Umbra on Procreate

Our friend, Italian artist Umbra, has tried out iPad app Procreate (see last post).
He says: "...done with no reference using a nomadbrush in about 45 minutes. I could get the hang of it but i do not see myself doing anything bigger than a portrait ... Not enough screen space or resolution for that."
(He's using an iPad 2. iPad three would have double the resolution* of images, but of course not a bigger screen.)

*I am told "double" is correct, even though area-wise it is 4x. Linearly it is double. 

ProCreate and Paper, art apps

Thanks to Yvonne for pointing me to a very interesting iPad painting app, ProCreate.
Here, for instance, is a tutorial explaining how its brushes work, they have some inventions in that field, which apparently has not really changed in 20 years otherwise.

I research drawing- and painting-apps occasionally, because over many years I have still not really found any app which is both user-friendly and gives me exciting possibilities as an artist.

I found one which is exciting at first look, "Paper". I made this flower with it:

I am quite happy with the drawing. But caveat emptor: Paper is a "free app", but in order to use color and such, you have to buy extra packages. I never feel really right about that kind of deal. Also, and worse, the app is really, really limited: 1) you can't zoom into the picture! (unforgivable), 2) you're limited to a small number of colors (10 or so). Admittedly they are well chosen, but still, it just won't wash for a serious artist. 3) you can't change the basic size of the brush or pen strokes! (Also just... unbelievable.)

The good points though is the nice wash effects you can get, and the brush which changes thickness according to speed. I'd like an app like Paper, but without the stupid limitations.
Admittedly I think it's more of a "note" app than an art app. Okay, let's see an art app then.

DiFeltro

I joined their Kickstarter project (with those it usually takes 3-4 months to get the product), so it took a while, but I got my DiFeltro products today, iPad bag, iPhone pouch, and belt. I got them all in charcoal, it seemed the most manly one, the others are just a leeettle iffy, gender-signal-wise.     :-)

So far they seem just lovely, really nice quality, and very classy and understated design, and different from anything else I've seen. The felt makes it different, it's strong and weather-protected felt of course.

I couldn't find a big photo on their site, so I photographed my own items:

(Clickable)

I included my iPad in a case to show the sizes.
Notice the end of the belt is leather.

Wireless audio

Man, I wish I'd realized looong ago that I could do this. (Not sure why I didn't, sometimes I'm just slow I guess.) I just got an Apple Airport Express, installed it as an extension of my existing wireless network, and plugged in my great speakers* on my bed stand to it. Now I get excellent sound while playing music or video on my iPad, without any wire hanging like a telephone wire through my room. (It works via Apple "Airplay", which can also play iPad video on a TV connected to an Apple TV.)

I'd earlier bought a fancy Danish speaker with wireless sound. But it required a special adapter in the iPad, it often conflicted with my wireless network, and though much costlier it only sounded almost as good as my existing speakers:

* Harman Kardon Soundsticks. I have them both on my work desk and my bed stand. They sound like something costing at least five times as much, and they look great. (I have Soundsticks II, I'm not sure what's changed in gen 3.)

SoundJaw

[Thanks to David C]

I've only ordered it, not tried it yet, but the SoundJaw is cheap and compact, so if it also helps with the sound, it should be a good thing.

UPDATE:
I got mine today. It is true that there's a slight compression of the sound, but more importantly it does what it says on the tin, it redirects the sound to where you want it, and gives a net gain. Simple and useful.

It works with iPad 2 and 3. I should note that my impression is that the speaker on the 3 has a bit more oomph, but still there can easily be situations where you want more sound, or you want it more directed to yourself and less to to the people at the next table.

Reviews on YouTube says that it does work, though some say that the sound is more compressed in quality, less full and round.

I wonder why tablets and phone never have speakers actually pointing forwards. Is it just from the Jobsian fetish that the glass must cover the whole front?

Thermoneuclear on Android

Jobs angry about Android, article.
"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs told his biographer. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

I have a feeling Jobs was the kind of person who many things (all things?) personally, very personally.
The kind of temperament which can be very hard on one's health, by the way.

Front-lit Kindle screen?

[Thanks to Len]

We might get an e-ink screen which is somehow lit not from the back, but from the sides. It's not really clear to me how this works, but it sound's interesting, if it makes the grey Kindle screen easier to see without having the glare that LCD screens have.

