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!

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?

It came in an unassuming box, and it was see-through and the pen was red… Not sure if  I ordered that color, but I don’t mind, I guess it stands out amongst all the Apple minimalistic toned stuff I own.

Look it's squishy!

The first thing that you’ll notice about this stylus is it’s skinny when compared to a regular pen, but it’s thicker than a Nintendo DS stylus. The tip is a nub with a soft foamy like material, which squishes…

Something I’m not too fond of so far. This is quite different than a plastic nib that I’m used to in my Wacom’s. But I can’t expect that, since the iPad/iPhone precision is a finger, which is about 20 pixels round…

My first attempt using it was with Adobe Ideas. The response was ok, but as I drew around on my Zagg surface, I noticed the tip pull and bend away more than it probably should… I think it has something to do with the Zagg surface, because it is smooth, but has a bit of tack to it, unlike the plain unprotected glass of the iPad. It did respond better on my iPhone though, but the screen protector I have on the iPhone is a cheaper smooth type, and not a Zagg… I’m not planning on pulling the Zagg off to try it out, considering how much effort it was to put the thing on, so we’ll see how it survives long term use. It does make the use of the iPad and iPhone a little different, I found myself more accurate on the iPhone when typing, since the stylus point is a bit more accurate than my stubby index finger.

All in all, it looks nice and it works, and it’s probably the closest thing I’ll ever get to a real stylus on the iPhone/iPad. Is it worth the $20 price tag? Hmm, I would say no… But luckily you can buy it for almost half that at other retail locations. I’m going to see about ordering some of those generic ones and see how they stack up. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can get used to drawing with this stylus.

First off, iTunes doesn’t really distinguish between apps for the iPad and iPhone, so if you’re like me I have upwards of 300+ applications in iTunes. Partly because I’m lazy and haven’t widdled down my apps list. So, I definitely didn’t let iTunes automatically sync my apps. So, I had to manually plow through all my apps one at a time, since iTunes was nice enough to check every one of them, and unselect the ones I wanted… a UNCHECK ALL would have been nice to have here…

Once my selected apps were loaded, I tried a few out. I was disappointed to learn a few didn’t work. Most did though, and after an App Store update on a few of them, I noticed some that updated themselves to iPad versions!

Here’s a list of what I tried today:

1. Navigon
2. Metal Gear Solid
3. Shrek Kart
4. Kids vs Zombies
5. Spore Origins
6. Sketchbook Mobile
7. Tetris
8. Mocha VNC
9. Time Crisis
10. Pocket Informant

So how did things go? Well, Navigon started up fine, but once I pressed “Show Map” I was tossed back to the desktop. Metal Gear Solid was updated to a real iPad app, which was very nice! All the other apps on the list worked fine with the exception of Spore Origins, it did a quick dump to the desktop right after the startup screen… Mocha VNC, which is a remote desktop application, worked real nice; having the larger view made it easier to read things on my remote computers. Time Crisis was almost a bit unfair, because the screen was bigger, so my accuracy was actually better. I also discovered that the speakers on the iPad are pretty loud too.

My wife, later in the day, was able to go to a Hong Kong newspaper web site (http://www.mingpao.com) and was able to easily and comfortably read the Chinese web site with no difficulties. So she’s enjoying the larger screen size for web browsing.

My last test of the evening was to see if I can get the iPad to display my library of PDF’s, since this form factor SCREAMS to be able to do this. I heard about a file sharing option the iPad would have, but it turns out that this option must be purchased through an application which supports it. So you’ll need to dish out $10 for any of the iWork applications, but even then the file sharing is application specific. So there’s still no easy way without buying someone’s application to get files you want, but alas, Pages doesn’t support PDF’s, but after digging through the App Store I decided to try myPDF for $.99. Once Pages and myPDF were installed, iTunes gave me a spot in my Apps tab of my iPad labeled File Sharing. In this section I was able to choose the app I want to share files with and add files to its storage location, and in this case, myPDF worked very nicely! I was able to drop a bunch of my PDF’s in and I was able to read them on my iPad… Nice!

So to sum up day 1. Spore Origins, and Navigon didn’t work. Reading online newspapers in Chinese was impressive on the bigger screen and Reading PDF’s was successful with myPDF.

Unboxing and Initial Impressions

I won’t bore you all with how cool the box is, because well, it’s a box, and true to Apple, it’s minimalistic, and the iPad fit in almost completely edge to edge in the box. It’s interesting to note that the box is padded to make it taller, which I guess is to make it more store shelf friendly, otherwise it would be a pretty thin box.

Holding the device for the first time, I was treated to the usual Apple quality I’ve come accustomed to. The iPad is well made. The back is the same type of metal used in their laptops, so durability shouldn’t be and issue. When I first saw images of the iPad, I thought the bezel around the device looked ugly, and an unnecessary design option, but upon holding the device, it turns out it does have a purpose, which is to be a place to put your thumb, something that didn’t need considering for the iPhone due to it’s smaller size. In general, to no one’s surprise, it looks like a big iPod Touch, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Apps and Impressions on Using the iPad

Upon turning it on, I was surprised to see that the battery was fully charged, and was pretty much ready to use, well almost, you still need to hook it up to iTunes first, but after that, it was ready to go. I hooked it up to my wireless network with ease, and synced some of my apps to the phone. I hit Safari and surfed around to some sites and typed out a few messages. I am very impressed with the new form factor, the size of the iPad makes a very big difference in it’s usability. Compared to the cramped quarters of my iPhone, the iPad is a pleasure to use. Typing on the larger on screen keyboard feels more like typing on a real keyboard, I can actually use more than one finger to type! I always suspected that the new form factor would really make this device successful, and so far, it’s proving true, everything feels so much better to use!

