iPad 3G Comments

I am the proud owner of an iPad 3G 64GB, which mostly means that I sat around stewing for a month or so while my friends all got to play with their shiny, new toys.  I am happy I waited, though.  I’ve found the 3G connectivity to be incredibly convenient. I don’t own a Verizon Mi-Fi or any other mobile hotspot solution, so the 3G made some sense out of the gate.  Even so, I think the instant on, instantly-connected feel of the iPad makes it a wonderfully flexible tool, in and out of the business.

Much has been said about the various features of the iPad – from the surprisingly long battery life to the snappy feel – but I think the most satisfying observation has been how much of a “blank slate” device this is.  The iPad is absolutely whatever I need whenever I need it.  I can go (and have gone) from taking handwritten notes (thank you, Pogo Stylus) to playing Scrabble to checking a presentation to watching a movie to….well, you get the idea.  If you are still on the fence about an iPad, hop off. This device is an incredible addition to your arsenal of useful business and personal gadgets.

I have my first business trip where I can test it out next week.  It’s just a quick overnight and there’s absolutely no reason to bring my laptop.  I think it will fair just fine there.  However, the true test will be the week after, when I leave for 3 days – where I will be expected to continue to run my practice from 2000 miles away. I’m leaning towards chancing it just with my iPad.  I’ll report back my success…or failure.

MILOfest 2010

We’re almost ready to open the doors and begin accepting registration. I have a special gift to last year’s attendees.  The contract has been signed, so I can confirm that this year’s dates are November 11-13, 2010. Block out the time now so there’s no chance that you miss it.  I’ll be releasing more details shortly here, on the MILOfest webpage, and on MILOfest’s new Facebook page - http://is.gd/cslz5

Keep checking those spots, as well as the hashtag #MILOfest on Twitter for details and announcements.

Sex and the City 2 (SATC 2)

By all reports, SATC 2 is a movie that is dizzyingly bad. I haven’t read a review yet that concludes that it’s worthy investment of 146 minutes of your life.  The blogosphere is ripe with postings of reviews that have ripped the movie to shreds.  Why post about it here?  I just want you to know that the main character, famous for writing on her Powerbook during the TV series, has sold out and moved to an HP.

I can’t prove that the movie sucking and new PC computer is anything more than coincidence, but I can’t prove that they’re unrelated either.

Posted by Victor J. Medina

*Images courtesy of cybertoast/sundar raman on Flikr under a Creative Commons, Non-Commercial/Attribution/Share Alike license.

HOWEVER, the iTunes store is notoriously difficult to navigate. It’s really tough just to get a window of just iPad Apps. Hopefully, this little guide will be helpful.

First, launch iTunes. Then, under the Store menu, select “Search”

In the search boxes, select “Apps” from the drop-down menu and put in “iPad” – leave the other boxes empty or on the default setting.

Then, in the search results, you should see the window I’ve pasted below.

Click on “See All” – which should bring you to the page below.

And you should be all set to window shop ’til your heart’s content. Then again, maybe I just make it easier on you and tell you to Click On This Link. Am I a nice guy or what?

Another quick hint, if you just want to look at this stuff on a first pass before deciding to buy it, select “Add to Wish List” from the drop down menu next to the price of the app. Then you can look at the smaller list of apps later without losing your place.

Adding the apps to your Wish List has the added benefit of letting you know which apps for iPad will be included as a free upgrade, if you’ve purchased or downloaded the iPhone version of the app in the past. It will let you know that you can’t add the app, which is a little code for, maybejustmaybe, the upgrade to the iPad version will be free.

I’m getting seriously excited.

Posted by Victor Medina

I’m here to make things easy for you – They all have praises to sing.

Here are the cream of the crop.

Andy Ihnatko – Chicago Sun-Times

iPad is Pure Innovation

David Pogue – NY Times

Looking at the iPad from Two Angles

Walt Mossberg – Wall Street Journal

Laptop Killer? Pretty close

Edward Baig – USA Today

Verdict on the iPad: It’s a winner

As bonus material, here is Andy Ihnatko’s unboxing video on YouTube:

You may now lust away.

Looking at the Mail application guided tour, we get a more in-depth view at using the on-screen keyboard.

