Devices are becoming smaller and smaller, but more capable. Many of us who invest in high-end devices end up under-using them. If it is a mobile phone, it's used only for making calls or sending messages. Of course, with cameras in mobiles getting better and better, they are also used for taking photos.
Tablets are used for e-mails, watching videos, browsing, updating social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, and as glorified ebook readers.
What we forget is that the devices have the same capacity desktop computers had a few years ago. They are capable of doing much more, making us live our lives in a better way by keeping it organised. There are those who buy or are gifted high-end mobiles and tablets, but end up wondering what to do with them.
We also forget that these devices are like computers, and have huge storage space and computing power and are, most importantly, portable.
These devices are capable of doing more, and it is a government department that has discovered how it can make people use it unconventionally. The Indian Railways now discourages paper print-outs of railway tickets and eggs users to go for screenshots or PDFs of the tickets in mobiles or tablets. Apart from saving paper, it also has several other advantages: We won't have to worry about finding a printer to print the ticket; nor do we have to remember to carry the print-out while going to the station and constantly keep worrying about losing the sheet of paper. Of course, even if we have the ticket in the device, we have to remember to carry the device and also ensure it has enough power to last the entire journey, as tickets may be checked any time. If your family or group has multiple smart devices, the ticket can be copied on to all of them so that you are safe even if a device malfunctions or runs out of power.
These devices can also be used to store documents and to keep them organised. For instance, there are people who use it to store all the vehicle documents. There are those who store all documents required for proof of identification or address (including photos). Even if they run out of physical copies of the photos, they just upload the picture to a photo printing site directly from the device and order a few copies. Even brick and mortar photo studios offer the option of connecting your device to a computer and transferring the photos.
Apps
The best thing about the devices is that even if the user is clueless about how to do all these, there are several apps that make the task easy. Apps such as Evernote, Springpad and Catch allow storing documents along with notes, and makes their retrieval just a click away. These are all note-taking apps that can also be used for storing receipts of payments made to service providers and utilities. If it is a physical payment, the receipt can be scanned and stored, and if the payment has been made online, the screenshot or the PDF version of the receipt can be stored.
Many of these apps also allow access through multiple platforms, including online, so that the person need not have the device in hand to upload a document or a file. These apps also make multiple uploads redundant. Even if there is a dispute about the payment, the details can be retrieved through a simple search.
If attaching documents to note-taking apps sound complicated, there are simpler apps like Box, Dropbox and Sugarsync that keep the files synced in multiple computers without the user having to do anything, except configuring the folders initially.
Apple has its own software called iCloud which does the same thing. iCloud can also be accessed from any browser. So, those having devices such as iPhone or iPad need not worry about installing third-party software to sync documents.
Document syncing
Like Apple, Microsoft too has its own cloud-based document syncing service called Skydrive that offers a whopping 25 GB of storage space free. Microsoft also has Webapps where you can upload all your Office documents and access them from any computer. Google has its hugely-popular Docs that also allows for real-time editing across multiple computers, including tablets.
If you think all these are cumbersome and painful, the person who inspired me to write this was an 80-year-old man, who has an Android tablet given by his son, and has almost every document in his possession scanned and uploaded to the cloud, including his SSLC certificate and Will. The home screen of his tablet has all his personal details — his address, addresses of his children, blood group, and other details. “What if something happens to me? Anybody can just switch on my tablet, and get all the information he will need.” I met him in a train, and he spent one hour explaining me the merits (and demerits) of all the applications he had installed. We have to remember again that the most mobiles and tablets are almost like computers, and not just glorified browsers or readers.
