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The best organization apps for students
Here's a list of the best organization apps to help you organize your school life and manage your time.
Spark email app debuts on Android as Inbox gets the axe
For years, iOS and macOS users have had access to Spark, an organization-focussed email app. Until now, Android users were left in the dark, but as of today, Spark is officially available in the Google Play store.
Readdle's PDF Office: Powerful PDF form creation tools and more
When it comes to productivity apps for iOS, probably no developer does the job better than Ukraine-based Readdle. Over the years we've watched in awe as they've cranked out some amazing apps like PDF Expert, Scanner Pro, Documents, and Calendars. While many of their apps have provided the ability to edit, markup, and save PDF files, actually creating editable forms on an iOS device wasn't possible until now. The new PDF Office iPad app (free to try with in-app subscription purchases) can do much of what some of the other Readdle PDF apps do, but adds some features that make it a desktop-class PDF editor. PDF Office provides four primary functions: Create PDF files Convert into PDF Edit PDF Documents Annotate, sign and collaborate The first, and probably the most interesting function for those who have used the full-fledged Adobe Acrobat desktop app in the past, is the PDF creation capability. You can create a blank PDF document on a variety of paper types, then type text, use a stylus to handwrite notes or draw diagrams, and more. You can also digitize any existing paper document, and once it is scanned into PDF Office, it's simple to edit and annotate the PDF. But the most impressive function of PDF Office in terms of PDF creation is the ability to create fillable PDF forms. There's a full editor that provides a way to build these forms and define parameters for each field. Fields can be dates, numbers in various formats, signatures, text, dropdown lists, or even calculated results. The other capabilities of PDF Office - converting photographed images into PDFs, editing PDF documents, and annotating PDFs - are nothing new to Readdle. The PDF Expert 5 app (US$9.99) performs all of those functions both on iPhone and iPad. In the blog entry introducing PDF Office, it's noted that the company originally started to develop the PDF editing and form creation functionality for PDF Expert. When they started to add those features into PDF Expert, it quickly became apparent that the new capabilities should be the core of a new product. PDF Office is more for the creation of PDF documents, while PDF Expert 5 is targeted towards those people who need to read and annotate PDFs. In wrapping up this short review, it should be noted that Readdle has chosen to offer PDF Office on a subscription basis. While you can try out a number of functions in the app for free, the app requires activation if you use it for any length of time. That subscription is either $4.99 per month - perfect if you just need the app for a single project - or $39.99 per year. That subscription fee may sound high for people who are used to paying $0.99 for apps, but think of it this way - PDF Office is providing a lot of the functionality of Adobe Acrobat XI, and that desktop software runs $449.99 or $19.99 per month. Rather than go through some of the other features of PDF Office, I encourage you to download and try out the app to see if it's for you. Anyone who currently uses Adobe Acrobat to create PDFs or fillable PDF forms might very well find what they need is in Readdle's newest product.
Daily Update for December 3, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Readdle rolls out PDF Expert 5: iCloud support, shared folder with Documents by Readdle
PDF Expert (US$9.99) is already a favorite of many of the bloggers at TUAW; now Ukraine-based development powerhouse Readdle has announced the availability of PDF Expert 5. The app is used to annotate PDFs, fill out PDF forms, sign PDF contracts and otherwise work with Adobe PDF documents in ways that Adobe's Acrobat app can't even touch. What's new in version 5? Well, first of all, PDF Expert 5 now supports iCloud, so your PDF documents can be stored on Apple's cloud service for quick availability. There's a new function that allows users to take multiple PDF files and merge them into one document; helpful when doing a set of scans that need to be saved as one document for easy search or emailing. I'm personally smitten with the new shared-folder capability. PDF Expert has some amazing annotation functionality, while the free Documents by Readdle app is designed for easier sharing and organization of PDFs. With the shared folder, it's possible to pass documents quickly between the two Readdle apps for a more complete solution when and if you need it. The upgrade to version 5 will require a full repurchase of the app, so current owners should be prepared to shell out $9.99 for the new capabilities. PDF Expert 5 should be available in the App Store today.
