December 2010 apps

All the apps were downloaded for free (via some promotion) unless otherwise specified.

• President's Choice Recipie Box
• Micromedex Drug Information database (not comprehensive enough for hospital use, Lexi-Med (professional app) is used at my sister's hospital)
• Ocarina (iPod app)
• Holy Bible
• Merriam-Webster Dictionary (iPhone/iPod app)
• Dictionary.com Dictionary
• OTOEHON Storybook
• World Without Photoshop (animated art magazine)
• Global Video (recent tv shows from Global TV streamed to the iPad)

GAMES (nearly all the games were downloaded via the Free App A Day promotional website; others were downloaded via several Christmas promotions)

• Simply Solitaire HD
• Need for Speed Shift ($0.99 on sale from $9.99)
• Astronut (iPhone/iPod app)
• FMX Riders (extremely popular with the kids)
• Moonsters (Angry Birds clone; Lite version is available)
• Rayman2
• Reverse Maze
• Starball
• Veggie Samurai (clone of the popular Fruit Ninja)
• Bombadier's Guild
• BrainPOP (general-knowledge animated movie followed by a quiz testing your knowledge retention; popular with the oldest kid)  
• Reckless Racing Free (iPhone/iPod app; overhead-view racing game; lots of fun; popular with the kids; considering purchasing iPad edition; Tank steering mode is recommended over all the others)
• Solomon's Kingdom (overhead-view castle exploration game with a wizard casting spells, great graphics); can't seem to find it on the AppStore
• Collider
• Plasma Globe
• Brickshooter HD (Lite version available)

The game that still gets the most play with the kids is Tower Madness.

Updated Jan. 4, 2011:  links to iTunes Store.

Simplicity

... imagine for one moment that I had marched into Steve Ballmer’s office and said “Steve, our tablet PC sucks, we need to get rid of the camera, get rid of multitasking, get rid of printing, get rid of all those extra buttons on the front except for one, get rid of the ability to run Microsoft Office, oh, and make sure all those .NET apps don’t run either. Only then should we ship it.” Well, I would have gotten thrown out of his door so fast I wouldn’t have been able to say goodbye to his assistant. Google fans consistently don’t understand that fact.
--"Mobile Fanboy! Good or Bad", Robert Scoble

For me, simplicity is defined by the answers to these two questions: Will my Mom be able to use it? Will a 5-year old be able to use it?

A Review of the Merriam Webster App for iPhone/iPodTouch

I discovered the Merriam Webster App after reading an article about the top-10 words of 2010.

A unique feature of the app is the voice search-- you can search for a word by speaking it, instead of typing. The voice-recognition has 80% accuracy; of the words I spoke, it did not recognize ebullient and effervescent but recognized: diplomat, dictionary, acknowledge, recognize, mimic, etymology, apple, diplomat.

The app remembers recent words looked-up, shows completions as the word is being typed and also has audio pronunciations for words. It also has synonyms and antonyms and example sentences. The Word of the Day feature, the audio search feature and audio pronunciations require network connectivity.

It is an iPhone/iPodTouch app only, so the text looks jagged on the iPad. The app also displays Google ads along the bottom of the definition. I would use the Dictionary.com app (see my review) first and use the Merriam Webster app as a supplement.

I rate the Merriam Webster Dictionary app 3 out of 4 stars. 
1. Usability: 1
2. Usefulness: 1 
3. Looks: .5 (not iPad ready)
4. Enjoyability: .5 (voice input is a nice feature but recognition failures were frustrating) 

20MB AppStore Download Cap Over 3G Network

I cannot download an iPad App that is greater than 20MB in size via 3G. I have to either use WiFi or do it via iTunes on the Mac.

I don't know if this limit was imposed by Apple or by the carriers. I also don't know if this limit is due to a technical limitation (3G network congestion, 3G bandwidth usage, recovering from a failed or corrupt download) or something else. My parents have yet to exceed 1GB of cellular usage so it's not like I don't have the 3G bandwidth to download apps.

When "Need For Speed Shift" went on sale for $0.99, I was able to buy it at that price, but had to wait until I could connect to a WiFi network before I could download it to my iPad. There is currently a greyed-out icon titled "Waiting" and the iPad nags me for my iTunes password every time it wakes up and after I enter the password, it pops-up a dialog box with the 20MB warning. This gets really annoying very quickly.

Why can't the iPad check if it's on a WiFi network before asking for the iTunes password for a pending download? It's a simple check.

Update June 8, 2011: This article is the second-most popular posting  on this blog (60+ hits since Dec, 2010; averaging 10 hits per month). This is a problem that Apple needs to look into now that iOS5 is un-tethered from a PC. I have a few suggestions:

1. Increase the limit to 50MB (my parents have never exceeded 1GB of their 5GB monthly 3G data plan)
2. Allow more than 50MB only if the user agrees to a pop-up dialog box (which would show current data usage and how much headroom in the data-plan still exists)
3. If you feel strongly about this matter, please send Apple feedback on this issue at the iPad Feedback page.

iTunes (Canada) 12 Free Downloads of Christmas

Beginning Dec. 23rd, iTunes Canada will offer a free download of a song or TV show, etc. every day until Jan. 3rd, 2011.

Clamcase

The Clamcase is a removable keyboard/case/stand for your iPad.

It is normally priced at $119, but is on sale for $99.

I will wait for the reviews.

Big Fish Eat the Little Fish in the AppStore

Eight of the top ten paid games in the Appstore are published by Electronic Arts, the big name in gaming, who didn't have a single game in the Appstore one year ago.

What does this mean for the independent game developer? How can the small developer compete against the marketing of the big companies?

A Review of dictionary.com Dictionary and Thesaurus for iPad

The Dictionary app from Dictionary.com includes both a dictionary (Random House) and a thesaurus.

Upon launching, the top of the screen has an input field and the bottom has a tool bar with icons for dictionary, thesaurus, recent words and word-of-the-day; the middle portion of the screen is wasted with a splash-screen.
As you type the word, a list of completions, matching the portion of the word you have typed, appears in the middle part of the screen. You can either continue typing the rest of the word or can select it from the list.
 
So far, the dictionary has found meanings for all the words i have searched:

• yenta (mentioned in a NY Times article),
  
• trattoria,
  
• farrago,
  
• Manichean (my test-word, which, surprisingly, is not in the iPad's auto-correct dictionary),
  
• encephalon.
  

An additional benefit of the app is that it has audio pronunciations for the words (where I  learned the correct way to pronounce "trattoria"-- accent on the last syllable.)

There are only two items that are customizable in the Settings menu:

• automatically display the keyboard on start-up (which I enabled and which should be on by default)
• enable tracking (by dictionary.com of words you searched for; I turned this off)

The only suggestion I have for improvement is to allow the word-of-the-day to be displayed upon start-up in the middle portion of the screen currently occupied by the company logo. I rate the Dictionary.com app 4 out of 4 stars.
1. Usability: 1
2. Usefulness: 1
3. Looks: 1
4. Enjoyability: 1

Update: Corrected Roget to Random House.

Survey Results of iPad Users who Read Newspapers

The Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) recently completed a survey of 1,600 iPad users who read news content.

Summary:

• Users are predominantly well-educated, affluent men between the ages of 35 and 64 who tend to be early adopters.
• Overall satisfaction and time spent with the iPad are very high.
• Keeping up with news and current events is their most popular main use.
• iPad news consumers prefer newspaper apps to newspaper websites; less likely to use print.
• Low prices and ease of use are key factors in users' decisions to purchase newspaper subscriptions on the iPad.

