Category: ipad

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My thoughts – Apple announce OS X Mountain Lion 10.8

It was only in July last year that OS X Lion was released, today Apple announced a sneak peek at OS X Mountain Lion, 10.8 the next release of OS X.

The first thing that strikes you is the iOSification of OS X. In Mountain Lion you will find Messages, Reminders, Notes, Notifications, Share Sheets, Twitter integration, Game Centre and AirPlay Mirroring. Looking at the new features you may have mistaken that you were looking at iOS rather than OS X. The Sneak Peek page does say “Inspired by iPad. Re-imagined for Mac.

I do think some of the features in OS X Mountain Lion are much needed if you have and reply on an iOS infrastructure. If your friends and colleagues have iPads and iPhones and you have a Mac, you will have wanted some iOS features on your Mac. With Mountain Lion it looks like we’ll be getting them.

Mountain Lion is all about communication and sharing, it’s about connecting with friends and colleagues and sharing images and content. It’s about making the Mac more like the iPad and the iPhone and merging the experience. The back end means you can still run regular apps you do now, but the essence of the operating system will be familar to those people currently using the iPad.

If you think about it, that does make sense for Apple. Most people using the iPhone are Windows users, the same can be said for most iPad users. In order for them to move to the Mac, they are going to want to have a similar experience and feel moving from iOS to OS X. I know many people who are very happy with the iPhone and the iPad, but either don’t feel comfortable with OS X or are wary of moving to what they view as an alien and very different operating system. You can imagine how these iPhone and iPad users would feel if the Mac they saw in the Apple Store looked and worked like the iOS device in their hand.

This is emphasised in the sneak peek video which emphasises how similar OS X Mountain Lion experiences are to the experiences on the iPhone and the iPad.

From a marketing perspective if you want to convert iPad and iPhone users to Mac then making OS X to be similar to iOS is the way to do it.

So what about these new features for Mountain Lion?

Even though there are other messaging tools out there, such as Skype, the fact that Messages will allow communication with iOS devices has to be a plus, as it is built into the mobile operating system. The problem with Skype is that it requires you to open the Skype app and as that can “drain battery” I guess most people don’t have Skype on as a default and I suspect that the same can be said for other messaging apps. Messages on iOS integrates well with SMS so if you are use to SMS you will feel right at home with Messages. I also like the idea of sending images and video straight from my Mac, I can see it replacing e-mail for a lot of communication.

One of the reasons I’ve not used Reminders on the iPad or the iPhone was the lack of integration with OS X, so I am pleased to see that there may be a simple, yet useful, to do list app that works across all my devices.
For similar reasons I don’t use Notes on the iPad or iPhone either. Somehow I don’t think I will swap, as Evernote has much more flexibility than the Notes app, I like how I can add audio and image notes. For many people though the Notes app will be just what they needed.

I do like the idea of Share Sheets, it is one feature of using iOS that I repeatedly miss in OS X and falling back on copy and paste isn’t that bad I know, but once you get use to that “share” button in iOS you do miss it in OS X. In case you don’t know what Share Sheets means, it’s a simple button that allows you to quickly share links, content, images and stuff to places like Twitter, e-mail or Messages.

What the sneak peek does show is how Apple are betting on Twitter over Facebook. You see Twitter integration mentioned all over the place, but not a mention of Facebook. That issue with Ping and Facebook must still be a real issue!

I use AirPlay a fair bit from my iPad, earlier I wrote about how useful I found it with my Apple TV.

Adding this feature to OS X Mountain Lion will certainly be useful to me, especially with web based video that isn’t available on the iPad. Of course there is an assumption that Flash will be available for OS X Mountain Lion and that isn’t a given. I can quite easily imagine Adobe deciding not to make a version of Flash for Mountain Lion.

My over riding impression of Mountain Lion, combined with my experiences of using Lion on a MacBook is that we are seeing the end of the mouse more than anything. The use of the laptop trackpad and the Magic Trackpad in the Mountain Lion video demonstrates that Apple see the future of the human interaction with a Mac through gestures and a trackpad and not a mouse.

We of course haven’t seen any sign in the sneak peek of Siri for Mountain Lion, and I guess that either may arrive later or this is something that isn’t going to happen and I can’t see that happening; much more likely it will appear in the final release in the summer.

So will you be upgrading? My iMac is still running Snow Leopard due to legacy apps, somehow I don’t see me changing my OS just yet… on the laptop, more than likely as it already has Lion.

Overall what we are going to get with Mountain Lion is an iOSification of the Mac operating system, the upgrade is much more about new apps and a few subtle changes, rather than fundamental changes to the operating system.

