iPad

iPads on Discovery

This is a single screen cap of the two pilots from Discovery (the vessel at the centre of the story in 2001: A Space Odyssey (and which returns in 2010: The Year We Make Contact). This resonates with me because this is how I see a lot of people consuming their media in the future. … Continue reading “iPads on Discovery”

This is a single screen cap of the two pilots from Discovery (the vessel at the centre of the story in 2001: A Space Odyssey (and which returns in 2010: The Year We Make Contact).

This resonates with me because this is how I see a lot of people consuming their media in the future. Using iPad-like devices (from multiple manufacturers perhaps), they’ll consume news from multiple sources, read the commentary from whatever replaces Twitter and share the content they like.

You can see this video sequence below.

(I’m attempting some embedding of media using a Degradable HTML5 WordPress plugin. This should play H.264 on browsers capable of it but will force legacy browsers to use Flash.)

iPad Adventures in TwitterLand

On the iPhone, I use two Twitter clients. For my main Twitter account, I use Tweetie 2 and for some of the minor accounts I use EchoFon. I use EchoFon because it has Push Notifications and the accounts in that client receive messages infrequently. Tweetie 2 won me over with it’s excellent support for geo-tagging … Continue reading “iPad Adventures in TwitterLand”

On the iPhone, I use two Twitter clients. For my main Twitter account, I use Tweetie 2 and for some of the minor accounts I use EchoFon. I use EchoFon because it has Push Notifications and the accounts in that client receive messages infrequently. Tweetie 2 won me over with it’s excellent support for geo-tagging Tweets. I geo-tag everything I can. Between the two of these clients, I’m pretty comfortable.

I foresee difficulties ahead as Tweetie has been purchased by Twitter and it’s usual that official clients compromise so much that they permit others to overtake them.

On iPad, it’s somewhat different. There is no clear winner for me for a native Twitter client, and I’ll tell you why.

Twittelator is nice.

I love the floating palettes. I like the animation. I hate the big stupid envelope and I dislike the limitations around the main timeline view. And my dislike gets worse when I consider the portrait view. It’s just a jumble. But my biggest issue is in the UI for creating a Tweet. It seems I have to go to the Drafts tab and hit a + sign. Then a tiny little field entry seems to bubble up from the keyboard. I just think it’s a bad user experience.

Tweeterena 2 I don’t like.

I do not like Tweeterena. It’s simply boring. I don’t like the way it wastes the space available and the design just rotates without showing anything cool between landscape and portrait. It’s just snoozeville.

I’ve never liked TweetDeck.

I just don’t like the way it lays stuff out. Whether that’s on Mac, on iPhone or, seemingly, the iPad. I just don’t like it.

Twitteriffic works. But meh.

There’s nothing wrong with it and the UI is nicer than Tweeterena but really, is that the best they could come up with? It’s a complete waste of the space making it an upsized version of the iPhone client.

It stings therefore that the IconFactory declare that the iPad made them rethink software because it’s really the second most boring Twitter client. But one thing it has over the rest of them – it’s reliable. Never once failed to refresh.

But what pisses me off is the fact that to get rid of the ads in the ‘ad supported’ version, I have to perform an in-app purchase. In-app purchase on iPad is currently only available to folk with a US iTunes account. And there is no standalone Premium version that I can buy. And I really don’t like ads. So you’ve shot yourself in the foot there, guys.

Twitepad has a lot of potential but it needs work.

The layout I love but the bits and pieces I dislike. I love the built-in browser pane, I love the buttons and the wee pop-up where you enter a tweet. I like these things. I like the Conversation support (a chain link in the tweet).

