iThoughtsHD – iPad App of the Week

iThoughtsHD – iPad App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone and iPad Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will work on the iPod touch or the iPad, some will be iPad only apps.

This week’s App is iThoughtsHD.

iThoughtsHD is a mind mapping tool for the iPad. It is based on and compatible with iThoughts for the iPhone.

Mindmapping enables you to visually organise your thoughts, ideas and information.

Product Highlights:

• Import and Export Freemind, Novamind, Mindmanager, XMind, iMindmap, Mindview and OPML format maps.
• Export as PDF or PNG images.
• Wirelessly upload/download mind maps using a web browser.
• Email maps as attachments (in all supported formats.)
• Open email attachments in iThoughtsHD.
• Integrated with box.net online collaboration service.
• Topic attributes (colour, icon, shape)
• Topic notes (with hyperlinks)
• Task Management (due date, percent complete.)
• Relationships (links between topics)
• Collapsible branches.
• Cut, copy, paste, move and merge topics and branches.
• Auto align and arrange topics relative to each other (automatically if desired.)
• Pan and Zoom (out)
• Work in landscape and portrait mode.
• Support for very large maps (with a canvas that is 600x the standard screen size)
• Configurable canvas backgrounds.

£4.99

I will say at this point that I am not a great mind mapping user. I don’t generally use it, but that’s not say that what I personally think matters. We have MindGenius at work and this is used by learners and practitioners. One of my team does all the training for that.

However I did buy iThoughtsHD, which is a mind mapping App for the iPad. There is also an iPhone version. This is though a separate App rather than a single Universal App that you can install on both your iPhone and iPad, so you will need to buy it “twice” if you have both an iPhone and an iPad and want the App on both! Now this is not a “cheap” app, at £4.99, but I do wonder why we think £4.99 is expensive for iPad software, but £100 is cheap for PC software!

Now as I am not a mind mapping expert or heavy user it is difficult to say whether this is excellent or rubbish, which is one reason why I included the list of features from the App description.

I do find it easy to use, very simple to create branches, colour them, add icons. You can add relationships too.

You can change the colour of the canvas too.

One feature I would like to see is an Undo button, sometimes you can create multiple branches accidentally, you have to select and delete each one, rather than just click an undo button. Likewise if you accidentally delete something, you can’t get it back.

It is quite simple to export the mindmap, either into another mind mapping format or in PDF or an image format.

I also like how I can export over the wireless network.

From my limited mind mapping expertise I like the app and it may even get me using the technique more often. Would be interested to know what mind mapping users think.

Get iThoughts HD in the iTunes App Store.

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