Not sure if I should view this as a good sign or just sheer bad luck. It looks like my iPhone4 preorder isn’t going to get filled until December! Apple’s delayed the White iPhone until at least then… Ouch… Sadly, Best Buy has yet to call me on a black equivalent to my white pre-order… What a hassle.. Maybe I should just cancel and wait until Apple sorts this antennagate nonsense out.
Well week one of Apple’s new iPhone 4 has gone by and I still don’t have mine. So much for pre-ordering eh? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, and I’m probably better off waiting, consider all the horrors I’ve read about on Gizmodo, Engadget and other internet sources. Still, it’s disappointing. Mine is also a white pre-order, which has been delayed due to manufacturing issues. Last I read, the issues was suspected yellowing, which I can see happening… I’m considering going black, if they ever come in. Best Buy hasn’t been that lucky (or good) at handling their pre-orders… Considering I was probably one of the early ones. On the plus side, the upgrades to iOS4 for my wife and I went smoothly and we’re enjoying the new features. It’s not quite perfect, but the folders and the task switching is a welcome addition… Funny thing is, they iOS4 isn’t available for my iPad yet, and that device NEEDS task switching. Now, i just need to sit down and get going on development for this platform.
Wow, it’s been a while since I wrote anything… I’ll spare the lame excuses and just give a recap on what’s been on my mind over the last 30+ days.
First of all, it’s hard to believe that it’s been almost a year since I picked up my iPhone 3GS, and now the iPhone 4G is about to be unleashed upon us… Sadly, I’ve now succumb to Apple fandom… I confess, I went out today and pre-ordered a 4G. Yes, Yes, I know I’ve developed squat for the iPhone or iPad, but part of me wants to be sure if I do develop anything that I’m on top of what’s new. Probably stupid, but no more stupid than buying an unlocked Xperia X1 on day 1 for $800… So, let’s see if Best Buy gets my order right next week. Now it’s off to find accessories 
Hard to believe Apple’s WWDC conference has already come and gone. I wish I could have gone, but alas, timing wasn’t good. I do know two people that did go. I’ll need to pick their brain to see what they thought.
I found out recently that in May, Frank Frazetta died… I know that’s got nothing to do with technology, but being slightly artistic, and growing up a gaming nerd, it’s hard not to have been influenced by him. If you’ve ever played Dungeons and Dragons or looked at any fantasy artwork, you would have come across his art. Frank Frazetta now joins the ranks of my list of childhood influential people that have passed on… Farewell Mr. Frazetta…
I just wanted to jot down some quick thoughts on the iPad tonight before going to bed.
Today, I attempted to use it in some of my meetings today, so off I went to my meeting, iPad in hand. I was determined to use it like how I used to use my Compaq 2710p Tablet PC. My replacements for my Penable stylus and Microsoft One-Note was my Pogo and PenUltimate.
The result? sadly disappointing. I won’t sugar coat, the Pogo just doesn’t hack it in comparison to my nice Penable pen. Now, I won’t say that the Compaq 2710p is perfect, on the contrary, the tracking sometimes is a bit off on the corners, but overall, my 2710p and One-Note was a killer combo. PenUltimate is a nice tool, but I feel like I’m back in kindergarten finger painting large scrawling notes because my Pogo won’t track that well (maybe because of my Zagg), and at times I need to resort to my fat finger, and I’m just wasn’t happy with the results…
The Pogo, because of the soft tip, had to be mushed onto the screen almost to the metal body for it to start tracking, and because of the tackiness of my Zagg screen protector the Pogo just dragged along the surface, so it felt like painting on fly paper. The other issue was my writing/drawing style, I can’t speak for everyone, but when I learned how to write in school my hand was on the page while holding my pen. Well, I can’t do that with the iPad, as soon as my hand rested on the touch surface, a touch was registered, resulting in scribbles where my hand started to rest. So, I had to use the Pogo like a Chinese calligraphy brush, hovering over the screen. The result was an even more unreadable mess. Ditching my Pogo was a little better, at least the tracking was better, but I just can’t write with my finger. Alas, I gave up on Penultimate and went to Pages, since Penultimate doesn’t accept typing. Once in Pages, I flipped the iPad into Landscape mode, locked the rotation and sat it on the desk flat to type meeting notes; a much better experience. It did take a little getting used to the slightly different arrangement of keys on the iPad keyboard, but I was able to type pretty quickly.
So my experience with my iPad in meetings didn’t go as nicely as I wanted. Doodling in boredom in Sketchbook Pro and taking notes in PenUltimate with my Pogo just didn’t work as nicely as the same combination found in my Penable TabletPC’s. The iPad’s form factor and battery life is so incredible, but it REALLY needs a stylus, even if it’s an optional accessory… Not having one just seems like such a travesty!
I lost count of the days I’ve had the iPad (actually I’m too lazy to recount them). In my few days with the iPad, I’ve bought more apps than I ever did for my iPhone. Why you may ask? It’s because I’ve always suspected that the new form factor would open quite a number of opportunities for developers and I wasn’t wrong. I guess for some it may be a “no-duh” comment, but honestly though, without the developers the iPhone wouldn’t have been what it became, and it’s the same with the iPad. On its own, it’s a fine device, but I wouldn’t say the first party offerings are stellar. It’s all the apps that made the first platform, and are now helping the iPad. Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t an enormous amount of shovel-ware on the iPad app store, but there are some shining stars, many are rebuilds that take advantage of the larger screen, and many to good effect. I purchased one today, and that’s Plants vs Zombies. Now, I’m not a stranger to this game, it’s the first Pop-Cap game I bought through Steam when it first appeared on my PC. My 6 year old and I played it extensively, and to say we enjoyed it is an understatement. I didn’t rush out to get this on day one, partly because I went through a cheap phase ($10! Grrr), but I caved today. My son was interested in it, and I decided, why not. The game looks fabulous on the iPad, and the screen size and touch mechanic fit the game perfectly. I’d say it plays better on the iPad then the PC. Now, I’ve not played too much, but I did notice some minor slow downs during some ending animations, but otherwise it plays nicely. For $10, it’s pretty good, and one of the better purchases I’ve made on the iPad so far.