I’m struck to how similar it looks to the physical keyboards produced by Apple. The chicklet keys are prominently featured and the layout looks like it’s large enough to accommodate the average hand size, even in portrait mode.

What was really interesting was the way the iPad on-screen keyboard differs from the iPhone on-screen keyboard. People familiar with the iPhone on-screen keyboard will remember that part of the feedback you get to know that you’ve pecked the right key is that the key will “pop-up” from the display, showing you which key you picked. Then, you can move left/right/up/down to the correct key, if you happened to miss it. Only when you let go is the keystroke triggered and the key entered onto the screen.

(That sounds more complex than it is, but bear with me.)

With the iPad, it appears that this “pop-up” action has been eliminated. In its place, the key turns a dark-grey to show that it’s been depressed. There seems to be no option to move to another key if you missed your target.

Of course, I haven’t used it yet, but I’m not sure how I feel about that. Part of the advantage to touch typing is that you can feel where you are on the keyboard. (For instance, I pounded out those last two sentences, without a misstep, all the while keeping my eyes on the screen.)

With this system, it looks like there will be a lot of eye movement from the cursor location to the keyboard and back again – just to ensure that the correct key has been depressed. That’s as compared with keeping your eye on the on-screen keyboard for the iPhone with the feedback of the “pop-up.”

Mistakes also look like they’ll be more prevalent with the on-screen keyboard – or else, there will be a heavier reliance on the auto-correct feature.

I think many of these issues will go away once people start using the Bluetooth keyboard to input most of their typed-information, but in the cases where the keyboard is not available (or warranted) – I wonder how people will react to this change.

Much has been made of the training that has occurred via iPhone use. This is one marked departure from this training and people will need to learn two ways of inputing information via onscreen keyboard into Apple touchscreen devices.

Posted by Victor Medina,
MacLovin’ JD

Well, here are 3 reasons you can (and maybe should) buy an iPad without being able to touch one. And not feel like an idiot.

1. Build Quality Can Be Assumed To Be Excellent

Apple has always built premium products. One of the reasons that items are more expensive than the entry-level products available from other companies is that Apple doesn’t mess with inferior components or design. The build construction for the iPad is a combination of the new, unibody aluminum MacBook Pros and an iPod Touch. That means that the iPad will be a very durable machine with a premium “feel” about it.

2. How You Interact With The iPad Is Known

One of the coolest things is to see someone use an iPhone for the first time. It’s instinctive. The flicking and swiping come naturally. It’s going to be the same with the iPad. Because it uses the iPhone OS (or a version of it), anyone who knows how to use an iPhone will instantly know how to use the iPad. From all of the videos and first-hand reports, the iPad is “faster” than the iPhone in its responsiveness.

3. The Best Part of the iPad Is Already Successful

The best part of the iPad is going to be the development of 3rd-party applications. The App Store has been a clear success (if a little difficult to navigate) for both developers as well as the iPhone. The good news is that all of the apps you’ve purchased will run on the iPad at the size of the iPhone, but many of them will scale up well to the iPad’s screen size.

More importantly, developers who never thought about getting into iPhone OS game are reconsidering with the release of the iPad. Here, I’m thinking about Omnigroup, who will be developing iPad versions of all of their main products (OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, etc.).

And that’s the real advantage of the iPad. It can become, as a tool, whatever the developer wants it to be. I’ve seen a document mark-up program, some awesome games, and a number of other programs that are phenomenal. And that’s just the developers that have started since January.

Posted by Victor J. Medina

Our best guess was that the Keynote Remote app running on an iPhone would be a solution. The app lets you view your slides (current and upcoming) and gives you access to your presenter’s notes in your hand. Not a bad way to control your slides. Again, it was just a guess.

Lo, and behold, we learn that the Keynote Remote app webpage was updated today. Nothing directly on point in the discussion , but the title bar has been changed to reference to the iPad. See it here:

Many thanks to Finis Price (a MILO Chat host) to pointing this out and following up on our discussion.

The announcement, if it’s true & real, is an interesting development because it raises a number of issues (which we discussed in the podcast.). Namely, how will the iPhone, running the Keynote app, connect to the iPad? You know, assuming it can.

Given the hardware, there are two potential ways of connecting these two devices – wifi or Bluetooth. I don’t think either is the front runner given some of the limitations discussed below – mostly that enabling either exposes big holes that Apple tends to want to keep shut.

