With new apps coming every day, the potential business utility of Apple iPad lies ahead. Selecting the right iPad apps is key to transforming Steve Jobs' latest toy into a valuable mobile business tool. To guide you in finding apps that will boost your productivity, we've identified the 18 best iPads apps for small and midsize businesses.
The jury's still out on exactly what the iPad is good for-is it just an overgrown iPod Touch? (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Is it a netbook substitute? Or is it the "magical and revolutionary product" Apple claims, something that will forever change the way we work and play?
While we're waiting for the answer, we still have to get work done. And for that we need apps. There aren't nearly as many iPad apps as iPhone apps available... yet. As of early April, according to mobile ad exchange firm
Mobclix, there were more than 3,000 iPad-specific apps in the App Store, compared to the more than 150,000 iPhone/iPod Touch apps claimed by Apple. But among these early entrants, we've managed to find 18 that will make the device a useful tool for SMBs already.
Don't forget, though: almost all iPhone apps will work on the iPad as well, although they'll either run in a small, iPhone-size window or simply be enlarged to fill the iPad screen. But if you can put up with a less-than-optimal display, any of our "17 Essential iPhone Apps For SMBs" should also work on the iPad. And if you have a favorite iPhone app that you don't see here, keep checking the App Store: chances are, the developers are working on an iPad version as we speak.
Take It With You
One of the tricky things about the iPad, and one of the ways it differs from regular computers, is that it offers the user no direct access to its file system -- there's no Mac OS X Finder or Windows Explorer. Files on the iPad are usually associated with specific applications, and as a rule you need to either email them to the device or download them via iTunes.
Unless you have
Files To Go ($2.99), that is. Files To Go lets you access your iPad via a Web browser from any computer (Mac, Windows, or Linux) connected to the same WiFi network as the device, and upload one or more files to it. You can create folders on the iPad and organize the files accordingly. You can also download files from the iPad with your browser the same way, turning the iPad into a portable storage device.
So then what? Well, Files To Go is also capable of reading multiple kinds of files -- you can use the app to view Word or Excel documents; text, RTF, or PDF files; JPG, PNG, or GIF images; and MOV movies. It's not a solution for working with the files -- there are other apps for that. But it's the best alternative when you need to bring a lot of documents on a trip, to a presentation -- or just home for the weekend.
If you already have iTunes, go directly to
Files To Go.
Reading On The Go
So if Files To Go can display all those kinds of files, why would you need a dedicated PDF reader? Because of
GoodReader's ($0.99 introductory price) ability to reformat a document to fit the iPad's screen. GoodReader's PDF Reflow feature -- already popular on the iPhone -- extracts the text from your PDF files and wraps it to the iPad screen, eliminating the need to scroll left and right to read a document in its original format. Even after extraction, the text supports PDF hyperlinks for navigation within a document, and for images such as maps, you can zoom in up to 50x for detailed viewing.
GoodReader lets you transfer files via WiFi or from email attachments, as well as working with cloud storage such as Apple's MobileMe service or Box.net; it also works with Google Docs. Besides PDF files, it lets you read Microsoft Office files, Web archives, and iWork files, as well as audio and video files. And the iPad version includes features that are paid add-ons for the iPhone version, such as the ability to access IMAP or POP3 email servers and FTP servers directly.
If you already have iTunes, go directly to
GoodReader.
Office Suites
Files To Go and GoodReader are fine for viewing documents, but what if you want to work with them? Specifically, what do you use if you want to work on word processing, spreadsheet, or presentation files?
For getting work done, the most "native" options are Apple's own
Pages for word processing,
Numbers for spreadsheets, and
Keynote for presentations ($9.99 each). These iPad versions of the capable
iWork suite not only let you create and edit documents in their own formats, they can import files from the corresponding Microsoft Office applications.
There is one gotcha with the these apps -- the iPad versions don't support all the features of the Mac versions, such as grouping items in Keynote or table of contents links in Pages. These features (though not the content) can be lost if you transfer a file to your iPad and then back to your Mac, so you have to be careful with version control. But for creating documents on the iPad and for editing simpler documents, these apps will do the job nicely.
Another option for spreadsheets is
Mariner Calc ($5.99). Mariner Calc and its sister Mariner Write have been Office alternatives for the Mac since the early '90s, and both are pretty fully compatible with the Microsoft suite. Mariner Write hasn't come to the iPad, but Mariner Calc is available. It lets you view and edit native Excel files, with support for 32,000 rows and 256 columns and multiple sheets and named ranges, and includes 145 functions.
If you already have iTunes, go directly to
Pages,
Numbers,
Keynote, or
Mariner Calc.
Keep Track Of Stuff
Word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation programs -- and then there's databases.
Bento is a personal database designed for the Mac, but it's capable enough to handle the needs of many small businesses. Filemaker, Bento's developer, is quick to keep pace with new platforms, and has had an iPhone app for a while. Now they've added a version of Bento for the iPad. It doesn't have a lot more features than the iPhone version, but it does do a nice job of exploiting the extra screen real estate on the iPad. For example, turning the iPad to landscape mode lets you see the complete list of records as well as an individual record side by side. (Turning it to portrait mode displays just one record.) It also has three new themes with fonts designed for the larger iPad screen.
Bento for iPad can be used as a standalone database app, and it comes with 25 templates for such business purposes as inventory, contact management, and expense tracking. But if you're lucky enough to be running your business on a Mac, it can synchronize with Bento 3 for OS X. As with the iPhone version, Filemaker warns that memory limitations can affect the mobile version's ability to work with large Bento 3 databases.
If you already have iTunes, go directly to
Bento.
Printing
Printing from a mobile device like the iPad can be tricky, because it doesn't have printer drivers. We liked Print n Share as the best option for printing from an iPhone, and the same developers have now come up with
PrintCentral for the iPad ($9.99). (It also works on the iPhone and iPod Touch.) PrintCentral lets you print attachments from Apple's Mail application as well as Pages and Numbers documents, plus files from any other app that supports the Open In... file sharing function. And it can print from your Contacts list in either business card or shipping label format.
PrintCentral lets you open files stored in the cloud into Pages or Numbers without having to download them, and it includes an email client that supports multiple email accounts from the same inbox. It even lets you mount your iPad via WiFi as a hard disk on your Mac or PC -- really, the list of features for this app just goes on and on.
You may find that you need to install the free
WePrint software on your Mac or PC in order to enable the app to access the printer drivers it needs. If you already have iTunes, go directly to
PrintCentral.
source:informationweek please continue on to part 2
