Category: ipad

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Snapseeded

Over the last few days I have been playing around with the Snapseed app for the iPad. 

This is a wonderful photograph editing app that I was told about by Mark Power.

Unlike other similar apps in the iTunes store, this has a unique interface that at first takes a little getting use to, but once you’ve mastered it you realise how powerful and easy it is to use. It certainly makes the most of the touch interface that the iPad has.

It can even handle RAW images from your DSLR if you use the optional iPad camera connection kit.

As well as the usual brightness, contrast, saturation and other ways to tune your image, there is a useful selective adjustment tool that allows you to adjust part of the photograph.

I also like the included filters that can be used to add drama, grunge or make your photograph look vintage.

This is one of the most powerful apps I have used on the iPad for image manipulation and certainly I have been pleased with the results.

Get Snapseed in the iTunes Store.

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Halftone

I recently reviewed this app on my e-Learning blog, it was good value then at 69p, however for this weekend Halftone is free, so well worth checking out.

What it does is take a photograph and convert it into a comic style image that can then be used on a blog, in a presentation, or on a print document.

Tthis is a nice simple cheap free app that allows you to create a vintage comic panel from one of your photographs in a particular style.

Get Halftone in the iTunes Store.

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Overpriced?

Is the iPad overpriced?

One criticsim I hear a lot about the iPad is that it overpriced. Someone recently said that you shouldn’t buy the iPad as it as too expensive.

Well £399 for the 16GB WiFi model is a lot more money that the £69.99 that you can buy an Android Tablet for from Amazon.

That isn’t really a fair comparison in my opinion, as it isn’t a proper Android tablet, as it’s not running Honeycomb and only has 2GB of RAM.

The Acer Iconia TAB A500 is a much fairer comparison, it costs
£349.96 from Amazon (though the list price is £417.80 which is more than the iPad!!!).

So you can not only buy a similar specified Android tablet for cheaper than the iPad you can also buy really cheap Android Tablets for less than £100 even from Asda.

So is the iPad overpriced?

Well yes the price is more than the price of Android tablets, so from that basic definition yes it is overpriced.

However though some people are price sensitive, price is rarely the only factor that we take into account when we buy something.

For example, very few people buy the value cola from the supermarket, most people will buy Coca-Cola or Pepsi even though it is more expensive.

Price is one factor to consider when buying something, but generally other factors come into play.

It’s the same 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. Saying it is overpriced is irrelevant as the price is generally not the deciding factor when buying a tablet. This is echoed in the sales.

1.21 million Android tablets have been sold, and in the same time period 28.73 million iPads have been sold by Apple. These figures were derived from a recent article by John Gruber.

Breakdown by Google of Android devices in use by screen size. “Xlarge” is defined as any screen 7 inches or larger. By Google’s count, only 0.9% of activated in-use devices are tablets. Multiply that by the 135 million total Android “devices” that Larry Page announced last week during Google’s quarterly analyst call, and you get 1.21 million tablets. Compare that to the 28.73 million iPads Apple sold through the end of June.

This is not a small difference in sales, this is a huge significant difference in sales.

The reasons are probably varied, but price isn’t going to be a big reason. People buy the iPad for many different reasons and to say that the iPad is too expensive or overpriced says more about you than it does the iPad.


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Lego Harry Potter

I don’t play games that often on my iPad and those that I do are often word games such as Boggle or Scrabble. I also like card games and Mondo Solitaire is a fantastic app with all the versions of Solitaire that you can think of.

Though I have bought a few other arcade types, one that my family really enjoyed was Lego Harry Potter.

Play as Harry, Ron, Hermione and many more as you explore Hogwarts and engage in countless hours of gameplay spread across 40+ levels based on the Harry Potter books and movies. 

LEGO® Harry Potter™: Years 1-4 brings the world of LEGO® Harry Potter to life on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, giving gamers the power to play with LEGO characters and models in a brand new way. Based on the first four Harry Potter books and movies, LEGO® Harry Potter: Years 1-4 builds on the foundations of previous LEGO® video games by offering a mix of fun, accessible gameplay and light-hearted humor – appealing to all ages. Players can explore the wizarding world and feel as though they are at Hogwarts.

