Interesting temp solutions until there is BE for iPad

[tharpold]

I've been living with my iPad for several weeks now and find all manner of cool things to do with it. It would be *wonderful* to be able to carry along my Bookends database on the device, even if some desktop BE functions might not be included in an iPad version. But I realize that (re)coding BE for iPad would be a *very* significant project, so I'm not holding out hope that it may happen anytime soon. (Though, Jon, the minute BE for iPad is ready, I'm in.)

What I'm wondering is, have others on this forum worked out usable holdover solutions for getting BE data to iPad? I've done the obvious: exported a bibliography in a format that I can read with Pages -- at least that way I can perform rudimentary searches of the database.

Has anyone tried, say, exporting a bibliography into a custom-built Bento database for iPhone/iPad? Other ideas?

TH

[Jon]

For now, many in the biological or medical sciences might find PubMed On Tap to be a useful companion to Bookends. A universal version (i.e. runs natively on the iPad) has been submitted to the App Store and will hopefully be approved soon. Scroll to the bottom of our home page (http://www.sonnysoftware.com) to see more about PubMed On Tap (the images have not yet been updated to show the iPad version).

Jon
Sonny Software

[AsafKeller]

Unfortunately this solution does not permit annotating or taking notes. Papers for iPad has that feature, and syncs notes with the desktop version. However, Papers' note taking (and other features) pale compared to BE's.

[Jon]

The current version of PubMed On Tap is not intended as a portable workhorse. It's intended to allow you to obtain information from PubMed on the go, including pdfs. And you can download them to Bookends when you're back at your Mac (with pdf attachments) and add notes, etc., then. It is very useful. I'd expect it to become more useful as time goes on.

Jon
Sonny Software

[kga1978]

*bump*

Just to revisit the question of BE on the iPad. Sente (probably the biggest BE competitor) came out with an announcement of their upcoming version for the iPad:

http://www.thirdstreetsoftware.com/blog ... pdate.html

I really, really would rather not use Papers or Sente, but the iPad is going to be the future for reading .pdf libraries. Any chance we would see a closer collaboration with PubMed on Tap to get at least the note taking and .pdf reading capabilities of our BE libraries?

I SO want an iPad solution that works with my BE database for reading and potentially note taking.....

[Jon]

Hi,

I really don't like talking about products that aren't finished. Software development can be unpredictable. However, with that and all the usual caveats, I will tell you that we are working closely with the developer of PubMed On Tap to achieve that (and more). This has reached the top of the to-do list.
Jon
Sonny Software

[kga1978]

Good enough an answer for me

[guerson]

But what about those of us in the humanities that do not use pubmed? I just got an iPad and any solution for it would be great.

[Jon]

Don't worry, we would not restrict an iOS app to biomedical research.

Jon
Sonny Software

[MattN]

Dear Jon, is there any progress on an iPad reader for the Bookends database?

Unfortunately, I am close to moving across to Sente (I've tried the desktop trial, and have managed to export my refs/pdfs from Bookends to Sente reasonably well). The Sente iPad app is OK, if a bit slow. But it is much better than using iAnnotate to read the Bookends attachments folder (my prior botched solution).

From reading the Sente blog, I think the big thing that slowed down the Sente iPad development was the pdf annotation/note taking. Although useful, it is unnecessary for what I do. All I really require is PubMed-on-Tap with slightly better organisation/searching criteria, and direct synchronisation with the Bookends ref/pdf library. Is this likely to happen in any reasonable timeframe? I prefer the OSX Bookends to Sente, but the iPad Sente app is the only solution on the market at the moment - potentially forcing me to abandon ship!

Thanks, Matt

[Jon]

Hi. I rarely talk about features/enhancements/products until they're done. I don't like vaporware. Given the enormous interest in the iPad, though, I'll make a (small) exception here. Yes, we're developing a version of Bookends for the iPad. It will not be identical to Bookends for the Mac, of course (e.g. no document scanning), but it will have many features that complement the desktop version (robust ref/pdf sync is a high priority). I don't want to pre-announce a release date, because the pace of software development is notoriously difficult to predict. I will say, however, that we're getting very close to finishing the major features we want to implement in a 1.0 release. Once we are satisfied we plan to have a beta test period (which I will announce on this site). In a month or so I'll have a much better idea of how close we are to release.

Jon
Sonny Software

[tharpold]

This is splendid news, Jon. As always, thanks for your terrific support of BE, a product that I rely on every day and recommend to others as the best of its kind.

TH

[macsailor]

Will there be a version for iphone 4 as well? I know the screen size of iphone is quite small compared with ipads screen, but it would be great to be able to have my BE database with me in my iphone, especially on occasions when I do not want to bring my MacBook Pro with me.

[Jon]

The goal is to make one binary that will work on both iPad and iPhone.

Jon
Sonny Software