Tag Archives: ipad

Why I Love Apple (products) and Can’t Boycott Them

July 1, 2012 – 9:45 am

Yesterday a firestorm erupted on Google+ after it was announced that a judge had banned sales of the Google’s flagship mobile phone, the Galaxy Nexus for violating two of Apple’s patents. It seemed that the largest corporation in the world had struck a mighty blow against innovation, and concerned citizens erupted, bringing the #BoycottApple hashtag to the top of the trending list. A position it ceded once to Katie Holmes, and then again to Chris Brown, which is understandable. Most people I know aren’t interested in the intricacies of patent law.

I wrote yesterday how I thought Apple has turned evil, and am deeply dismayed by this ruling. However, in spite of Apple’s less than virtuous corporation tactics, I still love Apple products. I love their products with a passion born both of new romance and comfortable familiarity. I love them deeply for every experience that is magical and for every annoyance that never appears.

Today I want to share my love for Apple products. Not as a mindless fangirl caught up in the Apple hysteria – it was as recent as two years ago that I fought my employer to get a Windows machine instead of a Mac. As recent as last year I replaced my iPhone 4 with a Nexus S (and subsequently the now banned Galaxy Nexus). Yet today, unless Apple makes a major design faux pas, I will never buy another non-Apple electronic device.

It all started with the iPad

For many, their “halo device” was the iPod, or the iPhone. The device that finally showed them how easy and seamless Apple product’s can be. It was this ease of use and attention to design excellence that grabbed people. This didn’t happen at an intellectual level – even as the iPod was taking over the market there were still people quoting specifications for other media players that had more memory, faster processors and cost half the price. Yet the iPod won – it touched an emotional part of us the very few products have ever touched. Despite the assumption that Economics 101 students are given of the perfectly rational consumer, we are anything but. We vote with our hearts not our heads.

The iPod wasn’t magical enough for me. It was good, but not so much that I couldn’t make do with something else. I was firmly a Microsoft girl, not only Windows all the way, but actually working on and launching the first version of Zune. Yes, I had one of those first brown Zunes that seemed twice as big and half as cool as the iPod – but I loved it. I loved the subscription music, and I loved the promise of deep integration across all Microsoft products – Xbox, Windows, phones, …

My love affair with Apple started with the iPad. A device so revolutionary that even I couldn’t understand why anyone would use it. I didn’t get the first iPad, because I thought it was a waste of money. I had a computer that was 10x better in all respects and cost just as much. When the iPad 2 was released with a front facing camera, a light bulb went off in my head. My family lives in South Africa, and I recalled all the hassles I’ve had setting up Skype calls with them. Inevitably Windows would choose the wrong input device and lose the video camera signal. Turning a quick 20 min call into an hour of debugging.

The iPad changed all of that, and showed me that so many more magical moments were possible.

More Magical Moments

Skype was truly magical on the iPad, and soon afterwards the lure of playing music around my home from the iPad was too strong, and I purchased an Apple TV. I’ve written extensively about my experience with Apple Airplay – it truly is magical. I kept discovering delightful ways to use the iPad – whether it was watching a movie while exercising, or listening to music in bed while browsing the web. After 6 months with the iPad I realized that I was spending more time using my iPad than my PC. All my activities except “work” were done on the iPad. I had an epiphany – we were entering the post-PC apocalypse, and Microsoft didn’t know it yet.

Once you go Mac you don’t go back

Two weeks ago I made the plunge. I replaced my aging Lenovo laptop with a brand new Macbook Pro Retina. I almost didn’t. I almost bought a Samsung Series 9 three months ago. I almost missed out on the most beautiful computing experience of my life. To a large extent I have Samsung and Microsoft to thank for showing me that Apple is the way. At one time I waited in eager anticipation for Windows 8, even calling it the tech release I most look forward to in 2012. That was before I used it.

I’ve never liked Metro – it’s the children’s coloring book of operating systems. Rather than being playful and fun, the similar tiles blend into a mind numbingly monotonous of boring alikeness. I understand that Microsoft needs to release a tablet operating system, but they went further than that, they chose to inflict the tablet UI on everyone. My beloved Windows key that was my shortcut to the world had been replaced by a Metro I neither wanted nor needed on my desktop. I summed all this up when I lamented that Windows 8 would force me to buy a Mac.

