Wednesday, July 07, 2010

iWork for iPad Frustratingly Close, But not Finished

For the last two months, I've been trying to find ways to make use of iWork for the iPad.  I'd really like to use Apple's slick iPad office suite to create and edit documents.  I even purchased iWork for my Mac with the idea that this will improve integration.

Sadly, no luck.  There's no doubt that iWork is far and away the most polished office suite for the iPad.  Documents2Go is good and does a particularly good job in managing Microsoft Office formats, but it lacks the touch-perfected interface that Apple offers with iWork.

iWork itself, however, doesn't quite do it either.  Some PPT presentations just won't open and even presentations imported from iWork on the Mac are mangled as well.  Without the ability to smoothly and reliably move content between the two devices or be assured that formatting will stick, it's hard to make a switch and really invest further time and effort.

What's more, I have to admit, fingers are clumsy.  Perhaps it's just my lack of fine motor skills, but precision is much harder to achieve on the iPad than on the Mac at home.  Using the Mac's touch pad, it seems easier to manipulate images and select items.  It's particularly frustrating trying to actually select and delete items.  I don't know what the right combination of touches and squeezes seems to be.

So, for the moment, my iPad is confined to viewing media and content and taking handwritten notes (thank you Penultimate) but not heavy duty editing of powerpoint documents.


Using the iPad still not quite right for prime time at the office.  Image from Myuibe

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