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Apple TV Thoughts


Apple calls the Apple TV a hobby, the reason behind that is, that it will never have the sales figures that the iPad, the MacBook and the iPhone gets. The moniker “hobby” tells analysts that they shouldn’t expect the Apple TV to be a mainstream product that sells in the tens of millions! Apple do say that those who bought the Apple TV really like it.

I am one of those who did buy it, and yes I do like it. I use it a fair bit but there are a few things I would like it do better.

First what do I like about it?

I like the fact that I can stream content from my iMac (in the office) to the TV in the front room. As I have an Apple and iTunes infrastructure for content then this works really well. As well as showing photographs, I like that I can show movies and videos from iTunes on the TV. I like the ease by which I can stream rented videos too without needing to “move” them from one device to the other.

I like how I can use AirPlay to stream content from the iPad to the Apple TV and onto the TV. For example I can use ITVPlayer on the iPad and watch it on the TV without cables. This works much better than ITVPlayer does on the PS3, likewise with BBC iPlayer and 4OD from Channel 4.

I like how Netflix works on the Apple TV, films in my opinion work better on the big screen than on the computer or the iPad.

I like how I can watch movie trailers quickly and easily.

So what do I think needs improving?

It would be nice to add UK-centric services to the Apple TV. Why can’t I add BBC iPlayer, ITVPlayer, etc to the Apple TV? Netflix got added “automatically” why can’t the other services? I suspect it might be a licensing issue, so I have to do it by AirPlay. Now though I like AirPlay it isn’t perfect and I have had a couple of issues with it, notably no audio and sometimes buffering of the video.

Renting movies does seem “expensive” to me, and I would be happy to rent the cheaper SD movies. At the moment I rent the movies on the iMac and then stream to the Apple TV, but would be nice to be able to do that from the Apple TV direct.

I like the idea of renting TV shows, but I suspect that there are so few TV shows that I want to rent that I haven’t done this very much. I either use iPlayer for more recent shows like Hustle, Elgato’s EyeTV to record a series such as Pan Am that I am going to watch later, or Netflix to watch older series, currently enjoying The 4400 as it happens.

There is a selection of internet video services on the Apple TV, but I don’t really use them. I think this is more me than the fault of Apple TV, I am not one to go through multiple amusing YouTube videos… but I am aware of people who do, so I suspect that this is more there cup of tea.

It would be nice to add music services to the Apple TV, but as Apple’s focus is iTunes I don’t see that happening anytime soon. If I was switched into the iCloud then I guess that would enable me to access some of my music, but I would also need iTunes Match so that I could listen to the mp3s I have downloaded from Amazon and my CDs. Though it has to be said there are a fair few radio stations I could listen to!

Now I know that I can “jailbreak” the Apple TV and install Plex on it, but that’s not really a mainstream option. Firecore’s aTV Flash is another option, but costs $29.95.

I guess my final thought on the Apple TV is that for many of the features you need a decent broadband connection, and not everyone has that. I am lucky in that my exchange now has fibre (FTTC) but before it was upgraded my ADSL connection was very slow and I had a fair few problems with it. FTTC does make the Apple TV much more useful and of course downloading from iTunes is much better too with FTTC.

Overall the benefits of the Apple TV certainly outweigh for me the small number of issues I have with it. I think for £99 as a set top box it really is value for money, but I say that with the caveat that you really do need to have an iTunes ecology for content.

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Battleship for iPad – Game Choice #04

If you like using your iPad for games (in the main casual gaming) then you may be interested in the following games that I have enjoyed playing on my iPad over the last few years.

Battleship for iPad £1.99

Experience the sea-assault game that sinks all pretenders. More powerful than ever on iPad, enjoy spectacular HD-quality graphics and stunning sound effects. Launch into the iPad exclusive 2 Player Mode and test your strategic senses in an all-out engagement for naval supremacy – just like the all-time favorite board game!

Now first things first, you can play Battleships using pen and paper and that is probably the best way to play.

My son got for Christmas a plastic version (not the official version) that was quite fun, but had one drawback the co-ordinates were the same colour as the board and as a result in poor light I actually needed a torch to read off the co-ordinates!

So in a fit of frustration I decided that there was bound to be a version for the iPad and I would buy that…

There are a few versions available for the iPad, in the end I went with the official version. No real reason, the reviews on the others were mixed and in the end I quite liked the look of the app.

As a game it works. As well as the classic version there are a few alternatives that are quite fun.

The AI when playing on your own isn’t perfect, but then again, Battleships is really more luck than skill once you’ve got a strategy sorted. Against a human however the game works well.