Unfortunately, the app’s current use doesn’t give us a lot of hints. If you use the Keynote Remote app, you have to have your Macbook or Macbook Pro create an ad-hoc wifi network. You can do this whether or not you are actually connected to the Internet. (Although, one of the benefits of doing so with an Internet connection is that you can share that connection with other devices on the network.)

BUT, there’s been no announcement that suggests the iPad will be able to create an ad hoc wifi network. Of course, that raises the question of what happens if creating an ad hoc wi-fi network is the method of connecting the two – can you share your 3G service on the iPad? Will Apple open up creating a wi-fi network with your iPad?

The second way, Bluetooth, is not much better. There are a number of Bluetooth protocols stacks in the world. If I took you through all of them, you’d be bored and overeducated. For now, though, suffice it to say that Apple has not enabled any stack that would permit you to control slides and transmit video information (like your next slide or presenter’s notes). Officially, the iPhone only supports wireless earpieces and stereo headphones. Unofficially, the hardware can support OBEX (object file transfer) protocol.

The problem with turning that on “officially” is that Apple is going to create a way to get files on and off the iPhone without using iTunes, including applications and it can create all kinds of holes that cause problems later.

Okay, you’ve come this far. I owe it to you to give you the simplest explanation, which is that the reference at the top of the title bar is probably just to let you know that you can load the Keynote Remote app onto your iPad and control Keynote on a Macbook Pro with that little Wifi-trick I mentioned above. But, what if…what if?

Regardless, you can be sure there will be lots of iPad discussion at the next MILOfest in November – and If it works out, this iPhone-to-iPad-to-Projector is definitely going to be my set-up.

Posted by Victor Medina
MacLovin’ JD

So, the announcement and all of the discussion since January notwithstanding, I still have a few unanswered iPad questions. Here they are:

1) How will you get content created or edited on the iPad off of the iPad?

From what I’ve read, the iPad SDK suggests that iPad apps will have an area where they can place documents or other information that can be read by other programs. So, for instance, you can create a spreadsheet in Numbers-iPad, and then have it available to Keynote.

So, what about writing something in Pages (like a letter or a blog post) and then sending it your computer. I suppose that email will always be a work-around for getting content off of the iPad, but it’s inelegant and it clogs up your inbox.

It would be nice if I could upload the document to my DropBox folder or a Box.net account. However, both of those solutions require a 3rd party to complete the process and I don’t think that’s Apple’s style, especially with programs that suggest content creation (iWord – IPad suite) as much as content browsing.

I guess this would be the right place to use the iWork.com account you’ve been neglecting…oh, since it was announced. Apple seems to be happy to suggest that you pay for a MobileMe account (for instance if you want the remote wipe or Find My iPhone tricks that came out with iPhone OS 2.0). This might not be that different, but it is definitely an unanswered question.

2) Will you be able to “print” from the iPad?

Can you sense a theme here? I am looking at the iPad as a major content creation device. I don’t mean to suggest that it will do more than the announcement gave away (I won’t be recording or editing podcasts, editing movies,etc.). But they are definitely hinting that this could be an excellent content creation machine. If it’s meant to stand on its own – as a way to appeal to Windows users, like the iPhone does – can you print from the iPad? Will it be able to see your printer on a Wi-Fi network (or via Bonjour through another computer)?

Those are just two of my unanswered questions. I’ll post some more between now and April 3rd…you know, when I have one in my hand to test.

Posted by Victor Medina

Regardless, I’m looking forward to the iPad as a tool to write more blog posts. To that end, I’m testing a program for the iPhone OS called BlogWriter.

In fact, this entire post has been written with the free version of the program on my iPhone. (The free version only allows you to connect to one blog, but if you don’t mind entering the login information each time, arguably you could use it to post to other blogs.)

The program is not terrible. Of course, it can’t drop in photos or other media. Surprised to learn that it doesn’t support landscape mode – at least not in the free flavor.

Categories get imported with the blog setup, but there is no chance to set the tags for SEO purposes.

You also don’t get the option to set the post date or save as a draft for later editing on a more robust blog post editor, like MarsEdit or Blogo. Speaking of draft status, you better like what you’ve written because there is no way to save a draft on the program itself.