Yet old habits are hard to break. Despite my desire to move over, I couldn’t quite give up the familiarity of Windows, and the hard won efficiencies I had learnt over more than two decades of using Microsoft software (I’m not that old, I just started using computers when I was really young, I promise!). It was with great delight that I actually ordered a Samsung Series 9. This delight was followed by great regret, and soon after hasty cancellation of the order. I realized that Samsung didn’t have a docking station for the Series 9, which meant 5 cables sticking out of my laptop just to use it on a large monitor. Compare this with a single thunderbolt cable from my Mac. As I looked deeper, the entire ecosystem around the Samsung crumbled – no Airplay, and the hodge podge of inconsistent experiences across devices. I finally gave in, and said, “Okay Apple – You Win“.

I love my Macbook

Two weeks ago I bought my first ever Macbook, and three days ago my beautiful Macbook Pro Retina opened itself on my desk, and opened up my world to new possibilities of beautiful design. It would be hard to list all I love about my Macbook, but in just three days I have been delighted in so many ways.

Startup is instantaneous: There’s a reason you’ll see PC-wielding colleagues walking around with their machines open. It’s because it takes forever to startup, require the network and such. Even when resuming from standby. On the Macbook this is instant.
Beautiful: The hardware, the software, the gorgeous screen. Everything is beautiful. I realize that the comparison is unfair coming from Lenovo, but still… the Macbook’s beauty captivates me.
Installing software is something I do again: I had stopped installing Windows software. Not only was there no app store and a plethora of trojans out there, but the experience after installing it was dismal. Every app added it’s on folder and I had to hunt to find it. The dynamic start menu of Windows would make finding applications I use an annoying game. On the Mac everything is right in launchpad. It’s a familiar experience for any iPad or iPhone user too!
Multiple desktops: The one thing I miss from Linux was having multiple desktops, and Mac brings this back. It’s so simple, so powerful and elegantly done by Apple.
The only trackpad you’ll ever use again: Like divinity in glass, Apple’s trackpad is a joy to use. From the now common scroll gestures, to the delightful double finger tap to right click, or double finger swipe to go back and next, I can get things done faster and easier.
Dancing in time to the OS: Animations throughout are subtle enough to get out of the way, but present enough to make every experience feel seamless. Whether it’s closing a window or switching applications the whole experience is a joy.
Irresistible Keyboard: More important than all these delightful experiences, is that my Macbook beckons me to use it. As a writer this is invaluable. Words came haltingly on my PC, but I luxuriate in typing on the Mac. There’s a visceral pleasure I get moving my fingers over the keyboard that harmonizes with the purpose of my soul to share my thoughts. My Macbook has made me love everything about writing in a way no PC could ever have.

Apple, please make me love all of you!

I may deplore Apple’s business tactics, but I love their products. My deepest hope is that Apple will realize that they don’t need to fight the battle in the courtroom, because they’re already won in the marketplace.

Tags apple airplay, Boycott Apple, ipad, Macbook Pro Retina | Comment (1)

Blogging Tablets

The Essential Guide to Blogging on the iPad

September 26, 2011 – 10:29 pm

Blogging on the iPad On my most recent trip I decided to jump headfirst into the Post PC era and forgo my cumbersome Lenovo PC in favor of an iPad. I was confident that the iPad could replace all my needs for email, social networking and entertainment. In fact I’d already shifted many of these activities to my mobile devices. I was a bit more concerned with how efficiently I’d be able to blog. I knew I’d have some free time, so armed with an Apple wireless keyboard I set out to see just how the iPad could handle one of my more complicated daily computing tasks.

Along the way I discovered that the iPad takes you the first 80% of the way with delightful ease, but makes you struggle for the last 20%. Like the ride that drops you 5 miles from home with no bus stops in sight, the iPad left more than a few missing pieces.

My Blogging Setup

Every blogger has their own unique setup. From the most simple text posts with an occasional photo to more elaborate systems that focus on SEO, adorn each post with an image by relying on photo repositories, upload static content to a CDN and use social networking to promote posts.