In celebration of the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Part 2, LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 is only £1.99 which compared to the cost of console versions and PSP versions is really really really cheap! This is really good value for what is a compelling and fun game. That is key, though only £1.99 this is a great game that you can spend hours playing.

What Lego have done with their games is add a tongue in cheek element to the films they have made games of and as a result if you know the films you can smile at the little jokes that are interspersed in the little clips included in the game. So a perfect combination if you like Lego and Harry Potter.

The game itself covers the first four books/films of the Harry Potter universe and you start in Privet Drive before finally fighting you know who at the end of the Goblet of Fire.

As with many Lego games (those on the PSP, PS3 etc) the game is a combination of puzzles, logic and, in the case of Harry Potter casting spells.

What surprised me was how much all members of the family enjoyed the game and how quickly they picked it up. The controls work well within the touch interface and simple to use.

I do like the fact that Apple have made this a universal app so it works on the iPod touch, the iPhone and the iPad. Personally I think as a game it works better on the iPad because of the bigger screen.

I know that my family are awaiting the next installment of Harry Potter for the iPad and would also like to see other Lego style games too. We’ll have to wait and see, in the meantime why not try playing this excellent Lego game.

Update: Price has now gone back to £2.99 still excellent value for money.

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Trainz

If you have seen my Flickr feed you may realise that I take a lot of photographs of food… I also take a fair few photographs of trains. My two boys love trains and they often drag me off to railway stations and level crossings to watch steam engines and other trains.

Torndao and the Torbay Express

This weekend the Trainz app for the iPad is on special offer for just 69p.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Trainz we have been busy developing Trainz for mobile devices and we are pleased to give each and every iPad user the opportunity to have Trainz at your fingertips. With Trainz custom built input system to get the most out of the iPad’s touch functionality you’ll find driving Trains, laying tracks, creating layouts and completing scheduled tasks a breeze. Trainz Simulator iPad is packed full of content, routes and sessions to give you the best Train experience on any mobile platform. Trainz Simulator is a world first for iPad!

Trainz Simulator for iPad includes everything you need to build and operate your own dream railroad. You can build a fun layout in minutes, faithfully recreate a railroad from days gone by or develop a fully fledged prototypical route; the choice is yours.

So if your young children like trains then they may like this app.

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Boldly going…

When I saw this app mentioned on the Guardian website I thought, oh that sounds like fun.

However in the end I was disappointed.

The Star Trek PADD app was the kind of app that for me would be ideal to show off the iPad. Anyone who has watched Star Trek will have seen Captain Picard use an iPad type device called the PADD. No evidence to prove it, but I suspect a few Apple engineers were inspired by it….

The Official Star Trek PADD (Personal Access Display Device) immerses fans in a rich interactive database of Star Trek information and images with an authentic reproduction of the LCARS style interface introduced in the Star Trek: The Next Generation series.

The PADD provides access to the official Star Trek database from StarTrek.com of aliens, ships, places, technologies, and episode guide. The app includes a true reproduction of LCARS, the computer interface commonly used in Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets during the 24th century, and includes familiar computer sound effects and voice, making it enjoyable to everyone.

Features of the Star Trek PADD app include:

-Browse or search through official database of Star Trek television series information, including aliens, ships, places, technologies, and episode guide
-Rich, immersive LCARS graphical interface, introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation television series
-Authentic computer sound effects and voice
-Jump to related information through cross-links to other content
-Read the latest news from the Star Trek Facebook page and Star Trek Twitter feed
-Enjoy two self-running diagnostic modes with an overview schematic of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D

The ability to have your own PADD, by running the Star Trek PADD was very appealing. I knew that all the content was available on the Star Trek website, so I knew I was paying £2.99 purely for the interface. That is quite a bit of money for an interface, but it is the same as a price of a cup of coffee from a high street coffee shop, I had hoped that the app would last longer than the coffee, but alas I was to be disappointed.

The LCARS interface wasn’t what I was expecting, lots of flashing bits and pieces. If my memory serves me rightly the LCARS on the television show wasn’t quite so annoying. The animated interface seems to be much more animated than on the television show. It certainly is flashing on and off a lot more than the website.

