WritePad Review
this is being written with WritePad. So it works.
It's only the second day of using it and I'm still getting used to it.
I just used it to take notes at a meeting and it was not too bad ... But it does still sometimes go insane with misreading.
The docs are pretty honest in pointing out that you will do better if you write large. 1like to print and it may work better if you write in cursive. In fact 1 think it does based on this sentence.
Anyway-1am intrigued enough to play with it some more.
When you open WritePad for the first time it will open in a tutorial document. I found the online pdf, which has embedded illustrations more useful; also it's easy to mess up the tutorial because it's not protected. As far as I can tell there's no "revert to saved" in WritePad.
So, the thing to do is open a new empty document and start writing with your finger. As the reviews all say, it's best to write pretty large and to stay as horizontal as you can. As you write more, it definitely gets smoother.
The WritePad screen has a bar on top with the document title in the middle. To the left of that there is a pulldown menu of documents, which also includes the New Document options. This is standard iOS U1. Between the menu and the doc title there are two icons: one is a bird to post up to 140 characters text to Twitter. The other looks like a World; touching it brings up an odd mix of 5 buttons. The most important of those puts what you write into an email. The others :
insert contact pastes info from your address book.
Get Location pops up a map and inserts the location I got:
College Station Texas 77843
United States
by moving the map onto Kyle field, dropping a pin and hitting Save. That was pretty cool and I can see how it could be useful while on the road.
Translate translates what you wrote into another language...haven't tried that yet.
On the top right there is a selector for 4 view/input modes. The first is view only. The second is for writing anywhere on the screen; you can tell you are in that mode because pink lines appear. The third option puts an input area at the bottom of the screen. While it is a smaller area, the delay between Writing and conversion is a lot shorter. The last option is the keyboard.
There is also a toolbar at the bottom of the screen. This has undo, redo, check spelling, set fonts and background colors, search (which uses the keyboard) and settings/help.
Things I've noticed so far:
Sometimes when you mean to write, you end up moving the cursor instead
it took a while to get it to distinguish g q y m n v r.I still have some misses on these, and on d.
The gestures for return, Space, etc. Takes while to master.
I wish this was an alternate text entry to the keyboard for all apps instead of a separate app. No way yet to write directly by a photo; you have to write in WritePad and Copy paste into another app. When the new iOS comes to the iPad I think that will be a bit better.
Having written this whole review in WritePad, I think I'm getting good enough at it to use it in a real notetaking situation where speed is more of a concern. So it Could be well worth the $10.
this is being written with WritePad. So it works.
It's only the second day of using it and I'm still getting used to it.
I just used it to take notes at a meeting and it was not too bad ... But it does still sometimes go insane with misreading.
The docs are pretty honest in pointing out that you will do better if you write large. 1like to print and it may work better if you write in cursive. In fact 1 think it does based on this sentence.
Anyway-1am intrigued enough to play with it some more.
When you open WritePad for the first time it will open in a tutorial document. I found the online pdf, which has embedded illustrations more useful; also it's easy to mess up the tutorial because it's not protected. As far as I can tell there's no "revert to saved" in WritePad.
So, the thing to do is open a new empty document and start writing with your finger. As the reviews all say, it's best to write pretty large and to stay as horizontal as you can. As you write more, it definitely gets smoother.
The WritePad screen has a bar on top with the document title in the middle. To the left of that there is a pulldown menu of documents, which also includes the New Document options. This is standard iOS U1. Between the menu and the doc title there are two icons: one is a bird to post up to 140 characters text to Twitter. The other looks like a World; touching it brings up an odd mix of 5 buttons. The most important of those puts what you write into an email. The others :
insert contact pastes info from your address book.
Get Location pops up a map and inserts the location I got:
College Station Texas 77843
United States
by moving the map onto Kyle field, dropping a pin and hitting Save. That was pretty cool and I can see how it could be useful while on the road.
Translate translates what you wrote into another language...haven't tried that yet.
On the top right there is a selector for 4 view/input modes. The first is view only. The second is for writing anywhere on the screen; you can tell you are in that mode because pink lines appear. The third option puts an input area at the bottom of the screen. While it is a smaller area, the delay between Writing and conversion is a lot shorter. The last option is the keyboard.
There is also a toolbar at the bottom of the screen. This has undo, redo, check spelling, set fonts and background colors, search (which uses the keyboard) and settings/help.
Things I've noticed so far:
Sometimes when you mean to write, you end up moving the cursor instead
it took a while to get it to distinguish g q y m n v r.I still have some misses on these, and on d.
The gestures for return, Space, etc. Takes while to master.
I wish this was an alternate text entry to the keyboard for all apps instead of a separate app. No way yet to write directly by a photo; you have to write in WritePad and Copy paste into another app. When the new iOS comes to the iPad I think that will be a bit better.
Having written this whole review in WritePad, I think I'm getting good enough at it to use it in a real notetaking situation where speed is more of a concern. So it Could be well worth the $10.