Index Cards

I recently got an iPad (readers of this blog will be familiar with my love of all things Mac). Cruising the App Store for useful or interesting apps is my new favourite time-wasting activity. I began thinking though – what do I really want my iPad to do?

Not surprising that the first answer that came to mind was a digital replacement for index cards. I’m doing some additional research and outlining for Last Ride (yes, it’s still going) and keeping the index cards straight was driving me nuts. I was researching categories for Religion, Magic, Culture & Society, People, Places, Language and Mythological Creatures – I didn’t have enough coloured index cards for all my categories plus they were getting mixed up with my scene cards. I wondered how hard it would be to learn how to develop an app… but of course I realised that someone else must have had this idea first.

Enter Index Card. Inspired by Scrivener (and yes, it syncs with Scrivener), this app gives you a corkboard with index cards. You can manage information by projects, stacks and index cards; there are 14 background colours to choose from; you can write on the front and virtual ‘back’ of the cards. Simple to use and beautifully laid out, I am sending my index cards digital.

I sent a message to the developer suggesting that they include support for Text Expander, another useful little app for those of us who do a lot of writing on the iPad. I was delighted to receive a response within 24 hours, with information on future plans for the app that addresses the need for typing shortcuts.

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