my iPad?

So, again: my experience over the last half year: I have honestly not done any serious word processing or spreadsheeting on my iPad. I can do it, but the screen is too small (half taken up by the onscreen keyboard), the app's productive options are too limited, and when I want to work, I generally have a proper Mac at hand. I do use the iPad quite a bit more than I thought I would, but mostly for reading and consulting, rather than for active typing and producing. Yes, there are stand-alone iPad keyboards out there (you can even use Apple's own wireless keyboard) which gives you a full iPad screen and a work experience probably not much different from a MacBook Air, but if you have to tote along the separate keyboard and stuff, you might as well bring a regular MacBook, at least an Air would be more convenient.

That means, then, that my hands-on experience is limited. But certainly, in need (in a hotel room where you have half an hour free and did not bring your MacBook), you can use the iPad for productive work, and with time I might even get accustomed to working with the onscreen keyboard. If I have to.

So I have at least tried to collect some apps that should help be with the process, and here is my pick - with the caveat of limited actual experience with most of them.

The most important activity is of course word processing; and since I have been a Word user since forever (yes, shame on me, but in 1986, it actually stood out in the crowd), I would see something that could work well with the Word documents I write on my Mac. There are several, I chose QuickOffice ($20). It can open and save files in my Dropbox folder, as well as Evernote account (and iDisk), which allows me to work on my regular Word documents, saving directly back to where I can pick up when I am back at my Mac. Or I can work off-line with documents on the iPad, of course. It has word processing, spreadsheet and powerpoint presentation support. Evidently, it has very limited functions compared to regular word processors; only basic word formatting. For my limited spreadsheet needs, it also takes care of those.

If I had used Pages instead of Word on my Mac, I would probably have used the Pages app ($10), which stores its files on iCloud, so I had a similar syncrhonization there. Another common type of synced word processing (or rather simple text editing) is with Google's online word processor, GoogleDocs. That is a web program, so you can edit GoogleDocs documents in Safari on iPad (I also have a separate Google app, but that seems to be have been withdrawn). However, I had earlier downloaded the Notemaster Lite app (free), and it will also sync with GoogleDocs and allow you to write and edit its documents.

I do thus not use either very much. The Office element that I do use on the iPad, however, is PowerPoint. Since I always carry the iPad with me, whenever I am giving a lecture (in particular off-campus, but even on), I also take the special iPad-to-VGA cable with me. That allows me to connect the iPad to any video engine anywhere, since they are all based on VGA cables, and (mostly) without any further ado, whatever I have on the iPad screen turns up on the big screen; it mirrors directly. So, the process: I prepare my lecture presentations on the Mac in PowerPoint (could have used Keynote, same difference), and save, of course in my DropBox folder. Before leaving for the lecture hall, I open Dropbox on the iPad and click on the presentation file, it is downloaded. I could then just present it from the the Dropbox app, but I prefer to use Keynote on iPad ($10, it of course opens PowerPoint files). So I pass the file over to Keynote, open it and off the presentation goes.

This even allows for some redundancy. Once, in deepest western Norway, the senior citizen's club to whom I was talking (about the Sharia), had a video cannon that refused my iPad. It was probably a reset issue or something, but instead of fiddling, I chose the second option - which I had not planned, but knew would likely work: The iPad cable also works for iPhone. So, I did the import thing there: Opened Dropbox on the iPhone; luckily, I was within 3G coverage and it took only a few of seconds to download the Powerpoint file, transfer it to Keynote on the iPhone, and connect that to the video cannon. Then I ran the the presentation from the iPhone instead, smaller screen for me, but there was no difference for the audience. (The iPhone does not mirror the screen as the iPad does, but Keynote does channel VGA out; so does ShowAnytime ($8, US store only), while QuickOffice's presentation module does not).

