So all of the other smartphone companies are drooling over the sales of the iPad. So they are all trying to make their own tablet.
But it seems that they all have to take their name (or part of it) and put PAD at the end. That will be two more products that people are going to be commenting on their revalance to a female hygiene product. That’s just what we needed.
Apple has been boasting about their iBooks app featuring the iBookstore. I’m soon going to be taking a trip to Japan, so i’d like some books to read on the way there. So instead of csarrying around books I’d love to just take my beautiful thin iPad.
But all of the books in the store are about $15 (varying on the book). I could just go down to my local library and get it for free and just give it back when I’m done.
So woultn’t it be great if there was an iLibrary instead? How about you can download the book for free, but just like rented movies it could only be on one device. How about you could send it to someone else if they want to read it? And how about there’s a due date, and you can renew it 2 times before it needs to be sent back to the library. And if you don’t want to send it back or you are saving it, you could just buy it?
Now as good as this sounds, I doubt that the publishers would be in much favor. After all, the iLibrary wouldn’t be paid for by taxes.
But how about the libraries offer books in ePub format, and you can rent them and sync them to your iPad? Apple would have to add support for rentals, but they wouldn’t have to deal with the publishers.
Today, the iPhone 4 was released. Of course it’s exciting, but it’s much less exciting then the iPad.
Why?
Because compare this picture from Gizmodo from 2 months ago:
Gizmodo's iPhone, April 19th
To this one on the apple website.
Apple's iPhone, Jun 7th
I think they’re pretty similar.
And that’s why the news of it during WWDC was.. well… almost outdated. Everybody had already seen the fourth iPhone, just unofficially. So nobody was in for much of a surprise today.
But for the iPad, nobody had a clue. People were sure it would run Leopard, have a CD drive, USB ports, and they gave us this whole different idea. Not a tablet per se, but this thing that just made sense. And who knew!
But everybody knew about the iPhone. I didn’t walk home that day grinning because of excitement like I did during the iPad announcement. Because I had already seen the thing. And I’m pretty sure you all have as well.
As you know, I got my beautiful new HTC incredilble.
It comes with built in support for tethering, but another $30/ mo.??!! NO. Luckily, there’s an easier way: PDAnet.
It’s a free download from the android market and works without any extra charge.
Sadly, I can’t give you any screenshots due to android.
But it is simple enough.
First, open the app. You will be introduced with the option to turn on USB or Bluetooth tethering. The USB tethering requires an extra plugin to be installed, and my mac supports bluetooth DUN built in, so I just used that. Here’s a video on how I set it all up.
There you go! Sadly this does not work with the iPad, as DUN isn’t available quite yet.
Next, connect your Mac (sorry PC users, this won’t work for you) and iPad to the same WiFi network (if you don’t have any available create an AdHoc network on your mac). Then, open the Air Display app on your iPad. It will give you detailed instructions on how to download and install the plugin for your Mac (free). I’ll walk you through it anyway:
First, download the plugin at avatron.com/ad. Then, install the package and restart your computer. Make sure your iPad is awake and Air Display is open. Click on the Air display icon on your mac’s menubar and select your iPad from the list. Your screen will turn blue, then your iPad should be connected. By default, your iPad is configured to be on the left. So drag a window off of the left side of your main screen and it will appear on the iPad. cool! You can also touch on the iPad like a mouse (no right click though).
Now that you have your Air Display configured, lets personalize it.
Open System Preferences and click Displays. You will see a window show up on each of the displays. But the one we really want to use is the one on the main display (the main display is the one with the Menubar at the top). You will see that on this display there is a window that has an arrangement tab at the top. Click Arrangement and here you will see two screens: the smaller one is your iPad. You can click and drag you iPad to a different side of the main display depending on the physical position. You can also drag the menubar to the iPad to make it the main display.
Now this is cool and stuff, but a really cool use is that you can finally run flash on an iPad! the fps is less then 30, but it will do for the most of us.
Now if you have a physically plugged in external display, this means that you could have 3 screens without having to buy something like the viBook for $120. Here’s how I set it up with the Air Display:
System Preferences Arrangement
As you can tell, I have the Macbook to the left of my monitor. I then put my iPad on top of my monitor and am using my iPad as my main display;. This eliminates desktop clutter, and when working in photoshop all of my tools don’t get in the way so I can work on a pretty big image.
Here’s how it looks in real life:
By default the wallpaper won't span
As you can tell, it looks similar right? All of my icons are on my iPad along with the menubar, allowing more room on the main display. Sadly, the wallpaper doesn’t span across all of the monitors automatically, it just takes a lot of cropping in photoshop so you get three different pictures that eventually come together as one image. Also, cool picture right? It’s a portrait of me drawn by one of my friends. If you look on the iPad, you’ll see a thought bubble with binary.
Sadly, you need to add the iPad as a display with the menubar icon every time you restart your computer. Also, it’s hard to use it while the iPad is syncing.
Over 1,000,000 iPads have been sold, and I just got the WiFi version. But I know many went for the 3G version because they could browse the internet anywhere (that is, if you’re in Texas of course). But what if you don’t want to pay the $30 for unlimited, or just have the WiFi version? Offline Pages is a free app that allows you to download pages and view them on your iPad even when you don’t have an internet connection.