My setup approaches the latter. I maintain blogs on self-hosted WordPress installs as well as on Blogger. I use Amazon S3 and CloudFront for image hosting, procure images from either stock photo libraries like iStockPhoto or creative commons photos from Flickr and manually promote posts on social networks to build traffic. I’m also picky about the filename, alt text and caption of images for SEO reasons, and on my desktop use tools like JPEGCrop and PNGOut to optimize image size.

Setting Up To Blog on Your iPad

There are generally three options for writing your blog:
1. Use the website – both WordPress and Blogger have very good web editors
2. Use the branded iPad apps for your blog – WordPress has a very robust iPad app, Blogger has a basic and barely functional iPhone app.
3. Use 3rd party iPad apps, of which there are a few.

After some trial and error I ruled out the web interface. The iPad version of Safari is sorely lacking [e.g. no content editable support], which makes WordPress and Blogger sites finicky and cumbersome. Since I’ll spend most of the time writing the post, I needed the environment to be good.

The WordPress native iPad app proved more than adequate, and was easy to setup. Though you’ll need to know some HTML to get the most out of it. Even doing basic things like inserting heading text requires knowing the HTML syntax for such. Since I’m fairly well versed in HTML this wasn’t a problem for me, but could be for others.

The Blogger iPhone app was really rough. It left very little screen real estate for content (since it was an iPhone app), and had issues with escaping characters – Whenever I’d use an apostrophe in the title of a post it would replace it with all the escaped characters – NOT what I had intended. It is however the only way to upload images and have them hosted on Blogger, which can be advantageous.

Since the Blogger app was so rough, I supplemented it with the BlogPress iPad app which does a much better job of text entry. By first uploading any images in the Blogger iPhone app, then opening that post in BlogPress to finish I was able to successfully complete posts.

Handling Images in Blog Posts

Working with images on an iPad can be tricky. There are two separate places that images files are stored on the iPad. The Camera Roll is used for all photos taken from the built in camera, and is also the place that many photo apps open/save from. Unfortunately if you want to specify a specific image file name you’ll need to copy it to the Documents section to rename it. I haven’t found an app that allows renaming of images in the Camera Roll.

Handy apps for handing images include:

PhotoPad: This great little free app supports most of the necessary
GoodReader: This is a great little app for managing files and reading PDF documents. For our purposes it is the easiest way to copy files from the Camera Roll, rename them and copy them back.
Smush.it: I wasn’t able to find apps for optimizing image size on the iPad, but this great service will still do the trick. Unfortunately iPad Safari doesn’t let upload an image for compression, so you need to supply a web link. If you’re using Flickr for images and you don’t need to do processing you can feed the Flickr link to Smush.it. Otherwise it gets a bit tricky since you need to upload the image before compressing it.

Using a CDN for Images

Amazon CloudFront is a popular and easy to use CDN. By serving files from locations that are closer to the user it helps speed up site load time, and also offloads traffic from your web server improving the scale. Uploading files to S3 (and hence CloudFront) is trivially easy on the iPad, though I haven’t found a way to update HTTP headers (e.g. to specify a far future expiry date), this is a small price to pay for such convenience.

Handy apps for working with CDNs:

Cloud Services Manager: This app does more than just S3, it will also let you manage your EC2 instances. Uploading images to S3 is fast and easy.

Social Networks on the iPad

Facebook, Google+ and Twitter all have robust mobile websites, so I’d recommend using these to stay connected with your community while on the iPad. Twitter also has a great iPad app, but both Facebook and Google+ still only provide iPhone apps, which aren’t nearly as good as their mobile websites.

Other Useful Apps for Blogging on the iPad

Dual Browser: A nifty app that splits your browser window in two, so you can do research in one pane and write notes in another.
Atomic Web Browser: A fast and easy to use tabbed web browser. I’m still holding out hope that Safari will bring tabbed browsing to the iPad, but until then this browser is well worth the few dollars from the App store.
10 Blogging Apps for the iPad: A good collection of a few more apps that bloggers will appreciate.

Putting it All Together

My workflow for a typical blog post looks like:

Open WordPress App to begin writing post
Open Safari or Atomic Browser to look for an image
Copy image link, and paste into Smush.it if image is the right size, otherwise download the image and resize in PhotoPad (forgoing the extra compression because it’s too time consuming
Open GoodReader, copy image from Camera Roll to documents, rename, copy back to Camera Roll [You can skip this step if you use Cloud Services Manager, since it lets you rename your file on upload]
Open Cloud Services Manager, upload image and copy image link
Back to WordPress, insert image. Final review of post and publish

That’s it – happy blogging!
If you have any other tips for better blogging on the iPad please post a quick comment, I’d love to hear them.