The biggest problem I see with the news apps currently (NY Times, NPR, BBC News) is that:

1. you cannot go back and find that article you read a couple of hours ago or a couple of days ago, like you can with an actual paper.
2. you cannot clip-out a part of the newspaper and save it in the clippings folder in your desk drawer.

Update: I should have mentioned that I am a 7-day newspaper subscriber; the Globe and Mail 6 days a week and the Sunday NY Times.

TUAW Reviews "Infinity Blade"

Epic Citadel was a free-roaming environment with controls reminiscent of first-person shooters -- one virtual control stick moved you, and the other let you look around. If you were expecting that same degree of freedom in Infinity Blade, your opinion of the game may sour very quickly when you discover that the gameplay is "on rails."
-- Review of "Infinity Blade"

No, I won't be buying it. I enjoyed the exploration part of Epic Citadel and was dissappointed there weren't more areas I could explore.

I am disappointed that "Infinity Blade" wasn't more of an exploration game.

iPad Competitors Begin to Make Appearances

Several iPad competitors have begun making appearances recently: the first was the Samsung Galaxy Tab and now, a prototype Android tablet from Motorola.

Friendly for Facebook is Now Free

The officially unofficial Facebook app, called Friendly for Facebook, is now free, with ads. A paid version is available without ads.

It has been described as the best way to use Facebook.

Appvent Calendar (A New App Everyday Until Christmas)

The Appvent Calendar is a promotion featuring a new app (some are free) everyday until Christmas.

Print Wirelessly from your iOS4.2 device with AirPrint Activator

The AirPrint Activator  enables an  iPad or iPhone running iOS4.2 to wirelessly print to any shared printer connected to a Mac or PC.

(Apple officially only allows you to print to an AirPrint-enabled printer from HP.)

Update Jan 14, 2011: Removed link to Windows version as it was 404 and updated link to new, renamed version.

Paul Graham on the Future of Tablets

In his latest essay, Paul Graham considers the impact that tablets will have on society in the future.

A Review of The Weather Channel (TWC MAX+) App for iPad

The Weather Channel Max app displays the weather (including radar and satellite imagery) for your current location or other locations of your choosing and also provides long range forecasts in both graphical formats and with video from the TV channel.

I downloaded the app with a little trepidation because of the numerous negative comments on the AppStore. I became more worried when I ran the app and the GPS located me in a nearby city about 40km away. Not an auspicious beginning. I then manually entered the name of my location and was amazed that it was recognized!

When the app starts, the start-up screen displays TWC logo and a weather related photograph for about 7 seconds. A small map of your location then appears in the center of the screen with a toolbar below and after a few seconds the weather is displayed in the map. Tapping on the map enlages it full screen. On this screen there is an unobtrusive banner ad displayed at the top and the bottom has a floating toolbar to allow the type of imagery: precipitation, cloud coverage, UV etc. to be chosen and animated.

The second icon in the main toolbar is for local long-range forecasts. Two-thirds of the screen displays the forecast with animated icons and the bottom third displays a scrollable list of buttons for video forecasts and traffic-camera access. The forecast can be toggled between hourly or 7-day.

The third icon is for accessing The Weather Channel Videos. You have to watch a video ad for the sponsor (Sears).

The fourth icon is for severe weather alerts and storm watches.

The remaining two icons are labeled Social and TV.

The Weather Channel app has replaced the previous app (Weatherbug) I was using for weather. It is a very useful app, pleasant to use and well thought out. I do not understand the negative reviews on the AppStore.

Score

I would rate the The Weather Channel app 4 out of 4 stars. It is my current weather forecasting app.

1. Usability: 1
2. Usefulness: 1
3. Looks: 1
4. Enjoyability: 1

"Driver" Free for 24 Hours

If you like racing games on the iPad, grab "Driver" and give it a try.

It's free for 24 hours today as part of the Gameloft Twitter Advent Calendar.

Update: Fixed link.

Hybrid iPad Patent

A recent patent filing for a Macbook/iPad hybrid laptop/tablet shows what the current Macbook Air should have been (and what I was expecting it to be), rather than the $999 pedestrian netbook it was.

The patent shows a laptop device (screen and keyboard) which can convert into a tablet when the screen is folded over the keyboard, which pivots and slides under the screen.

iPad Pulls Ahead of the Kindle

According to the latest survey of iPad and Kindle owners, the Kindle is losing market share to the iPad.

Kinect Breaks iPad Adoption Record

Microsoft's Kinect has broken the iPad's adoption record by selling 2.5M units in 25 days.

Apple was selling 1M iPads a month early during its release but the sales tapered off after 2 months.

"Infinity Blade" Available Dec. 9 for $5.99

Infinity Blade, the game built on the Unreal 3D engine (demo'd on Epic Citadel) will be available for $5.99 on Dec. 9, 2010.

One of the commenters said it was turn-based. I don't know what this means in terms of gameplay and sword fighting.

The Register Reviews iPad Slipcases, Skins and Folio Cases

The Register reviews 46 iPad cases including slipcases, skins and folios from 17 different manufacturers.

My personal preference is for a soft skin (like the iSkin Duo made by iSkin, which is conspicuously absent from the review) that lets the design of the iPad show-through. I find the Apple Folio (it always reminds me of the Gestapo officer's folio in The Great Escape; it's memorable because he had a rather quirky way of closing it using a one-handed motion) case rather craptacular in aesthetics but I cannot deny its practicality. It is the most popular case in my iPad sightings; I have never seen a bare iPad nor any other case so far.

I currently don't use a case (as evidenced by the scratches on the rear of the iPad) and I carry it in my messenger bag wrapped in a cloth place-mat inside a large padded manila envelope (in which Apple shipped me the 3G micro-SIM).

Photo to come.

A Review of the Feeddler RSS Feed Reader for the iPad

This is a review of the free version of the Feeddler Google RSS feed reader for the iPad.

Login

Upon start-up the login dialog invites you to enter your Google login and password and notes that your login credentials will only be used to authenticate with Google and that the communication is SSL encrypted. (You have to trust the developer here).

After logging in, it retrieves all your Google Reader feeds and displays in a near replication of the Google Reader order. The folders were listed in the same order while the individual feeds were listed in alphabetical order rather than my preferred order.

Interface

Feeddler's interface mimics the two-pane web-based interface of the Google Reader. Like most iPad apps, the interface changes based on the orientation of the iPad. In portrait mode, it defaults to listing all the articles in my Google feeds with banner ads across the bottom of the screen; in the Pro version, the ads are not present.

In landscape mode, it switches to a 2-pane view similar to the default Google Reader interface with the left pane (about 1/3 screen-width) containing the feeds and the right pane containing the articles and the banner ads below the articles.

You can switch to full-screen article view by tapping on an article. In this mode, the bottom of the screen contains a navigation bar with left and right arrows to go to the previous and next article in the currently selected feed and icons to star, like (heart), keep unread (it was not obvious what this circle icon was for) and email the current article. The screen can also be swiped to navigate to the next and previous article. There are no ads displayed in this mode. The title of the article can be clicked to visit the actual website with the article; this is displayed in a built-in browser without having to leave Feedler. The browser has a back and forward button in the top-left along with an RSS button which returns you to the article in the feed. The article mode also supports pinch-to-zoom.

If you select a folder in the left pane, the pane then switches to show all the feeds in that folder. This behaviour is different than Google Reader, which displays all the articles in the folder, in the right pane. There is an arrow above the left pane to return to the subscriptions. When you return to the subscriptions, the folder you selected is not hilighted, you have to look at the top of the article pane (where the articles you finished reading remain) to check what folder you just visited.