And It’s actually quite easy. First, open the app on your iPad. The interface is simple. At the top there is a URL bar where you can browse to the page you want to save. Once you’ve found it, you can tap the button directly to the right of the URL bar (the down arrow into the box thing) to save it for viewing later. A small red badge will appear over the button to the left of the URL bar indicating that it is being saved. After the badge has disappeared, you can safely close the app and go anywhere knowing that you still have the webpage.
To view the webpage, just tap the button directly to the left of the URL bar (the box with the papers in it) and your saved pages will be listed. Tap on one to see it.
But there is one problem with this method: What if you are browsing pages in Safari with an internet connection and you find a page you want to save for when you are on the road? You’d have to copy and paste the URL, then go into Offline Pages, open the page in offline pages, and save it. Oy Vay!
But these people are amazingly smart. They know that, so they created a bookmarklet to do it for you. To install the bookmarklet, just go into the options and under general there is a selection to install the bookmarklet.
This will bring you into a webpage in safari, and amazingly you can install the bookmarklet to another iPad or computer!
Tap which ever one you want to do and it will give you step-by-step instructions to install the bookmarklet.
After you’ve done so, just browse to a page in safari, tap the bookmarklet, click save to iPad, and Voila! Just open Offline Pages and the page will be saved for offline viewing. Great if you are going on an airplane without WiFi!
Even better, the app is free and for iPod, iPhone AND iPad! Bravo! [Applaud]
If you just got that new shiny iPad, it may be a great tool for checking the weather, in fact, there’s an app for that!
So I have tried the weather channel, but similar to their iPhone app it is quite buggy. But luckily i found weatherbug which has a very nice interface and is very functional.
When you open the app, you are greeted with a radar map and a bar on the top.
The bar on the top has multiple squares with current conditions, live cameras, a forecast, and if you slide the bar left it acts like a page. You a then shows hourly forecast, active alerts, and a video thingy. You can tap the different boxes to see a more detailed view.
On the map, you can click on map settings to change the view to temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed, infrared satellite, visible satellite, and radar. Cool!
You can also press the play button in the bottom left to see a time-lapse of the radar images.
We all know that apple doesn’t tell anybody anything.
But you’d think theyd tell you SOMEWHERE (maybe on the web?) everything about a product that was already released, right?
Think again.
We all know that apple made an array of accessories for it’s new baby the iPad.
One of which happened to be the camera connection kit. This costs $29 and comes with two things: A little dongle that plugs into the bottom of your iPad with an SD card slot, then a similar one with a USB slot.
We all thought that the USB slot was for plugging in your camera. And it is! But…
So many people have told me that they can’t use any keyboard other than apple’s. WRONG! You can plug a keyboard into the USB slot!
You can also plg in USB headphones, microphones, headsets, and probably more. You can even connect your iPhone to get the photos off it, so you no longer have an excuse for no camera an the iPad! I mean, you took them on the go, and they are on your iPad, am I right?
But why didn’t apple tell any of us? Comments welcome.
Sure, the iPad does NOT replace a computer. Apple was not targeting this towards the laptop market at all (but don’t you think that it’s enough to carry around 3 different devices?). But even so, I find myself using my iPad more than my MacBook.
But why? Well, to find this out lets look at what my laptop does:
•Email
•Internet
•Flash
•Desktop Applications
•Word Processing
As you can tell, I can do most of the things with the iPad as I can my desktop. I can run apps, check Facebook, read email, and I have the word press app so I can post to Good Morning Geek. Thanks to the internet aspect I can do everything that I can do on my computer except flash (Which I don’t use very often anyways, YouTube doesn’t count because it is in HTML5!!). But what can’t I do? I don’t use that many special desktop apps on my MacBook, and many of them run on my iPad (such as MindNode, one of my favorites and Cooliris). Other than that, the only thing I can’t do is multi-task, which I don’t really need right now.
When I type blog posts on it (like this one!), I can connect a bluetooth keyboard to it so I don’t have to power up my computer to work on a post with a physical keyboard. I just take out my handy (not so) little iPad, connect my bluetooth keyboard, and start typing. I can also just use the case as a stand for the typing, or I can use the dock.
So because functionality isn’t an issue, why do I use my iPad instead of my MacBook?
•No time to startup
•I can use it anywhere I want without overheating
•Much lighter than my MacBook
Reasons I would use the MacBook instead of my iPad:
•Power
•Multitasking
Flash could be on that list, but I don’t use it often enough to make a difference.
So there you go. My MacBook has been away for a couple of days because I can do pretty much everything my MacBook could on the iPad. In fact, my mac is still in my laptop bag after 3 days. Cool!
Which would (and do) you use more? Comments welcome.
The iPad is a wonderful touchscreen device, and I would categorize as a tablet. As all tablets must be, it of course can connect to the internet (like all apple devices except for iPods, and why would you want an iPod to connect to the internet?). And I must say, that when I just want to look at a couple of websites, I would rather just take out this super-thin lightweight iPad then my powerful big Mac. Yes, I would use my MacBook for somethings instead of the iPad but for simple light internet browsing, the iPad is what I go for. I don’t have to worry about it overheating, which is quite important to me. So how is it?
