New app

A friend has released a new free app for his role-playing business.

Quotes Sunday

[Thanks to the QoD service]

No.
-- Amy Carter, (President Jimmy Carter's daughter) when asked by a reporter if she had any message for the children of America

My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to 99 cents a can. That's almost $7.00 in dog money.
-- Joe Weinstein

The tooth fairy teaches children that they can sell body parts for money.
-- David Richerby

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.
-- Victor Hugo

Tablets galore on tap at major CES gadget fest

Tablets galore on tap at major CES gadget fest, article.
[I'm surprised at how good Yahoo reporting often is, given that it's not their business and surely not a profit center.]

This is a good and precisely written article coming out just before the huge CES tech gathering in early 2011 in Las Vegas. (David Pogue usually goes.)

2010 of course was dominated by Apple's smash hit the iPad. From the article:

"We are going to be up to our armpits in crappy tablets, and I do mean crappy," said independent Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle.

This may be regrettable, but we should remember that crap tends to follow in the wake of a Good Big Idea, just as debris tends to get sucked into the wake of a big ship.

"Right now, in the consumer electronics space, Apple is the shining star that everyone and their brother are chasing," Enderle said.
"CES is increasingly becoming an Apple show even though Apple is not there."

It is ridiculous for a company to be so powerful in any industry that they are dominating in the biggest show gathering in the industry, even though they don't attend and never have!

It's predicted that between 40 and 80 new tablets will be shown at the show. This is a very loose number, admittedly, but also a very high one, and I will just give up totally trying to follow what is being released, and just trust that the cream will rise to the top and come to my attention.

It will be good for the Samsung Galaxy Tab to get competition in the Android market, since while it's very good, it's also way too expensive at roughly the same price as the much bigger iPad.

That may be something we won't really see this year: tablets as big as the iPad. Will we? Somebody said that Apple is buying all the available screens for the iPad, so other more or less have to make smaller (seven-inch) tablets. I hope it's not true, because there is a big usability difference between the seven-inch Galaxy Tab and the ten-inch iPad, and I hope to see more big tablets.

“Daily” iPad Newspaper Set for January Launch

“Daily” iPad Newspaper Set for January Launch, article.
...it will use lots of video and it will have cool multimedia bells and whistles, including some kind of 3-D effect that lots of people are very excited about...
Most important for other media companies: The Daily is supposed to use a new “push” subscription feature from Apple, where iTunes automatically bills customers on a weekly or monthly basis, and a new edition shows up on customers’ iPads every morning.

I think this is the first major newpaper/multimedia vehicle created from scratch for digital delivery. Kinda interesting, especially the price, 99 cents per week. Now that's a reasonable price.

I always find newspapers incredibly boring, I'm not interested in 98% of what they talk about. But this new format I find interesting, it could be used for so many kewl things.

By the way, when people say "ereaders", they tend to only think "books". I think that needs to change, much more reading is happening with magazines and newspapers. And a proper ereader needs to handle this speedily and well. And sorry, I don't think the Kindle does that, the iPad is the only thing for it so far. (Though I still think we need a bigger, but light-weight, iPad for a real immersive experience in this area.)

V-luxe, iPad "TV set"

I think this is a great example of the cool creativity one product can inspire for others.

When her campaign was young, I donated $50, and last week I got the iPad cover. I really like it, it's very rough and textured wool. (Recycled French army blankets.)

She tells me that along with the iPhone cover and purses, it'll be for sale soon on her site.

I might not get the V-luxe itself, it doesn't really fit in my more square and modern furniture style. A pity, for I think it's very cute and kewl.

Dodocase for Kindle 3

One of the big iPad-related success stories of 2010 has been the Dodocase, a hand-made custom case for iPad.

Now they are making one for the Kindle 3 too. I confess I find it very charming. Almost makes me wish I was using the Kindle more, so I could justify buying it. (Durn the grey screen.)

Anyway, it will be very exciting to see where ereaders and tablets go in 2011.

• What will the iPad 2 be like? 
• Will there be other sizes of iPads? 
• What will the Kindle 4 be like? Will it have color? Or at least a high-contrast screen? Will it finally have a touch screen?
• What kinds of Android tablets will come out? Will some of them be mature and cool products? 
• Will there be other tablets in high quality on other platforms too? 
• Will producers handle the issue of accidentally-triggered buttons which haunt every device so far? (I think it could be done simply with buttons which require a real press instead of the merest touch, and not too big buttons either.)
• Will anybody make readers and tablets which have a really good gripping area of a decent size and non-slip surface? 

Tap magazine

There is a new magazine about iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch), called Tap.
I've just subscribed to it (you can find it in newstands in UK, or for the iOS devices here on Zinio), and it look really promising. It is clear that their intention is to do a good, professional job, not just a mercenary one, and that they will cover many serious apps, not just games. And they feature interviews and other in-depth content.

