iPhone Life magazine

Comparative review of iPad office suites

The iPad has been characterized as a device that's more for consuming media than for productivity. Yet there are a lot of people out there who are intent on using it as a computer. And there are an increasing number of productivity apps. Macworld has a great comparative review of office apps for the iPad. The article's author, Galen Gruman, concludes with a list of productivity apps that he feels should be the standard installation on corporate iPads: Pages, Numbers, Keynote, GoodReader, and ZipThat. He favors the Apple apps over those in other suites, but gives an alternate list if you're someone who is stymied by Pages' lack of style-sheet retention.

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Jim Karpen's picture

Jim Karpen holds a Ph.D. in literature and writing, and has a love of gizmos. His doctoral dissertation focused on the revolutionary consequences of digital technologies and anticipated some of the developments taking place in the industry today. Jim has been writing about the Internet and technology since 1994 and has been using Apple's visionary products for decades.

Old Comments

I love the app Jim

I love the Pages app Jim.  I use it daily, and have written a few fairly long reports at work with it on my iPad's screen with no ill effects on my wrists.  For me, the app is what it is, a very slimmed down word processor.  But that's relative.

When I was in High School we had to learn typing on an IBM, it was a rugged machine and there's plenty of them still around, but would I use one again? No.

The iPad with Pages is a fairly powerful word processor, and I find more than adequate for work in healthcare where I have to constantly write.  I think if one were writing as a profession, it would fall short, though I don't see why even in journalism the iPad with Pages wouldn't be a superb field word processor since it's so easy to lug around and just tap the Home button and tap the Pages icon and you're writing - no boot time, like with a lap top.

Am I glad I dumped my MacBook and just use my iPad?  Yes.

When I think back to

When I think back to typewriters, I can't imagine how we were able to function with them. I began using word processing in 1980 and never looked back.

Jim