Sometimes technology underwhelms.

Sometimes you wonder what is the point.

I'm annoyed that a set of tools that I love using on my laptop and chromebook are useless on my device of preference, an iPad.

Google today released Slides for iOS and an updated Docs for iOS. They are both pretty much unusable for anything serious on an iDevice. I've waited for ages for Google to deliver some useful editing of Docs on iPad. Because I have a big investment in Docs, Forms and Sheets. On my laptop they have been my goto apps because of the ease of sharing and collaboration; and the functionality (except a table of contents that makes sense) was sufficient for my needs.

But my device of preference is an iPad. And now I'm tired of waiting for the functionality I want. I'm going to ditch Google's mobile apps. They just don't deliver any value.

The way I see it now I have 2 options for creation of documents - Apple's iLife or Microsoft's Office for iPad. Both are far more functional. Neither are what I would like. In reality I'll probably end up using Pages from Apple and Excel from Microsoft. I don't use slide shows much, so I'll probably use Apple's KeyNote if I have to.

You know what would be really cool?
A desktop version of Notability.

Extending Google Drive functionality - Lucid software - a great addition to Google Drive/Apps

One of the really cool things about Google Apps for Education (and other versions) is its ability to integrate with other web based applications. You can add applications to your GAFE or Drive account using the "Connect More Apps" button from the Create dialog box.

As you can see in the above image, two Lucid products are connected to my Google Drive account, Lucid Chart and Lucid Express. (More about Lucid Express shortly)

Earlier this year I stared using LucidChart with some of my senior students as they started to formalise their work around flow charting and programming. What surprised me was how quickly those that had a solid foundation of using GAFE became quite sophisticated users of Lucid Chart. (though in hindsight I probably shouldn't have been surprised)

Functionality is somewhat crippled in the free version - you are limited to 60 items, but you can always break the flowchart into several sections if you need to.

Of course, Lucid Chart does far more than just flowcharts - as the next item shows.

Summary - Lucid Chart is well worth a look. And there is an iOS app for it too!

Now - just a couple of days ago an email arrived announcing LucidPress. It looks very cool, its in Beta at the moment, but I have had a quick look and this is certainly a tool that I'll try and use for an interactive newsletter in the next week or so. Check it out here.

Google Drive update

New from the Google Drive team ... you can now upload folders from your desktop to Google Drive ... yay! This is soooo much better than the previous file by file upload.
Thanks Google!
Follow the Google Apps blog here if you don't already.

Mobile Editing of Google Apps

At last! I have just updated Google Drive on my iPad. And yes - what they say in the blog post at google is true!

Updates for iOS
Starting today, if you’re using the Drive app on your iOS device you can also edit Google documents, just as you can with the Android app. From your iPhone or iPad, you can create a new document, edit an existing one or format text. And just like on your computer, you’ll be able to see other people’s edits instantly as they’re made.

So, while I would have liked to have seen this functionality many moons ago - I am happy from what I have seen tonite that I look forward to seeing our students with iPads get shot of a couple of other applications that they have been using that they now don't need!!!

Thanks, Google. Seriously!