Readdle ships Calendars 5, smart calendar for iOS
Calendars 5 (US$6.99, available now at an introductory price of $4.99) was released today by Readdle, Inc. We'll have a full review of the new app soon, but suffice it to say that Calendars 5 is billed as a "smart calendar that understands human language and supports tasks and iOS reminders." Check out the video below for an idea of how the natural language processing of Calendars 5 works, and be sure to grab the app while it's on sale.
Documents by Readdle comes to the iPhone
Readdle is rolling out another version of its Documents app today. This latest version brings the popular document management app to the iPhone, expanding it beyond its iPad roots. Just like its iPad predecessor, the Documents version for the iPhone is a fast document viewer that includes both a media player and file manager. The now universal app will let users store and view all the common file formats including PDF files, Office documents and photos. There's an online component that'll let you sync with common cloud services like Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, any WebDAV and iCloud. You can also browse and download files from the Web via built-in browser. Documents by Readdle is available for free from the iOS App Store.
Readdle rebrands its Calendar app, adds free version
Readdle expanded its portfolio of excellent apps today with a free version of its popular Calendars app. The free version will replace the paid version of Calendars by Readdle, which is now known as Calendars+. The new, free Calendars by Readdle is a basic calendaring app that lets you manage your iOS and Google calendars. It doesn't have all the features of the paid version, but the major ones are still there. The free version lets you create an event with just a few taps and then drag and drop it to change the date and time. The app also supports SMS notifications and offline syncing. Customers who bought the paid version of Calendars will still enjoy the advanced features of the app. Calendars+ offers support for multiple event reminders, recurring appointments, event invitations and more. You can download the free version of Calendars by Readdle from the iOS App Store. Calendars+ by Readdle is available for US$6.99.
Attending Macworld/iWorld 2013? Join us for the TUAW Meetup tonight
For the past few years at Macworld Expo and Macworld/iWorld, we've sponsored a meetup to get together with TUAW readers, enjoy each other's company and do some great giveaways. This year is no exception, and we have a meetup planned for tonight -- Friday, February 1, 2013 -- starting at 8:30 PM at Jillian's, 175 4th Street, San Francisco. That's just across the street from Moscone West, where Macworld/iWorld is taking place. We'll be providing refreshments, billiards and tons of giveaways, and the meetup is always a fun place to meet the TUAW cast of characters and new friends. So please join us for what's sure to be an enjoyable evening! This year's event is made possible by the generosity of our sponsors: HP -- be sure to visit the HP team at booth 602 to see how technology can empower people to help them create, make the digital tangible and harness the power of human information. Readdle -- one of the amazing success stories of the iPad era has been Readdle, the developers of such great productivity apps as Documents for iPad, Remarks, PDF Expert and Scanner Pro. Pad and Quill -- beautiful cases for iPad, iPhone, MacBook Air and Kindle. Handcrafted in the USA by a small Minneapolis-based family company, using local craftsmen to construct bookbindery cases for touch devices. Many thanks also go out to the many other manufacturers and developers who have donated the products to be given away at tonight's event. What's in the goodie bags? You'll have to show up to find out! (Note that we did not deliberately choose to cross-schedule with the annual Cirque du Mac festivities hosted by our friends at The Mac Observer; that's just how the venue availability shook out this year. If you're headed to Cirque, come by and say hi on your way!)