Otherwise it’s a decent and clean interface for writing a quick post. I’m notbsure, though, that I’d want to use this as my primary blog post creator on mobile platform. Let it be known that i’ve been saving my iTunes credits for iPad programs, so developers…get cracking.

The AppStore is nearly unnavigable. Anyone have a suggestion for another iPhone OS program to try?

Here are the things that aren’t getting much play that I think are worthy of discussion.

First, this is the first Apple machine of the modern era that uses a processor manufactured by Apple. This is significant because there is a cost savings in not having to pay Intel, AMD or IBM for their chip. This is also significant because Apple can design the chip for a specific purpose, rather than working with the chip specifications put on it by Intel and having to work with those restrictions. Anecdotally, this machines screams. Everything about the iPad is fast, fast, fast. It’s exactly what I would expect from a machine whose processor has been specifically designed to do what the software needs it to do.

Second, the inclusion of the keyboard accessory is a MAJOR concession by Apple. Remember, Steve Jobs took 3 or 4 precious sentences from his iPhone launch keynote to talk about the perils of styluses (styli?) and to extol the virtues of the virtual keyboard. Even when the newest iPhone OS was released, the one that made it possible to design hardware attachments, they never launched this dock-attached keyboard. Apple became the company that said, “You either use your finger to operate a touch-based device, or you can stick you finger”….well, they never said where, but it was implied. The inclusion of a keyboard is a signal that Apple wants to combat any argument that you can’t create massive amounts of content on this device. That, coupled with the introduction of Pages-Touch.

Third, there is a reason for the extra delay in releasing the 3G version and it has nothing to do with manufacturing issues. I believe the real reason why 3G versions are an extra 30 days out is so that Apple can continue to negotiate with Verizon for coverage. The sticking point has to be an annual contract, but I predict that you’ll see a Verizon-based iPad for slightly more per-month cost than AT&T, mostly because they can get it. I admit, I’d be the first to move to the less congested and better implemented data network that Verizon has to offer.

Finally, there are a number of questions yet to be answered and I think the answer to these will form the basis for whether this is the ultimate machine for lawyers, or just another in the long line of toys we buy ourselves.

1) What the specifications on the video out part of the dock accessory? Apple hinted that we can get the video out, but will can it power a 480p or 720p resolution? Will it be available for every application, just the iWork suite plus photos/iTunes movies, something in between? If it can support a “presentation” mode, then this machine is a tremendous presentation device. You might not create all of your content on here, but it will be simple to edit a keynote you made on your Big-Daddy Computer on the iPad and then connect it to a projector for the presentation.

2) How will the lack of Flash and/or the advent towards HTML 5 affect this device? One of the limiting factors for this, as a video viewing device, is the number of sites that rely on Flash to watch video. The fact that Adobe and Apple can’t play nice on this issue means that a lot of people are going to get frustrated trying to watch video that’s on the Web. The one saving grace is that the biggest video site is YouTube and this, apparently, lets you watch YouTube content in HD.

3) One of the biggest deals announced was the lack of contract for 3G service. Of course, this will only be significant if AT&T decides not to bang you for an activation fee every time. But, I can totally see myself buying the 3G version and then only paying for 3G service on the months that I travel. Whether it’s with Verizon or with AT&T, the ability to pay for “a la carte” usage is HUGE. The question is, will lawyers pay the $130 premium for that ability and will lawyers see that for the advantage that it is.

4) Will the iPad cannibalize Apple’s iPhone sales? As it is, iPhone users are paying $40/month for a data plan on a device for which the data usage has to be inferior than what the iPad offers. Can we agree that the iPad is going to be better at websurfing, email, and just about everything for which you need connectivity? If so, I wonder at the attrition rate for iPhone users gravitating towards the iPad and a separate cell phone. We already see this species of user in all of the iPod Touch users. And, as many have pointed out, the ability to connect an iPad with a MiFi or some other cellular hotspot is yet another way that the iPhone loses relevance. Am I along on this?

I’d love to hear what you think. What are your answers to my questions above?

Oh, by the way, I am totally getting one…

Posted by Victor J. Medina
MacLovin’ JD

This episode… Apple Tablet Rumors!

Hosted by: Victor Medina, Finis Price and Grant Griffiths

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