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).