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…

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!

Apple’s new legalize in their latest SDK seems to not only kill Flash, but hint at the possible removal of many frameworks like Unity3d. I can’t say for sure how true that is, but that would be a huge blow to developers. It seems Apple wants you to do it all the hard way. Using only XCode and Objective-C. I guess some folks think that this will result in better quality programs, because it’s written in their native language. Being a programmer myself that is the most stupidest excuse I’ve ever heard. There’s plenty of CRAP apps in their App Store written entirely without frameworks in Objective-C. So, the excuse of better because it’s in their native tongue holds little weight in my opinion. It’s disappointing to think that I could have jumped onto Flash Actionscript and built an app or game for the iPhone, doing so would have been so much faster for me. Especially considering that I’m not very well versed in OpenGL-ES, nor do I really want to be. I don’t dream about writing 3d game engines, and having seen the amount of Objective-C code that’s required to put a 2D box on the screen at the Big Nerd Ranch was enough to make me run for the door. I want to be able to make what I envision into a reality without having to outsource my development or hire highly skilled specialized programmers. The other point raised by folks is that Apple doesn’t want you to cross-platform develop, which I can see too, but it’s not very fair to force developers to choose like that. Yes, there are lots of iPhones and iPads, but to say you can only choose one isn’t right. It’s like asking a child you can only choose your mom or your dad.

In the end, so far Apple has managed to make enemies of Google and Adobe, and alienated some developers. It saddens me to see this happen, because I see so much potential in the platform, when you consider what things people have done with jail broken iPhones, it’s a missed opportunity. I’ve been witnessing for some time a change in how Apple’s attitude. They’ve become quite the opposite of it’s roots, when they were gunning for the corporate giants like Microsoft and IBM. Now that they themselves have become this bloated beast of a corporation, much like their old enemies, they don’t need to embrace customers or developers. “Just suck it up or go elsewhere”, seems to be their stance, and I guess there’s enough people out there keeping Apple afloat that they can maintain that stance. It’s times like this that reinforces why I would like to love Apple, but I can’t because they keep pulling stupid shit like this.

There are better articles written on Ars Technica, TheFlashBlog, and TUAW.

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.

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.

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.