Haiku Deck

Haiku Deck is an online presentation software as a service which is available through a free trial account with no credit card, and in a couple of premium paid plans as well. The free account allows you to try all of the functionality though you are currently unable to export your presentation so it is basic a test account. The software itself is perhaps the simplest presentation software I have used. Having tried Powerpoint, Google Slides, Prezi and Keynote in comparison. So that`s saying something because Google Slides and Keynote are very simple to use. The others are not difficult but there are additional advanced features in PowerPoint, and a different presentation format used all together in Prezi which are both great in their own way, as well. Yet Haiku Deck remains the simplest of the bunch and it is dead simple to use. The software is fast, looks good and is enjoyable to use. You can create entire customized presentations from scratch with their tools much faster than if by paper flip charts, and much faster if you have never used PowerPoint before. As I found PowerPoint to be simple enough on a very basic level but overwhelming in the sense that there is a lot of functionality I didn`t utilize for years not having had a need, or awareness about to do so. This functionality can become incredibly complex I have learned in PowerPoint and can require advanced, specialized skills to use the full potential. Though basic presentations are no problem they are not as streamlined as when using Haiku Deck, or even Google Slides or Keynote which are relatively basic presentation software yet highly effective in what they do. One feature which may differentiate it are the integrations available, so you can upload content from several of your accounts like Facebook, Instagram, Flickr and at least six or seven others, and from your own computer of course. While you can get premium access to Getty Images which makes the visual aspect of the basic presentations you can create quality. They have an interesting new feature in beta called Zuru which allows you to automate conversion of .pptx which are PowerPoint files into Haiku Deck presentations automagically. I have yet to do so in the interest of transparency but my experience of such transformative formatting has not been successful to a high degree having used several automation software in the past to do something similar through a content management system using converted images and text from one format to another. I also didn`t have a great experience of this and didn`t just a couple of months ago from OpenOffice to Word or the other way around. So very large companies can do a poor job of this and should it be amazing then hats off to them because they will most certainly have an entirely new market in which they can target as millions of us have several .pptx presentations on our hard drives.

The native iOS app for iPhones and iPads is great as I am a long time iPhone user, though there is not an Android app available which a large percentage of the population has for their smart device operating system so that`s unfortunate. But there`s always hope of one being in the pipeline and I may be under informed, perhaps it is already. The lack of templates compared to PowerPoint is something I`ve noticed.

With the addition of an Android app and lots of great reviews regarding their Zuru feature they have the possibility of converting myself as a business user who creates several presentations per year. Otherwise, I am now aware of several PowerPoint add-ons which integrate and enhance it into a complete story telling style presentation tool, or there is always Prezi which offers a relatively unique approach in their market with their open approach using a single canvas in which you can zoom out to have the big picture, or move around and zoom into various parts of the topic as a whole. The holistic approach to presentations using Prezi is a huge draw in my opinion, because it is possible to contain more significance in the education by being able to present a whole topic as the integral sum of its parts. Though for linear based presentations this is a solid choice especially if you have never used PowerPoint and need to create a custom presentation quickly.