It does have some nice touches like "Night Mode" which displays in grey on black (but the revolving ads in eye-searing bright colours, at the bottom of the page, negates the usefulness of this mode (in the free version). I blocked the ads with the folds of my blanket while reading in bed.)

There are a surprising number of customizations available by tapping the gear icon found at the bottom of the left pane, below the subscriptions. I enabled the two-line summary which displays two lines of text from each article below the title, while in browse-mode.

Comments

I tend to read an average of 1% of articles in the feeds I subscribe to, so I mostly used Feeddler in landscape mode, giving me the ability to quickly jump from feed to feed (based on reading the two-line article summary) rather than sequentially reading the full content of the articles in a folder or feed (in portrait mode).

Score

I would rate the free Feeddler app 3 out of 4 stars. I would use Feeddler to read my Google RSS feeds.

1. Usability: ½
2. Usefulness: 1
3. Looks: 1
4. Enjoyability: ½

Suggestions

I have a few suggestions for improvement, mostly in the usability, some of which may be implemented as customizable options:

• After all the articles in a feed are marked as read, automatically return the left pane to the subscription list
• Hilight the selected feed or folder in the subscriptions pane
• In the built-in web browser, the active/inactive state of the back and forward navigation buttons in the top-left is ambiguous
• In night mode, the grey bullet, indicating articles have been read, should be a darker colour (almost blending with the background), it is currently as bright as the blue unread-article bullet.

"The Register" Review of Philips DS8550 iPad Speaker/dock

The Register reviews the Philips Fidelio DS8550 wireless iPad speaker/dock with AirPlay support and gives it high marks.

(It can be used with an iPhone and iPod Touch too.)

iBooks Improvements Coming Soon

9to5Mac is reporting that "collections" aka folders, and PDF printing and emailing are coming to the iBooks app.

The ability to organize books by genre is definitely welcome. It was beginning to become difficult to find books on an infinite bookshelf.

Apple Store Black Friday Sale

Don't forget to check out the sale today (Nov 26) only!

I am tempted to get the Airport Express (note, Canadian store link) and the camera connection kit.

You can wirelessly stream music from the iPad to speakers connected to the Express.

November 2010 Apps

These are the Apps installed in November:

• Pulse (feed reader, prone to crashing; deleted!)
• FeeddlerRSS (Google feed reader;  my review)
• Alarm Clock (lovely digital clock with local weather conditions, alarm clock functionality as long as this app is running then the iPad goes to sleep (pre-4.x), wake to customizable alarm sounds or iTunes music in pro version; discreet Google ads in free version can be dismissed at startup) 
• World Without Photoshop (interactive book features artists who use Photoshop and showcases their artwork with a time-lapse animation showing the art from start to finish)
• CBC Radio (if you missed a radio show, you can catch it with this app)
• Craft Finder (instructions for making holiday themed crafts for children of all ages)
• Helloflower (3D flower modeling)

These are game Apps; mostly from the Free App A Day site:

• GravBot
• Sherlock (difference-finding game)
• Mr. AahH!
• Rocket Bird
• Uconnect (join the dots by drawing lines without repeating a path)
• Train Conductor
• Train Yard
• Toy Shop EB
• Santa's Village (13 games in one; hangman, tic-tac-toe, etc.)
• Super Laser (scrolling space-alien themed shooter; I am enjoying playing this one)
• Radiant HD (scrolling space shooter with retro graphics)
• MX Mayhem (side-scroller motorcycle riding with rag-doll physics)
• Cut the Rope Lite

Update: The "Compose" mode of Blogger doesn't work on the iPad Safari browser so my first version of this post was plain text (I was not going to type HTML on the iPad keyboard, though I was sorely tempted).
Update 2: added link to my Feeddler review.

iPad Storage Usage

Here is the current usage of my 64GB (59 actual) iPad:

Type	Usage
Audio:	1.7GB
Video:	26GB
Photos:	1GB
Apps:	2.7GB
Books:	140MB
Other:	600MB
FREE:	27GB

Practical Examples of AirPlay

A NY Times article giving some practical examples of using AirPlay in iOS4.2:

If your TV is connected to an AppleTV ($99), you can call up the movie on your iPad, press the onscreen AirPlay icon that appears, select AppleTV from the pop-up menu and, after a few seconds, your movie will appear on your TV screen.

If you have speakers connected to a wireless network via an Airport Express ($99), [you] can stream its music onto the network (provided [your iPad] has been granted access to the network).

...new, third-party speakers and docks (from B&W, Denon, iHome, JBL and others) will have AirPlay built-in, no Airport Express required.

iOS4.2 Coming Today (Nov. 22)

The reports say that iOS4.2 will be available for download at 10AM PST.

I am delighted that the Find My iPhone lost-device-recovery feature will be available free for everyone.

Update: The first 4.2 bug (verified on the iPhone): music on the iPod disappears.

Update 2: The second 4.2 bug certain USB devices stop working with the camera connection kit.

iPad "newspaper" Coming Soon

The Guardian is reporting that Apple and News Corp. are collaborating on a "newspaper" that will be iPad-only for $0.99-a-week subscription.

It will be available early next year (my guess is that the official announcement will coincide with the iPad 2 announcement in February/March and it will be available when the iPad 2 ships in June).

Update: Rumours say Dec. 9th for the announcement.

Discovering New Apps

Go, draw aside the curtains, and discover

The several caskets to this noble prince.

Now make your choice.  — Portia, The Merchant of Venice, II.vii

Robert Scoble wonders how people discover new apps for the iPad, iPhone/iPod Touch, and how developers can best market their apps to achieve the largest exposure.

Is the internal marketing by Apple on the front page of the iTunes AppStore sufficient to raise awareness of new and notable apps or do app developers benefit more by mainstream (digital and traditional) press coverage, app discovery services and social networks ("word-of-mouth" discovery)?

He mentions some app-discovery sites I was not aware of:

• Chomp
• Appolicious
• Appsfire

Update: In one of his other posts titled, "Do you really use all those mobile apps?", Scoble links to a Flickr page with a screenshot of his iPhone homepage showing his folder organization categories and a detailed list of all the apps.

Carbon-Fibre iPad?

Apple has applied for a patent for a tablet-like device with a carbon-fibre reinforced plastic case.

Is this a tacit admission that the iPad is too heavy? I don't know. Most of the iPad's weight is in the battery, not in the glass and the aluminum case.

On a related note, my iPad has a large wandering scratch on the back of it. I wonder how the kids managed to do that because they usually use it on the sofa or bed.

I might try rubbing some toothpaste to try and remove it as the scratch is not deep but mostly cosmetic.

Id's RAGE is out

First-person shooter RAGE, from the inventors of that particular genre, has been released.

Costs $1.99,

Battery Usage and Charging Notes

Today the iPad battery capacity was down to 4% before I plugged it in to be recharged. I think this is the lowest I have seen it and it took 4 or 5 days to get this level (I remember seeing it at 100% on Saturday).

Impressive.

I would estimate it takes about an hour to charge 30%.

On a related note, my dad said he would have preferred a light on the transformer or the iPad itself, to indicate the status of the charging operation— whether the iPad was still charging or whether it was fully charged. He doesn't like leaving appliances plugged-in unless necessary.

iPads at Sam's Club

iPads are now on sale at Sam's Club stores in the U.S. From the photo, the store looks quite spacious.

I absolutely hate visiting the Apple Store in the Eaton Centre because it's always a crowded MADHOUSE. And the one in the Sherway Gardens doesn't seem to be any less crowded from second-hand accounts.

I wish Apple would get a bigger place for their store (the neo-classical building at Yonge and King, which currently sells mattresses, would make a nice location).

