Blek, unusual iPad game

This looks tricky, and cool. And inventive, who could have imagined something like this before we had been around tablets for a while?

Ebooks create many new readers!

In Len Edgerly's newest Kindle Chronicles podcast, he interviews several people in the tech/media industry, and ask  them about their relationship to ebooks.

One amazing thing that came out was that two people out of this small sample of sucessful and tech-savvy people said that before ebooks, they never read books! One of them actually got through medical school, but his girlfriend had to wake him up all the time because of his problem with books.

I think the deeper causes are mysterious as to why an ereader device will make avid readers out of people who never touched books, but it's a real phenomenon, and undeniably important.

Self-publishers will rule

The Day the World Turns Upside Down, article.
 I’m saying that major publishers will do things to make their books look indie [self-published] in order to appeal to readers who enjoy discovering new and underground works, who like supporting artists directly, who enjoy being part of a movement and a new cultural trend. ... It’s happening. I know people who read almost nothing but indie books.
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"Flote" table tablet stand review

I've long been happy with my Flote floor stand, it has made my bedroom and adjustable bed (with memory foam mattress) into the most comfortable reading/browsing/video station I could make.

And now they have also made a desktop model, in the same aesthetic quality. Of course the two products have much in common, so to save wear on my DasKeyboard, go read my review of the big one first. Then come back here.

The two bulges on the left are SoundJaw,
which direct the sound to the front.

There really is not much to add. The Flote Desktop does what the Flote Floor Stand does, except it is smaller and stands on a desk!
Of course in the nature of things, it does not have the super-reach that the floor stand has, but also it is smaller and lighter, and so easier to take to the summer home or whatnot.

Say I see something on the TV that I'm curious about (like: "how does the eye work" or "what did Paris Hilton do that made her famous?"), and I just reach out and swing the tablet in, and look it up.
By the way, if you need to temporarily minimize its footprint, you just swing the arm straight up, and it takes up no more space than a vase.

The design is smart, and like the big one, this looks great, it's hard to imagine a room or office where you would not want to bring this in.

A good stand makes a tablet a lot easier to use, and I don't know of any stand better than this.

As you can see, the floor model really is much larger.

[Photos by Stobblehouse]

iPad mini retina vs iPad Air

iPad mini retina vs iPad Air, comparison.

After the biggest iPad got smaller and lighter, and the Mini got the Retina display, choosing has become harder. This article attempts a bit of perspective.

An Apple Geek’s Week with Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX

An Apple Geek’s Week with Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX, article.

Good article, comparing the iPad Mini with the KF HDX 7-inch.

It's so hard to make good gear decisions and make clear reviews. Even with something as simple as a hammer, how Good it is depends on the job to be done, differences in exemplars, how you hold it, how big or strong you are, your experience, etc. And of course a tablet is a million times more complex, so...

I have a Kindle HDX just for one thing really: so far it's the only machine which will read out loud my Kindle books. And it does it in the best quality I have heard, sometimes I actually catch myself in thinking of the "person" who is reading aloud, so close has it come now.
But to illustrate my point, there is always something, durnit. Sometimes the Kindle will start to turn the pages faster than the speed at which it is reading, so I lose my place. Ot is will simply stop reading (for some reason always after a full stop). It has not happened often with bought Kindle books, but it has happened a lot with homemade Kindle books, collected from fanfiction found on the web. It is really irritating. I managed to remove some of it by emailing (for conversion) a .docx format file instead of a .txt file. It's clear that there are some hidden codes in there which are doing havoc with the Kindle, but which ones? I can't even see them.

Also, just trying something as simple as to install an alternative browser (like Chrome) on the Kindle Fire is a loooong excercise in frustration. Some people, like above reviewer, can't even access the Google Play Store. For some reason I can. And I can install Chrome. Or rather, it tells me it is installed, but it's not, can't find it anywhere. And one file of another app just downloaded. I had to figure out that there must be a Download folder somewhere... but do you think Amazon has made it easy to find that? If so, congratulations on your trust. I tend to be a happy little trust machine myself, but even I am suspecting that Amazon has done all in its power that the KF is only being used in exactly the ways Amazon wants, and none else. And most of those ways is sooner or later leading to your next Amazon purchase.
Granted, it is more stable than other Android tablets I have tried, but it is very limiting for people who want a tablet rather than an Amazon Window/reader/player.

With such complex things, "your mileage may vary" is a gross understatement.

Daylight bulbs are better for E-ink screen reading

For those who read on a Kindle without front-light (non-Paperwhite, that is), you may find it easier to read it if you replace the bulb in your favorite reading lamp with a DAYLIGHT spectrum bulb. At least I find it so. Very clear difference.

You get them in the modern energy-saving flavor, so you will also save 75% on the electricity.