Incidentally, when you have this combo, Keynote touts a "Keynote remote" app. Before the iPad, I used to hook up my MacBook to the VGA video setup, and then use the Mac's remote so I could walk around in the lecture hall. That remote does not work on iPads (which has no infra-red eye to receive its signals), so in that respect iPads are more restrictive, you have to stand near the pad and stroke the screen. With the Keynote Remote, you should be able to use the iPhone as a remote for the iPad Keynote app. However, the iPhone is rather large and obtrusive compared to the tiny Apple remote I can hide in my palm. It should be able to connect over wifi if on the same network segment, but that generally does not work for me. I have been able to connect via Bluetooth, however, but I have not used the remote app in real practice (yet).

The third most important productive tool for me, is FileMaker. I have used it for ages to store more or less anything, from bibliographies to membership lists. I would like to have access to that information also on the road and on the iPad. That is however the least convenient iPad tool. As far as I know, the only way to read FM databases is in their own iPad app, FileMaker Go ($40; free for FM 12 databases). However, it does not allow any syncing (except through a FileMaker server which is beyond my needs). So, access is one-way: I download the database I want to read in the Dropbox app, then pass it on to Filemaker Go, where I can then read as well as edit - but the edits are only made on the local copy there. It is possible to copy that back to your Mac by linking it to your iTunes (always a way to transfer files between iPad and local Mac) or email to yourself, but that is not convenient. Since Dropbox syncs Filemaker databases effortlessly between two Macs, it is hard to see why FM Go cannot do the same and access the files in my Dropbox folder directly, but there it is. To stay in sync, I have to delete the older files in FM Go, then replace them with new copies along the same Dropbox route; I only edit and update databases on the Mac.

The iPad for reading
In addition to these active purposes, the iPad was of course meant to be an tool for reading; leisure or academic. Only yesterday, I bought my first academic book on Kindle. I was a bit in doubt whether this was a good thing. For myself of course I get easier access to the book (and reading leisure stuff on iPad is great), but my office bookshelf is as much in use to show to others; whenever a student turns up with a paper idea, my first instinct is to go to my shelves and pick out whatever literature I have on the topic to show to him or her. In theory, I can show him the Kindle book on the iPad screen, but I suspect it will not be the same thing. But perhaps that is a matter of habit. My actual bookshelves are many and full, and I do not know if I really want a similar full electronic shelf on my iPad. So, far that is not a big issue, only a handful of relevant titles are available as e-books, but a few are, and as we know, that may change soon.

One academic library I do have on it, however, is of academic articles. As I have written about elsewhere, I checked out bibliographic software on the Mac and settled for Sente as the most versatile program for collecting information as well as storing and organizing downloaded PDFs for articles. Sente is one of those sync programs, any PDF or bibliographic reference you put into it is synced to its server and back to your various Macs. So, it also has a Sente Viewer app (free for the viewer only; a full app for editing entries is $20). Installing that, I have all the PDFs that are in my Sente library (which is everything I have, since I use that for organizing them), is also available on the iPad.

In addition there are of course Evernote, and many other apps for various uses. For Middle East specialists, there are for example several Qurans you can download, with Arabic text, one or more standard translations, and / or recitation(s) of selected verses. Very practical for the non-hafiz.

So, in sum, how useful is it? In theory, anything you can do on an iPad you can probably also do on a Mac, and in particular on a MacBook Air, which is also very light and has a real Mac system, unlike the iPad non-file system that forces you to use Dropbox, passing files from app to app, or other roundabout ways to do what is easy on a Mac. So, that would make the answer no, go for the Air instead. But the iPad is certainly often more convenient, because of its size - large enough to get an almost-proper working screen, but light enough to carry around without thinking about it, and its huge plethora of apps makes it useful for so many things. I do carry it back and forth every day, and while I may not be using for a long periods at the office where I have my Mac, I will normally grab it at least once or twice a day when I run to a meeting or a lecture I am giving, or to do some other task which may be doable on the larger Mac, but is easier on the Pad. And the ability to have more or less your office with you in your backpack is certainly useful for any academic, if you can resist the pressure to whip it up and write a conference paper every time you are waiting for the bus. So yes, I do not regret getting it, I am using it a lot, and it is not just a toy for leisure, but has useful productive functions as well.