—
Photo courtesy of J. Paxton Reyes

Tags Apple, ipad | Comment (0)

Cloud Services Tablets

The Post-PC Apocalypse

August 23, 2011 – 4:52 am

I remember the day Microsoft announced Windows 95 to the world with the hopeful sadness that tectonic shifts in technology bring. It ushered in an era of computing that made Microsoft’s vision of “a computer on every desk and in every home” reality within just a few short years. The device that had once been the sole property of scientists, engineers and computer hobbyists was now accessible to the world.

I staunchly resisted this change. I was loath to leave the elegance of the command line for a slow and kludgy interface that required laboriously moving a cursor across the screen for even the simplest of tasks. Windows dutifully sucked the performance from even the most cutting-edge hardware, reducing once snappy games to jerky and unplayable torture. And in one steady, strong blow obsoleted all my experience hacking config.sys, shuffling memory between XMS and EMS and configuring IRQs.

This evolution in software was an unstoppable force and once proud companies as the likes of Lotus and WordPerfect fell to the new paradigm of computing. With Windows (and then Office for Windows) Microsoft fortified it’s computing dominance for a decade. All this from an idea as simple as the graphical user interface.

Today there are two even more powerful forces at work that have already begun to disrupt traditional computing. Just as I did when Windows first came out, there are those who rally against these changes and cling to the old ways.

Welcome to the Post-PC Era

This phrase was first popularized by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple and messiah for tech enthusiasts. Not coincidentally, this was used at the introduction of the iPad, the first tablet PC to gain widespread adoption and win consumer mindshare.

The move to mobile computing in the form of tablets and smart phones is the first force shaping the technology landscape. In the developed world there is a steady and accelerating shift away from the traditional PC (or Mac) and towards smart phones and tablets. In the developing world the primary computing experience is already through cell phones. Simple, portable and hassle free these devices make the promise of technology seem almost plausible – that computers will save us time, grant us more leisure and enrich our lives.

Whether it’s casual gaming, media consumption or communication mobile devices offer a far superior experience to the traditional PC. The experience is devoid of multiple confusing options, startup is instantaneous and what you want to do is front and center. For a comparison, pop open the start menu in Windows and wonder at all the things shown there that you’ll likely never need or use. Or the desktop that is scattered with files and applications that could also be hiding on the task bar, in Explorer, on the Start menu or in the notification area.

The Tidal Wave Reaches the Shore

May 26th, 1995 Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft saw the potential and threat the Internet would pose. His eloquent words bear repeating:

The Internet is the most important single development to come along since the IBM PC was introduced in 1981. It is even more important than the arrival of the graphical user interface (GUI).

The Internet has evolved rapidly from a crude, static publishing format to offer rich, dynamic applications. The startling realization you should come to – one that Google shared in Google I/O 2010 – is that since 2004 there have been no new popular desktop PC applications. That’s the year the innovation in Internet applications took off, and brought us everything from Pandora to Facebook. Yelp, WordPress, Google Docs, Gmail, Tumblr, YouTube and the list of popular applications goes on.

The drought of popular desktop applications in recent years

The move to web applications is the second force that calls into question the viability traditional PCs.

The Rumors of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

“Wait!”, you should exclaim, and ask, “Hasn’t the death of the PC been predicted for more than 10 years?”. Those with good memories may recall many captains of computing industry celebrating the demise of the PC in 1999. From Scott McNealy to Larry Ellison, they lauded the ‘thin PC’ – as it was then known – as the inevitable future. Why should this time be any different?

A decade ago thin computing offered you no incentive to abandon your traditional PC. These basic terminals had neither the performance nor breadth of applications offered by their heavier set brethren. All that has changed today.

Mobile Devices offer portability, improved battery life, wider diversity of applications and simplicity. Web Applications offer comparable performance and richness without install, update and security headaches. They provide anywhere access to data, are naturally collaborative and constantly improving. Compared with traditional desktop applications, both mobile and web have significant advantages.

