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iCloud was undoubtedly what tipped me over the edge to buy an iPad. It hadn’t launched and few technical details were available, but the idea of iCloud and Apple’s reputation for eminently usable technologies had me convinced that it was going to transform mobile computing. After a couple of months this reality has not manifested itself for me, but the potential is certainly there. There are many good points, there are gaps that have no solution yet (the bad) and there are those gaps for which inelegant solutions exist (the ugly). I’m going to reflect on these from my own point of view as a researcher whose needs are for a) manipulating text documents and b) a mobile library of PDF documents.

The Good

Once your Pages documents are in iCloud they are seamlessly synchronised across all your iDevices. The latest version of Pages is now able to retain most types of formatting, footnotes and special fields, like EndNote citations. The on-screen keyboard is pretty usable, but not ideal. I prefer to use my Apple Wireless Keyboard with my iPad. Instead of some sort of dock, I find the Apple Smart Cover does a good enough job in giving me a good viewing angle. Plus, this keeps my accessories to a minimum. I’m now using the STM sleeve I originally bought for transporting my 13″ MacBook Pro to carry my iPad, keyboard and most other things I need for writing (glasses and maybe a book).

GoodReader provides me with a great PDF library manager and viewer. It also allows me to annotate PDFs. If I want to pull a quote, I can simply copy and paste it into Notes and have it automatically sync with all my iDevices, including my desktop. Most importantly, because GoodReader uses iCloud I can get these PDFs to seamlessly sync between all my iDevices and my desktop.

The Bad

The feature that is most sorely missed is seamless syncing of iWork documents between iCloud and your desktop. For the moment I have to remember which documents I edited and to download them at the end of the day from the iCloud website. It’s usually not a problem because people seldom work on a great number of documents while mobile. But this is a very limited solution because it should ideally not require you to keep tabs on the documents you have modified and created on your iDevices in order to perform a synchronisation with your desktop. I anticipate this will soon be fixed by integrating iCloud into the desktop versions of iWork apps.

The GoodRead sync is seamless once you have gone through the initial set up, which is pretty laborious (see The Ugly). Once done though, it’s well worth it. Especially considering iCloud offers 5GB for free, which is more than the other internet based sync services that work with Mac.¹ Hopefully, the makers of GoodReader develop some sort of desktop application that takes away this painful set up.

In the end, using the iPad is not as seamless as laptops if you desire automated file synchronisation. But, it’s not a major compromise and it vastly improves your mobility, which for me means being able to work on my thesis in the library, on the bus and during my lunch break at work.

Now, if you’re interested in the solution I’ve outlined you can find the instructions for iCloud and iWork on Apple’s website. The instructions for using GoodReader are in the next section below. And a warning, it gets pretty ugly and I can understand if it initially puts you off using GoodReader and iCloud. But, I guarantee you once it’s set up everything works like a charm – I have my PDFs seamlessly syncing between my iPad, iPhone, iMac and MBP.

N.B. My reference in the title to Robert Reich’s concept, symbolic analyst, has a twofold purpose. Firstly, I think this guide could be useful for people who do more or other things than writing in a mobile fashion. Secondly, it’s also partly a reminder that this form of mobile computing, especially in using an iPad, is not available to everyone, but to a privileged few who can afford it. I’m sure the proportion of symbolic analysts in the workforce has expanded since Reich originally published The Work of Nations. I’m sure that our privilege has also diminished with various changes in workplace regulations. But, in the end, we are still relatively better off than most. I could easily complete a PhD without the iPad – it’s a luxury and a convenience, not a necessity. Completing a PhD is a privilege I’d undertake with pen and paper if I had to.

OK…now on to the ugly for those who are interested…

The Ugly

The first thing you need to do is to set up GoodReader to use iCloud

1. Before starting, make sure iCloud is active on your desktop and that you are syncing “Documents and Data”.

2. Start the Wi-Fi transfer function in GoodReader on your iPad.

3. Connect to GoodReader from your Mac using Finder. You can do this by using the keyboard shortcut Command+K or by clicking on the Go > Connect to Server… menu in Finder.

4. Navigate to the My Documents folder on your iPad using Finder.

5. Still using Finder, copy a small number of documents you intend syncing from your Mac to this folder My Documents. One document will do. The image to the left shows GoodReader copying this file(s) to the iPad.

6. You will now see this document(s) in GoodReader on your iPad. In this example, I copied a folder called “Honneth” with a few PDFs in it to GoodReader.

7. Move the document(s) to the iCloud folder in GoodReader. In my case, I created a “Phd PDFs” folder on iCloud under which I keep my PDF files. I’m moving the “Honneth” folder to the “PhD PDFs” folder on iCloud.

8. You will now see this content being uploaded to iCloud.

9. A short time after this completes, you will notice this content will be downloaded to your computer in the ~/Library/Mobile Documents/JFJWWP64QD~com~goodiware~GoodReader/My Documents folder. The time this takes depends on the total size of files uploaded to iCloud.

10. Create a shortcut to this folder to make it more accessible. Possible places to create the shortcut are your desktop or the dock. In my case, I’ve put the shortcut in the Finder sidebar.

11. Delete the original documents you added to GoodReader from their location on your desktop. Now that these files are stored in both iCloud and under Mobile Documents on your local hard drive, you can delete the original files.

1. SugarSync is the best service I’ve found that allows you to keep your existing directory structure in tact. If you’re not so attached to this like me, then Dropbox will do the trick. However, both of these services only provide 2GB of space on their free accounts and my PDFs are currently just over 2.2GB. [↩]