Today is launch day for the “magical” device known as the iPad. Hundreds of thousands of Apple fanboys and girls, techies and geeks, and normal everyday people are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their new wonderful toy.
Being a gadget freak myself, I thought about and pondered how I could possibly justify purchasing an iPad for myself. In my household we have an iMac, a laptop, and a netbook. All the bases are covered! I’m still pleading my case with my wife…
Until then, I decided to peruse the iTunes App Store to see what apps are available today on the iPad for all you poets and writers who made the jump. I know of two of my fellow poetry podcasters who are planning on it.
Let’s get started.
PortaPoet:
This app suffers from a poor name choice, but it is still a neat tool.
“PortaPoet will help you to quickly and easily write and share rhyming poems…” It contains a built-in rhyming dictionary, the ability to save poems locally, and the ability to share them with your Facebook friends from within the interface. (iTunes Link)
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My Writing Nook:
“My Writing Nook provides a simple, uncluttered writing workspace. However, uncluttered doesn’t mean feature-poor.”
This is a great looking app for those of you who write novels. It has a built-in dictionary/thesaurus, autosave, and a neat tie-in to an online web application that lets you sync your iPad version to the cloud for backup and a handy web interface to continue writing and editing when you are on any computer. (iTunes Link)
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Max Journal:
Max Journal is a beautifully designed journaling app meant to imitate the standard paper-based journal.
Features include multiple font choices that give your text a hand-written look and feel. Another neat feature is that you can attach up to three photos per post like you would a summer vacation scrapbook. It even has a virtual paperclip to hold them in place. This looks like a great app to use to write your private thoughts without having to post them to a public blog. (iTunes Link)
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NoteSketch:
Simply put, “NoteSketch turns your iPad into a digital notebook that you can take with you wherever you go.”
We all have those moments when we think of the perfect phrase or theme for a future poem. What do we do next? We immediately scramble for a piece of paper to write it down. Well, with NoteSketch your iPad becomes that notebook. You just launch the app, open a notebook, and use your finger to start writing or sketching down your thoughts. Simple. (iTunes Link)
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Pages:
Pages is the granddaddy of all word processing apps on the iPad. Already popular on the Mac, it has been ported over to the iPad resulting in a beautiful interface with a slew of tools to go along with it.
Besides standard text documents, you can create flyers, form letters, charts, insert images and resize them on the fly. You can then export them a variety of ways to allow you to print them or have them printed professionally. Great for chapbooks or your personal collection of poems to give as gifts. (iTunes Link)
There will be more and more of these apps appearing on a weekly basis as many new use cases are developed by poets and writers. I’m quite curious to see what will evolve.
Have you purchased or planning on purchasing an iPad? What apps would be helpful for you?
