Cheap tablets

I find it interesting and very promising that some can already sell a seven-inch (Android) tablet for only $150!

Of course it's not as good as an iPad! But if they can sell a poor one for $150 now, they can sell a better one next year, and a really good one in two years. Just look at cameras. You can buy a really good digicam now for $200. Or if you have an iPod 4, you already have a really good one.

Tip for podcasts, and the confusing iTunes

Except for those pod- or videocasts which you plan to enjoy on the go, meaning outside of hotspots, it is often just as easy to listen or watch "live" in iTunes on your iPad or iPhone, rather than first download, and then remembering to sync when there are new ones. You save both time and disk space.

I don't think a regular iPod can do this, though, they have to go through iTunes, the app, not the store.

And talking about that, man, Apple has really painted themselves into a corner. What is iTunes? Well, it's a web site. No, it's not, it is a music playing app for Mac and PC. No, it's not, it's an online store, unconnected to the web. It sells music. It also sells video/TV/Movies. No no, it's a distribution system for free university lectures. No, wait, it's a book store. But only for audio books, for ebooks you have to use the iBooks store. But wait, the iBooks store is clearly also the iTunes store, you use the same login and the same system!

And the "iTunes" app on iPad has a completely different function from the "iTunes" app on Mac/PC. The function which iTunes has on the desktop (playing music) is called the "iPod" app on an iPad! On the iPad, iTunes is an online store.

And if that's not confusing enough, iPad also has a "Videos" app which, well, plays videos. But why did they not just combine this with the iTunes (or iPod?) app like on the other devices? There are also videos on the iPod app. So which videos turn up in the iPod app and which in the Video app? I don't know. Some even turn up on both!

And by the way, why can't we delete the Apple apps which we never use, like the useless "Notes"? (Only one font, and it's illegible.) They just sit there and fill up space and make it harder to find the apps you do use.

Geeeeeez.  Apple is like a beatiful, beloved girlfriend, whom you wouldn't be without, but who you sometimes just want to bend over a chair and give the quarter-inch rattan switch.

I made a wallpaper

I made a fun wallpaper.

Ihnatko's iPad-only trip

Unfrozen Caveman Restauranteur, article.

"This is a bit of a historic trip: it’s the first one in which I’m using the iPad as my sole computer. It’s working out swimmingly, just as I thought it would. I even had a new iPad doubleplus love moment."

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GoodReader

If you have trouble on the iPad reading PDFs because of too long or too short text lines, I recommend GoodReader, which now can reflow the text to fill the screen, and lets you set exactly the font, size, and color you prefer. Excellent.

(I've recommended to the developers, though, that while no margins might be a good idea on the iPhone because of the small screen, on the iPad it's not, there should be margins to aid readability. I hope they take my advice.)

Bags/sleeves (updated)

Highly promising line of bags/sleeves for Kindle and iPad (and other things).
15 October, I have just updated that post. 

Tips & Tricks iPad Secrets by Jon Bonnick et al

Tips & Tricks iPad Secrets by Jon Bonnick et al, e-book or app.

I recommend it. The chapter on the iPad keyboard alone has taught me a host of things I had no idea the iPad keyboard could do. And it's simple to read for us with modern short attention spans: one simple tip per page.

(By the way, why can't we buy Apple-published ebooks in iTunes? All the other content for iPad can be bought there, but iBooks ebooks only on the iPad itself. Worse yet, iBooks is clearly already part of iTunes Store, since you buy with that account, so there seems to be no reason you couldn't buy via your desktop computer too. And like this, there is no way you can link to a book, which is silly.)

Interestingly, the ebook version of this collection of tips costs only two dollars, unusually cheap for an ebook, while the iPad app version of it with the same content is even cheaper at only one dollar! Like I said before, perhaps Apple or somebody has gone too far in suppressing the prices of iOS apps. Normally I complain that ebooks are too expensive at $15, but this may be going too far in the other direction.  I think that if a book (by definition more than a pamphlet) has any value, then surely it must be more than a dollar. I'd say five bucks for a smaller book, ten for a normal book might be reasonable. For books of extraordinary size or value, maybe fifteen for a volume.

