A keyboard on the iPad screen

Thanks to Tonya Engst's excellent book Take Control Of Your iPad, I found out about the TouchFire keyboard. It sounds almost too good to be true. If that thin screen overlay can really let you touch-type, that's too kool for skool. (I don't see any reviews on YouTube, so I think it hasn't quite reached the first customers yet. But they have links to a few preview reviews.) (No, it's not shipping yet, updates here.)



From the C/Net review: "Isaac let me try a prototype, and I enjoyed the experience.

Not surprisingly, it doesn't replicate the full experience of a real keyboard with plastic keytops and nice, clacky mechanical switches. But it's in the same league as more cumbersome external iPad keyboards that use rubberized keys, and eliminates the experience of your fingertips thudding against a piece of hard glass."

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Off-topic comment on the second video: I wish they'd found a less distracting background. Or that they'd used a large-sensor camera (like a Lumix GH2) with a fast lens, and blurred the background. I think that would have looked nice.

The case for paper

I don't want to be seen as one-sided, even though I am, so here's the case for paper.

"Send to Kindle" app

Amazon's Send To Kindle app is cool. It's for both PC and Mac. These are the main features from the Mac page:

• Send personal documents to your Kindle from your Mac.
• Drag and drop one or more documents on to the Send to Kindle icon in your Dock or launch the application and drag and drop one or more documents on to it.
• From any Mac application that can print, select the print menu and choose Send to Kindle.
• From Finder, simply control-click on one or more documents and choose Send to Kindle.
• Choose to archive documents in your Kindle library, where you can re-download them conveniently at any time.

That you can send from the Print command means that you get fully formatted PDF document for your Kindle app (best viewed on a color screen often), from any app with a Print command, it reads perfectly in the Kindle app, and it's like two clicks to send. So for example if somebody sends you a long Word document, and you'd like to read it on your iPad, on the sofa or the bus, it's five seconds' work to make that happen. 

Fortune 500 Companies Moving to iPad Hits 94%

Fortune 500 Companies Moving to iPad Hits 94%, post.

This is astounding. Not only could Apple never get a solid foothold in interprise with the Macintosh, but I would honestly have suspected that the story would repeat to some degree with tablets, because bureaucrats are still bureaucrats and geeks are still geeks, and the former still believe in uniformity and compatibility (no matter how weak), and the latter still believe in open platforms (no matter how divided), so one would think they would much rather have the multi-company platform Android than the walled garden of Apple's iPad. But no, it seems not!

Also, to be honest, so far as I know, the apps available for serious business use are still not a very strong offering on iPad. You know, networking, editing and collaborating on Office documents, etc. I'd love to hear if I'm wrong and I've missed something. (I don't mean to imply that Android is strong there, it's probably even weaker.)

How to Download EPUB, PDF, and Mobipocket to the Kindle Fire

How to Download EPUB, PDF, and Mobipocket to the Kindle Fire, article.
Getting Aldiko Book Reader onto your Kindle Fire takes some effort. In a protectionist move that puts even Apple to shame, Amazon prevents EPUB reading apps from being accessed from the Kindle Fire, even though the company allows EPUB reading apps to be in the Amazon Appstore for Android for other devices.

I couldn’t install Aldiko Reader on my KF from the Aldiko site (even the Install link did nothing). So in desperation I tried the Google Play store, and whaddayaknow, it worked! (For a moment it seemed like it hadn’t, but then I went down to Menu/downloads, and found the file and installed it.) Isn’t that something? Supposedly you can't use the Google Play store on the Kindle Fire. 

It’s *really* lame that Amazon is keeping ePub reading apps out of their store. I like their success and their stuff, but when the umpire isn’t looking, they really play dirty. 

And I don’t like when people/companies consider a monopoly as the only Win scenario. It’s actually akin to nazism, there must be no competing ideas. (Maybe that's a bit strong, excuse me, I have just watched Downfall.) 

New iPad Act - Stockholm with Charlie Caper and Erik Rosales

[Thanks to Tommy]

 

Zooey Deschanel iPhone 4S/Siri

Hmm, perhaps I should hire Zooey to speak to my Siri for me, so it understands.
And to dance with me.
Soup's on me.

What's a book?

I think the confusion will continue for a while: what is a book? Is it a bound block of paper pages? Or is it the collected ideas contained in the words on those pages?

Here is Rallo Tubbs from The Cleveland Show, taking an oath on "an Amazon Kindle with the Bible loaded on it"...

Even me, a non-Christian, part of me screams: "it's not the same! Heresy!", while another part screams: "it's exactly the same, dummy, the bible is the bible, whether inscribed on paper, on stone tablets, on papyrus, recited orally, or read on an electronic device".

(By the way, do they make non-Christians lay their hand on a bible in US courts?)

Why ebook DRM will die

Why ebook DRM will die, and why this will make no difference to Amazon and Apple, article.

In fact, DRM is probably the most ineffective way of combating piracy there is.
Instead, DRM exists primarily as a way to control how consumers access purchased content. A side effect of this is that DRM can be used to lock people into a particular platform or service.
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"Harmonious" art app

Harmonious is a wonderful drawing app, which I hope will get further development.
The cool thing is that the app helps to develop lines and fill out spaces.
Thanks to Umbra, he reminded me of the original web app Harmony, try it, it's fun.
And Harmious as a web app. (In both, just start drawing in the big white space.)

Here are two drawings Umbra made with it:

And one I made (a little aided in Photoshop):

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?