Things I don’t like. There’s no Location bar. Just a search bar. That’s annoying. It should at least work like the Chrome dual function location/search bar. Or rather – it does work a bit like that – but it’s not done nicely. The domains resolve but there’s a weird disconnect in the UI. Changing the default home page from the annoying InfoXenter page is not done in the Settings app, but is done when you click the + sign, which is conventionally used to add bookmarks. So it was hidden when I looked because I didn’t want to add a bookmark! I don’t know what the Down arrow does at the bottom of the browser screen because all it seems to do is change to an up arrow when I tap it. I don’t like the placement of the tabs along the side – being in the middle of the screen feels wrong and I think it’s because they’re in the wrong order. And last, but not least, it doesn’t always load my timeline when I switch to it and getting it to refresh at all is a challenge which makes me think they’re routing it through their own server or something? No other client has this issue but @Twitepad thinks it’s a Twitter issue. Not helping, guys. That said, having an active Twitter account is something to be commended because they tell me they’ve an update in the works and a few bugs will be ironed out.

So it seems like there’s heaps I don’t like about TwitePad but to be honest, I think it has the most potential of current iPad Twitter clients.

The iPad arrived on Friday afternoon and I’ve been sharing it with Arlene over the last day or so. Needless to say we both love it. iBooks is a lovely product. But I’ve not used it in anger and there’s some UI in Stanza for iPhone which is, to be honest, much more friendly. What … Continue reading “iPad”

The iPad arrived on Friday afternoon and I’ve been sharing it with Arlene over the last day or so. Needless to say we both love it.

iBooks is a lovely product. But I’ve not used it in anger and there’s some UI in Stanza for iPhone which is, to be honest, much more friendly. What does it say that Stanza for iPhone is still a damned good eBook reader on iPad.

Twitter clients on iPad are a mixed bag so far. They range from poor to bad. Some of them have decent UIs in landscape but they totally break in portrait mode. At the moment I’m putting TwitePad through it’s paces.

Some apps are amazing however.

iSSH – so much more usable on an iPad and I loved it on iPhone. This version also includes an X11 and VNC server as well. Using ‘screen -DRRS iphone’ as the launch command creates a screen instance called ‘iphone’ and it means that even if I lose the connection due to bad coverage, I don’t lose the session and I can reconnect to it when coverage returns. I got this hint from Jared.

Articles for iPad – this is simply a Wikipedia browser but it’s also the nicest Wikipedia browser I have ever seen. It’s really simple, it looks scads better than the Wikipedia web site (which is the point, no?). And it’s Wikipedia – it’s full of mostly accurate information on loads of subjects – providing hours and hours of reading for someone like me.

The Elements – This is for science geeks and, to be honest, any other sort of geek. It rekindles all of the love I had for science, just like Pocket Universe. Here’s to more great science apps.

CastleCraft – I’ve not yet played this game because Izaak has dominated it. It’s a very pretty RTS which is apparently massively multiplayer, not that I know anything about that. But I am impressed that he got into so quickly, so easily. It’s not perfect – but it’s very very good.

Email is fun, the browser is really slick, battery life is amazing, and while we’ve really enjoyed typing on the screen (the gestures add a lot) it paired flawlessly with a foldaway Freedom Universal Keyboard that we had sitting in the office doing nothing which adds additional possibilities for the road warrior. The Freedom is a very compact addition and provides a solid typing experience.

Arlene has spent most of her time on Youtube (the web interface not the app) and it’s been seamless. The first thing she did was Twitpic one of the makeup videos playing on iPad. I think there may have been some blue boxes on some web sites but to be honest I’ve not really noticed them. Maybe on the BBC site. Which is doubly depressing as the BBC should be leading the charge for standards support.

I intend to use the iPad for work for a couple of days to see how it fares. I want something small and light and it will give me an excuse to not carry my laptop and a bag of crap as usual. I do have some concerns regarding work – server access and all that – but it’s something I can work on and I’ll have workarounds should I need them.

The Internet without Flash

Is better than you think. Fewer ads to put a buzzing sound through your speakers, fewer jarring UI clashes, fewer weird pop-ups which obscure the content. With ClickToFlash, it’s like being able to wander through a dodgy neighbourhood but feel safe which is why the trap line for the plug-n is “your web browsing prophylactic”. … Continue reading “The Internet without Flash”

So in all I’m supportive that Flash ain’t coming to the iPhone at all. And I’m confident that we won’t lose Unity, Cocos or other useful frameworks out there.

