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Should I get an ipad? Read for more info

G

Germwise

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 2, 2009
148
15
I am currently a molecular biology grad student.

I am very close to graduation and I am in the process of writing a grant and later my thesis. My main use for the ipad would be to read scientific papers and organize them. Maybe some email and light surfing.

I'm an apple fan and I have my MBP, but for my phone i've gone to google because I am unhappy with ATT and I detest the way apple controls its app approval process (I have many developer friends).

My question is in your opinion, is the ipad a good reading device? furthermore would it be good to organize lots of PDFs, could I organize them into folders? I've seen there is an Ipad app called papers that might help. Is there another science user in the forum that could advise me if I should get an ipad or maybe in my case a google tablet with a open file system?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
 
The iPad is a good reading device yes. You could read PDFs through good reader, email (I think) and drop box. Those are the 3 I have used anyway.
 
OP, scientific PDFs can get pretty big, with hundreds of pages and graphics. You might consider borrowing one to test out a PDF reader before committing.

The iPad is great at many things in a casual way. It's usually not the best choice as a serious tool for any one focused task in my experience.

If the iPad were a car, it would be a dune buggy. Great fun to tool around in, can take you where you want to go most of the time, as long as where you want to go isn't too far or too demanding.
 
I wish this iPad was around when I was a student.

Go for it.. The device is great for reading especially while on the run when MBP is not as convenient to lug around.
 
it is a good device but if you are a fan of android already there are some interesting android tablets in the works.
 
I use Evernote to store papers and then access on Mac/iPad/iPhone. Job done.
 
mcdj said:
OP, scientific PDFs can get pretty big, with hundreds of pages and graphics. You might consider borrowing one to test out a PDF reader before committing.

The iPad is great at many things in a casual way. It's usually not the best choice as a serious tool for any one focused task in my experience.

If the iPad were a car, it would be a dune buggy. Great fun to tool around in, can take you where you want to go most of the time, as long as where you want to go isn't too far or too demanding.
Click to expand...

Good advice :) I concur.
 
Germwise, I just bought my iPad (an hour ago :D) primarily for use as a reader - and if this had come out a few years earlier, I would have been all over it for university. I haven't been able to test it out too much yet but I've heard a lot of great things about the app Good Reader (as mentioned above) for pdf reading.
 
Another Vote for the Ipad

When I read the first part of your e-mail, I thought no way you can write an term paper on the Ipad. But that's not what your using if for. As a reading device, it's awesome with all the apps others have mentioned. It is sooooo much easier to read documents on an IPad than a computer. When I take a class and go to a conference, I use goodreader or reddledocs to create a folder and plop everything in there. That way I have everything I need, everywhere I go.
 
Don't buy it

Germwise said:
I am currently a molecular biology grad student.

I am very close to graduation and I am in the process of writing a grant and later my thesis. My main use for the ipad would be to read scientific papers and organize them. Maybe some email and light surfing.

I'm an apple fan and I have my MBP, but for my phone i've gone to google because I am unhappy with ATT and I detest the way apple controls its app approval process (I have many developer friends).

My question is in your opinion, is the ipad a good reading device? furthermore would it be good to organize lots of PDFs, could I organize them into folders? I've seen there is an Ipad app called papers that might help. Is there another science user in the forum that could advise me if I should get an ipad or maybe in my case a google tablet with a open file system?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
Click to expand...

If you "detest the way apple controls it's approval process" Then don't buy it.
I work for a developer, and there approval process does not bother me or the developer. You either play by their rules or you don't play with Apple, if you and your developer friends don't like it, don't buy it.
In relation to what you want to do, it could be done, but probably not the best way to do it. Reading on the Ipad is easy and great, but having to have multiple pages open would be impossible ( I have not used goodreader yet, so feel free to correct me if I am wrong). And to me it sounds like you would need to have multiple pages open.
 
bri1212 said:
If you "detest the way apple controls it's approval process" Then don't buy it.
I work for a developer, and there approval process does not bother me or the developer. You either play by their rules or you don't play with Apple, if you and your developer friends don't like it, don't buy it.
In relation to what you want to do, it could be done, but probably not the best way to do it. Reading on the Ipad is easy and great, but having to have multiple pages open would be impossible ( I have not used goodreader yet, so feel free to correct me if I am wrong). And to me it sounds like you would need to have multiple pages open.
Click to expand...

Sound more like he would rather bitch and moan, and join the long illustrious ranks of the serial complainers in this forum. There has been enough info about the iPad out there since its launch to give anyone a pretty good idea as to what they are getting into. If they do not know by now, they will never know.
 
Thanks for all the responses guys. I'll have to go to a store and hog one of the ipads for a few minutes.

Does anyone know if ipads at apple stores have unlimited app downloads? Like, would I be able to download goodreader and iannotate to see if my pdfs would load well and everything works?


Also, the day after I wrote this, I kept trying to convince my long time GF that I needed an iPad and that this expense was justified.

Within a few hours I got an email from ohio saying I'd qualified for the rebate on dishwashers and a few minutes after that my GF had dragged me to lowes to buy a new one...

My iPad dreams might have to wait another month! disgusting.
 
I use both Goodreader and Office2 HD to read my PDF's and create word docs.

I have them linked to my MobileMe, Google Docs, and a work Public server. I can pull and save docs to these "servers" at will from anywhere with my 3G iPad.

I work in an IT field and some of my docs can be very long. I think my largest one right now is about 1100 pages and is 42MB.
 
I'm in the same general field and have mixed experiences with the device.

It may be just me, but I don't really enjoy reading PDF journals on the device. Having to pinch and zoom to see double column formatted text is a PITA for me. I don't know what area you are in, but my journals (e.g. JB) are for the most part in double column format. I still use it, and have all my articles on it, but its not a pleasurable experience to use.

The way I would like to see my articles is though iBook, but its just not there yet for scientific work. First, I’ve yet to find an application that can convert double column journal articles into ePub format. Second, there is no way to add ePub files w/o iTunes or the iBook store. Having to go through these intermediary steps really hampers its ability, in my option, for scientific work.

Case in point: I just got back from the American Society for Microbiology meeting. I was lucky enough to notice a few days before leaving that they (ASM) made an iPad version of the abstract book and schedule, thereby allowing me to search based on words and not to tote around the phonebook sized book they give at registration. However, if I had not seen this before leaving, I would have been SOL because there is no way to add a file to iBook w/o iTunes or the iBook Store.

With that said, it was awesome to sit by the pacific ocean and read abstracts and do google searches on keywords before going into sessions.
 
Germwise said:
I'm an apple fan and I have my MBP, but for my phone i've gone to google because I am unhappy with ATT and I detest the way apple controls its app approval process (I have many developer friends)
Click to expand...

hmm, I'm a developer and I don't. But, to each his own.

But if you truly detest, vote with your wallet and don't get one. Only way to make a difference.
 
Germwise said:
My question is in your opinion, is the ipad a good reading device? furthermore would it be good to organize lots of PDFs, could I organize them into folders? I've seen there is an Ipad app called papers that might help. Is there another science user in the forum that could advise me if I should get an ipad or maybe in my case a google tablet with a open file system?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
Click to expand...

My needs are very similar to your own and the iPad is my 1st choice since it is the only reader to support virtually every ebook format

rather than just use large PDFs, I am converting all of my bound medical text books over to ebooks

I am currently building a high quality book scanner to accomplish this

after which i planned to have many of the larger PDFs converted to ebook formats, which is fairly easy to do with say the kindle format, but i have not researched the other formats in detail yet

i guess i'm just pointing out that you are not limited to PDFs especially with the larger files
 
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