Scanner Mini from Readdle is a lightweight scanning app for your iOS device
Scanner Mini from Readdle is a lightweight scanner app for iOS users who want the ability to capture a receipt on the fly, but don't need extras like faxing and Dropbox syncing. Similar to its bigger brother Scanner Pro, Scanner Mini lets you use your iPhone or iPad as a portable PDF scanner. You can scan a document using your iOS device's camera or pull an image in from the camera roll. A resizable box lets you crop the image manually or you can choose from a variety of presets for business cards, legal-sized documents, letters and more. A "Find Borders" button will let the app pick the borders for you. Scanner Mini improves the resulting output by letting you choose whether the image is a color photo, a black and white document or a grayscale document. The "document" setting is great for black and white documents as it removes any off-white or yellow coloring. The resulting pure white background and black text makes the document look fake, however. If you don't like the look of the document option, you can choose the grayscale or photo setting and tweak the brightness and contrast to improve the appearance of your scan. When you are done tweaking the image, you can add another photo to the scan or name it and save it to the Scanner Mini app. The app supports folders so you can organize your scans in a useful and meaningful way. You can also sort scans by name or date and find scans using the handy search feature. Readdle is positioning Scanner Mini as a basic scanning app for iOS customers who want a scanner that is fast, easy and free. As a result, options for sharing scans are limited in Scanner Mini. Scans can be optionally backed up to iCloud or transferred over to your computer via a USB cable. There is no option to send a scan via email or upload it to a third-party service like Dropbox. To get those advanced features, you have to upgrade to the US$6.99 Scanner Pro. Scanner Mini is available now for free from the iOS App Store.
Readdle, Shape Services and more slash prices on their apps for Black Friday
Some of the biggest Black Friday sales come from Readdle, Apparent Software, DEVONTechnologies and Shape Services, all of which cut prices on almost all the titles in their app lineup. You can save on popular apps like Printer Pro, PDF Expert, Socialite and IM+. Check out the full list of discounted apps below. Readdle PDF Expert for iPad $9.99 -> $4.99 Scanner Pro (universal) $6.99 -> $1.99 Calendars (universal) $6.99 -> $1.99 Printer Pro for iPad $6.99 -> $1.99 Printer Pro for iPhone $4.99 -> $1.99 Remarks (iPad) $4.99 -> $1.99 ReaddleDocs for iPad $4.99 -> $1.99 PDF Converter for iPad $6.99 -> $1.99 ReaddleDocs for iPhone $4.99 -> $1.99 Shakespeare Pro (universal) $9.99 -> $1.99 BONUS: PDF Expert for iPhone $9.99 -> FREE Shape Services IM+ Pro Black Friday price: $2.99 (normal price is $9,99) Business Card Reader for iPhone Black Friday price: $1.99 (normal price is $4.99) Business Card Reader HD for iPad Black Friday price: $1.99 (normal price is $6.99) Webcamera Black Friday price: $0.99 (normal price is $2.99) RDM+ Black Friday price: $1.99 (normal price is $7.99 and $9.99) RDM+ for Mac Black Friday price: $1.99 (normal price is $9.99) iDisplay Mini Free (normal price is $ 0.99) Apparent Software Cashculator for Mac $29.99 -> $14.99 -- For personal finance management Cashculator for iPhone $4.99 -> $2.99 -- For personal finance management Trickster for Mac $9.99 -> $4.99 -- Productivity booster for fast access to recently used files Socialite for Mac $9.99 -> $4.99 -- Client for multiple social networks, including Facebook and Twitter DEVONtechnologies DEVONtechnologies is offering a 25% discount on all their software products and upgrades from Black Friday through Cyber Monday (November 23 through 26). You can buy directly from DEVONTechnologies or grab their titles in the App Store.