Annoyed with EA by the number of adverts for their other games, especially as I paid for this app; I’ve noticed that with many of the EA games they are shoving adverts into their games. It’s annoying and doesn’t work, well it doesn’t work for me.

If you have the boardgame and assuming it isn’t sitting on a shelf gathering dust then you’ll probably enjoy the iPad version.

Get Battleship for iPad in the iTunes App Store.  – No longer available.

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Mondo Solitaire for iPad – Game Choice #02

If you like using your iPad for games (in the main casual gaming) then you may be interested in the following games that I have enjoyed playing on my iPad over the last few years.

Mondo Solitaire – £3.99

On every Windows computer was a copy of Solitaire, partly to teach users how to use a mouse, and in the main for users to waste time…

There are a number of free Solitaire apps for the iPad, but what I like about Mondo Solitaire is the sheer number and variety of games within the app.

Mondo Solitaire is the ultimate Solitaire experience for your iPad. With over 100 games and over 200 different combinations of gameplay, you’re sure to find your favorites, such as Klondike and FreeCell, plus many new games to discover, from Angkor Wat to Xerces.

Mondo Solitaire’s beautiful, crisp graphics let you easily identify your cards and assess your current move. Clever tools like the magnifying glass and the paper clip help you intuitively manage your game.

A familiar library search lets you sort and select all of your games — by name, style, favorites, and even popularity. The categorized interface makes it really easy to find the exact game you want to play.

Mondo Solitaire is a true casual game you can play whenever and wherever, yet dismiss quickly to surf the web or send messages. When finished, simply tap on the game application’s icon and head right back into the action!

There is a huge choice of card games to play and the library function certainly makes it very easy to work out which games you like and which ones you’ve not played yet.

The size of the iPad screen makes it ideal for playing card games and is much easier than playing using the iPhone screen (though there is a version of Mondo for the iPhone, alas it is not an universal app so you will need to buy it for both the iPad and the iPhone).

Mondo was one of the first games I purchased for my iPad and I have been very pleased with it.

Mondo Top 5 Solitaire (which is £1.99) uses the same solitaire gaming engine in “mondo Solitaire” to bring you FreeCell, Golf, Klondike, Pyramid, and Spider. However for £3.99 with the full Mondo you get over a hundred games, so I would spend the £3.99.

Get Mondo Solitaire in the iTunes App Store. – No longer available.

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Tech Stuff – Top Ten Posts of 2011

Here are the top ten blog posts (by views) for 2011.

10. Joikuspot s60 limitation

This blog post which described a major limitation with Jokuspot on the Nokia N95 was the principle reason I bought a MiFi.

9. No joy with Sony PSP and JoikuSpot Premium

This was quite an old post, from nearly three years ago, when my primary method for mobile internet was using Joikuspot on a Nokia N95. Since then I have used a MiFi and now in the main use the portable wireless hotspot on a Google Nexus One.

8. Insufficient Bandwidth

This post described how a problem with my FTTC was causing me to have issues with iPlayer streams. I think in the end it was more of an issue with BBC iPlayer than an issue with my internet connection.

7. New Sony Tablets, the Tablet S

In this blog post I was looking forward to the new Sony Tablet. Having now seen the Tablet for real I am slightly disappointed. It didn’t feel like a Sony product and seemed overpriced for what it was.

6. Instagram on the Desktop

My sixth most popular post looked at a couple of Mac apps that allowed you to view Instagram images on your desktop. I really like Instagram, but sometimes feel disadvantaged when I want to see a feed of Instagram images on my Mac.

5. ITV Player and 4OD on the PS3

An update to the PS3 provided access to the watch again services from ITV and Channel 4.

4. iPhone Portable Wifi Hotspot

Back in January Apple announced a new feature for the iPhone, that allowed you to turn it into a portable wifi hotspot, something I had been doing for a while using my Froyo Google Nexus One.

3. I don’t like BT FON

My third most popular post was a rant about BT FON, well actually it wasn’t a rant about BT FON itself, it was rant that BT routers configured for BT FON also broadcast a BT Openzone SSID which wasn’t a real BT Openzone and so as a result my iPhone (which has free access to BT Openzone) couldn’t use it.

2. BT Openzone-H

This post was a follow on to my BT FON rant, it was apparent that BT were aware of the problem I discussed and are in the process of changing the settings on the BT Homehubs so that instead of broadcasting the BT Openzone SSID they have renamed it to BT Openzone-H. I should say that though I posted this in July, here nearly six months later my neighbour’s BT HomeHub is still broadcasting BT Openzone and not the new Openzone-H.

1. Live BBC TV on the iPad

My most popular post was not really a post more of an addendum to another post reviewing the BBC iPlayer app for the iPad.