I am interested, because like the mag's editors and like I've said more than once, I believe that tablets and the iOS devices are not only a lot of fun, they also have many important and serious uses, and are in fact exemplary of the rise of perhaps the most important popular platform since the Personal Computer.

Heck, even considered just as e-readers they are important, and they can do a thousand more things than that.

iPad II rumor

iPad II rumor.
It sounds realistic. And it would be cool if it really comes already next month, although that's less realistic, they can sell millions Mark 1's before spring, which would be the normal upgrade schedule for Apple, a year.
I hope it's thinner and lighter.

But three millimeters smaller? I know a few case makers who will be p'd off about that one. :-)
Hmm, or maybe they'll be happy that all the upgraders will have to buy a new case?

Plato with an iPad

(They said that he had "made a sculpture of Plato with an iPad", so I wondered, how do you use an iPad to make a sculpture?...)

Ad for upcoming Motorola tablet

Readers will be free

When people have said that ebooks will always be limited to "people who can afford the device", I have said things similar to those which reader Stephen A says in a comment on an earlier post:

Both decent e-book readers and tablets will be cheap (<$50) to free in a year. I purchased a Maylong-150 android tablet for $99 from Walgreens recently. While not as spectacular as the color Nook it is a perfectly good ebook reader which runs all android readers: aldiko, nook, kindle, and Borders, etc. as well as browsing and all the other functions of android. The Indian government has demoed a tablet with comparable capability for $35 with the aim to drive the price to $10-20. MIT Media Lab's OLPC program is targeting the $50 price point.
My prediction is that $50 android tablets will be ubiquitous by next year with free units available from cell providers and bookstores. This will change things radically both due to their omnipresence and due to the use of multiple tablets at a time.

Yep.
Then I guess it will be time for those devices higher on the price scale to compete on quality and capabilities, might get interesting.

My neighboring electronics store is already giving away *laptops*! Free with a broadband contract. This is Currys, UK.

Readers will be free

When people have said that ebooks will always be limited to "people who can afford the device", I have said things similar to those which reader Stephen A says in a comment on an earlier post:

Both decent e-book readers and tablets will be cheap (<$50) to free in a year. I purchased a Maylong-150 android tablet for $99 from Walgreens recently. While not as spectacular as the color Nook it is a perfectly good ebook reader which runs all android readers: aldiko, nook, kindle, and Borders, etc. as well as browsing and all the other functions of android. The Indian government has demoed a tablet with comparable capability for $35 with the aim to drive the price to $10-20. MIT Media Lab's OLPC program is targeting the $50 price point.


My prediction is that $50 android tablets will be ubiquitous by next year with free units available from cell providers and bookstores. This will change things radically both due to their omnipresence and due to the use of multiple tablets at a time.

Yep.
Then I guess it will be time for those devices higher on the price scale to compete on quality and capabilities, might get interesting.

We want user-control

Look at MegaReader, an app which gives easy access to over a million free books from various places around the web. That's cool in itself, but what I really like is that it also gives the reader choices of:

• 23 fonts
• Step-less choice of colors for text and background
• Step-less choice of font size
• Control of margin width
• ... and so on

Now why don't we get that in the big fancy readers from Apple, Amazon, and B&N? Some of them only have one font, in four or six sizes, and one or two options for background. Do they think their customers are all sheep who get confused by too many choices? Or don't they have software engineers who can do this stuff? If it's the first one, that certainly goes against Microsoft's philosophy when making Windows 95 where you can customize everything, and Windows became omnipresent.

More new uses for iPad

Who would'a thunk?



Sure, it's pretty much just a toy, but many important developments and inventions started as "pretty much just a toy".

Another one: Art Authority, and app I've liked since the very beginning of the iPad. It's an app for browsing 50,000 of the world's famous paintings, and include much data about the paintings and painters.

New uses for iPad

I keep hearing of new uses for iPad. For instance, my friend who is an artist, wrote to me:

I had meant to say to you at the time, when I sent the cat image, that the reason the eyes looked so alive was because I had used my ipad to show me a photograph of a real cat, and was able to concentrate on the detail of how tones worked, where the shadows and highlights were, and whether they would be sharp or softened.
My extra new found use for the ipad is as an artists tool... if I want to know how feather barbs look in detail, load a photo, and sit my ipad next to me, and concentrate on the detail...!
The ipad is a wonderful thing, and it has quickly become an essential part of my daily life..!
I really don`t think that some people realise the potential.. and, I confess, I don`t either yet.. but I am learning..!
Zeppelina

(Painting in progress)