Readdle to give away Printer Pro for iPhone ... if you like them on Facebook
Our friends at Readdle, the development house that makes such great apps as PDF Expert, Scanner Pro and Remarks, have an interesting proposition for iPhone users who have a Facebook account. In order to increase the number of people following Readdle on Facebook, it's willing to give away its Printer Pro for iPhone app -- usually US$4.99 -- via a Readdle Social Challenge. Here's the challenge -- you need to help Readdle get to 10,000 "Likes" on Facebook within seven days, and then they'll give away Printer Pro for iPhone for a 24-hour period. The Social Challenge is already underway, and there's a countdown clock spinning away the days, hours and minutes until it's all over. A little about Printer Pro might whet your appetite to hit the "Like" button; it's an iOS app to provide a simple way to print documents from your iPhone to many WiFi printers or to other printers via a free helper app for Mac or Windows.
iOS developer Readdle celebrates its 5th anniversary
A few weeks after the debut of the original iPhone in 2007, Readdle's first product, a web service for reading documents, launched. Two of the four co-founders had previous experience in development and programming for other platforms, including mobile and web. In 2008, after the App Store opened, ReaddleDocs was Readdle's first official App Store offering. Readdle is celebrating its fifth anniversary today, and marketing manager Denys Zhadanov said it's much harder to for apps to break through now because of competition, big names, marketing and other factors. "Despite all that, [the] iOS platform is so huge and innovative that you can always come up with something fresh and unique." Readdle's enthusiasm for its products is still going strong. I was impressed by Readdle's booth at Macworld | iWorld 2012, where it was previewing Remarks, the company's latest app for notetaking and PDF annotation. Readdle now spans two offices in Europe and the U.S., and its staff has grown to more than 30 people. There's more than 5.5 million users of Readdle's apps now, and Zhadanov said there's several big products planned. To celebrate Readdle's anniversary, the company is placing all of its apps on sale for the next two days. The discounts are up to 70% off the apps' original price, so if you've been waiting to purchase a Readdle product, now is a good time to do so. The apps covered by the discount include the following: PDF Expert - $4.99 (normally $9.99, separate apps for iPhone and iPad) Scanner Pro - $1.99 (normally $6.99) Calendars - $1.99 (normally $6.99) ReaddleDocs - $.99 (normally $4.99, separate apps for iPhone and iPad) Remarks - $.99 (normally $4.99, iPad only) PDF Converter - $1.99 (normally $6.99, iPad only) Shakespeare Pro - $1.99 (normally $9.99) Happy anniversary to Readdle; we look forward to seeing what the firm has in store in the future. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
Readdle PDF Expert receives major update in version 4.0
A lot of us here at TUAW use Readdle's PDF Expert (US$9.99) to view, annotate, and organize Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The app has always provided a useful and fast way to mark up PDFs, and there's a new update available that adds some very useful features. PDF Expert 4.0 now supports the Retina display of the new iPad, a feature that works incredibly well. Readdle went through all of the UI elements of PDF Expert and updated them for the higher resolution screen. The result on a new iPad is amazing. The rendering of PDFs has been optimized for the Retina display as well, and text and graphics appear much sharper than in the previous version. While trying out the updated PDF Expert, I found that the handwriting capture for annotation seemed much smoother on the new iPad. My writing looked less like scrawls on an iPad screen and more like my pen-and-paper writing. If you like seeing document previews in thumbnails, you'll be happy with that added feature in PDF Expert 4.0. Any documents that you may receive that have embedded video or audio can now be listened to or watched. PDF attachment formats that are now supported by PDF Expert include .mov, .jpg, .num (Numbers spreadsheet), and .mp3. In the past, PDF Expert did not support PDF Portfolios, which are multiple PDF files assembled into an integrated PDF document. PDF Expert 4.0 adds support for PDF portfolios. The update is available today on the App Store.