Post-PC does not mean ‘No PC’

Detractors of the ‘Post-PC’ philosophy ridicule the idea that we’ll ever do without PCs, and point to a plethora of valid scenarios that only PCs can currently satisfy. I wholeheartedly agree, and think this quote from Steve Jobs aptly sums up my view:

"When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks because that’s what you needed on the farms." Cars became more popular as cities rose, and things like power steering and automatic transmission became popular.

"PCs are going to be like trucks," Jobs said. "They are still going to be around." However, he said, only "one out of x people will need them."

A quick tour through my computing usage shows a heavy weight away from PCs for everything except work.

Mobile covers video, music, news, games, video/voice communication
Web for information, social networks, most writing and spreadsheet use, email, IM

In fact, apart from the occasional PC game, the only time I use desktop apps is when I’m writing long articles (like this one), manipulating images, doing intense data crunching in Excel or coding.

Take a moment to think about it. What do you do that isn’t either in the browser or on a mobile device? Can you really say that your PC hasn’t already been relegated to the trucking industry?

—
Original Dilbert cartoon can be found here.

Tags chromebook, end of Windows, ipad, post-PC era | Comment (1)

Operating Systems

Microsoft shows a bad case of iPad envy with Windows 8

June 1, 2011 – 10:49 pm

Today at the All Things Digital Conference Microsoft shared a first look at Windows 8. As you can see from the demo below, it’s a decidedly different experience for Windows. An apt description would be Windows meets Windows Phone. Though I get a distinct sense that Redmond has finally got their photocopiers back up and running in an almost desperate attempt to prove that Windows is still relevant in the post-PC era. If you squint it’s not hard to imagine it’s an iPad with another software skin (and hardware that’s probably going to be twice as thick and heavy too)

They showed some nice touches, to be sure – the ability to snap in an app to view it beside an already existing app opens up some very interesting possibilities for 3rd party developers. As a blogger a tablet is not useful for much more than jotting down a few short notes – it’s too painful to switch back and forth between the browser and blogging app to copy links, research stories, share pictures and so on. Windows 8 will make that, and many other scenarios a lot easier.

I appreciated the rich start screen as well. As much as I love my iPad 2, I miss the ability to customize the lock screen and use multiple live widgets that my Nexus S provides. Windows 8 would be a step forward in that regard.

I can definitely appreciate the ability to run legacy applications on Windows 8, but the demo showing Excel was a bit sorry. Compared with the Keynote experience Apple demo’d for the iPad it’s clear that Microsoft hasn’t thought of – or isn’t willing to disclose – deep touch integration with Office. Office is arguably one of the few remaining killer apps for Windows, and Microsoft has huge potential to make this experience best in class. Unfortunately it will probably come with a few hundred dollar price tag to get up and running, which will rule out all but the most fortunate enterprise users for years to come.

Can’t not touch this

Clearly it was Microsoft’s intent to showcase the touch functionality of Windows 8, with barely a nod given to the mouse+keyboard interface. The throwaway line that ‘whatever you can do with touch you can do with the mouse and keyboard’ loses sight of the complex differences between that and touch interaction. I’m sure there are many great innovations coming in Windows 8, in my opinion the first public unveiling of Windows 8 fell flat because they focused so heavily on touch, where the experience was only slightly better than the shipping iPad today.

How would Windows 8 impress me?

Windows 8 would blow me away if it did three things:

Ship this year. Truly I would be amazed and pleasantly surprised, and likely move my laptop upgrade ahead a year.
Support Tablet+Phone+Desktop+Web apps. Take Apple’s iPad+iPhone to the next level and provide a platform that makes it easy for developers to build apps that cross the suite of devices. And let people use apps they’ve purchased/downloaded on any device just by signing in.
Ship on beautiful hardware – that works.

Regardless, I’ll buy Windows 8 when it comes out – because, well, I’m just like that. I seem to have avoided the Mac gene that the rest of my family and coworkers inherited, and there aren’t any good alternatives to Windows or Mac out there right now. I’m looking forward to the actual release – a date sometime in 2012 was what I heard Steven Sinofsky trying diligently to avoid mentioning.

