Apple’s Pages Has Me All Turned Around on the iPad

As part of getting acquainted with my iPad, I decided to try out Pages to see how feasible it would be for me to type longer documents on the device. In fact, I am doing so now to write this blog post.

Unfortunately I have run into a silly snag. It seems that Pages will only display its toolbar, complete with the ability to do critical things like open and save documents, as well as all text formatting choices, if I switch out of landscape mode and use the portrait orientation for the screen.

That seems to be a ridiculous requirement. Why not display it in both views? Certainly omitting it from landscape is short-sighted at best. After all, Apple makes a nice case that doubles as a stand to orient the device at a slight angle in horizontal mode to make it easier to type. Oh and the keyboard is wider and thus easier and more natural to use in landscape than in portrait.

The only rational explanation I can think of for Apple’s decision is the fact at the keyboard itself takes up nearly half the screen and the toolbar would further erode that. To which, I say fine. Portrait may be good in some cases. So go ahead and incljde the toolbar in that view but don’t deny it to me in my preferred writing style.

Hopefully is is one of those things that will be resolved sooner than later to make the iPad more useful.

And now off to portrait view to try to save this and do something else…