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Wolfram Cloud App on iPad Pro

Posted 3 years ago

Hi, I'm trying to use the Wolfram Cloud App on an iPad Pro and I'm finding it to be a very frustrating experience. I can open a Mathematica Notebook that I've saved to the cloud but I don't seem to be able to do anything but view it.

  1. If I tap on an Input Cell, a Mathematica on screen keyboard pops up but I can only append input to that existing cell, which effectively corrupts whatever work I did in the Notebook previously.
  2. If I tap below the last Output Cell I cannot find any gesture that activates the on screen Mathematica keyboard so I am unable to add any new input to the Notebook.
  3. If I attach an Apple Magic Keyboard to the iPad Pro I can at least type = below the last Output Cell and get the orange Wolfram Alpha Notebook prompt but it's no where close to using Mathematica on a desktop computer and it just feels like more effort than it's worth.

I notice that there is also the Wolfram Player on the App Store, does anyone have any experience of using it? The description of the App says "... read and dynamically interact with Wolfram Notebooks and the CDF ..." but I'm not clear if it allows you to actually write a Notebook on an iPad with the ease of a desktop.

There are times when it would be very convenient for me to be able to use Mathematica productively on an iPad but the Wolfram Cloud App is so clunky and difficult to use it doesn't seem to be the answer.

POSTED BY: Ronald Smith
9 Replies
Posted 3 years ago
  1. What, exactly, are you trying to do with the cell? If I tap on a cell, I'm able to edit the cell from the location where I tapped.
  2. To add a cell to the end without a keyboard, you need to select the insertion point at the end, and then use one of the buttons at the bottom of the screen to create a new cell.
  3. I don't understand the problem here. Can you explain?

Wolfram Player supports (most) dynamic content in notebooks, but it does not support editing notebooks.

POSTED BY: Nick Zitzmann

Hi Nick,

Thanks for your reply, you have confirmed my impression that it is not possible to create or edit notebooks in Wolfram Player.

The Wolfram Cloud app advertises itself as an "Optimized Mobile Experience for Wolfram Cloud". If you also have a look at Wolfram Mathematica OnLine and scroll down the page a little it says "Use Mathematica Online from any web browser, and view, edit and interact with notebooks on a mobile device with the Wolfram Cloud app". So in answer to your question 3. Using Wolfram Mathematica OnLine I can view, edit and interact with notebooks using Safari on my iPad Pro but if I try to view, edit and interact with notebooks using the Wolfram Cloud app I can view a notebook but editing and interacting with it (as you would using Wolfram Mathematica on a desktop computer) seems to be so difficult that I can't do what you describe in 2.

I hope this clarifies things for you. Again, referring to your 2 above, I don't get any buttons at the bottom of the screen and am not able to add a new cell.

POSTED BY: Ronald Smith
Posted 3 years ago

What makes editing so difficult? What are you trying to accomplish that you were unable to do in the app?

When you tap an insertion point at the beginning, middle, or end of a notebook, you should see a view at the bottom of the screen that looks like this (the important part is circled in red): app screenshot with controls circled

You then tap "Input cell" or "New cell" to insert a new cell at the insertion point. If you do not see those buttons, and you are editing a Wolfram notebook, then I'd like to request that you share the notebook with me so we can investigate why they didn't show up. Thanks!

POSTED BY: Nick Zitzmann

Hi Nick,

I have Mathematica installed on a desktop PC and Wolfram Alpha Notebook Edition installed on a Windows laptop so if I save the notebook I am working on in the cloud I can work on whichever computer is most convenient for me to use at a given time. It would also be convenient, on occasions, to be able to work on that same notebook using my iPad Pro but when I open an existing notebook using the Wolfram Cloud App I do not see the bar circled in red in your post so I don't get an insertion point and cannot add either an input cell or a new cell so it is not possible to do any further work on the notebook.

What I have found out is that if I click "Create New Notebook" in the Wolfram Cloud App I do see the bar circled in red in your post and I can enter input and evaluate it as I would expect. However if I open the notebook created in Wolfram Cloud using either Mathematica or Wolfram Alpha Notebook Edition, do some further work on it, save it and then re-open it in the Wolfram Cloud App the bar is no longer visible and it is only possible to view the file - I can only edit the existing cells and not add a new one.

I have attached a sample notebook as you requested.

POSTED BY: Ronald Smith
Posted 3 years ago

Thank you! I was able to reproduce the problem, and I am investigating.

POSTED BY: Nick Zitzmann

Good to know you have been able to reproduce the problem. Thanks for letting me know.

POSTED BY: Ronald Smith

I posted my question about the Wolfram Cloud App on this forum because it was suggested to me by Wolfram Technical Support when I reported the issue to them in a chat session. After I was unable to find any resolution here, I emailed Wolfram Technical Support and they have been able to reproduce the problem. They have now reported it to the developers of the App.

The only workaround they were able to offer is to download the file locally, make the edits, and then re-upload it to the cloud. This would not be convenient for me so I’m going to delete the App from my iPad and use Wolfram Online on those occasions when I don’t have access to my PC or Laptop.

Thank you to anyone who has taken an interest in this topic.

POSTED BY: Ronald Smith

Wolfram Cloud App on iPad Pro

POSTED BY: Ronald Smith
Posted 3 years ago

Thanks for pressing the question, Ronald. I gave up on the iPad app years ago... must be a retired-guy thing. My take was that there is a gap between what you and I assumed the usage scenario to be and what the developers assumed it would be. Overall, I think all of us are in a transitional period from iPad as toy (and I would include some Mac apps in that class) to iPad as tool. Apple itself is transitioning from commercial to proprietary processors, so we should expect a rugged landscape for a while.

POSTED BY: David Barnes
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