Blog Stats

These are the audience statistics for this blog from May to November:

• U.S, Canada and Germany are the top three countries for readership
• IE (46%), Firefox (35%)and Safari (8%)are the top three browsers
• Windows (71%), OS X (19%) and iPad (3%) are the top three OS

Pulse News/Feed Reader now Free

Pulse News/Feed Reader, which changed the face of RSS feed reading, is now free.

History of Tablet Computing at Apple

Tablet computing began at Apple in 1979. By 1985 all the technology necessary for a portable tablet was available and for $20M Steve Jobs promised the Apple board that he could deliver a tablet. He was turned down and soon ousted.

After a few more design iterations, The Newton Messagepad was ready in 1991 but didn't ship until 1993.

It wasn't until 2004 that Jobs began working on a tablet again, which detoured to the iPhone (released in 2007) and finally the iPad in 2010.

A Review of the Yellow Pages (Canada) iPad App

Searching for a person or a place, traditionally involved opening a telephone book and searching for the item alphabetically (alternatively, for a cost, one could call 411 directory assistance). Then, one would write down the address and telephone number. If one needed to visit the person or place, would consult a street map of the area and locate them.

In the internet era, there were several search options, but it still required two steps— the search and then the locator using Google maps, etc. The iPad app is an improvement on both the traditional way and the internet way.

MUJI Apps

The apparel company MUJI has a calendar app (free) a notebook app ($3.99), a travel and mobility app (free), and an apparel catalog app (free) for the iPhone/iPad.

Pitfalls of upgrading to iOS4.2

The decision to upgrade to iOS4.2 should not be taken without considering the following:

• once you upgrade you cannot easily downgrade to the previous OS (along with gnashing of teeth and muttering indelicate words, you will  probably need a previous version of iTunes (which is usually upgraded with each OS release), and the backup copy of your iPad OS (which, oddly, iTunes deletes once you upgrade))
• do the apps that you cannot absolutely live without, work with the new OS? (apps that have not been written properly just stop working and if it's an app you rely on daily, you either have to do without, find an alternative app or downgrade back to the previous OS-- see previous bullet point)
• do the new features of the OS outweigh the possible loss of some of your favourite apps?

Wooden iPad Stand Photos

My brother built the wooden iPad stand yesterday (mentioned in the previous post).

I showed it to my Mom and Dad this morning and they liked it. My Dad suggested that it should have been made out of maple rather than pine, because maple is a denser wood and thus better weighted as a base.

The only improvement I would like to try would be to cut a slot on the opposite side with a shallow angle (perhaps 10°) so the top of the iPad (in the landscape orientation) rests lower on the table.

I photographed it in action:

Wooden iPad Stand

The stand with iPad in the landscape orientation

Using the stand with the  iPad in the portrait orientation

DIY Wooden iPad Stand

This do-it-yourself iPad stand made from a single piece of solid wood meets my requirements of being elegant, compact and portable.

I asked my brother if he could build one. (Update: photos of the stand he built)

"Lights! Camera! Capture!"

"Lights, Camera, Capture!" is an interactive how-to photography app/book for the iPad. It costs $9.99.

iOS 4.2 Feature Preview

AppleInsider has a feature preview of iOS 4.2 including the change of functionality to the orientation-lock button.

I expect a 4.2.1 release within a few weeks of the 4.2 release.

iOS 4.2 Goes Gold

The final candidate release of iOS4.2 (iPhone and iPad) was released to developers on Monday.

It also means that any new iPads manufactured since that time will ship with this OS.

I predict that it will be available for download sometime this week because more than anything else, 4.2 fixes the Daylight Savings Time bug that has plagued Australia and Europe.

If it doesn't ship by Sunday, then Apple will look incompetant on Monday when users relying on the iPhone to wake them up, will wake up an hour late due to the bug (the phone switches to DST but the alarms do not shift).

iPad Wallpaper

One of my albums on the iPad is called "Nature" and contains some of my photographs which I use to periodically change the lock-screen wallpaper on the iPad.

I have only recently changed the home-screen wallpaper with a recent photograph:

Pretty much any photo works as lockscreen wallpaper, however, to qualify for home-screen wallpaper, photos have to be uniform in colour or they become distracting and clash with the colourful app icons.

Here are a few photos I found to be suitable home-screen wallpaper:

From Friday Foto

The Past Week's Disappointments

Two things happened this past week: on the 18th, Apple reported its quarterly earnings and on the 20th, Apple announced some new products.

The first disappointment was with lower-than expected sale of iPads (4.19M sold in the quarter, averaging about 1.4M a month or about 46,000 a day) reported. The analysts who had predicted close to 5M were disappointed.

The second disappointment was a personal one. Before the product announcement, rumours had predicted an 11.6" MacBook Air. I was expecting that the MacBook Air would actually be an iPad running iOS and that it would have a detachable keyboard. Sadly, we got a $999 netbook.

Neilsen Survey Results

Nielsen released a survey of 5,000 "connected device" owners.

Reading books and magazines was more popular on iPads than on the iPhone, while music and news (online, I suppose) was more popular on the iPhone. Listening to streaming radio was about the same.

Games was the most downloaded genre of app, while books and music came second and third. From a personal standpoint, games are the most popular app on the iPad especially for the kids while my Dad watches TV shows and reads books. He has only recently begun listening to streaming radio. So far, my Mom mostly uses the iPad to browse online stores. 

According to the survey, 32% of owners have never downloaded an app. My Dad has browsed the App Store, but has not actually asked me to download any of the apps he has seen (other than "The New Mass" which he read about). I can understand this statistic because these people are likely in the same situation as my parents, who use the iPad as their first computer.

"No Orchids for Miss Blandish"

As a follow-up to my last post on the lack of books in the iBookstore, I would like to suggest a couple of places where ePub format books for iBooks can be downloaded:

• Manybooks.net has a collection of excellent books that are out of copyright; e.g. "No Orchids for Miss Blandish" by James Hadley Chase.
• Project Gutenberg also serves ePub versions for their entire collection; e.g. "Mysterious Affair at Styles" by Agatha Christie is the first appearance of Hercule Poirot.

Remember to also download the cover image (or search for a suitable one in Google Images) and after selecting the book in iTunes, drop the image in the cover-art area in the bottom-left corner of the sidebar.

i(no)Bookstore

David Winograd wrote a comparative analysis of the book selection on the iBookstore with that of Amazon's Kindle bookstore-- Amazon was the clear winner.

I went looking for Olen Steinhaur's CIA spy thriller "The Tourist" on the iBookstore and it wasn't available. Meanwhile, Amazon has a Kindle edition ($9.49), the hardcover edition ($16.47), the paperback edition ($9.99) and the audiobook edition for ($22).

October Apps

I just read the news today the the NY Times Editor's Choice App has been replaced with a full NY Times app which will be free until early 2011 when the paywall goes up. Note that the app requires email registration (which then entails being spammed with NY Times "offers"). But I feel that's a small price to pay. There are ads at the bottom of the app and there is also the occasional video ad before the article appears (which can be skipped using the eponymous button on the bottom right).

I also installed What's on TV, a TV listings app, which is quite impressive for having TV listings of Canadian cable suppliers like Rogers and Bell. I had a bit of trouble getting the listings to show-up because I was indoors and location services was not able to get my co-ordinates. But once I entered by postal code, everything started working.

VLC Media Player is also out for the iPad meaning, I no longer have to transcode all my .avi files into .mp4. Update: It played the .avi files I copied over to the iPad with no problems; it did not, however, play a .flv video downloaded from YouTube. As expected, battery life suffers, as the decoding is done in software: 4 minutes of avi video playback caused the battery to drop 1%. To me, that is not worth it. I deleted the VLC app.