Tags Apple, ipad, Microsoft, Windows 8 | Comment (0)

Operating Systems

Chromebooks – So close, yet so far

May 16, 2011 – 9:39 pm

It was with great interest recently that I watched the debut of the Chromebook at Google IO 2011, and the ensuing media frenzy that declared the Chromebook everything from the PC killer to dead on arrival. I can say if there’s anything lacking in tech news today it’s not hyperbole, and sometimes nuance gets lost in the headline seeking traffic hording rush. If you think for a moment, it’s unlikely that the Chromebook will displace Windows overnight, or that it will fail so badly that Google throws in the towel without even one launch and iterate cycle.

For full transparency, I currently work at Google (but not on Chrome, or Docs), and I spent 9 years working at Microsoft (most recently on the Office Web Apps). And naturally, my opinion doesn’t represent either company, but is merely the humble ramblings of a tech enthusiast. I’ll admit that I’m a little obsessed with gadgets. I can’t give up my Windows 7 machine, even as my Nexus S and iPad eat considerably into the time I spend on my PC. In fact, my recent frustrating experience with Skype on Windows juxtaposed against the seamless and awesome analog on my iPad made me more interested in the evolution of the OS platform. In the world that pits devices from a single company (Mac., iPad) against a messy ecosystem of devices, drivers and software (Windows), Chromebooks are a refreshingly different alternative way of thinking.

Chromebooks marry the openness of the Internet, the choice of device and single optimized hardware experience together into an offering that embraces messy open ecosystems while striving to maintain a purity of experience. At the core is the assumption that work and life will move from a single device (whether it be a PC, Mac or iPad) to a menagerie of devices all powered by personalized and always in sync cloud services.

The Chrome Nuggets

Chromebooks embody a new way of thinking about data and applications. It’s computing as an appliance with a nod towards the feature rich complexity that power users require. There is lots to love about the Chromebook – speaking from my own CR-48 experience – the fast boot up time, seamless updates, cloud sync of everything and ease of switching between the Chromebook and Chrome on Windows is almost magical. Not quite iPad + Airplay + Apple TV magical, but still wonderful. The hassle-free appeal is strong. After all, like everyone else, I spend 80-90% of my time on the Internet.

Whether it’s Amazon Cloud Player and Pandora for music, Picasa or Flickr for photos, Youtube for videos, Google Docs or Office Web Apps for most word processing and spreadsheet needs, WordPress for publishing and sharing, Google News, Google Reader or Twitter for news, Facebook for friends, Yelp for great restaurants, Mint for money management, the myriad of travel sites for booking flights and hotels, Remember the milk for task management, the rest of the Internet (and Facebook) for games, gmail (or Hotmail if you’re part of the AOL generation trying to be hip) Google Talk for video chat, or any number of applications that no longer require tedious installs and maintenance, the Chromebook seems poised to fulfill an important technology niche.

Chromebooks – Still a long way to go

Yet as Michael Mace argues, Chromebooks still have a long way to go. There is truth to the argument that you can’t replace a platform unless you replicate most of it’s important functionality. There are many frustrations that Chromebooks bring as well – the lack of side by side comparison of apps (I use aero-snap in Windows 7 all the time to compare things in different windows), immense difficulty in taking (and using) screenshots as well as the anemic offline support should give one pause. If I think about my use of traditional Win32 software there are a few standbys I rely on. OneNote (probably my favorite Windows app of all time) is a must, and it’s hard to do any real business analysis without Excel (though I have quite happily replaced all my personal spreadsheets with Google Docs). I use a few custom tools for blogging (CloudBerry Explorer, Paint.Net, PNGOut Win, JPEGCrop), but apart from that I’m really not that far off from being able to leave Windows behind altogether.

The point is, I have my short (and shrinking) list of reasons to keep Windows, but this list is probably different from yours, which is why it’s so difficult to replace a platform.

Chromebooks are deceptively close to being a true alternative. With full featured hardware, robust offline support and a few well written apps I might be willing to abandon the update and maintenance nightmare that is Windows. But I’m not there yet.

This is getting interesting, I can’t wait to see what Microsoft comes up with in Windows 8. For the sake of technological progress I hope it has a computing vision worthy to compete with Chromebooks. For surely Windows isn’t lacking in the application and compatibility department.

Tags chromebook, ipad | Comments (2)

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