More Working on the iPad: Mindmapping with iThoughtsHD

I decided to follow Chris Brogan’s lead some more and just bring my iPad with me to meet with Christine of Blue Lime Media and Catherine to work on WordCamp Vancouver talks (I’m moderating Christine’s panel and Catherine and I are talking about WordPress 3.0). Especially since I boldly said that working on my iPad is no problem, I wanted to make sure I put my money where my mouth was (whenever possible).

So armed with my iPad and Bluetooth keyboard I set out for some presentation planning. Just to keep things interesting I upgraded to a paid mindmapping app (iThoughtsHD) so we could mindmap presentation thoughts. Verdict? Well see for yourself:

No, don’t worry that’s still a draft, but it want from there to MindView on my MBP to Keynote pretty well. No question this is a great mindmapping app (given iPad interface constraints), and I expect to use it a lot for roughing out ideas and plans. I really don’t mindmap as much as I used to, a lot of what I used to use mindmapping for (document outlines) has been supplanted by Scrivener. I had forgotten though how nice it is to be able to just blast out ideas in no particular order then reorder them as needed.

Hmm, have to remember that. Regardless, the one thing that is a bit tiresome working on my iPad is transferring files. For iThoughtsHD I used the WiFi transfer (essentially a WebDAV connection) to download the files to my machine. I would love to have a slick way (or any for that matter) to get any file into my DropBox (screen shots and images are cake). Beyond file transfer tools, I think the only thing left in my “I wish I could do well on the iPad…” list is a decent blogging app. The WordPress iPad app is nearly useless. Can’t paste text? No links? No images? Huh? I have seen BlogPress, but the ratings seem hit and miss.

In spite of a few hoops to transfer files and the severe lack of a decent blogging client, I think the iPad will keep doing just dandy as a light-duty work device. Not to mention when I want to take a break a book or movie is only a click and swipe away.