ADBE vs AAPL

Eighteen months ago, John Paczkowski speculated that Apple may want to use their considerable war chest of cash to buy Adobe. Adobe is currently worth around $18 Bn and Apple has around $30-35 Bn in the bank (Apple themselves are, at the time of this writing, worth $215 Bn. This is why I think Apple … Continue reading “ADBE vs AAPL”

This is why I think Apple has been maintaining such a strong position against Adobe over the last two years. They’re trying to reduce the stock price (as well as maintain control over a platform).

Adobe made less than half a million dollars in income last year and has been increasing it’s debt. We know in comparison that Apple has no debt at all and reported $3.38 billion in profits last quarter (Apple will release their next quarterly results in about two weeks).

[UPDATE: The figures are in thousands so I’m out there. But it means the debt is in thousands as well which puts them about a billion in debt.]

@webtwozero writes:

@cimota why would apple buy adobe? they don’t like flash, which pretty much rules out director too, they after photoshop, and premiere?

They’re after Photoshop, to adopt it in. They’re also after Premiere and Lightroom, with a view to either enhancing or replacing Final Cut Pro and Aperture. I think they’re also after Acrobat, Flex, Flash I reckon they have no good intentions towards them.

GodsWearHats writes:

@cimota AAPL vs ADBE: I don’t think Apple wants them, tbh. Doesn’t strike me as Steve’s style.

They’d already done something similar to the music sector when they purchased eMagic and made Logic Mac-only. And they did the same with Nothing Real and Shake.

Lomifeh writes:

@cimota I don’t really want them to buy adobe. The companies seem too dissimilar in philosophy. I’d prefer them forcing adobe to act right

To my mind, Adobe made their bed when they stopped feature parity on the Mac with the Windows version. They still haven’t rectified this and as a result Apple and Mac users have been treated like second class citizens. On top of that, the use of Flash in video undermined QuickTime, Lightroom undermines Aperture and it’s possible they see Premiere as a competitor to Final Cut Pro.

Adobe has also dragged it’s feet on the releasing apps which take advantage of Mac OS X technologies and there’s no way that Apple would permit Adobe to control access to their OS features the way they already have manipulated the market with Flash. Adobe was one of the major reasons for Carbon due to their reluctance to rewrite their application portfolio in Cocoa – something which still hasn’t been done after ten years of Mac OS X.

If Flash is the real bone of contention here then I’ll be very surprised. Flash video has always been little more than a hack – a compatibility layer that locks video into a proprietary format for later display. the poor performance of Flash on Mac hardware underlines the need for Apple to react. While I may lament the loss of many excellent education and entertainment games which have been developed in Flash, the truth is that many of these games simply will not work with a touch-based interface. They use a lot of facilities such as ‘hover’ which is possible with a virtual cursor but not possible with a touch interface. As a result, running Flash-based games and education tools on the iPad or iPhone would result in a substandard experience with poor performance and in both cases Apple would shoulder the blame.

Is it any wonder that Apple now feels they have to take a strong position.

That said, I feel that last night’s presentation on iPhone OS 4 was a rush-job, meant to try and stop a drama from turning into a crisis. If Adobe had announced CS5 officially and then demonstrated it and Apple had refused to stock the apps in the AppStore, then it would have been bad for both. I do think, on the other hand, that Apple is being curiously heavy handed here.

One thing at a time is at an end.

iPhone OS 4’s big deal yesterday was multitasking. They announced Seven Services which provide multi-tasking components to developers. This fulfils pretty much what I was looking for in the iPhone OS: pull and background and goes even further than I had intended. It permits the backgrounding of music apps, VoIP apps, location-based apps and timers … Continue reading “One thing at a time is at an end.”

iPhone OS 4’s big deal yesterday was multitasking. They announced Seven Services which provide multi-tasking components to developers.

This fulfils pretty much what I was looking for in the iPhone OS: pull and background and goes even further than I had intended. It permits the backgrounding of music apps, VoIP apps, location-based apps and timers (local notifications). It permits apps which have longer processing to background their processing and permit the user to move on to do something else. To be honest, I’ve got everything I wanted.

