In another thread, the developers say this:
…we have doubled our staff this year and moving faster than ever.
We’ve invested a lot of money and resources to port Paperpile to iOS, Android, and Desktop (Word) and prepare our server infrastructure to make all the features possible you are waiting for. This takes time and we have come very close.
Without the ability to add papers from iOS, this beta is pretty hobbled. So often I find a paper on Twitter or elsewhere from my ipad. I’m totally stuck. No way to get it to paperpile.
I’m so frustrated by the lack of action on this front I could scream. I’m about to travel to NYC for a conference, and I want to just take my iPad. But I also need to edit a manuscript, and so…that’s a no go. I thought about buying a MacBook (adorable), but it really is too tiny. I’m about this close to buying pixelbook, but I need iOS for the rest of my life. Maybe I should ditch paperpile, but nothing inserts citations so quickly…
I really wish you guys would allow adding PDFs, although with google docs hobbled on iOS, I’m not sure that it would matter, because I doubt that you can fix that…
If I were going to go iOS only right now I would switch to Bookends. Even after the beta is fixed it still won’t offer many of the features Bookends already has on its iOS app. But since I still primarily write on a MacBook, I’m content to wait. At least I can still access my PDFs via Google Drive in PDF expert… Still, I know a lot of people are ditching their laptops for iPads and I hope that Paperpile can catch up with Bookends on this front.
Guess what I did last night. I went back to Bookends. I tried to spoof desktop chrome on my ipad for hours. And then I tried Bookends (having not read your comments), and found that it does DOI autofill (which was my hang up). So, paperpile, you are my first love. Nothing compares to you on the Desktop, but the Desktop is so 2015…Writing on the ipad is not only portable, is provides a distraction free environment. It’s the future. And I’m not sure that Google will ever let paperpile catch up.
I am feeling the same pain as Matthew_Miller.
Please release Paperpile for iOS very soon.
So, the conventional argument is that when you pay for software, it provides a sustainable business model that keeps developers improving the software. Obviously, we need to reconsider that argument. Because the paperpile development team just keeps ignoring our requests for improvements. It’s been like 2 months since the beta is broken, won’t update, and they are totally radio silent. Paperpile works very nice, in some cases, but it doesn’t really provide the full solution. It’s so incredibly sad and frustrating. I guess I need to keep looking for a new solution for my needs.
New beta just came out. Initial sync was fast and bug free. Fingers crossed on this one. They say it is just prep for a more major beta release coming up - hopefully with new features.
Whoa…syncing is fast.
I just started a new writing project, and I have to say, that I love paperpile. It is the fastest way to get new citations into my writing…allowing me to keep writing without distraction. So often, I’m citing from google scholar, rather than from local database (the truth is I don’t know what is in my paperpile, often I find the paper I want again in GS).
So, I complain about paperpile because I really want it to work everywhere. I’m worried that the ios solution is only going to be part of the solution, because I don’t believe that Google is ever going to open up docs to really allow the full paperpile extension on ios.
So, hopefully that means that paperpile will have a goodlooking hook on Word. But it is a shame, because my laptop isn’t as portable, and it is full of distractions that I don’t need when I’m simply writing. (My iPad is a joy to write on, in contrast, and I actually type the fastest on the Smart Keyboard).
Looking forward to what’s to come.
Syncing in my experience is still a nightmare. After the initial sync (that one goes well), any updates on the library are failing 
After working great for a couple of days, I’m getting errors again too. Makes me wonder if there is something wrong on the server side?
@Kerim @ChemBioUSC @Matthew_Miller
Hey guys. Sorry for ignoring this thread for so long and that the exisiting beta is broken.
In case that’s in doubt we are fully committed to our mobile apps. It just takes time.
The current beta used a temporary one-way sync so we could share and test some aspects of the app early while we are working on the actual two-way sync that runs on a complete new set of servers.
Unfortunately that means before we are ready to switch the mobile (and also parts of the main app) to the new servers, we can’t easily release incremental updates of the beta. However, that means that the next update will have many new features and should be a very usable app.
(btw, we are hiring: https://paperpile.com/jobs if you know anyone who would help building these apps…)
Thanks a lot for the message. I’m sure that the final version will be awesome. Good luck fixing all the technical issues!.
It’s coming along well. I don’t give roadmaps anymore. I know we work as fast as possible and we will significantly speed things up with 4 new full-time employees starting soon Thanks once more for your patience.
Sync seemed to be working for a while, but now it says “undefined is not an object (evaluating e.json)”
Hi everyone,
It’s been a while since we’ve discussed the state of the mobile app development, but now seems like a good time to do so since we’re close to a new release.
The aim of this new version is to improve upon the older version’s features, add new ones and fix the problems encountered by some of you during the initial tests of the first version.
Our focus was mainly on data sync, this is where most people have experienced problems using the app and we believe this is a key area that needs to work as reliably as possible. We’ve rebuilt the way the sync works from scratch so that most of the problems you’ve experienced are solved by definition. We also understand that the mobile data one has is sometimes limited so when working on a PDF using the mobile app, only the changes one makes are synced instead of the whole PDF like it’s done in the current version. The PDF viewer itself has also got a rework, now having more annotation features available and allowing for realtime sync between the mobile app and the web app.
There’s more to this release in terms of features, we’ll let you know of all of the changes once it’s done. In regards to invitations to participate in the beta, new invites will be sent out once the new version is released.