Spec Obsession Disorder

Spec Obsession Disorder: The Incurable Techie Malady, NYT article.

I had a similar rant recently, but of course David Pogue puts it across with much more eloquence, that's why he gets the big bucks.

One more screen comparison

I noticed that compared to the iPad 3, the screen on the iPad two has an odd, micro-grainy, shimmering effect on flat backgrounds, surely due to the pixels being (just) visible. The screen on the iPad three, when compared, is just flat and sharp and dead-calm, like a high-quality book print. (And I mean really high quality, much better than a cheap paperback.)
I think this visual "uneasiness" of the iPad 2 screen was one of the reasons I was so much looking forward to a big Retina display.

Well, it turned out that I can't capture it on camera. But at least here is one more close-up text comparison.
iPad 2:

iPad 3:

(Both clickable. The resolution difference really becomes clear then.)

Consumer Reports: Now We Love the iPad

Consumer Reports: Now We Love the iPad, article.
“The high-resolution screen of the new iPad establishes a new benchmark in excellence, providing the best rendering of detail and color accuracy we’ve ever seen on a tablet display,” 

I agree. And like Len Edgerly said to me, like others have said and I have thought myself: very quickly the Retina Display started to seem no so much like an "outstanding feature" but more like: this is simply the way a display should be. It just seems so natural that everything is pin sharp and nary a fuzzy letter or a pixel is to be seen anywhere.

Frankensteinian book-holder

I once referred to my otherwise beloved book- and iPad-holder as "Frankensteinian". And I have to admit that part of that is this:

I have *two* wraps like that on the flexible arm. Why? Because the design of it is so... mmm... not "bad", but... "shortsighed" or perhaps "unpolished"... that when you bend the arm two sharp edges come together in a corner, and if your finger happens to be there, it can be very painful indeed.
(The cords don't hold anything together, they are just for the iPad, and wrapped around so they don't flop around so much.)

So what I'm saying is, I'm looking forward to my Flote getting here. If it works as well as it looks, it'll be very nice.

I'm surprised it took two years for anybody to make something like this, a floor stand for tablets. It's such an obvious niche needing filling. I guess it's just because it is a difficult thing to make really right, less so than cases and bags, of which we seem to have nigh-unlimited options to choose from. I hope the Flote will be a hit. Sitting or half-lying on the most comfortable seat/bed in your home, reading or watching video on your tablet, with coffee in one hand and carrot-cake in the other, is heavenly.

Envy

Gawd, I really wish the iPad Dictation worked as well for this poor Dane as it does for this guy. I could really use it, and it seems a cruel twist of fate that an accent so slight that it hardly ever bothers humans, is a fatal stumbling block for this dumb software!

Up-rez your web content??

There's a lot of talk recently that the high resolution of the iPad 3 has suddenly made all older pictures and videos obsolete and terrible-looking. It's simply not true. I'm a webmaster, and not only that, my business is selling web pictures! And I have looked at my site on the iPad 3, and it still looks just as good as it always did.
Sure, there *is* a noticeable difference in some aspects, but it's not a difference which leaps out and slaps you in the face. And to me that difference is much more important with text than with images, and with text, the upgrade is automatic, since most text on the web is not bitmapped, but scalable.
(Besides, I don't think there are protocols in place which will prevent images from being way too large for ordinary screens, if we quadruple the area-measurements of them just for the sake of the iPad 3.)

Post-PC, we need bigger tablets

There does not seem to be much call for larger tablets. Sure, they will be less portable and holdable, but many people already use the iPad on a stand in just one place. And I think they are needed for graphically rich books of all kinds.

Furthermore, it occurs to me that if tablet are seriously going to replace most of the laptops for production uses, then... well, we need a bigger one. A ten-inch touch-screen is of course better to work on than a seven-inch one, but let's get real, for serious work you need something bigger. In fact, if some production uses become *actually* better to do on a tablet than on a mouse/keyboard device, then the biggest desirable size becomes anybody's guess. A 30-inch screen may be a bit hard to swing your hand around on, but probably a 21-inch one wouldn't be too much for, say, video editing.

Omniverse iPad case

I'm amazed that this quality iPad case is only $40.
Shop.

I prolly won't get one for myself, though. Because when I want to bring my iPad, I probably also want to bring a small umbrella (this is UK after all), a compact camera, a such small practical items. And I put my iPad in my aCase (even more amazingly cheap) which also functions as a stand.