Well, I guess it’s official, Apple has denied Adobe’s ability to do anything relating to Flash on the iPhone. Not even the ability to use Flash to create content for the iPhone or iPad. Reports all over the major tech blogs are reporting this, and the response has been interesting. Some praise it, others abhor it. My stance on it is more on the negative side. I can see legitimate reasons for not allowing Flash on their platform, and much of it is related to money. For Apple’s part, I guess it’s in their right to deny it, but I don’t think it’s in the best interest of their customers, although usually Apple doesn’t care about its customers (if you think otherwise, please enlighten me). Apple doesn’t want you to be able to hop over to places like Hulu and watch last week’s episode of Lost, or Heros, and especially not for free. Nope, they want you to pop on over to iTunes and buy it for $.99 (or whatever they charge for tv episodes). I think that’s the biggest driving facter. That, and there is control over their platform. Adobe hasn’t done itself any favors either with how bloated Flash has become, and how Flash is absurdly and annoyingly used all over the web. Don’t get me wrong, Flash in the right hands can be a potent tool, but there are far more bad uses for Flash, then there are good. (more…)
Well, it’s been a few days now that I’ve had the iPad. I’ve played a few games on it, and started to read some of my PDF’s I put onto GoodReader. Overall, I’m liking the form factor, for reading while sitting in my recliner, it’s a pretty good experience, and beats flipping pages on some of those large books.
A few days ago, I ordered a Pogo Stylus which arrived in the mail today. I know there are plenty of no-name brand styluses out there, but I figured I’d go with the name brand first before jumping onto a generic. The question you must be asking is why buy a stylus? The iPad doesn’t need one! But I miss my stylus! I’ve been using tablet pc’s for such a long time, and not having a stylus for some tasks just doesn’t feel right. For example, if I boot up Sketchbook, or Adobe Ideas, I have a hard time using my finger to draw… It just feels like I’m in kindergarten finger painting with my stubby index finger. It’s times like this I miss the pressure sensitive pens on my Wacom penable tablets (even though they are not without fault). So to quell my desire for a stylus, I bought a Pogo. So, how is it?
Just a quick note today, since it’s getting late, and I’m in need of sleep.
My wife stopped into Best Buy today to pick up a neoprene case for my iPad, and she was surprised to find out that some of the accessories showed up today, among them was the Apple iPad Case and the Zagg Screen Protector. She was thoughtful enough to pick them up for me along with an Incase netbook sleeve.
To sum things up quick, the Apple case, for those that don’t know, is a folio style case, which means the iPad sits on one side and the other side is a flap, making the iPad like a book. Although expensive, it fits snuggly and quite accurately. It also looks good with the device and has the nice touch of flipping around into a stand. The Zagg Screen Protector is expensive and a pain to put on. This is my first Zagg, and watching people put on the iPhone one never looked fun. Well, just magnify that up to the iPad size, and you can imagine the fun it was putting it on. I got it on eventually, but it looks a bit scuffed up; the instructions say that these minors scuffs are supposed to go away in a few days, so, we’ll see how it looks then. The last iPad related thing I did tonight was look around the App Store. Looking at the top sellers. I saw that many people bought GoodReader, which for $.99, I tried out. It’s another file reader, but supports a few more formats, and has the option to communicate with a remote server via wifi, which is more attractive than myPDF. Putting it to the test, GoodReader did NOT crash on Girls of Gaming 6. The UI is a bit better too, since you can see a list of filenames of the files you are able to view, unlike myPDF, which only shows you a preview image. I’ve not had the time to try out the wifi function yet, so I’ll write back later when I’ve tried it.
Lastly, I noticed PopCap games ported Plants vs Zombies to iPad, which is a very good fit. But I’m hesitant to dish out $10 for it.
Day 2 ends with my misadventures with eBooks, in particular, ePub files. I know ebooks have been around for a while, but I’ve not given them much consideration, since I usually grab PDF’s and look at them on my computer. But obviously, since I have an iPad now, I wanted to check out reading ePub ebooks with the iBook reader. Problem is, how to convert my PDF’s to ePubs? Well, I found a lovely program called Calibre, which is quite handy for managing ebooks, and it even has a tool to convert various formats to ePub. The tool itself is free, and works quite well. So, I converted a couple of books to ePub. Sadly, it looks like ePub doesn’t handle the images and complex formatting too well (at least from a default conversion perspective), so some of my books ended up looking odd in the Calibre viewer. The next challenge I faced was getting the darn file to the iPad. I initially setup my iPad to be manually managed, so obviously, I tried to drag and drop the ePub file to my iPad in iTunes from the Finder. Well, as it turns out iTunes doesn’t like this. It starts to copy, gets about 95% to the end and BOOM, iTunes crashes. At first I thought it was the ePub file, but it turns out after some goofing around and trolling on the Calibre forums I stumbled upon the idea of Sync’ing my ebooks. So, dragging and dropping the ePub file to my library worked fine, and then sync’ing my books got my book onto the iPad… Yay!
So important safety tip of the day… Don’t attempt manual placement of ePubs directly to your iPad through iTunes. Instead, sync up your books.
Not too much going on today. I converted a few more of my videos to mp4 format using Handbrake, threw some more PDF’s onto the iPad and made my own dock by hooking up my old Bluetooth Stowaway Foldable Keyboard and a book stand I got a while ago from Office Depot. Check it out.