The addendum mentioned that the main advantage of the app over the web interface was that you could access live TV through the app.

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Where’s me Spotlight?

I probably do have too many apps on my iPad. One of the reasons I bought a 64GB iPad was I knew there were going to be some big apps out there and I would need the space.

However one consequence of too many apps, is finding the app when you need to use it. I have to admit to not really organising my apps into folders, partly as it is such a bore to do that, but also I really don’t like the design and look of the folder icons. Also I am not sure how much they would actually help me find the app I was looking for.

So more often than not I swipe to the right from the Home screen and use Spotlight, the built in search on the iPad, to find the app I want.

So there I was on the iPad, when I wanted to quickly blog a picture that made me smile.

I decided I would use Blogsy, swiped to the right, typed Bl and it didn’t come up.

Hmmm, I thought, probably haven’t installed it on this iPad (or uninstalled it since upgrading to iOS 5). So I went to the App Store and weirdly it said it was installed.

I then went back to Spotlight and did some other searches, and nothing was coming up, no results, zip, nowt!

I did try turning off Spotlight in settings, but that had no effect, so I then did a reboot, by holding down the power switch for five seconds until the “Slide to power off” comes on and turned the iPad off.

Turning it back on again I checked and Spotlight was back!

I had just sync’d the iPad so wonder if that had caused Spotlight to fail. Generally the iPad just works for me, thought now and again I do find glitches and bugs with the operating system. Most can be fixed with a reboot though.

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Playing games on the iPad

If you like using your iPad for games (in the main casual gaming) then you may be interested in the following apps. Electronic Arts are having an iPad Game Sale this weekend, so some of these are cheap today.

Monopoly

It’s a classic game and one that I am sure most of us played at some point in our lives. The advantage of the iPad version is that very difficult for your opponents to cheat!

Scrabble

I am always in two minds about Scrabble on the iPad, as some of the words the computer opponent uses I am sure are not real words! As a result it can be quite challenging to beat the iPad.

Mondo Solitaire for iPad

With over a hundred games and many different combinations, if you enjoy Solitaire card games then get this app. As well as traditional favorites such as Freecell, there are many different weird and wonderful variants. I particularly enjoy the challenge of Lucas or Forty Thieves.

Boggle

Based on the dice game, this challenging word game is perfect for those few minutes while waiting for a train or a programme to start on the TV. Sixteen letters on the board and you need to make as many words as possible only using the letters and ensuring that are in order too. Like Facebook there are combinations in the results that I am sure are not real words!

Lego Harry Potter

If you like Lego, like Harry Potter and like puzzle games, then you are going to really enjoy Lego Harry Potter on the iPad.

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Going up in the Air!


For the past few years I have been using a MacBook Pro 13” laptop as my main travelling, event, conference, working from home computer. The reason for the 13” was that it was small and light and had a reasonably good battery life, but also was powerful enough for audio and video editing as well as my usual travel staples of e-mail, browsing and social media.

Over the last year or so I have found that I am more and more leaving the MacBook Pro at home and taking the iPad when travelling or at events and conferences. Despite the limitations of no physical keyboard (sometimes I do carry my Bluetooth keyboard) limited power and capability to do heavy duty video and audio editing; from the perspective of doing e-mail, blogging, web browsing and social media, it is very good at what it does.

When I was given the opportunity to upgrade my MacBook Pro I did think about leaving it as is, or handing it back to be redeployed. In the end after some thought I decided to go with the MacBook Air 11” model. The 13” MacBook Pro will now go back into the staff pool to be redeployed as it is still powerful enough for how others might use it.

I went with the reasonably basic model, but did opt for 4GB of RAM as I have found in the past that OS X does perform much better with lots of RAM. I only got the 64GB SSD and am concious that this may prove problematic if and when I come to do some serious video editing on the machine. Without Firewire it’s not as though I can use an external Firewire drive either (as I have done with the old 13” MacBook Pro model).

Due to end of financial year issues this is not the new 11” model, as Apple announced it after we had placed and received our order. We couldn’t wait due to finance procedures and Apple wouldn’t exchange (as they don’t do that for institutional educational customers). As a result it doesn’t have the backlit keyboard and neither does it have a Thunderbolt port which may have then been an option. I think as a result I will be doing short videos and will have to move content off from the Mac on a regular basis to other storage.

So what of the MacBook Air then?

Well I have been very impressed with the speed of it, the original (original) MacBook Air was very underpowered, whereas this one just zips along. I did my usual test where I select all the applications in the applications folder and press Command O to open them all…. at which point the dock becomes full of bouncing icons. It handled that test really well.