As to why this would be so, it makes sense to me that when one uses *all* the light receptors in the eye to their full capability, one gets a clearer image. Like a camera sensor, different receptors are sensitive to different colors of light.

Additional advantages is that your indoors photos may look better, and if you don’t get all that much sunlight on your face in the winter-time, then having daylight-spectrum indoors lamps may actually lift your mood.

More info.

The "iPad Air" moniker

Hey, I had forgotten that I actually predicted Apple using the device name "iPad Air".

Kindle Fire's super-display with "quantum dots"

Kindle Fire HDX 7, iPad mini & Nexus 7 display shootout has a winner, article.

The iPad Mini's display, surprisingly, loses because of a low color gamut! (How many colors it can show.) Strange, because when iPad three came out, it was clear to the eye that it had a rather larger color gamut than the iPad 2. Red was much deeper, for example.

The winner is the Kindle Fire HDX.
Soneira notes it’s the first tablet display to use “Quantum Dots,” a technology he says is going to “revolutionize LCDs for the next 5+ years.”

Surprisingly (as it were), I am not surprised!
When I got my new KF HDX, I was really surprised at how much better it was. I don't think it's explainable by resolution (for one thing, I have middle-aged eyes), so I guess that "Quantum Dots" thing is it. I'll have to look it up.
But it struck me how amazingly crisp the new Kindle display is. It is really beautiful. I think it has to be seen to be appreciated. It is just like text and images are etched in there. Beautiful, and a well done to Amazon's engineers.

Also, the KF's text-to-speech, which I have praised, is even better now. Probably many small things are improved, but one big thing is for sure: there are now several voices to choose from, I love that. The original is good, but I think I may like one or two of the others even better.
These voices are not cheap to produce, so for Amazon to just include them as a free extra is great.

Apple's over-minimalism

Here's a short exchange from this post.

M Johnston wrote:
“Apple has been getting into the habit of obscuring functionality for the sake of aesthetics, and that’s not good design. So let’s hope that this is a short-lived trend.”

I answered:
I couldn’t agree more, I have thought that myself more than once. It’s really frustrating that they can’t see the wrongness of it.
In fact, the whole idea of iOS7’s design is “well, now people have gotten used to smartphones, we don’t need to show what’s a button anymore.”

The trend is not new. In the old OS, there used to be lines in the top of the active window. Those were grip lines. Up through the early stages of OSX, these got more and more line pinstripes, and eventually disappeared totally.

And how about mice with a cord so short it can’t reach around a small laptop!? But it sure looks more tidy!

I think Ive and Jobs are/were over-infatuated with minimalism, at least a little bit. I’m a minimalist myself (I keep my desktop totally free 80% of the time), but it’s important to know where to stop. Where you hurt functionality is the limit.

I refined the design of my web sites (made it all myself) for years (it only took years because I have no real training as designer). But then I couldn't go further without getting "fancy", and "fancy" hurt things like readability or navigation. There are quite narrow limits on the web because of all the different devices it needs to work on. So I just stopped, my artistic sense would just have to bite its metaphorical tongue, because it had reached a hard limit.
It's not regrettable, much. Form must follow function. Fine art is only free where there is no real function.

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An example. How would you ever know that you 

can tap in those areas to go to the playing app? I suppose the title is meant to be the button, but it's just quite hard to hit it, both on the iPhone and iPad.

Terry P cheaper in the UK

My UK (or European perhaps?) readers may be interested to know that Sainsburys eBookStore is selling Terry Pratchett books cheaper than Amazon.

If you don't know Terry Pratchett, you are really missing out. I'm currently re-reading most of his books for about the third time. (Oh, take no notice of the garish covers. Terry told me that the publisher says they sell, but I never cared for their super-saturated colors much.) (Another note: his first two books are amongst my least favorites. Neither the story nor the humor is as sharp as it became in the witches books or the Watch (city guards) books.)

Ooh, I just thought of a funny coinkidink: I first discovered Pratchett when I lived in Edinburgh in 2000-2001. And it was in Sainsburys supermarket of all places!
(Well to be exact (and to increase the brackets count (!) in this post), the very first one I read was his very first, years earlier, but like I said, the first two did not catch my interest and I still think they are weaker (along with other books featuring Rincewind the wizard).)

Flote tablet holder

I'm still pleased with my gen-1 Flote.
And I think I'll get the table model too.




Funny enough, today I got the iPad Air. It is definetely a better "presence" than previous generations. (Compare it to the first one, man!) Prettier, lighter, good to hold.
But: I think for it to really become a one-hand device for reading/browsing at length, it still needs to be about 150-200 grams lighter. So stands like the Flote are still very relevant.

