It is a very good application indeed, but what you point out is the main problem we will face with this application. It will quickly become outdated due to the current pace of development of Zotero. I bought the pro version, but there is no support anymore, even the email is invalid! The guy is just too busy serving their masters...
I think we should ask Shazino to release papership under GPL license to enable support of Zotero to the iPad. Unless someone wants to do another application for it! :)
@jonahpearl@mateMat, papership is abandoned and syncing of files does not work correctly. This is only going to get worse as development on iOS and Zotero continue but Papership is not updated.
I bought the Pro version not too long ago and once I hit the syncing bug I asked Apple for a refund which was automatically granted.
You can use ZotFile to sync files to an iPad and then use any PDF editor to annotate the files, and then sync them back to Zotero.
@mateMat, there is almost zero news on the iOS app other than being reminded that it is in development. I would not hold my breath for its appearance.
I just called Julien Thérier and we talked about Zotero and Papership for the last 45 minutes. Now his time available to Shazino's dev is very small, but they do some updates from time to time.
He is was and is still very open to transfer Papership to Zotero. In my point of view, it is a shame that it has not been happening in the past and it is likely it will not happen anytime soon, unless Zotero's management re-engage with him.
Papership would have to be converted from Objective-C to Swift language, or another cross-platform language (and the latter is definitely the best strategy). One of the limitation is that Zotero uses some PDF display and annotation libraries that are subjected to licensing, but the app can be stripped out of them.
The whole ballgame yields around the cost of development and the strategy both entities are looking to develop. But to my understanding, Julien is very open about this and his goal is not about making money out of this transfer, he has much bigger meat in his plate at the moment, with Hivebench.
I have not been exposed to the strategy of Zotero, so I can't say and I am sure they have very valid arguments to explain it, but the iPad app seems to be just absent form active development, and that is a true pity for iPad users.
We also talked about the market and the commercial revenue such app would enable. To him, the audience is not sufficient to support the commercial development yet, but more and more tablets are ending up in labs. Additionally with the current travel restrictions, he testifies of an increase in the audience because scientists are publishing more.
I share his analysis and to me, only the open-source model can make it happen.
Things are not easy, and again I am sure the Zotero team has a very good understanding as well, but good will would make things work! Money does not seems to be the problem, more discussion should take place between the different parties, especially considering the shortcut the absorption of Papership would trigger for the Zotero platform in general. Lots of scientists are using the iPad and it will be a major platform, if not already.
Last point but maybe the most important of all, the library SZN Zotero is opensource and available on github here: https://github.com/shazino/SZNZotero
I hope I have been nice, respectful and open, trying to find a middle ground for everyone, for the progress of the tools that enable scientists, in this case on iPadOS. Thanks for reading.
the iPad app seems to be just absent form active development
No, the iPad app is under extremely active development. It's just not ready yet.
I understand you're trying to help, but this isn't helpful. We're well aware of PaperShip and have talked to Julien in the past — there's no need to try to broker some sort of deal on our behalf. We don't need or want the code to a years-old third-party Objective-C app that wasn't even designed exclusively for Zotero.
@dstillman Too bad you are seeing my exchange and message as something that would have any will you say. I am just very open to people's good will.
I always believed openness and open communication are the best way to help build community understanding. I like to look at prospects and collaboration for the greater good.
Glad to read the iPad app is under great development, and I beg you to communicate on how this current development is going. Good luck with this, hope to see it out soon.
@dstillman I'd love to be able to annotate PDFs from my zotero library directly without having to manually copy files around. Is there an actual timeframe for release of an iPad app? Please forgive my skepticism, but you posted about hiring an iOS developer over two years ago but nothing has been released. It seems to me that if development were "extremely active" an iPad app would be out by now. https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/75179/ipad-and-zotero-functioning
Probably they just aren't an agile team on ios: "release early, release often"/ @jeremymatt if you put your all library to dropbox folder (or any other syncing service) using Zotfile you don't need to manually sync anymore
@bwiernik does development take into account user case when the pdf library is located outside Zotero servers (popular Zotfile case)? Thanks
Also I don't want to say what the developers should do but even and kind of closed beta (or even alpha that could crash but wouldn't corrupt data) on testflight would help to gather feedback from users and would help in the development
The users that would test could do that on the condition of not sharing any information about state of beta until the release
@dstillman Nice to know the iPad app is in active development.