The PADD app seems to have a huge amount of content, though I am not surprised to read:

The official Star Trek PADD app database does not include all information within the Star Trek Universe. We will continue to update the database as information becomes available.

So some stuff is missing.

What did surprise me was the lack of video clips. There may be some in there, but I didn’t see any. The website has a fair few video clips, but as they are in a Flash format obviously don’t work on the iPad.

Overall I was disappointed with what should be an ideal app for the iPad, the content, though complete, failed to take advantage of the iPad platform, without video clips or animations, it is just a textual encyclopedia. Combined with the over animated LCARS interface, it was an app that didn’t work for me. I should have bought a coffee and accessed the Star Trek Wiki on my iPad instead.

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Scribbly iPad Stylus

Though I do like the finger approach to the iPad, sometimes, especially when drawing or making notes I think I would like a stylus. When I used Microsoft’s Windows for Tablet PC on an HP Tablet, I really did like using the stylus for various things, just a pity the battery life was so bad (which is different these days I know) and the user interface wasn’t really designed for a stylus, worked better with a mouse!

The iPad with it’s focus on using gestures for navigation does work really well, but is not as intuitive for some things and I think a stylus would do the job.

Having seen this video, I think I might be getting one of these.

Scribbly is the ultimate stylus for your iPad or iPhone.

Replicating the look and feel of an old school marker pen it’s ideal for wireframing, sketching and notetaking!

Free your creative side with the scribbly stylus!

At £10 it’s not a bad price either.

Of course doesn’t mean I will be able to draw better… there’s more to drawing than just the tools you use.


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Back to the Future…

Check out this quote.

Checking out your favorite movie during a road trip. Downloading and listening to the latest hot tunes at the coffee shop. Surfing the Web at the beach while your friends surf the waves. More than ever before, people around the world are demanding simpler, more convenient ways to access and enjoy their favorite digital content while on the go.

Sounds like the iPad doesn’t it?

So was this quote about the iPad?

No!

It was from March 2006, five years ago, before the iPhone, before the iPod touch and four years before the iPad.

The quote above was from Intel about the Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC). Back then they also said:

The Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) addresses these needs with small, stylish products you can carry with you everywhere you go. The UMPC devices offer ultra-portable sizes and long battery life, plus full PC and Internet capabilities, so you can access your favorite web pages anytime, virtually anywhere!

I remember back then really liking the concept, so much so that I ordered the Sony VAIO UX1XN, which was a great little UMPC computer that fulfilled the dream

UX1XN

So what happened to the UMPC?

Well it wasn’t killed by the iPad, no it was well dead by the time Apple released that. No it was the netbook and more specifically the Asus EeePC. What happened was that when companies like Sony started releasing products like the UX1XN, and Samsung their Q1 they charged a premium price. The UMPC was not a cheap product, it was much more a luxury. The price did drop quite quickly.

When the Sony VAIO UX1XN was released in the UK it commanded a £2,000 price tag. This was a lot of money for a device the size of a PDA (even if it could run Windows Vista).

In July 2007 I noticed my local Sony Centre had reduced the price to £1,600. Still expensive, but 20% off is quite a reduction. Such reductions usually imply that a new model is just around the corner.

On Amazon in August 2007 you could get the UX1XN for just £1,199 which considering the features of the UX1XN (the cameras, flash hdd) makes the UX1XN seem like a reasonable proposition.

In October 2007 it was just £999 at the Sony story and only £899 on Amazon.

UX1XN

Today used models can be have for less than £500 on Amazon, which is the same price as an iPad!

So when the Asus EeePC was launched with a £200 price tag, the concept of the netbook was launched and the UMPC effectively died. Companies did try and compete by reducing prices, but in the end it was impossible to compete on features and low prices were what people looked at.

Pricing wasn’t the only flaw, there were some others. One of the main drawbacks was battery life, iPad users who probably don’t even worry about it today would gasp at the 1½-2 hour battery life with those UMPC devices. These weren’t devices you would use all day, much more a casual device that always needed to be close to it’s charger.