David Kirk writes:

Following the Apple OS4 announcement today that the iPhone and iPad would be “multitasking” a lively discussion sprang up on Twitter. 140 characters is woefully inadequate for that discussion so hopefully @cimota will post this on his (soon to be) award winning blog.

First let me define my terms and concepts so we can get agreement on our vocabulary. And multitasking and multi-threading need agreement.

A general purpose computer is a collection of processors dedicated to specific functions [program execution graphics, I/O, communications, etc.]

Processors execute [we’ll not get into instruction fetch, operations, etc.] only one instruction at a time, and do so until they issue an instruction that causes the processor to “wait” for the specific completion of some other task (e.g. read / write to complete, packet received on communications line, timer to pop, etc.). If there are no other tasks ready to execute, then the processor itself will wait until it receives an interrupt from the processor handling the I/O or communications or timer. Then the operating system will “awaken” the waiting task, restore its context, and schedule the next instruction. Even non-multitasking OS’s need interrupts (DOS).

Multitasking was designed to take vantage of all those “waits” by scheduling other tasks – that are ready to execute. A multitasking OS, once one task “waits”, will restore the context of another task that is ready, and schedule it for execution. Of course if there are no other tasks ready for execution, the processor will itself wait.
One other wrinkle. Many multitasking OS’s have a priority schedule, whereby certain tasks get priority over others. For example, if a task is receiving bytes from a communications line into a buffer, its probably needs priority to empty the buffer before the next packet comes in else the buffer will be overwritten – so that task may need “priority”. This is implemented in the OS. Once an interrupt occurs, the OS decides if the task running is the highest priority task that is “ready to run”. If not the OS will store the tasks context and schedule the task which is the highest priority.
So, multitasking requires hardware interrupts and a multitasking OS that manages context and administers priority [for all compsc geeks, including the old timers, yes that is a GROSS simplification}.

Multi-threading is a concept that simplifies programming in software systems that support multiple users concurrently. In essence its performs psuedo multitasking between its own threads, but never “waits” or gets interrupted from the OS. An application that performs multi-threading can its – without awareness – be multitasked.

Finally, and to the point of the OS4, the act of multi-tasking (whether or not these are multi-threading or non-multithreading applications, is transparent to the application.

David is right, right down the last sentence. Users don’t care how multitasking is implemented. They really don’t. Back in the olden days on the Mac, people were happy with the simple ‘co-operative multitasking’ that was presented by the Mac and Windows 95 and didn’t cream out for pre-emptive multitasking which came with the Windows NT kernel and (eventually) Mac OS X. They just didn’t care. They cared about the symptoms – that under the co-operative model a single application could block the whole machine and they cared about the lack of protected memory on some of these operating systems insofar as one wrong write to memory could crash the device but in the scale of things they didn’t care. The system appeared to multi-task and that’s what was important. And it’s still what’s important.

Jeff LaMarche writes on the iPhone OS4 multitasking:

I’ve used Android’s “multitasking”, and I think that Apple has been 100% right not to just port the workstation model of “multitasking” to the phone. It’s hard to say how well these new “multitasking” APIs will meet our needs as developers, but the best that I can tell from the presentation, Apple seems to have struck a good balance. Battery life can really suffer with a traditional “multitasking” approach, as I’ve discovered using my Nexus One.

I think this is very valid. We don’t need a repeat of the desktop model on mobile. As long as multi-tasking is transparent to the user, it doesn’t matter which way it is done. And if these measures mean pausing apps which are not currently being used, permitting audio, VOIP services and location services and allowing longer-timed processing to continue, what else is needed?

Waiting for a 3G and a Micro-SIM

I’ve not yet touched an iPad and I just cancelled a friend ordering me a WiFi model from the US. I’m just going to wait for a 3G but who has a Micro-SIM or who will have one of the Micro-SIMs under contract? Micro-SIMs are not new – having been used in embedded devices such … Continue reading “Waiting for a 3G and a Micro-SIM”

I’ve not yet touched an iPad and I just cancelled a friend ordering me a WiFi model from the US. I’m just going to wait for a 3G but who has a Micro-SIM or who will have one of the Micro-SIMs under contract? Micro-SIMs are not new – having been used in embedded devices such as GPS units and power meters for years – but they haven’t generally been consumer-facing.