I should make a note of the Free App a Day website (they also have an app) which is  true to it's namesake with apps for both the iPad and the iPod Touch/iPhone.

I also installed the Stanza app which is great for reading comic books encoded in .cbr and .cbz. It also opens PDF files. File transfer is done via drag-and-drop from the Apps tab in iTunes (scroll all the way to the bottom).

"The Secret of Steve Jobs' Success"

Leander Kahney has a great interview with John Sculley, former CEO of Apple who was responsible for ousting Steve Jobs from Apple, who enumerates Steve Jobs' qualities that led to Apple's growth in the PC market (an all-time high of 10% of the U.S. market.) 

Bluetooth Camera for the iPad?

I was reading a post by Tim Bray comparing the iPad to the Samsung Tab where he mentioned the prohibitive size of the iPad for use as a camera and it occurred to me that it would be cool if there was a Bluetooth camera that would allow you to keep the iPad in your bag while performing the photography with a compact device. Or evan an iPod Nano with a camera that streamed the photos/video to the iPad.

Then I read a /. post that mentions a NY Times article about body sensors that transmit data to the iPhone via Bluetooth, implying that the iOS stack has been augmented to support more than just audio for headsets and keyboards.

iPad Stands

Of all the iPad stands I have seen so far, the business-card holder is my favourite. It is compact, elegant and simple to use.

There are several stand designs that look like miniature artist easels and look too complicated. The Griffin Loop Stand is not compact and elegant. The Belkin Flip Blade is a bit more interesting because it's compact and elegant but it looks like it has some moving parts.

There are several LEGO stands that have been made, but none of them meet my criteria.

I was thinking of designing a stand similar to the business-card holder (which Business Depot in Canada doesn't seem to carry) but made of a single block of wood.

Update: I just found out about the Glif, an iPhone4 stand which can also be used to mount the phone on a tripod.

Update 2: I found instructions for a wooden iPad stand made from a single block of wood, which my brother built for me.

Adopt an iPad

The adoption rate of the iPad by consumers has exceeded that of the iPhone and the DVD player.

If the current rate persists, the iPad could become a $9 billion per year business, blowing right past game consoles and cell phones to become the fourth largest consumer electronics category. That would put the iPad right behind TVs, smartphones, and laptops.

iTunes enhancement request

I submitted an iTunes feature enhancement to Apple so that the media-type for videos (Movie, TV show, Music Video) could be automatically set by iTunes itself based on the duration of the video.

By default, any video file dropped into iTunes is automatically with a media-type of "Movie". I propose that using some heuristics based on the duration, the video file can be intelligently categorized by iTunes itself, as a Movie, a TV show or a Music Video.

If the file is either around 22 minutes in duration, or 45 minutes in duration,  it's very likely a half-hour or 1-hour TV show, respectively; if it's around 90 minutes long or more, it's likely a movie; if it's less than 15 minutes, it's a music video or a short.

Moleskine Covers

Moleskine announced covers for both the iPad and the iPhone:

Both Covers are combined with blank notebook pages. They are conceived as analog-digital ultra-portable workstations for the contemporary nomads.

 My Moleskine notebook, which is a few years old now, is used mostly  for jotting down random thoughts, noting books-to-read and for sketching. I also keep track of the weather for each day and what I wore that on that day, so that on a future day with the same weather, I can choose the appropriate number of layers that worked in the past.

I also have a watercolour-paper Moleskine, which has some paintings, but has been neglected for about a year.

NPD Group iPad Survey Results

The NPD Group has published the results of an iPad owner survey.

Early adopters (people who bought the iPad within the first two months of release) are more satisfied (80% of respondents) that people who bought them after.

The biggest complaint (51%) is the lack of USB ports; for me the biggest disappointment is the weight-- it could be lighter.

I can't say I love the iPad; I can't say I hate it, either; I do enjoy using it.

I also don't deny that what Apple has accomplished is pretty amazing. I think I feel this way precisely because I am an early adopter and I see the details that could have been done better. If I had waited for the second or later generations, I would probably be more amazed and I would likely have instantly fallen in love with it.

I also don't regret buying the iPad (despite the limited time I have spent with it, as my parents have it most of the time) . The kids do love it and at least it has given them exposure to the future of computing.

Multi-selecting Images in Photo App

 There is a trick to selecting multiple images, including multi-page, for deletion (or emailing) in the Photo app.

Remember to click on the "arrow-box" in the top-right corner, before following the steps in the hint.

Internet Radio

I installed AccuRadio (free) on the iPad this morning and gave my Dad a brief demo. I found a great baroque music station on it which should please him as the CBC Radio programming (which he used to love) became distinctly "contemporary" after the new director (who recently left) came to power a few years ago. The bandwidth usage should tell me 1) how heavy the streaming is, and 2) if he listened to any radio.

When he returned from a trip to Portugal recently, he mentioned the Internet Radio Station "Radio Amalia" which streams the audio as an MMS feed. I think he would definitely like it if that station was available on the iPad.

WunderRadio ($7 which my boss has on his iPhone) definitely has that station. But I don't know if it's worth the cost.

It would be nice if there was an iPad app that could input mms:// URLs; Fstream (free) seems popular, however it's iOS4 only and there are many complaints by iOS 3.x users about the upgrade.

Update Sep 30, 2010: This morning, my Dad asked my whether the radio could recieve Portuguese radio stations! I said mentioned that by November, I would be able to install an app that could do it. He listened to AccuRadio for about an hour and the data-usage was 52MB-- so the stream is approximately 1MB/min.

Update Oct. 1, 2010: I found an app called Streamer (free) that can handle mms streams and the radio worked. However, the app has the most appalling user interface. I think I am going to have to write-down the steps so my Dad can listen to his station.

Watch TV Alone, Together

The yap.TV app allows you to make TV-watching in your living room a global social event.

iPad Portraits

David Newman travels to technology conferences and companies around the world and paints portraits of attendees on his iPad using the Pogo stylus.

I don't know what painting app he uses.

Based on a comparison on this page between the portrait being drawn and the subject, I would say the portraits aren't very true to life. The Howard Rheingold portrait looks accurate, though, but that might be because he's such a caricature of his own character.

Battery Charge

The battery usage of the iPad is excellent. I charge it once a week on Saturdays.

The lowest battery capacity I have seen is 20%, since internet access was enabled; before that, the lowest was 32%.

The biggest complaint I have about the iPad is the weight, which is mostly due to the battery. I don't know if I would trade a lighter iPad with needing to charge it more than once a week-- it's a difficult choice to make.

A smaller iPad (rumoured 7" screen) would certainly make it lighter, but would it still have the great battery life I get now?

3G Data Usage, First Month

With two days remaining in the first month of the 3G data plan, my iPad's data-usage was 449MB/5GB. I guessed correctly that the 250MB plan would have been insufficient. My guess was solely based on the novelty of having internet access-- I was expecting around 1GB of usage.

This usage is mostly reading a few newspapers in Safari, using the BBC News app, an occasional visit to the Wikipedia and browsing JCrew, LCBO and Sears.

I just installed the NASA app and showed my Dad around the NASA Image of the Day, the Astronomy Picture of the Day and the videos. Since it has NASA TV, there should be some bandwidth usage increase for next month.

Hopefully, there won't be problems watching the Nov. 1st launch of the last Shuttle, STS-133.

Netflix Streaming in Canada

Netflix streaming arrived in Canada this week.

There is a one month free trial and unlimited streaming (but technically limited by your usage-cap) for $8 per month on a variety of devices, including the iPad. There seems to be a very limited number of shows to watch, compared to the offerings in the U.S.