I remember taking the UX1XN to a conference in Cardiff and back then said

It’s small enough to be unintrusive, unlike a laptop which can be a bit of a barrier, it has two cameras which enable me to send images to Flickr or take short video clips, and the keyboard is usable unlike the fiddly mobile phone type split keyboard of the Q1 Ultra. You can also use it without needing to put it on the table or on your lap which makes it ideal in the conference hall or break-out room environment.

I wouldn’t want to write a long blog entry (like this one) on it, but for entering URLs or posting tweets or jaiku postings, I think it will work just fine.

A big flaw for me was the operating system, Windows Vista was rather too bloated for a device which lacked the power and memory of standard desktops and laptops. This would eventually be solved with Windows 7, but by that time the UMPC was just a distant memory. Microsoft really needed to do what Apple and Google have done and create a completely new OS that works on new formats for devices, but that wasn’t going to happen at that time.

Another problem were the touch screens, whereas big Tablet PCs required a dedicated stylus, the UMPC often resorted to a simple touch screen. However with an OS that really didn’t work with touch and needed a stylus, too often you found that neither worked satisfactorily and the experience was not nice.

However many people like me, saw that these early products, though expensive and having some flaws, they really demonstrated the potential of small mobile computers, something we now see in Apple’s iPad and Android tablets. Looking back at the UMPC we can see what worked and what didn’t, as a result when something like the iPad comes along that solves many of the flaws, price, battery life and OS, but still has the the main features of the UMPS, such as solid state drives (SSD), cameras, touch screens. You start to realise the influence of these devices on companies such as Apple and Google.

Many people see the iPad as Apple’s response to the netbook, I don’t, I think Apple looked at the original UMPC concept from Intel and went, “we can do that, and we can do that better!”

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WIRED gone haywire…

I have quite enjoyed reading WIRED magazine on my iPad and have written about the “app” on my e-Learning Stuff Blog where I review iPad apps.

I reviewed when it first came out and then four months later.

Over the last few months I have “missed” a few issues, but I was never one to read every issue of WIRED anyway, or as was the case the last issue I got was a paper version as I was on a plane to Inverness. During that time WIRED have updated their app a few times.

You can then when going back to look at the app to find that all my back issues were missing and it appeared that I would need to re-buy the issues I had already bought. Prior to this the app would indicate which issues I hadn’t bought, which issues I had bought and downloaded, and which issues I had bought but could download again. Now it seemed to indicate that all my back issues were gone and I would need to buy them again!

No I wouldn’t do that.

Was annoyed so didn’t pursue it further and certainly didn’t buy another issue either…

A few days ago I looked again at the app, wondering if it had been fixed, and from the first look, no they hadn’t. I then decided to do a quick Google search and see what others were saying and doing and it was then that I found out what had happened.

It would seem that updating the app and a change in the process of how apps deal with in-app purchases meant that though the app shows all my back issues as needing to be bought again… if I went and purchased them, it would say “You’ve already purchased this. Tap OK to download it again for free.”

So I can get my back issues back for free.

Now the challenge is to remember which ones I bought… have to go and check the e-mail. Not as simple as it should be!

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Bluetooth interference

I’d forgotten how annoying Bluetooth interference can be. I was on the train to London and I had only brought my iPad, but also brought my Apple Bluetooth Keyboard so that I could type up some stuff.

However as I tried to type I was getting typing errors like this.

So there IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

The iPad also kept “losing” the keyboard.

The reason for the keyboard problems wasn’t an issue with the iPad or the keyboard, but was Bluetooth interference from my Google Nexus One. I use the Nexus One as my portable wireless hotspot and due to the constraints of the seating on the train it was placed next to the iPad.

London Paddington

Moving the Nexus One resulted in the keyboard problems disappearing.

So why didn’t I just turn off Bluetooth on the Nexus One? Well that would seem to be the easy solution, the reason I didn’t was that it was already off. The interference actually comes from the wifi on the Nexus One and not Bluetooth, and if I turn off the wifi then I lose my internet connection. So easy solution, move the Nexus One, not that simple in the cramped seats of First Great Western.