The battery life is good, but is no iPad. As a result unlike with the iPad, if and when I do take the MacBook Air to a conference or event, I know I will be searching for power points. The 13” MacBook Air with its larger size has a much better battery life. I am getting three to four hours which to be honest is really good, but not like the iPad which for me lasts all day.

I do like the screen which though has quite a small resolution compared to some other Macs at 1366×768 looks bright and sharp. Yes it is a glossy screen and I know for some that means they won’t like it. I am less

It’s lovely and light and I am a bit scared it might get bent in my bag when I take it to my first conference, so need to look out for a way of ensuring that doesn’t happen.

I am curious to see if the MacBook Air will supplant my iPad in terms of travel and event usage. Only time will tell.

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Podcast Choice #05 – iPad Today

I have been asked a fair few times about the different podcasts I listen to. I not only have a lengthy commute to work, but also travel a fair bit for work, so it’s vital to me to have something to listen to. This series will discuss and review the different podcasts I listen to or have listened to. In a previous blog post I spoke about the why and how I listen to podcasts, now we look at the actual podcasts I listen to.

This week’s podcast is iPad Today.

Tech geeks Leo Laporte and Sarah Lane love their iPads so much they’ve created “iPad Today,” the TWiT network’s first show highlighting the best apps, most helpful tools, coolest tricks, and essential news surrounding the iPad revolution. “iPad Today” is smart, informative, and lots of fun.

If you have an iPad and are interested in news on the iPad and app recommendations than this is the podcast for you. This is very for the iPad user and isn’t really for anyone else…

I find there are lots of ideas to take away from the podcast on how to make better use of your iPad and what fun, useful and interesting apps that are out there.

This is one of the few podcasts I listen to where I actually prefer to watch it! The video version of iPad today is available in both a high res and low res format. As the podcast is looking at apps, the video version makes a lot more sense when the hosts are describing what they like about apps they are viewing. The audio version is still though eminently listenable to.

One of the “features” of iPad Today (and the other podcasts from the TWiT network) is that notes from the show are available within a few days on the show wiki. So if you are listening in the car or on your iPod and want to know the name of the app that was mentioned, it will usually end up in the wiki with a link.

So if you have an iPad and want to know what new apps are available and what the latest news is, then this is a great podcast to watch (and listen to).

Subscribe to iPad Today in the iTunes Store.

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Staples, really no idea!

It has been sometime since I went to a mobile phone store, but I do remember that all the phones on display were fakes, plastic copies to give you an idea of how it looked and size, but had no functionality whatsoever and were very lightweight so bore no resemblance to how heavy the actual phones were.

How different it is at an Apple store. If you have been to an Apple store you will know that all the kit that is laid out is the real kit. It also all works too. If you want to make a phone call on the display iPhone, you can! Well you could the last time I tried… All the iPads have real apps on them that work, okay some are “lite” versions, but they do function as well as the real apps. I also like the fact that they have photographs in the photo albums, music, films and TV shows. You can really get a feel for how the iPad will work and how it would fit into your lifestyle and your needs. The same can be said for the Macs, which again are populated with Apps and content in a similar vein.

Another key feature of the Apple store is that all the devices can connect to the internet, so if you want to check how the web works on the device you can.

So what has that go to do with Staples as it says in the title of the blog post?

Well Staples could learn a lot from Apple about how best to present the kit they sell they have on display.

I was in there the other day and they had a really nice range of tablets on display, most were Android, but there was also the HP TouchPad.

Most had power, but not all.

None had anything on them except the default install, so no apps to try, no content to view or look at.

Though all had wifi, none could be used to access the internet as none of them were connected to the internet!

Really what was the point of having them on display, when the average consumer is going to have no idea about how they work and how they could fit into their lifestyle.

In a recent blog post of mine I said:

1.21 million Android tablets have been sold, and in the same time period 28.73 million iPads have been sold by Apple.

In that post I put the focus on the price and went on to say:

…with the iPad, though its price is more than the price of similar Android tablets, people buy the iPad because of factors other than price.

Well if the buying experience is anything to go by and I had to make a choice based purely on that, it’s a no brainer you would go for the iPad.

Apple have made a reputation in the retail business by providing a good retail experience. I am sure if Staples created a buying experience that matched the one you find in the Apple store I am pretty sure that the sales of Tablets in there would increase. By how much, probably double or even treble. It’s not that difficult, get the tablets to sell themselves.

I am sure it’s not entirely the fault of Staples, the suppliers of the tablets probably don’t provide anything either except perhaps a “demo reel”.

So have you bought a tablet from Staples or other retailer? What was your experience like?