It was not without a few controversies: it seems actors were hired to portray passer-bys excited by Netflix and these actors were subsequently interviewed by the press for quotes. The CEO of Netflix apologized for a joke he made about self-absorbed Americans.

(Coincidentally, Blockbuster, DVD rental company, filed for bankruptcy in the US.)

Safari Pop-up Window UI Implementation is Confusing

My Mom (aged 65+) gets "stuck" whenever a pop-up window appears in the Safari browser. This is because Safari implements the pop-up as a new tab where the "Back" button is greyed-out which prevents my Mom from going back to the parent page.

One has to tap the "two-square-boxes" icon and then choose the previous window from the array of thumbnails to return to the previous page. I mentioned this when I showed her Safari, but she has forgotten.

The first time I used Safari, I too got stuck and on a whim, decided to tap on the "two-square-boxes" icon.

I filed a bug report about this on behalf of my Mom.

The easiest fix would be to keep the "Back" button linked to the page that generated the pop-up. Alternatively, a pop-up window could be implemented as a true iPad pop-up, where the parent page would still be visible, and with a dismiss-window "X" in the corner.

iPad Sightings

I see an iPad at least once a week now— at the train station on the way to work, or on the train itself. I haven't seen anyone at Union Station using it but I did see one at the bus station at Union.

If I walk through the entire length of the train, randomly choosing to go upstairs or downstairs (it's a double-decker train), there will be at least one person using an iPad every day of the week.

Twice last week, there was an iPad in the same car I was in; one girl was playing chess over the phone.

All the iPads I've seen are in the Apple folio cases which I find somewhat decrepit and they tend to obscure the fantastic design aesthetics of the device.

I am still waiting for the Apple Store to carry the iSkin for the iPad.

Interview with the Guardian iPad app designer

Neiman Lab has an interview with John-Henry Barac, an art director and designer for the printed edition of The Guardian newspaper, who designed The Guardian’s first iPhone app.

In designing newspapers, you’re always thinking about how to offer the reader different ways into a story — so there’s the headline, there’s the standfirst and the rest of it, but there’s also other call-outs and boxes and other objects which allow the user multiple ways to access the story. And if those are used carefully and coherently, they help to build greater depth of the story that you’re trying to tell.

I think the iPad begins to offer that level of complexity. It offers the reader many different ways to kind of grab hold of part of the story that might interest them, whether it’s a small snippet with a link or another way to dig into a longer article.

The iPad as a Laptop Substitute

A roadtest by one of The Register's reporters who used the iPad as a substitute for a laptop while attending a conference. To summarize: the iPad is more of a holiday device than a conference device.

The lack of Photoshop Elements, which I use daily, on the iPad prevents me from considering one for myself.

The roadtest also mentions the Compass stand for the iPad, which reminds me of the Leatherman multi-tool. I expect Swiss Army, to add an iPad stand tool to one of their multi-function knives.

September Apps

• Data Analysis (graphing/plotting app; free)
• eWallet Lite (password manager with 256-AES encryption; 10 "card" limit; free)
• Star Wars: Battle for Hoth Lite (tower defense game; free [DELETED: refuses to install on the iPad])
• Sep. 14, 2010: iPad OS upgraded to 3.2.2 as Hoth and Epic Citadel required it
  
• NPR (streaming public radio & news app; free; my Dad enjoyed listening to WGBH while visiting Cambridge so I added it to the favourites; found a fatal bug and reported it to the developer: BottleRocket)
• BBC News (news and videos; live streaming of one of the BBC Radio stations; free)
• Epic Citadel (Unreal 3D engine demo, explore a medieval castle and surrounding land; free)
  

JWZ on the iPad

JWZ comments on the iPad; the expected complaints a "programmer" would have about the limitations of a "consumer" device.

It will take a few more iterations before the iPad becomes what the Mac with OS X became to people who didn't want Windows but also didn't want Linux.

I want the ability to open a Terminal when I feel like it, or to run Emacs, but don't want to have to live in one (which is "necessary" in Linux (I'm generalizing a bit, of course)).

More Apps Than Songs

A survey by Asymco has found that the number of apps downloaded from iTunes has reached the number of songs downloaded in half the time and will soon exceed it.

Rogers wifi hotspots

According to the Rogers iPad page, purchasing an iPad data plan also permits free access to Rogers Wifi hotspots across Canada, in cafes, restaurants, malls, etc.; the Canadian Hotspots site has a catalog of locations available in both PDF and Excel formats.

Bell services Starbucks and Rogers services Timothys and Second Cup cafes.

It seems Tim Horton's customers are not interested in wireless connectivity.

Update Sun, Sep.6, 2010: I forgot to mention that Rogers charges $10 for a micro-SIM card; Apple charged me 20 cents.

Google Earth

I showed my Mom and Dad how to use Google Earth today-- how to zoom-in and out, pan and rotate the map. Overall it went well. My Dad spent about 2 hours surfing the earth.

Pinch-to-zoom was a bit awkward as my Mom has long fingernails; I didn't realize that double-tap also zoomed-in. Rather than using the thumb and forefinger, it was easier using the index and middle fingers in a V-shape.

I also showed my Mom how to use Safari to browse an online clothing store.

Infocom text-adventure games

After a discussion of Maylon mode for Emacs, I thought of searching for and found that the Frotz Z-machine emulator is available for the iPad/iPhone.

I have three Infocom games that I never got around to playing on my Handspring Visor: Zork1, H2G2 and ZTUU.

It make for a good comparison to the latest in exploratory games: Epic Citadel (demo, based on the Unreal 3 engine; downloaded but not installed or played yet).

iFridge

How long before refrigerators come with either with an iPad or (more likely) a recessed area where an iPad can be mounted on the front door?

It would be handy for ordering groceries online, when they run low.

iMac Touch patents

Patent filings by Apple for a multi-purpose iMac.

Press Pause

I had loaded the iPad with some movies and some of my Dad's favourite TV shows (Rumpole) but he said he didn't have time to watch them all. I said I usually watch about 20 minutes of a show before bed and continue off, the following night.

My dad was surprised to learn that it wasn't necessary to watch a movie all the way through in one sitting. He wasn't aware that you could pause the movie, go off and do something else and then come back and continue watching it at a later time.

Perhaps the movie player controls should appear briefly at the start and then fade away, as a reminder that they're there...

My nephew and the iPad

It goes without saying that my nephew LOVES the iPad. He just loves starting an app, playing with it for a while, then pressing the Home button and picking another app, ad nauseam.

After playing with the FirstWords app for a few weeks, his spelling vocabulary is large enough that we allow him 5 minutes of game-time for each word (three-letters long) he spells correctly.

It has been noted that the photograph looks like an ad for the iPad. It was shot with the Canon 50D and the 24mm/1.4L at f/1.6.

Photoshop Express for the iPad

Adobe as released Photoshop Express for the iPhone and iPad (and Android).

It requires the use of a Photoshop.com photo-storage account, however.

A review of e-readers

"That said, no other e-reader impressed us more—both in terms of convenience and fine hat-making."

John Flowers reviews the advantages and disadvantages of various e-readers.

More Apps (August)

Latest Apps I've installed:

• Virtuoso (piano keyboard)
• GraphBook (interactive plots)
  
• KJV Bible (allows additional translations to be purchased and has the ability to display and scroll two translations side-by-side)
• Holy Bible (deleted; many free Bible translations, but the fonts render poorly)
  
• Planets (has nice animations of rotating planets), GoSkyWatch (has compass) (astronomy)
• Panzer Class (physics puzzles)
• Cat Physics (similar to Angry Birds)
• Oven Break Lite (side-scroller, popular with the young kids)
  
• Chess Free (ads at the bottom, considering deleting), War Chess [deleted; extremely buggy] (animated humanoid chess pieces with placement hints)
  
• Mahjong Lite
• Gravitarium (interactive zen)
• Air Master (spaceship flight simulator, objectives are confusing)
• Cogs HD Lite (puzzle game)
  

The Complete Guide to Managing iTunes Videos

This morning, I was wondering if it was possible to sort the videos and movies in iTunes into categories because they all appear on a single page on the iPad.

