iClever travel keyboard

I am testing a new pocket keyboard which is highly interesting, read here.

Tablets need a grip!

For realsies: tablets need to get a grip.
Apple has a way too big fetish about thinness, and the iPad's shape then was taken up by others. It’s very pretty, but it is counter-productive. Who couldn’t find space in a bag for a tablet which has a, say, half-inch grip on one side, on the back?

The handle could hold the battery for example, making the rest of the tablet lighter, so it would be way more comfortable to hold, because half the weight is in your hand. (The Kindle Oasis has a bit of it, and users love it.)

And it would make tablets much more usable. I’ve been working with ways to make different kinds of grips, because tablets are simply really hard to hold comfortably, they are thin and slick and have thin bezels, and there is nothing to hold onto. You have to cramp your fingers so much that you get tired after a few minutes, basically hand-holding is not practical for many things like reading or surfing in bed or on trains, planes, and automobiles.

Me with my grip I made from Sugru. Obviously
a built-in grip could be larger with no harm

Tablets are pushy...

I just noticed something. I was sitting in my relaxy-chair (not a TM) and reading on my iPad, which was on a big floor stand right in front of me. Maybe because of a good lunch, I started feeling good in an interesting way and I closed my eyes, wanting to meditate on it a little. And I noticed that even with my eyes closed, I could *feel* the tablet right in front of me, and I pushed it away.

And I think this may be a main reason why many people prefer paper-books or non-lit ereaders over tablets or phones: because a lit screen is “pushy”, it walks into your space whether you want it or not.

It’s probably a big part of why I love tablets (and big phones) so much. They do a lot of the attention work for you, they walk towards you as it were. But, it’s the same as with quite outgoing persons; it’s often a good and pleasant thing, but in certain moods you may not welcome people or devices who walk into your space.

New Kindle features

Amazon has released a new Kindle model, the “All New Oasis”. It has a bigger screen, 7 inches, it is water-resistant (splash resistant), and it will play audible audiobooks over bluetooth speakers or earphones.

More importantly to myself, Amazon readers and apps finally feature a bold-level setting for the text, and something I’ve written about here and to Amazon more than once: finer gradations for text size. Finally. The jumps between text sizes were just way too crude.

Nostalgia

One of the early posts I made on eReaderJoy.com was actually a book shelf with only a couple different ereaders on it. And if there is an argument here, I'm sorta on both sides of it. Books are much better to hold and have, but ebooks are much better to read and carry.

Renting movies and why not ebooks?

A post I just wrote about movie and ebook rentals.

Open letter to Apple

Do me a favor: send this to Apple.

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Please, make it so we can change the font size in Safari on iPad! 
It's been six years now...

Also, make it so we can see the *whole* of an image used as wallpaper on iPad, without croppping, even if it does not happen to have the exact proportions of the screen. 
(A bit of grey background showing at the sides never hurt anybody, but a portrait being cropped so half the face is missing...)
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Big iPad Pro

Please, Apple, do continue to make new models/varations of the the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Please. It is an essential model in many ways.

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(The same goes by the way for the "tower" (screen-less) Mac (currently cylindrical). The professional community needs them, and Apple needs the professional communituy.)