Daily iPad App: Remarks for iPad tops the class in note-taking apps
Two of the things that enchanted me most at Macworld | iWorld 2012 was the Jot stylus and a preview of Readdle's Remarks app. I've spent the past week looking at different note-taking apps to use with my new Jot Pro while waiting for Remarks to come out. The preview held not one, not two, but three TUAW writers enthralled as the Readdle folks showed it off. Does it live up to the hype? It really does. I have two specific tasks for any note-taking app for the iPad - it should handle the hand drafts I do of comic strips, and it should handle a PDF workflow I've developed for my day job. In both areas, it excelled. In handwriting mode, Remarks edges out Note Taker HD in responsiveness when it comes to using a stylus. It's able to keep up with my quick cursive without the stylus petering out, which is an issue I've had with other apps. Handling documents is a sheer joy. You can drag and drop documents onto each other to create new folders, and you can also create subfolders as well. Page scrolling within PDFs is smooth, which is an issue I had with Note Taker HD. Normal gestures for zooming in and out can be used, but make sure to use two fingers to swipe when moving pages in editing mode. One of the neat things about Remarks is that PDF annotations you add can be edited in Preview or Adobe Acrobat reader. I added a couple of objects to my test PDF, emailed it to myself on my Mac and was able to change the objects there, then edit them again once I sent them back to my iPad. You can quickly add and delete pages from the PDFs, but you can't combine them. There are a couple of things that I wish Remarks had. The wrist guard isn't accessible in normal page mode, so you have to zoom in every time you want to annotate something (annoying if you're like me and tend to rest your arm on the iPad). I also love Note Taker HD's "staple" feature, which lets you combine two PDFs or documents. It's been handy for attaching copies of my completed pages at work to my notes. I've been told that Dropbox and other cloud app support is coming within the next week, along with improvements to an already splendid rendering engine. For US$4.99, Remarks for iPad has become the go-to note-taking app on the iPad for me. If you've been wanting to try one out, this is a great app to begin with.
Readdle previews Remarks iPad app at Macworld iWorld 2012
During Macworld | iWorld 2012 last week, I had the opportunity to meet with Denys Zhadanov of Readdle. If you're not familiar with Readdle's products, you might be new to the iOS world. The company has been around for four years and has sold over 3.5 million iOS apps, most of them used for reading and annotating PDF files. The company's newest entry into this market should be hitting the App Store any day now. Called Remarks, the app will sell for US$4.99 and is used to open, edit, and then save and distribute PDF files. My favorite part of the demonstration was when Denys opened a magazine file, tapped several pages, and created a new PDF file with annotations within seconds. Remarks has some unique navigation tools for precisely locating text or handwritten annotations, and it can save in either regular (layered) or flattened PDF formats. A short video showing off the impressive feature set of Remarks is embedded below.
Daily iPad App: ReaddleDocs
ReaddleDocs, if you haven't used it, is one of the first document management apps to land in the App Store. Version 3.0 of the app recently landed and it's a significant update that helps ReaddleDocs retain its title as one of the top document managers and viewers for the iPad. By far, ReaddleDocs biggest selling point is its ability to import files from a variety of online sources and save them for offline viewing. It can import files stored in online services like SugarSync, Box.net, DropBox, Google Docs and a handful of other smaller services. ReaddleDocs can also pull down documents from an external FTP, SFTP or WebDav server. It does support Apple's older MobileMe service, but not the newer iCloud service. Besides online services, the app lets you import files wirelessly via an IP address provided by the application, or via a USB connection and iTunes file sharing. A built-in web browser also lets you capture full web pages or partial web pages for offline reading. If you are like me and receive a lot of documents via email, ReaddleDocs also taps into the iOS mail app and lets you import any attachments, manually or automatically. Once you have a collection of documents, ReaddleDocs will let you sort them by name, type, date and size. It also lets you place them into folders which is great for organizing a large collection of files. As a file manager, ReaddleDocs has the ability to rename, copy, move, delete, email and zip files. It also has a toggle to select all or deselect all files which is very handy when you want to manage several files at once. There's also a new "Recents" section that provides quick acces to documents you recently opened. Besides being a useful file manager, ReaddleDocs is also a very good document viewer. It supports PDF, Microsoft Office, Open Office Writer files and Apple iWork files. Other file formats, though, will have to be converted to PDF before being imported into ReaddleDocs. Once a document is in PDF format, though, ReaddleDocs lets you annotate it in several different ways. You can add bookmarks, create outlines, highlight text, add notes and even mark up PDF text with underlines and strikeouts. When opened, most documents were formatted properly and easy to navigate by swiping from page to page. I did encounter a few hiccups, like the app copying some HTML code along with the text when I used the built-in web browser to capture content, but these problems were few and far between. Overall, ReaddleDocs is a very capable and very flexible document reader and file manager. With a price tag of $5, it's a no-brainer for iPad owners. You can grab ReaddleDocs from the App Store.