It seems iTunes only recently began supporting video organizational features, according to The Complete Guide to Managing iTunes Videos.

Skype 3G app released

Skype has announced an app that permits voice calls over 3G.

Called AppleCare for help with 3G activation

I have just finished calling Apple Support (talked to Jason) about the problem of being unable to activate the 3G connection on my iPad.

I was told two things (one of which really surprised me!):

1. The credit card billing address entered into the ipad has to be exactly what is on my statement (pretty sure it is);
2. The iPad requires Wifi connectivity and ports must be open to activate 3G.
   

Re. 1: Is there a reason the iPad does not pop-up a dialog box and inform me of this requirement when I have been trying to activate 3G without a Wifi conneciton for the past 3 weeks?!

Re. 2: The Wifi network I am on at work is behind a NAT, so it's likely my failure to authenticate is due to this.

More Apps Installed

I have installed a few more apps (free, or free for a day when I downloaded it) unless otherwise specified):

• The Human Genome at Ten (a free multi-media issue of Nature magazine)
• iDo Notepad (productivity) [deleted; couldn't edit past notes, puzzling interface]
  
• Stick Golf HD (game)
• Tower Madness (game)
• First Words Deluxe ($4.99 education spelling game for pre-schoolers)

I bought the Deluxe edition of First Words after downloading the Lite version and finding that it was quite excellent and the 4-year-old enjoyed it a lot. He still thinks it's a game and he hasn't figured out he's learning to spell words.

Update Jul 21: Some more games...

• Starship Shooter HD Lite
  
• Air War Lite [deleted; boring gameplay]
  
• ShipmatcH FREE (odd spelling) [deleted; over-sensitive controls, difficult and frustrating to operate, should have beginner settings]
  

The New Mass

This morning, my Dad asked me if I could download an app he read about called "The New Mass" ($.99) written by Cale Clark ,who is from Toronto.

The app can be used to learn the new responses to the Catholic Mass which will be introduced in 2011.

Last saturday, I showed my Dad iBooks and the iPod apps, after loading a variety of free books (the iPad Manual, Winnie the Pooh, and several free Project Gutenberg titles in Epub format, both from the iBooks store and directly from the web) and a selection of music (~1GB).

Aside: I would have downloaded the New Mass app except that 3G connectivity is still not working. Today, I kept getting a "Please try again message" after filling-in all the registration information in the first dialog box and pressing "Next".

Miyazaki on the iPad

Hayao Miyazaki comments negatively the iPad:

For me, there is no feeling of admiration or no excitement whatsoever. It's disgusting. On trains, the number of those people doing that strange masturbation-like gesture is multiplying.

I am a bit surprised.

Emacs (not) on the iPad

It doesn't look like Emacs will be available as an App on the iPad: the external keyboard doesn't send a few important keys; the Apple SDK license agreement prevents the distribution of apps outside the App store which conflicts with the GPL which requires the free distribution of source; and lastly there is the restriction of interpreters running on the iPad OS (I was hoping they would have made an exception for Squeak, but alas, no such luck).

I would have to jailbreak the iPad to natively install Emacs on it. But running it remotely is possible, if there was a decent terminal emulator; pterm seems to be crashy according to the comments on the iStore.

iPad and Kindle reading speeds compared

Jakob Nielsen performed an experiment comparing the reading speeds of an iPad and a Kindle to that of a book. The results were that both electronic devices were approximately 10% slower than a book.

I haven't used a Kindle, and I have yet to read an entire book on the iPad. I have loaded a few of the free Gutenberg Project titles: Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote, The Three Musketeers in iBooks and I loaded The Hobbit and Neuromancer as PDFs.

I prefer the iBook interface to the PDF interface because the text can re-flow as the font-size is increased or decreased. I tried using Calibre to convert a text to ePub and it was very confusing to use.

Given a choice, I would still buy a solid book over the digital version because I can read it "anywhere", make annotations and notes (hand-written in a Post-It inside the front cover) and because there is currently no technology that matches the clarity of printed typography. I can also lend the printed book friends and family.

Coincidentally, last Saturday's Globe and Mail Focus and Books section, had an essay on the encroachment of the digital world into the traditional paper world and how it affects book collections and their collectors. Though the essay does make the usual point about digital books being unreadable in subsequent decades, it fails to point out that the content of digital books is far easily searchable that that of their solid brethren.

Activated 3G (Tried to, but Failed)

Last night, I activated a 3G cellular account with Rogers via Settings >Cellular >View Account on the iPad. The final dialog box said that the account had been successfully created and and I would be contacted later (via email or maybe via telephone?).

I have not yet received a reply. It is understandable as it is a holiday today.

I expected it to just work and that I would have connectivity immediately.

Update Jul 2: No response from Rogers Support other than an automated email. Still no 3G.
At this stage I don't know if my credit card will be billed, so I don't really want to try again unless I can get confirmation on that.

iPad survey results

Technologizer has posted the results of a survey of iPad users.

I believe that my answers would have been similar for the most part.

I tried out the Notes app for the first time today, and I would have to agree that it was frustrating to use-- I couldn't figure out how to create a new note. I tapped on "New Note" in the left sidebar and I expected a cursor to appear in the ruled area. Nothing happened. I tapped in the ruled area and nothing happened. I quit the app and re-ran it and tried again. Nothing happened. And then suddenly, I got a cursor.

Very, very odd.

Importing websites as PDFs into iBooks

A nice hint on how to import a website (or other document) directly into iBooks via iTunes.

You can add your own PDFs by dropping them into the iTunes sidebar (I haven't been able to test whether they appear in iBooks yet because there are three kids fighting over the iPad.)

Update Jul 2: Managed to load PDFs into the iPad. Connect the iPad to the computer; in the iTunes sidebar, click on Books; drag and drop the PDF into the right-hand-side of iTunes. You must have iBooks 1.1 app for PDFs to work.

Take for Granted

take someone or something for granted: to expect someone or something to be always available
to serve in some way without thanks or recognition; to value someone or something too lightly.
--The Free Dictionary

In the brief time I have used the iPad, I came to the realization that I have not been impressed with it-- there was never a "WOW!" moment. That's because IT JUST WORKS; it was designed to get out of my way and let me do my work (or play) without interfering with my enjoyment. It's the most perfect portable platform yet designed.

That is a remarkable achievement for a device that was born of countless hours of thoughtful fine tuning.

I would have to agree with Charlie Stross' essay about his experiences with the iPad after a month, especially when he says:

... this thing is roughly where the Macintosh was in late 1984. Which is to say, a lot of people don't get it, and think it's a toy — and in truth, there's a lot of stuff it doesn't do properly yet. But it's an astonishingly promising toy. And what it promises is an entirely new way of getting stuff done.

The iPad in i's current state is a toy because we haven't become dependent on it (yet); we still use our Desktops (and remember that the iPad requires a Desktop for its existence). But one day those bonds will be cut and true freedom will prevail.

I look forward to that day.

Handbrake presets for iPad

Lifehacker has an article with Handbrake presets for the iPad.