By the way, for the authors of this book I would comment that the title is too generic. There are so many, many books with names including the words tips, tricks, and secrets, that it makes it harder to spot this book in the forrest either when searching or browsing. Also, while the ebook version is really nicely layouted ("laid out"?), in the iPad app version it looks like it has been blown up from an iPhone app, so the text is unattractively large.

Jane Goodall and iPad

Jane Goodall, chimpanzee scientist, enjoying her iPad on the train. Photo by Michael Aisner.

BTW, I have just read that the speed of acceptance of the iPad into society is the highest ever for any electronic device! Don't want to brag, but I saw it coming. It's why I ordered mine minutes after it was released, I was certain they would have trouble keeping up with demand for a few months.

More wallpapers

iPad forums has some good wallpapers too.

(Notice how these two are good examples of art with a low tone-range, which will not clash with the icons on the iPad.)

E-paper's future?

I wonder if there will ever be, within, say ten years, a non-backlit display technology in broad use which will have contrast and colors comparable to print on paper, or even close? It seems hard to imagine when you look at a Kindle now, but then an iPhone was hard to imagine in 1995.

I don't know why e-paper is so damn grey. You would think that the hard part was making millions of miniscule plastic balls spin to position exactly like you want them, not to make them white!       :-)

Paper magazines on screen

As the post developed on my other blog, I started realizing it might better have fitted on this blog. Well, no big deal, you can just take a single skip to go there and enjoy my experience with digital subscriptions to paper magazines.

Cheat sheet: I think we have a very good start in many areas already, and not even a year has passed since the first popular tablet hit shelves. Hot diggity.

Hard to find iPad wallpapers

It's not so easy as you might think to find good iPad wallpapers. Because most of them are just too colorful or complicated. They don't consider that they will have to support the icons too.
Here are a few good ones.
Tell me if you know others.

I like abstract things and simple things. Even some photos can be abstract. The picture above is actually a photo! Of a graffiti.

The iPad never sleeps (really)

From emperical evidence, I have established that the "sleep button" on the iPad does not actually put the device to sleep, but merely turns off the screen. Possibly this is also true for other iOS devices.

Item one: if an iPad is paired with a bluetooth keyboard, another iPad/iPhone can't use that keyboard, even if the first iPad is "asleep"!

Item two: if an app, say just a clock app, is running when you hit the "sleep button", the battery drains much faster than if no app had been running.

Item three: an app which had been running when you put the iPad "to sleep"  does not boot up when you press the "sleep button" again, it merely is still running, and since we don't yet have iOS 4.2 with multitasking for iPad, this can only mean it's been running the whole time.

Item four: the iPod app keeps playing on the iPad after the device "goes to sleep". 

See illustration, they call it "sleep", not "screen off".

I think this is very odd, and I don't know why Apple has chosen to do it this way and to call the button something it is not. But it's good to know it, so you'll know to save battery power by leaving nothing running when turning off the screen. And if it's critical, perhaps turn off the device altogether (hold down the sleep button). It might have security repercussions as well.

The end of ePaper-based eReaders?

The end of ePaper-based eReaders?, post.

I'm sure e-paper will hang on for a while, but I'm also sure that they have to get highly innovative with that technology re contrast and reaction time (and color), for it not to become a tiny niche in the reader/tablet market. Otherwise it will mainly be used by the over-fifties who have no use for this new-fangled fast-moving world of web text, but just like to read books with no pictures.

An iPad stand? Yes Sir.

This iPad stand, the edgily monikered "Block22", is garnering a lot of roses. And sure, it is pretty. 

I think it can be better, though, and I'll try to prove it.

Update:
I'm also planning to have a custom leather sleeve for the iPad made, and one for the Apple Wireless Keyboard.