[Macworld]

Post your comments for Review: Papers 1.8 here

[irvandriel]

I tried out Papers and loved its interface, but for me unless I can use it as a bibliography generator like Bookends or Endnote it is not going to useful. Bookends lets me download, organise search and view PDFs AND build a bibliography into a manuscript. Admittedly, its a bit clunky, but I am not going to maintain two databases of PDFs. If the Papers boys would incorporate a bibliography module into their software they could rule the world.

[soslack]

Papers is a brilliant app, especially for me as a scientist. I love the features such as inbuilt proxy-support for accessing journals you need, within the app, using your institution's credentials. I love the OS X features built in (Spotlight, etc.), and the easy way to link up what journal article you're reading but don't have any details on because you saved it as "sdf45.pdf" or something similar back in 2nd year...
Brilliant app! And only $25 for students!

[rlav]

Interesting. It sounds like I should check it out. I didn't really understand your first "downside", though. How does DevonThink's primitive implementation of Latent Semantic Analysis and Mekentosj's assumed interest in that technology constitute a negative for Papers?

[rlav]

Prompted by this review, I downloaded Papers. It was a joy to use, and highlighted how unsatisfactory DevonThink is from a user interface perspective, and even, echoing irvandriel above, how clunky Bookends can be. I found myself seduced by its clever ability to download citation details from Google Scholar if the paper contains a DOI (or even sometimes if it doesn't). But regrettably I think I'm going to have to pass it up until it moves even further from its PubMed roots and covers ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, and Wiley Interscience. Right now, the combination of CiteULike, Bookends, and DevonThink is doing a better job than Papers can do alone, admittedly at several times the cost and less elegantly.

[flipphillips]

@rlav - sorry about that, the tone got 'lost in the editing' as I was cleaning up the article. Basically- I used DEVONthink and enjoyed the 'find similar' feature, a feature that is lacking in Papers.
The LSA is wishful thinking on my behalf, hoping that Mekentosj will include it in a future version.
Sorry if that was a tad confusing.

[grishas]

ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, and Wiley Interscience can be accessed through the application's Google Scholar search. The availability of Google Books is another huge plus (access many pages of books to quickly look up that key passage you know but can't remember where you saw it). So, for me as a social scientist this is pretty good.