Just joined yesterday

Hello
I just joined his forum yesterday. I love my iPad and hope to get some good info here. I used to organize my life with the iPhone but now seem to have the ipad with me all the time and thinking about putting, contacts,passwords, calendar, etc on my iPad. With 500K apps out, I cannot believe that I cannot find one that will organize my life. Yes, the are many apps out to that will hp me organize but not one that will work for me.
I have an Iphone, Macbook and iPad. It would be nice to sync them all with the same info.
GEP

Welcome, from Cali!

Hi.

You can sync your contacts and calendars on all your computers and devices using Google. Or you can wait for iOS 5 and the iCloud come this Fall and do the same thing.

Go to Preferences, Accounts in Mail on your Mac to set up the Google account. It will probably set up iCal and Address Book at the same time. If it does not you can open and set them up separately, same place.

To get Google to sync nicely with the iPad set the account up as an Exchange account. Instructions to follow.

Setting up Google Sync with your iOS device : Mail, Calendar, & Contacts - Google Mobile Help

For passwords I use 1Password. It is probably one of the more expensive solutiosn, since you have to buy a copy for each device (or the universal for iPhone and iPad) plus each computer you want it to work on. However, combined with a DropBox account it is one of the best password unitities, and it has some nice integration with Safari and other webbrowser on the Mac.

MobileMe would do almost all of this more neatly, but since it is in transition to iCloud it is not worth setting up right now, even if you could buy it. I think all but the 60 day trial is off the market.

I looked at several apps for this and, in the end, chose Pocket Informant HD.

I read that Pocket Informant was buggy but, in my (admittedly) limited experience, I’ve found no problems at all. It has a very nice user interface that's almost infinitely configurable - a complaint that many Forum members make about the iPad’s native ‘Calendar’ app. So you can choose how tasks, events, projects, appointments are colour coded and there is a wide choice of notifications and alarms - so, for example, you can have different alarm sounds for different categories of notifications.

Pocket Informant ‘sits on top’ of the iPad's native ‘Calendar’ app and (optionally) imports all entries that it finds there. They can be colour coded so they can be distinguished from entries made in Pocket Informant itself.

This is important because many other iPad apps use the native ‘Calendar’ app as the default place to put events, invitations etc. So, for example, if you are invited to a meeting by email and you receive that invitation in the iPad’s native ‘Mail’ app, that app can automatically (and quite cleverly) insert that invitation into the default calendar app. Without that integration between the native app and Pocket Informant, you'd have to enter those invitations all over again.

Pocket Informant has lots of ‘hidden’ features too. One of the reviewers remarked that part of the ‘fun’ of using Pocket Informant was discovering them!! The display is infinitely configurable - day, week, month, year at a time. Tasks, events, overdue tasks, projects, projects in progress etc etc all can be optionally displayed on the main calendar. Projects and tasks can have infinitely nested sub-tasks and projects - these can cleverly be integrated with GPS - so, say you needed to purchase some goods from the hardware store. Put that in a To-Do list and link it to the location of the hardware store using the iPad’s native ‘Maps’ app. Next time you’re driving past the hardware store, up pops the notification (‘Remember to purchase some 2”x4” timber’).

Repeating events are very flexible too, with the ‘custom’ mode being infinitely (I keep using that word!) configurable. So, meetings that occur on the last Thursday and first Monday of every other month - no problem.

It can sync with external calendars - Google for example - and back-up is cool, it creates a backup file that you can email to yourself for safe keeping. If you lose your iPad or all your data is corrupted, that backup can be imported back into Pocket Informant with a single click.

You can create multiple diaries within Pocket Informant - say ‘Work’, ‘Family’, ‘Golf Club’ etc and have their entries optionally displayed on the main screen or restricted to the display of the individual diary. So it’s easy to check if there’s a clash between the golf tournament and your wife's birthday - and hide it if there is......

If you surf to the developer’s web-site, you can download for free a very comprehensive User Manual that will show you in detail what Pocket Informant can do.

The developers are constantly updating the program - always a good sign in my view.

As I said at the beginning, perhaps I'm not a particularly demanding user, but I’ve had no stability problems at all. I should add the usual disclaimer that I have no contact or other relationship with the developers of Pocket Informant other than being a very satisfied customer.

Tim
Scotland

I just looked at the PI app and it looks like it does an excellent job with the calandar, I don't see where it does anything with contacts.

I'm retired and don't have a busy schedule anymore. I use contacts in the iPad and iPhone the most.

One of the things that frustrated me the most about the iPhone is the lack of the ability to search the notes field of contacts.

One of my Fav smart Phones was the Palm Treo. I remember one time My Wife and I were on a cruise to Europe on the QE2. Our dinner pardoner was a doctor and his wife from NC that said he was a member of a golf Club that I always wanted to play and to give him a call if I was in his area again. Three years later I was in his area, but could remember his name. I pulled out the Treo and searched on "Doctor QE2" and up poped his name.

Another reason I want to search the Note Field is If I find a barber I like in Fla, I can search on Barbers and find him, the same for Plummers, etc.

I would love to find an App that would let me keep track of all my contacts, passwords, notes, etc and sync with my wifes iPhone, my iPhone, my iPad, my Macbook and the ipad I'm getting ready to buy my wife.

Thanks for everyones help
GEP