Not to mention that rumors about both Samsung and Apple coming up next year with 13-inch tablets are thickening, hurrah! (If we are lucky, they'll just fit in the current models.)
[I think that when we some day have a 13-inch reader at 250 grams, we have finally the perfect reader machine.]

Look at this: finally an iPad who can hold all my favorite episodes of Phineas And Ferb:

Over 100 Gigs free!

Open letter to Amazon

I have sent this to kindle-feedback@amazon.com

I love Amazon and its philosophy. I must have bought over $10,000 worth of books and films over the years, starting in 1998 in Denmark.

I think though that in a few ways, Amazon is irritating the customer without gaining anything. For example, the e-ink Kindles should be able to read ePub. It’s obvious, they just should. It would make it "The eReader" instead of “an ereader”. And they would not loose any sales, they would gain some, I believe.

Similarly, the hobbling of the Kindle Fire so it’s simply an Amazon purchase and play terminal is a mistake. There is no reason it could not be a full-fledged Amazon tablet. It would sell a lot more, and of course many of those customers might buy on Amazon where they might not have, before.
I’d love to have the new, big, light-weight KF HDX 9-inch. But it simply can’t do the things I want it to do.

Warm regards, Eolake

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I see it as the one weakness or downside to Bezos/Amazon: he is playing the Only One game. As in the film highlander (in low, dramatic voice): "There can be only One!!"
What's the fun of wiping out all your competitors? Who will you have to play with then?

"iPad Pro" (updated)

27 Oct 2013

Hey, here's a prediction. It came to me in a flash:

in 2014, Apple will come out with a bigger iPad, probably 13-inch. It will be named "iPad Pro". It will probably have a keyboard designed especially for it (maybe a keyboard-case, but that doesn't feel very "Apple", perhaps because such a thing is subject very much to taste).

It will be marketed at content creators.
But it will be great for many other things, like reading graphic rich books and mags. And most apps will be only better with more space to play in.

I think they'll be able to keep the weight down to under that of the first iPad, 1.6 pounds.

They will push what I have written about before: that you can do photos and videos with the same device that you write on, and send it from there too (and keep your content in the cloud). It's a full, portable content creation and distribution machine which fits in your normal bag, you can leave the camera and the video camera and laptop at home. (Hopefully the camera will be good, at least as good as the one on the iPhone 5S.)

Update:
Quote from this article:
While the A7 is a big deal from a hardware standpoint, it translates into value for consumers at the software level. The A7 is a desktop class processor that can run desktop class applications on the iPad. This is a big deal. [...]

The new Garageband can support up to 32 tracks of audio for input and editing. It can also process desktop class effects on those tracks essentially creating a powerful mobile recording and editing studio on your iPad.

32 tracks?! Can you see the growing need for bigger screens?

Kindle Fire, lighter than Air

It's a bit shocking: the bigger Kindle Fire HDX is not only cheaper, but actually lighter than the iPad Air! (Though 0.8 inches smaller screen.) (I disconsider the higher screen resolution. Are you gonna use a loupe with your tablet? Over 300PPI it stops mattering.)

Instead of aluminium, they went with something like I'd hope Apple would go for: a strong, but lighter substance. I think carbon fibre would be great.
Amazon uses: "created a unique magnesium unibody from a single piece of machined magnesium and a blend of glass and nylon—the same material used in high-performance race cars."

Now, if it weren't for the damnable bugginess that Android always gives me, and the fact that the Kindle Fire is severely hobbled as a tablet to serve mainly as a shopping device for Amazon, I'd consider it a very strong competition for the iPad.
But heck, here in the UK I can't even buy videos from Amazon on the KF!* Nobody knows why, but they just refer to LoveFilm, a Netflix-like service which I've used since the millennium, but like Netflix has a very limited range of films available online (as opposed to rented via disk). And many, many apps cannot be installed on the KF. A few which are not in their own store can, but only with clumsy sidesteps.

I think this hobbled condition is a mistake on Amazon's side. Even though the iPad can do it all, I still buy on it as much from Amazon as I ever did.
So what if a few geeks buy it just to get a cheap Android Tablet? They don't lose money on it. And who knows, maybe the geeks may even be charmed into Amazon's service via the device.


*In fairness, I have been unable to buy or even rent videos on any Android device. They just won't play. Their support (Google Play Store) was unable to help me. One of the reasons I'm weary of Android despite really wanting to like it.
Update:
OK, my Nexus 7 just totally died on me. But two days ago I went through eleven software updates to my Samsung Galaxy Note (Apple has the kindness to bundle the updates), and it occurred to me that maybe it would play purchased video now. Lo and behold, it does! (Of course this is just a 5.2 screen, great for reading, a bit limited for video. Well, great for video on the road.)