I often get asked what apps I am running on my iPad and how I use them. While not an exhaustive list, here are some of the apps I rely on to get things done on the iPad. It’s a mix of free (or have free version and offer in-app purchases) and paid apps.

Office Tasks

iWork Suite (Keynote, Pages, Numbers)

• I turn to Apple’s iWork suite for most word processing and presentation tasks when I’m not collaborating with co-workers who also need to edit the documents. Documents sync over iCloud, so they are available on my Mac as well. If needed, the apps can save documents in the corresponding Microsoft Office formats.

Microsoft Office Apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

• Working in a Business School, Microsoft Office documents are the de facto standard for word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation files. The iOS versions of these apps work well and include most features of their of their desktop counterparts.

Other Writing/Text Tools

Drafts

• Drafts is perfect when I need to jot down an idea or a bit of text and hold it until I decide where it will eventually end up (email, tweet, task, calendar item, etc.). When I’m ready to send it to a final destination, Drafts allows you to export, share, and send text to the clipboard, other apps, and cloud services with its built-in actions. Actions tap into iOS’s URL schemes, and the app allows you to create custom actions by writing your own schemes (unfortunately, not all apps support URL schemes).

Ulysses

• This is where most of my writing projects start. Ulysses is a elegant app designed to be the home for all your bits of writing. Writing is done in the app’s version of the Markdown to allow focusing on the content of your writing rather than being distracted by its appearance. I have the companion version installed on my Mac and my text is synced via iCloud, so it’s available wherever I happen to be working.

PDF Tools

GoodNotes

• Great app for marking up PDF documents and general note taking with the Apple Pencil. I use GoodNotes daily for completing checklists and writing grad plans for students. In a future post, I’ll plan to cover my PDF markup workflow in detail.

PDF Expert

• I use PDF Expert as my primary tool for reading and annotating (highlighting, making notes, etc.) PDFs

Utility

1Password

• Everyone needs a good password manager to create and store strong passwords! A share sheet action extension makes it easy to fill the passwords when logging in to websites from Safari or Chrome. The basic version of 1Password for iOS is free, but an in-app purchase unlocks additional features. If you’re running the 1Password app on your Mac or PC (highly recommended!), you can sync your passwords between devices.

ScanBot

• My current scanning app of choice. I use ScanBot for capturing scans of meeting handouts or documents during student appointments. The in-app purchase unlocks additional features, such as custom file naming templates and optical character recognition (OCR) for text. I’ve found the OCR to be quite good, which is essential for a paperless (or less paper) workflow to search for scanned documents later.

Workflow

• If you have ever wanted to automate repetitive tasks on the iPad or iPhone, Workflow is the app you have been looking for. It allows users to build custom “workflows” to manipulate text, files, and images, share to social media, save URLs to read it later services, to name just a few, using pre-defined building blocks provided by the app. Users can create their own workflows and download pre-made workflows from the Workflow Gallery. Once created, workflows can be run from the app, as a widget from the home screen, or from the share sheet.

Calendaring, Task, and Project Management

OmniFocus

• I’ve been a (not always consistent) practitioner of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system for over 10 years. OmniFocus is a powerful task management tool built around the GTD methodology. I run the companion Mac app, and the OmniGroup’s syncing service keeps everything in sync between my Mac and iPad.

Fantastical

• Fantastical is my primary calendaring tool. The natural language event entry, speedy event creation and modification, and many other features make it hard to beat. The one feature Fantastical does not incorporate is the ability to view shared calendars of other Exchange users as my workplace uses Exchange for email and calendars (in fairness most calendar apps, including Apple’s own, do not have this feature). This is not a deal breaker for me since I don’t need to view coworkers calendars often.

Communication

Airmail

• I use Airmail as my primary email app on iOS. I love the highly customizable swipe gestures to take action on emails quickly. The app allows you to have up to three possible actions per swipe. Depending on how far you swipe on the message in the reading list, you can reveal up to three possible actions (three for a swipe left and three more for a right swipe). This makes a particularly speedy way to process email each morning. Airmail also features email snooze and integration with other apps, such as OmniFocus, Calendar, and Reminders.

Slack

• My advising team recently began using Slack for team communications. At the most basic level, Slack can be described as instant messaging for a group or “team” in Slack parliance (the app and the service behind it is much more than this). Our advisors work out of two locations and Slack helps keep our staff stay connected throughout the day. We still use email for mission-critical communications, but Slack has quickly filled the gap for most other internal communications.

Cloud Storage/Syncing Services

Dropbox

• Dropbox has long been the leader in the cloud storage and syncing files between devices. Syncing is nearly instantaneous between devices. I use Dropbox mainly as a conduit for transferring files between my iPad and my Mac.

Microsoft OneDrive

• While it does not have the syncing prowess of Dropbox and can be a bit clunky, I use OneDrive as my primary cloud storage location. I save most files here, so I can access to them on the Mac and iPad. I also use it extensively for sharing files with our advising team. For activities where our team is working out of the office (orientations, remote advising, etc.) OneDrive provides easy access to our files (compared with our office file server, which is not always easy to access remotely). The university has a Office365 contract and has vetted OneDrive for storing most kinds of data. Each user has a generous 1 terabyte of storage, so this makes OneDrive an attractive option.

Evernote

• For many years I used Evernote as a “virtual general reference file cabinet.” I stored information on academic policies, handouts from meetings, reference documents–essentially anything I thought I would need to reference in the future and wanted to do so wherever I had internet. Evernote has exceptional search and text recognition capabilities, which makes it particularly well-suited to this function. For a variety of reasons, I have recently transitioned to DEVONthink for my less-paper workflow. I still recommend Evernote as a terrific service for getting started with the paperless lifestyle.