I loaded a bunch of my iPhone apps on, just to see how they would work. Navigon, Metal Gear Solid, Time Crisis, Tetris, Facebook and a few others. My son put the iPad to the test with Kid’s vs Zombies, and it works quite well, although he complained about the screen shrinking back down to 1x size from the 2x size option. But I think that’s because he unknowingly hits the little button on the lower right that enlarges the iPhone app. Navigon threw me back to the desktop when I touched the Show Map button, so I guess the iPad doesn’t have a full fledge GPS in it (someone correct me if I’m wrong, I didn’t bother looking that spec up). Facebook worked like a charm, and Tetris played pretty nice.

Overall, the iPad is a pretty impressive device, but honestly, I can’t call it the magical and revolutionary device Apple’s marketing touts it is. Will this device fail? No, honestly, I can’t see that. Mainly because, even though Apple didn’t make me the tablet I wanted, they were smart in leveraging the large developer community fostered by the iPhone, because honestly, it was the developers that helped make the iPhone the monster it is today, and these same developers will do the same for the iPad.

Next thing for me to do now is update my SDK, and see if I can start making some apps for this new platform, and see what other things I can make this thing do.

Klipsch Image S4

Today, I had a real desire to pick up some new earbuds. Partially it was for my trip to Boston, but I didn’t want to settle for just any old earbuds. I have plenty at home, ranging from the ones that Apple gave me with my iPhone to others I’ve gathered over time that came with various media devices I bought, and even some I got from my trips to Hong Kong. I’ve always seemed to like the sound that came out of the Bose headphones, but I’ve never tried their earbuds, and they don’t offer demos of them (for obvious reasons — hygene). But I’ve been hesitant to plunk down $100 for a set of earbuds. I’ve read plenty of reviews for the Shure earbuds, and they all tout how incredible they are, but if I can’t get myself to shell out $100 for Bose, I sure as hell am not about to shell out $300 for Shure. One of the nicest sounding earbuds I did buy were some Philips ones, which ran $20 (yes I’m cheap), but sadly broke because they went cheap on the cable. So I Googled around for top rated earbuds, and CNet gave the Klipsch very high marks, and at $80! The price is still more than I ever paid for earbuds, but I wanted something that would make my music really pop. So, off I went searching the internet like a good frugal, money conscious, shopper and I noticed that no one sold these for any less than $80, so I just stopped into my local Best Buy and I happily picked them up tonight.

The first thing I noticed was how small the earbuds were, very unassuming, in a nice glossy black with silver finish. Once unboxed, I did notice what other reviewers on the web commented about, which is the cheap feel of the chord, but the cord is not the worst I’ve experienced, at least it’s not stiff. I’ve got a set of earbuds where the cord is stiff and manages to stay in awkward angles, curling in funny spots on your neck and head — no fun.

The default pads they had on were too small for my ears, so, opening the nice tin case that came with the earbuds I pulled out some slightly bigger pads, which allowed the earbuds to sit comfortably in my ear. It’s important to note here that these are not noise-cancelling earbuds, they are noise-isolating, big difference. The pads did a very nice job keeping out the exterior background noise around me, this’ll hopefully be nice on my plane ride tomorrow.

Now I had to hear what they sounded like, so I plugged them into my iPhone, got to my playlist, and played the “Roll Call” song from the Halo 3 soundtrack, it’s a nice tune that has plenty of drums, acoustics, and even vocal components… I was quite amazed! The music really did come to life! The bass really came through and the music was brought to an entirely new level for me. But I had to be sure if it just wasn’t a reaction to having spent $80 on earbuds, so I had to compare these to my other headsets and earbuds lying around my house.

First, I played the same song with my Audio Technic’s ATH-A500′s which are a nice sounding over the head headset, which is pretty well rated for it’s sound quality. For me, the S4 held up nicely and even surpassed these, mainly because the music was more in my head, due to the earbuds blasting the music directly into my eardrums.

Second, I tested them against some decent no-name earbuds I bought from Hong Kong. These no-name ones are pretty decent sounding, but I didn’t like the overall design; this is one with a stiff cheap feeling cord. The S4 blew them away, no contest.

Lastly, how did the S4′s compare to the earbuds Apple gave me? There was no contest. The Apple earbuds seemed so absolutely flat in comparison to the S4.

In summary, I’m quite impressed with these earbuds. Sound quality is unsurpassed in anything I’ve used so far, but then again, I’ve never tried a Shure, but I think this will suffice until someone wants to share their Shure’s with me.

From the quiz application we continued onto building an application that utilized Apple’s CoreLocation library to pull our GPS location and learn about delegates. It was quite interesting, the only thing I can equate delegation to is setting up an event listener, or an ajax call. Where, once the delegate is setup to run, it will go about doing it’s task and report back when it’s completed it’s task without the need to constantly poll or ask for a request completion. Lastly, we continued onto an introduction to CoreGraphics, where we learned about Views and made a simple application that used CoreGraphics to draw shapes on the screen, add text and establish a ScrollView, which allowed for panning and zooming of the window.

It was a large amount of content to cram into a day, but it was very exciting to see the pieces of our hard work over the past few days come together.

Our nature hike was a good one today, we went down to an old mill on the property, it was actually a much harder hike than yesterday, since the terrain was a little more rugged. But it was enjoyable, and got the blood flowing.

Mark left today, and it will be our next instructor Joe’s turn, and tomorrow we start building actual iPhone applications. All I can say is that having gone through the Objective-C course, I’m much better prepared to tackle iPhone development because now i can better understand the syntax of the language, and understand why things are written the way they are.

Tomorrow will be more hardcore Object Oriented programming in Objective-C. I know most of the concepts of OOP, but application in Objective-C is different than know about OOP.