Awesome new Calendar App for iPad

My history with the iPad goes waaay back - we ultimately reached what I describe as a detente.

In a nutshell, I think it is great for games (which I have zero time for anymore), reading, and listening to music (although I don't use it for this - I prefer my iPod/docking station). But for web browsing, document handling, e-mail, and other productivity applications, I find it sorely lacking when compared to a PC. The iPad's keyboard is clumsy, and web browsing is just painful. Not to mention the frequent browser crashes. But anyway...

I did a lot of research and testing before I paid big $ for a calendar/GTD app that held a lot of appeal for me - ease of usability, nice features I really needed, etc. Of course, that was 6 or 7 updates ago, and the calendar app I used to love (Pocket Informant) is now bogged down with bells and whistles I didn't want, and that have greatly reduced its usability. I am just not going to spend 3-5 minutes and multiple clicks trying to delete or update an item on a to-do list. Sorry. Insert sad face here.

As I've mentioned previously, I had quite the go-round with one of the grocery apps - these apps that are supposed to simplify our lives and increase our productivity require multiple clicks and clumsy keyboard entries just to make a simple list - changing a 15 minute trip to Kroger into a Gilligan-worthy 3-hour tour. No thanks!

So, yesterday I had my hair cut. I took the iPad along, because my stylist is always running late, and I figured I could get 2 or 3 chapters read (Girl Gone) while I waited. Actually read 5 chapters before she called me back, but anyway....

Jump to haircut is done, and I'm at the front desk to pay and set up my next appointment. No need for ME to look at a calendar - I knew I needed a Wednesday, early AM appointment. The particular Wednesday didn't matter - so the receptionist scrolls through HER calendar, finds a date and time for me, and tells me verbally (no tree-killing appointment cards at THIS salon!) - I guess she assumed I would enter it in the iPad I was carrying. But No...I reached over the counter and grabbed her pad of yellow Post-Its, wrote down the appointment, and then briefly pondered what to do with this important piece of paper. (I wasn't carrying a purse) - But it was a very brief pause, as I quickly hit upon the solution:

That's right, stick it to the front of the iPad. I knew it wouldn't get lost, and would stay stuck until I was reunited with my calendar. That's right - I kick it old school, with a big 8.5" x 11" notebook-style Day-Runner I keep at the shop. Need to update an entry? Takes 5 seconds!

And let's not get started on my iPad case - this is the 3rd one this particular company has sent me (2 free replacements!) because the plastic hinges on it keep breaking (duh). So now, instead of getting a replacement, I use packing tape to hold it together. It's the 21st century version of the nerd with tape on his broken glasses, I guess!

So there you have it - my iPad calendar app that will never crash, never get a (useless) update, and never let me down. And you also know when my next haircut is!

iPad, Round 2

Well, my last post has been picked up by iPad Gear Talk, a tech blog. 

On to today's iPad update:

Downloaded Grocery IQ, a free app designed to simplify my grocery shopping experience. Yay! I am all for that.

It has coupons (of course, you have to manually print them), and the ability to make different shopping lists for many different stores, and you can then customize your list by aisle according to the layout of your store. But it also has what is apparently the #1 most desirable feature of all the available grocery list apps: the ability to e-mail your grocery list to anyone. ANYONE, people*.

So please leave your e-mail addys in the comment section, as I am going to start an e-mail mailing list for everyone who wants to know what I'm gettin' at the grocery store. Fascinating! So fascinating, in fact, that I also plan on starting a new blog: My Grocery Lists. I have already heard the the Woz plans to be my first follower!

So I made up my first grocery list on the iPad today, using Grocery IQ. Took 55 minutes. For 16 items. I am absolutely blown away by how much this feature has already eaten away at  improved my busy lifestyle. Do you have ANY idea how long it would have taken me to write 16 items on a Post-it note and shove it in my pocket? Maybe 55 seconds .... but that is not the point, people. I saved a twig, here. (How many trees does it take to make a Post-it, anyway?)

Now, when I go to the store tonight after work, I have to take in the iPad, open up the app, roam the aisles finding my items while rearranging the built-in app aisle set up to match the actual aisle set-up at my store, and then check off each item as I find it. I wonder how many screens that will involve, since putting 16 items on my list involved, on average, 6 screens per item. And I'm not counting (although I should) the additional screens needed because the same "finger-swooshing" movement that you use to scroll through the app's many grocery items, looking for the one you want to add to your e-list, causes inadvertent selection of some random item you touched as you were swooshing, adding it to your list, and requiring 5-6 more screens to delete the unwanted item, and start hunting for the wanted one again. Wow. Simple!!

Not so pleased with this. It isn't simpler, more convenient, faster - certainly not more efficient.

Maybe I could e-mail a scan of my post-it shopping list to someone at Apple, and they could so my grocery shopping. Now THAT is an app I would even pay for!

*I fully realize that my amazement at the popularity of this ability to e-mail grocery lists to anyone and everyone you know is probably directly proportional to the fact that I live in a one-person, 2 dog household. The only entity who would be remotely interested in doing my grocery shopping for me would be Bailey, and he would skip the toilet paper, and load up the cart with Cheese Doodles, popcorn, and ice cream.