Today when I started Mendeley on my iPad, it has a message saying that Mendeley mobile will be discontinued on March 15 and no one will be able to login through the app again.
Upgrade Storage
About Papership by Shazino: Julien Thérier, CEO and founder of Shazino and dev of Hivebench. The latter has sold to Elsevier:
https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/corporate/elsevier-acquires-laboratory-data-management-tool-hivebench
It is a very good application indeed, but what you point out is the main problem we will face with this application. It will quickly become outdated due to the current pace of development of Zotero. I bought the pro version, but there is no support anymore, even the email is invalid!
The guy is just too busy serving their masters...
I think we should ask Shazino to release papership under GPL license to enable support of Zotero to the iPad. Unless someone wants to do another application for it! :)
Can you point me to the current dev page?
I bought the Pro version not too long ago and once I hit the syncing bug I asked Apple for a refund which was automatically granted.
You can use ZotFile to sync files to an iPad and then use any PDF editor to annotate the files, and then sync them back to Zotero.
@mateMat, there is almost zero news on the iOS app other than being reminded that it is in development. I would not hold my breath for its appearance.
I just called Julien Thérier and we talked about Zotero and Papership for the last 45 minutes. Now his time available to Shazino's dev is very small, but they do some updates from time to time.
He is was and is still very open to transfer Papership to Zotero. In my point of view, it is a shame that it has not been happening in the past and it is likely it will not happen anytime soon, unless Zotero's management re-engage with him.
Papership would have to be converted from Objective-C to Swift language, or another cross-platform language (and the latter is definitely the best strategy).
One of the limitation is that Zotero uses some PDF display and annotation libraries that are subjected to licensing, but the app can be stripped out of them.
The whole ballgame yields around the cost of development and the strategy both entities are looking to develop. But to my understanding, Julien is very open about this and his goal is not about making money out of this transfer, he has much bigger meat in his plate at the moment, with Hivebench.
I have not been exposed to the strategy of Zotero, so I can't say and I am sure they have very valid arguments to explain it, but the iPad app seems to be just absent form active development, and that is a true pity for iPad users.
We also talked about the market and the commercial revenue such app would enable. To him, the audience is not sufficient to support the commercial development yet, but more and more tablets are ending up in labs. Additionally with the current travel restrictions, he testifies of an increase in the audience because scientists are publishing more.
I share his analysis and to me, only the open-source model can make it happen.
Things are not easy, and again I am sure the Zotero team has a very good understanding as well, but good will would make things work! Money does not seems to be the problem, more discussion should take place between the different parties, especially considering the shortcut the absorption of Papership would trigger for the Zotero platform in general. Lots of scientists are using the iPad and it will be a major platform, if not already.
Last point but maybe the most important of all, the library SZN Zotero is opensource and available on github here: https://github.com/shazino/SZNZotero
I hope I have been nice, respectful and open, trying to find a middle ground for everyone, for the progress of the tools that enable scientists, in this case on iPadOS.
Thanks for reading.
I understand you're trying to help, but this isn't helpful. We're well aware of PaperShip and have talked to Julien in the past — there's no need to try to broker some sort of deal on our behalf. We don't need or want the code to a years-old third-party Objective-C app that wasn't even designed exclusively for Zotero.
Too bad you are seeing my exchange and message as something that would have any will you say. I am just very open to people's good will.
I always believed openness and open communication are the best way to help build community understanding. I like to look at prospects and collaboration for the greater good.
Glad to read the iPad app is under great development, and I beg you to communicate on how this current development is going. Good luck with this, hope to see it out soon.
I will no more comment on this.
I'd love to be able to annotate PDFs from my zotero library directly without having to manually copy files around. Is there an actual timeframe for release of an iPad app? Please forgive my skepticism, but you posted about hiring an iOS developer over two years ago but nothing has been released. It seems to me that if development were "extremely active" an iPad app would be out by now. https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/75179/ipad-and-zotero-functioning
@jeremymatt if you put your all library to dropbox folder (or any other syncing service) using Zotfile you don't need to manually sync anymore
@bwiernik does development take into account user case when the pdf library is located outside Zotero servers (popular Zotfile case)?
Thanks
https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/data_directory_in_cloud_storage_folder
The users that would test could do that on the condition of not sharing any information about state of beta until the release
Today when I started Mendeley on my iPad, it has a message saying that Mendeley mobile will be discontinued on March 15 and no one will be able to login through the app again.
One more reason that we need Zotero iPad app.