Video App Demo: PDF Expert
In a world where there are plenty of PDF tools, PDF Expert distinguishes itself with a few key features. I've been a fan of Readdle's past products, and PDF Expert aims to give you a truly universal tool for dealing with PDFs, whether you are a student, educator, lawyer, doctor or anyone dealing with the "paperless office." Dave gave it a look back in March, but some new features have been added. With PDF Expert you're able to sign documents with your finger or stylus, send documents to 9 different services (Readdle has their own) and my favorite: fill out PDF forms. On top of these features you get the usual stable of PDF management tools for sorting and annotating your files. To see a walkthrough of these features, check out the video below. [Video was pointing to the wrong place for a bit there, apologies. -Ed.] if(typeof AOLVP_cfg==='undefined')AOLVP_cfg=[];AOLVP_cfg.push({id:'AOLVP_1042635778001','codever':0.1, 'autoload':false, 'autoplay':false, 'playerid':'61371448001', 'videoid':'1042635778001', 'width':480, 'height':270, 'stillurl':'http://pdl.stream.aol.com/pdlext/aol/brightcove/studionow/p/86678bce70b39/r/44d85555dae5f/al/193862/poster-10.jpg', 'playertype':'inline','videotitle':'TUAW - App Demo - PDF Expert','videolink':'#'});
TUAW's Daily iPad App: PDF Converter
It's not often that we can make a product announcement and also have it be a Daily App, but that's the case with Readdle's newest iPad app, PDF Converter (US$6.99). PDF Converter adds a tremendous amount of power to your iPad; it makes it possible to save almost any content on your iPad as a PDF file. Whether you have an email attachment, a web page, a document from your iDisk or Dropbox that you want to make into a PDF, PDF Converter does it. A tap on an email attachment brings up the familiar "Open In..." buttons, allowing the document to be opened in PDF Converter. The attachment is automatically converted to PDF format and available for further distribution or storage on the iPad. To convert a Safari web page to a PDF for future reading offline, just add a "pdf" prefix to the URL in the address bar, tap "Go" on the iPad keyboard, and the document is converted and placed in the Documents list in PDF Converter. The app can also take anything from the iPad clipboard, your contacts list, or Photo Library and convert it to a PDF. This is a wonderful app for creating and distributing ad hoc address lists -- by tapping on the names of assorted contacts and tapping the Convert button, PDF Converter instantly creates a formatted PDF with the contact info for all of the people you've chosen. It's also useful for creating ebooks on the fly. I took a Word document from Dropbox holding my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel, converted it to a PDF, and then used PDF Converter to open the novel in iBooks. This was all done without even getting near my Mac. PDF Converter has found a place on my iPad, and I think a lot of iPad users will feel the same way once they install the app.
PDF Expert for iPad offers cloud storage, editing, more
When the iPad was young, many wondered about its potential as an e-reader. Comparisons to the Kindle, while not entirely fair (they're different devices, each with a unique purpose) were inevitable. Today, a year into the grand experiment that is the iPad, reader apps abound. Books for kids and adults, as well as Apple's own iBooks app, fill the store. When it comes to reading PDFs, however, my choice is PDF Expert (US$9.99). This app features a slew of PDF editing options, generous cloud storage options, a smart "recents" feature, bookmarks, signature support and more. Here's my look at PDF Expert from Readdle. %Gallery-119493%