Hot on the heels of the iPad announcement, carriers were quick to respond. Micro-SIMs are going to be supported by O2 Telefonica, Orange, Three in the UK, T-Mobile in Germany and by AT&T, T-Mobile in the US and NTT DoCoMo in Japan. Maxroam in the Republic of Ireland has just announced support and I’m told that they are decreasing their prices for data usage abroad in the next 14 days which may make their offerings for travellers very competitive.

That said, my darling wife is pursuing her own WiFi iPad through other channels. A Mi-Fi is still a good option for many who either want to share their 3G between multiple devices or who don’t want to pay extra for the 3G model.

simply, how (most) computing should be

Alex Payne writes about his moderate stance on the iPad: Human-computer interaction has found a sweet spot on the iPad. It’s all the power of desktop computing, plus the valuable constraints of mobile devices, minus the limitations of both. It just makes sense. Use one for a couple hours and your desktop or laptop will … Continue reading “simply, how (most) computing should be”

Alex Payne writes about his moderate stance on the iPad:

Human-computer interaction has found a sweet spot on the iPad. It’s all the power of desktop computing, plus the valuable constraints of mobile devices, minus the limitations of both. It just makes sense. Use one for a couple hours and your desktop or laptop will seem clumsy, arbitrary, and bewildering. It is, simply, how (most) computing should be.
…
All in all, I stand by what I had to say back in January: that the iPad is a beautiful, important, transformative device released under a confusing regime of questionable ethics. That said, I think three simple changes would make a world of difference towards assuaging people’s concerns about the iPad and Apple’s direction.
…

Apple should not charge to put applications you’ve written onto your personal iPad (or iPhone, for that matter).

Apple should lift restrictions on running interpreted code on its mobile devices. Let people run Basic, Python, and Ruby interpreters on iPad and iPhone.

Apple should remove the concept of private APIs from its developer offerings.

In essence, I agree on all three points.

With respect to 1.: I agree that Apple should not charge for putting a build on your own iPad but I can understand why they do. They’re for the certificate and management of same. It’s a casual barrier to entry which most people serious about it can leap over.

But if they permitted interpreted code on the device, which is the essence of 2., then they’re halfway there. Allowing a PHP interpreter, a BASIC compiler or even an environment like MIT’s Scratch would go somewhere to assuraging some of the deep felt geek hurt. A lot of folk I know got their start programming either in BASIC or HyperCard.

Point 3 tells me that Alex doesn’t know how the Apple development environment works. Private APIs are not necessarily secret ways of doing things which cannot be accessed by other mortals due to their secrecy though it does seem to be that way. Private APIs are APIs which are eventually to be made public once they have stabilised or been sufficiently modified. They are commonly APIs which are new or in development. I say ‘commonly’ because Mail and iCal on Mac OS X use them. Even now.

Since when are geeks the only creative folk?

[I wrote this as a comment on Jeff Jarvis’s blog but decided to keep the text and expand upon it.] Jeff’s major bone of contention with the iPad is that the newspaper apps which are appearing on the device are not permitting the full gamut of conversation, of consumer input that he would like. The … Continue reading “Since when are geeks the only creative folk?”

[I wrote this as a comment on Jeff Jarvis’s blog but decided to keep the text and expand upon it.]

Jeff’s major bone of contention with the iPad is that the newspaper apps which are appearing on the device are not permitting the full gamut of conversation, of consumer input that he would like.

The iPad is retrograde. It tries to turn us back into an audience again. That is why media companies and advertisers are embracing it so fervently, because they think it returns us all to their good old days when we just consumed, we didn’t create, when they controlled our media experience and business models and we came to them. The most absurd, extreme illustration is Time Magazine’s app, which is essentially a PDF of the magazine (with the odd video snippet). It’s worse than the web: we can’t comment; we can’t remix; we can’t click out; we can’t link in, and they think this is worth $4.99 a week. But the pictures are pretty.

The iPad is not built on apps and was not primarily advertised as such.