Oh, Bother

Here I will collect a list of things that bother me, that could use improvement or that should be customizable on the iPad:

• Calendar: in month-view, the numbers are a) too small, b) low-contrast (light-grey on white); I would like the numbers to be bigger (there's no reason they can't be rendered in the background of each cell and the appointments for that day overlayed on top of them translucently). Update: Jul 1, 2010. Apple requested a screenshot be added to the bugreport.
• Movies: when I click on a movie, it opens an intermediate window with an informational screen on the left and the poster frame on the right. I would prefer if the movie started playing, bypassing the informational screen entirely, if there is no supplemental information available (I don't really care what the movie pixel-resolution is).
• Settings: In Calendar settings (IIRC) my timezone was set to Cupertino; the iPad has GPS, it should know where it is at all times. If I hadn't browsed through all the settings, I wouldn't have noticed it.

Jun 25, 2010

• Settings: Wallpaper: It would be nice if I could customize the lockscreen wallpaper with the contents of an album so a new, different image from the chosen album would appear every time the iPad was switched on.

Jun 28, 2010

• iPad: Battery-charge Indicator: When I asked my dad whether the iPad needed charging, he didn't know. I had to point out the location of the battery-charge indicator on the home screen.

Jul 1, 2010

• Calendar: "Page turning" feature request: I often find myself reaching for the bottom right of the calendar in month view and trying to turn the page to look at the next month. So I submitted a feature request. Update Jul 2, marked as duplicate by Apple.
  

Don't be Alarmed

I thought it would be a nice thing if I got the iPad to wake me up tomorrow morning.

Except that there isn't a clock/alarm clock app on the iPad (the iPhone has a Clock app).

Very odd.

First Impressions

I had no preconceptions when I took it out of the box last night but I thought it was heavier than I expected. It is definitely a noticeable weight in my shoulder bag, but it's not as heavy as my PowerBook and can easily see taking the iPad in to work with me everyday. I would not consider taking my PowerBook unless I was forced to.

This morning, when I dropped by my parent's place (the iPad was delivered there) my Mom mentioned that she was surprised that the FedEx delivery man knew it was an iPad. I told here that Apple is selling 1M iPads a month (Apple announced 3M in 80 days) so the FedEx delivery men were quite aware of the contents of the medium-sized boxes they were delivering.

I took the iPad to work today and activated it (in the future, the idea of connecting a portable computer to another computer to "activate" the first will seem quaint) via iTunes. I then proceeded to download all the free apps from my previous post (about 500MB).

Sitting at my desk and holding the iPad on my lap, I noticed that my wrist was getting sore and I had to consciously set it down (having to cross my legs to create a "stand" on my lap or leave it on the table and lean over it.

***

At work, one of my colleague's first impressions was, "It's smaller than I remember it from the store/on TV". I suggested that perhaps the store had put a security frame around it and he said no.

Later that evening, when I showed it to my brother, he said exactly the same thing-- that the iPad was smaller than expected.

There seems to be a perceptual disconnect between the size of the iPad as seen on TV or in a store and then seen in person, in a familiar setting.

***

Yesterday, my boss asked me whether I would buy an iPad for myself, I told him I couldn't conceive of a use for it. The next day I had a better response-- I would buy an iPad when either Photoshop Elements or Lightroom were available on it so I could use it for my photography; currently, the primary use of my PowerBook.

The biggest annoyance I had (through no fault of the iPad) was having to re-connect to the campus-wide network after the iPad powered down; to re-establish network connectivity required logging in with a login and password EVERY TIME!

The departmental network only covers two floors of the building but the devices are added as static addresses (with a unique login and password) and the so connection has persistence.

***

Currently, my carrying case is the large, padded manila envelope that apple shipped my 3G SIM in and I wrap the iPad in a small towel (which I carry with me anyway, ever since I learned of Towel Day) before inserting it in the envelope.

I am intrigued by a line of slipcases made by Waterfield.

Tracking the iPad Shipment

• Jun 18, 8:12 PM: left Shenzen, China;
• Jun 18, 1:01 PM: arrived in Anchorage, Alaska;
• Jun 18, 4:57 PM: the brokerage paperwork in Canada was processed;
• Jun 19, 9:17 PM: it left Alaska;
• Jun 20, 6:23 AM: arrived in Memphis, Tennessee where it now sits.
  

I can't see it getting to me tomorrow (a distance of 1,000 km as the crow flies).

Updates:

• Jun 20, 4:18 PM: it left Memphis and is in transit;
  
• Jun 21, 11:00PM: still in transit, it's been more than 24 hours and the tracking information is unchanged;
• Jun 22, 6:19 AM: arrived at the sorting facility;
• Jun 22, 8:14 AM: arrived at the local FedEx facility;

Wooo!

• Jun 22, 9:23 AM: On FedEx vehicle for delivery;
• Jun 22, 11:03 AM: DELIVERED!

I'm at work. Boooooo!

iPad Apps

I've made a preliminary list of iPad Apps I might install (in categories I find interesting and the kids might find entertaining; apps are free unless price is stated):

• Google Earth (mapping)
  
• Adobe Ideas 1.0 for iPad (drawing)
• Koi Pond HD (show-off $1.99); Pocket Pond HD (show-off) [popular with the youngest kid]
  
• Drawing Pad (art, $1.99)
• Doodle Buddy for iPad (art)
• BeatWave (music)
• Friend Sheep HD [deleted; too complicated], Angry Birds Lite [popular with the kids; considering paying for full version], Shape Builder Lite , Labyrinth 2 HD Lite [popular with the kids] (games);
• The Solitaire (card game) [excellent for a free game (occasional ad for aother app by same author between levels; highly recommended]
  
• tChessLite (game, $.99)
• Dragon Dictation (show-off speech to text) [excellent speech-to-text; deleted because it doesn't work offline]
  
• The Elements (chemistry; show-off , $13.99);
  
• Epicurious (cooking)
• Wikipanion for iPad (utility)
  
• Guardian Eyewitness (news photos)
• ImdB (utility)
  
• WeatherBug Elite (utility); Weather Channel Max (crashes on startup)
  
• Toy Story Read-Along (kids)
  
• Jumbo Calculator (utility); PCalc Lite
• Bloomberg for iPad (utility, stocks)
• Compass HD (utility)
• Skype (iPhone utility)
  

(Updated with iTunes links to the apps).
(Update: added Weather Channel, Bloomberg, PCalc and Compass.)
(Update: added Skype, which permits calls over 3G for a limited time.)

Update Jun 24, 2010. List of (mostly) free iPhone app reviews (not iPad). I find iPhone apps unusable on the iPad in the 1X size and the blurriness in 2X mode gives me eye-strain and a headache (my experience playing with the Skype app) though playing Angry Birds Lite doesn't seem to bother the kids.

A list of 25 free iPad Apps. Some more iPad games:

• Mahjong Artifacts: Chapter 2 HD Free App (game) [deleted, found Mahjong Lite, Aug. 6, 2010]
  
• Glass Tower 2 (game)
• Gemmed! Lite (Bejeweled clone)

Update Jul 2. Installed a few more iPad apps:

• TeragatiFree (accelerometer-based video game) [engrossing, made it to level 3]
• Levers (physics balancing game) [engrossing; starts from the beginning every time]
  
• FW Sampler (pre-school spelling game; bought full version $4.99)
• Alphabet Racing (pre-school letter-writing game)
• AliceLite (animated Alice in Wonderland; show-off) [deleted, uninteresting]
  
• SkyORB 3D Lite (astronomy app) [deleted, installed GoSkyWatch and Planets]
  

Deleted Shape Builder Lite as the pre-school kid was not interested; played it for 10 seconds. Deleted Weather Channel Max as the latest update broke location awareness.