First off, WiFi.
Many people have reported problems with WiFi and I’m among them. The WiFi range is not that large, so you need to move closer to the AP than in a laptop. But if you are close enough to the AP, then the internet is quite speedy.
Next, speed.
The internet browser is (of course) safari, which has been redesigned and given a speed boost. At the moment, I can’t give you any specific specs, but it definitely feels pretty speedy.
After that, design.
Apple has redesigned Safari just for the iPad. Now, it features a Bookmarks bar, so you can get easy access to all of your favorite sites with a single tap. Also, all of the controls were promote to the top toolbar, so you canto forward/back, add to home screen, bookmark, email, enter a URL, or do a google search all from the top toolbar.this allows for more space to view the webpage (although not much). You can keep up to 9 pages open, and to switch the pages you are shown a sleep thumbnail view (picture at bottom). To interact with webpages, i would be as expected. Doubletap a paragraph to zoom so it perfectly fits, pinch to zoom in/out, swipe to scroll around the page, and tap on a link to visit it.
The pictures look vibrant on the LED backlit display, even on a webpage.
Only catch: It doesn’t support flash. But really, is this much of a surprise? Has there ever been a single mobile apple device running iPhone OS that has supported flash? No, and i’m not guessing there will be. But not to worry, many sites have converted to HTML5 so you can view them on your treasured, beautiful iPad.
Oh, and just an FYI: I actually created this post using the free WordPress app on the iPad. If you have a wordpress site, then it is a must-have as it is great for moderating comments and adding and editing posts. I also used my Apple WirelessKeyboard through Bluetooth to type this, so I didn’t have to use the touchscreen keyboard. Another post on that soon…
Yes, Apple did come out with a cool case for the iPad. It’s good for day to day use because you can use it without it being bare naked and exposed to the elements of dust and air. But it’s thin rubber construction will not help when you drop it. Also, when you put the iPad in the case it eels like the rubber is about to rip. Overall, it just seems like crappy construction. It’s thin rubber and it’s NOT worth the $40.
So I returned one of the Apple cases and got the Incase Neoprene Slip sleeve Plus. Now that I think of it, it might have been better not to get the slip sleeve and instead have gotten the zippered one.
Like the Neoprene sleeve for my MacBook, it has a faux interior and side protection, but unlike the sleeve for my Macbook the Slip Sleeve has an opening close to the top where you can slip the iPad in, but then you have to pull the top part over the edge of the iPad which can become quite difficult. Here is a picture of the opening:
Put the iPad in where the slit is and then pull the top part over the edge.
The Neoprene is like a shock-absorbing gel, and I’m confident dropping it onto the ground from abut 6 inches. Past that, it’s not recommended. And just incase (pun intended) you drop it on it’s most vulnerable area (the sides), it has that extra protection.
I must say that this case covers the whole thing up. I still can’t figure out whether to put it in with the screen towards the front or back. Hmm…
Also, this sleeve is TSA airport security safe. HOWEVER, the iPad is not required to be removed from your bag at security because of it’s thin profile. I guess it is now posed as more of a traveler, now isn’t it?
When you are traveling, this is definitely what you might want to put your precious iPad in. Luckily, the back is NOT Chrome, it’s Aluminum so it’s much less vulnerable to scratches and fingerprints. Only problem is trying to get the thing into the case, but try to do it gently and you’ll be fine.
The Incase Neoprene Slip Sleeve Plus is sold for $39.95, and is available at your local Apple Retail Store. Click HERE to visit the Homepage. It is available in Silver and Black (I got black to match my laptop sleeve).
Well, I’ve had the iPad for a little while, and my first aspect for a review is HD video.
To test the HD video, I downloaded Star Trek from iTunes. Sadly, it was quite the whopping twenty bucks, but I suffered and bought it anyway.
The movie interface is great. The cover interface is quite pleasing. ADHD just like they said in the video, the movie saves your spot and starts playing instantly. Also, the LED backlit display is amazing. The colors are incredibly vibrant, and the IPS technology really makes a difference. For those who don’t know, IPS is a technology in a screen that allows the contrast to stay consistent through a 170 degrees viewing angle.
However: Star Trek from the iTunes store is formatted extremely wide screen (picture two at the bottom of the post), in fact almost panoramic. Also, many shots the main subject is off to one side. So you have to view the movie as a little strip across your screen or you have to miss a part of the action (or at least the parts on the edges of the movie, picture three at the bottom of the post). So, you always have to miss out on a part of it. I don’t know if it is the same story for other movies in the iTunes store, but this is the one I tested with.
Overall, this is an amazing movie watching experience. Attach bluetooth headphones or just lug em in, and you can watch about 7 hours of video (estimated that I’ve gotten ten hours doing general music listening, email, web surfing, etc.). The IPS makes it great to show the movie to the people crowding around you (after all, you ARE holding an iPad…). So if you have one of these, go get some moooovies!