“The best way to experience the web, email and photos.”

Don’t believe me, check the title.

That’s HMTL, IMAP and JPG/PNG.

On one hand we have web developers telling us that you can create great apps with web technologies. On the other hand we have folk railing against the strictures of the app store. So where are the amazing HTML-based apps that should have been released on the iPhone in 2007 (when everyone was clamouring for a native SDK). Where are the web apps?

This is the same argument that Cory used – you can’t do on tiny fragment of the whole creativity spectrum on it and suddenly it’s a consumer trap. You can’t edit movies with “Final Cut Touch” so it’s useless. There’s no “LightRoom Touch” so it’s useless. You can’t self-host (as someone put it) so it’s useless. It doesn’t come with a web server, a print server and routing software so it’s useless.

On the other hand I spent an hour on the phone working with my 65 year old, 70% blind father as he navigated his way around his Mac mini using the built-in magnification. He can’t get used to the idea that windows in the OS can overlap. He thinks the OS is hiding things from him. for him, multitasking is a challenge that he finds difficult to fathom. He finds the spatial awareness and hand-eye coordination required to operate a mouse to be a huge obstacle. Can you think of a better option than an iPad for him?

But ignore this. This isn’t about the people for whom it would be a great enabler, this is about the micro-percentages of alpha geeks who really wanted something else and aren’t happy to just go out and buy something else. Just buy

So we have Jeff shouting that he wants USB? For a USB stick and what else? A printer? In 2010 we have someone shouting for sneakernet and dead tree + ink? this would be laughable if it wasn’t so ridiculous.

So, the argument is bullshit. Of course it allows us to create. We can load our photos in there, we can load our videos in there, we can write, we can record sound, we can create blogs, write missives, comment anywhere. It’s a better web client than most people are used to.

The Co-Viewing Experience

About a year ago I was fortunate enough to meet with Ewan McIntosh while he was Digital Commissioner for Channel 4’s 4IP project. We waxed in the workshop about how many of us commonly pay attention to three screens at once – when we’re watching TV; we have our laptops and mobile phones beside us. … Continue reading “The Co-Viewing Experience”

4IP’s remit was daring for the time. The core message I got was “no TV”. This wasn’t about audiences, it was about interactive, it might work alongside something that was TV and it might result in TV, but it wasn’t about TV.

Today I see this (emphasis mine):

Magazines and newspapers aren’t the only media eying big benefits upon the iPad’s arrival: TV is poised to use the device in new ways, including creating interactive, social apps designed to be used while watching live programming.
…
MTV Networks, for example, is developing a “co-browsing app meant to be used while watching live TV,” said one executive familiar with MTV’s iPad plans. “This means the iPad could be the appendage that makes interactive TV a reality.”
…
“Fifty-nine percent of people are multitasking when watching TV — that’s something we’ve always known,” said Ms. Frank, referring to recent Nielsen data quantifying a longstanding observation. “This is the next evolution.”

Of course it is.

When I watch TV, I have my laptop open. I’m looking up things, referencing actors, events, checking for the locations mentioned. (Frankly, it’s a little bit tiring.) But most importantly this is content that could be sold or advertised upon – it could be monetised by the television station, provided by the content producer on a platform that offers the content alongside the regular programming.

For example, while I’m watching Wonders of the Solar System with the very smart and cheerful Professor Brian Cox. I’m chatting to friends about the content, I’m following the good Professor on Twitter and I’m thinking about stuff such as:

which ended up being answered by the Professor himself. Insanely cool.

TV shows are set to a timetable, we know ahead of time when they stop or start.And there’s more possibility for peripheral web sites to offer content which is synchronised with broadcast. This idea isn’t terribly new – Nico (who now works at UTV) wrote about it on his blog:

Whatever the future of TV, it is clear that online and social media are going to play an increasing part in how and where we consume broadcast media. Being part of a shared media experience, even if you are on your own, will be the shape of things to come.

There’s an opportunity for local television companies to build a much bigger proposition, to actually deliver on the “360” that is buzzword in television commissioning. It should be about the ‘web site’, it’s about the co-viewing experience.

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