iPad

Thoughts and Observations Regarding Yesterday’s iPad Event

Resolutionary

Apple is calling the Retina display the most advanced display you’ve ever seen. It has 3.1 million pixels — a million more than are in my HDTV.

I’ve had a Retina display iPhone since the 4 came out last summer and it is still amazing to me. I have no doubt the new iPad’s display will be absolutely stunning. My question though is if it will it be as stunning as the iPhone’s display? The iPad is a bigger display — 9.7 inches compared to the iPhone’s 3.5 — but also worth noting is that the new iPad’s display has less pixel density than the iPhone does. 264 PPI and compared to 326 PPI respectively.

Will a 66 PPI difference make a difference? I don’t know. And my guess is that it won’t. Ryan Block’s comments on the new iPad’s Retina display make it sound just as stunning as (if not more so) the iPhone 4/4S. Jim Dalrymple seems to agree.

I use my iPad for reading more than anything else. And so I’m greatly looking forward having a tablet device that sports a (nearly) print-resolution screen — as if reading Instapaper and Reeder, surfing the Web, and browsing Tweetbot on the current iPad wasn’t already great enough.

Moreover, for websites, breaking out of the standard Georgia and Verdana fonts means your site will look fabulous on an iPad.

4G LTE

My original iPad and my iPad 2 were both Wi-Fi-only models. In the two years I’ve been using my iPads I’ve never felt the need to have 3G connectivity. However, this time around I still chose to order the 4G version. I did so for two reasons:

  • In part because it’s a new technology for Apple — this is their first 4G LTE device — and I think 4G devices are a really big deal. Android phones with 4G LTE are a big deal but their battery life is abysmal. Apple touts that when using 4G data the battery life is only dinged by one 10-percent.

  • Secondly, I have a hunch that owning a 4G connected iPad will prove to be far more useful than I thought. But this is something I won’t know for sure until I’ve got it. Like Marco discovered when he went from his Wi-Fi-only original iPad to the 3G-enabled iPad 2:

I went Wi-Fi-only on my iPad 1 and regretted it, so I got 3G on my iPad 2. In practice, I found that I brought the iPad 2 more places and used it more because it was always internet-connected. This greatly improved the value of the iPad for me. If you see yourself bringing the iPad outside of your house very often, it’s definitely worth considering the 4G option.

Over the past two years, if and when I’m going somewhere to work and I have to pick between taking my Wi-Fi-only iPad or my MacBook Air then I take the Air. But if the iPad were guaranteed connected (with a speed that rivals broadband) then who knows if I’d take the iPad instead.

There is little left that I can’t do on my iPad that I can do on my Air. From my iPad I can read, browse the Web, answer email, check Twitter, even write and post articles and links to my website. But without an internet connection my iPad feels slightly less useful. It’s a device that is meant to be online.

When I went to San Francisco for Macworld I didn’t crack open my Air one time. I did very little writing on that trip, and nearly all the work I did do (reading, email, posting links to the site) I actually did from my iPhone. But if my iPad had been Internet connected then I would have done a lot more work from it instead. My next trip to San Francisco (for WWDC) it’s likely that I’ll leave the Air at home.

To sum up, though I’ve gone sans-3G on iPads for two years in a row, I bet that a few months from now I’ll be very glad I went with the 4G iPad.

Sans-Siri

Sadly the new iPad doesn’t have Siri. Though it does have voice dictation. This will making typing easier (I wonder how much you can dictate before maxing out the service?) I would love to see Siri come to the iPad.

On my iPhone I use Siri quite a bit (assuming it’s available), and it’s primarily to send text messages, and set reminders. As the iPad grows more and more into a work machine, it will be nice to have the ability to quickly create appointments, send an email, set up a reminder, create a note, search the web, etc. No doubt it is simply a matter of time until Siri does make its way to the iPad — if that will be with iOS 6 or with the 2013 model of the iPad I don’t know. Perhaps the only thing holding Siri back right now is that it’s a service with is still very much in beta, and Apple isn’t ready to expand to further devices.

The $399 iPad 2

This is a huge deal if only for the fact that now the entry-level price for an iPad is $100 less than it used to be. Apple is driving the prices down on a device that they don’t need to drive prices down on. As usual, they are going for mass market share. Could the iPad reach as large of a market-saturation point as the iPod has? Remember how iPod growth curve flatlined because pretty much everyone already owned one?

The Apple TV

In the Blanc house we have one of the current little black Apple TV boxes and we love it. We don’t have cable and so anything we watch is via Netflix or iTunes (or Redbox on occasion if we can get it on Blu-Ray).

But I ordered one of the new Apple TVs because to me it’s worth it get the upgrade to 1080p iTunes and Netflix content. For $99 I think anyone with a Mac and a television should own an Apple TV.

What I Ordered

Black, 16GB, with 4G via AT&T.

  • Black, because obviously.

(Though I do imagine the White iPad looks much better now with the new Retina display. Something I never quite liked about the white iPads was that the screen felt even further from the glass than on the black models.)

  • 16GB because I’ve always purchased the base model devices and have never once maxed out an iPhone or iPad. And I wanted to spend my extra money on 4G rather than getting the 32GB version.

  • 4G because of the reasons stated above. I went with AT&T because they have fantastic 4G and 3G data service in Kansas City and Denver (the two cities where I spend most of my time). Verizon has great 4G coverage here as well, but if and when the iPad doesn’t have 4G connectivity and it needs to fall back to 3G, AT&T’s network is much faster than Verizon’s.

Additional Miscellany

  • Apple is calling the new iPad the same thing everyone else is going to call it: “The new iPad”.

  • The new iPad has Wi-Fi, GSM, UMTS, GPS, CDMA, LTE, and Bluetooth connectivity. During the presentation yesterday Phil Schiller said, “This new iPad has the most wireless bands of any device that’s ever shipped.”

  • Being thicker and heavier is surely a direct result of the battery.

  • What is Condé Nast going to do with their magazine apps? Their current issues (which use images even for text) are going to look horrible on the Retina display and if they start making their files 4x bigger then the downloads will get even more ridiculous — growing into the ballpark of an 800 MB file. At that size, after few back issues of The New Yorker and Wired your iPad’s storage will be maxed out.

  • Since you can’t see the beauty of a Retina display if you’re looking at pictures of it on a non-Retina display, it seems the only real way to try and compare a non-Retina display against a Retina display is to pixelate the “non-Retina model” so it looks a bit blurry by design. This is what Apple is doing on their side-by-side comparison of the screens on the iPad 2 and the new iPad.

  • Phil Schiller said: “As you’ll remember, when the iPhone 4 went to the Retina Display developers didn’t have to do anything to make their applications run on the Retina Display. Everything will still look great, but if developers take a little time, as with the iPhone, they can do stuff that looks amazing and incredible on the new iPad.”

But that’s not true. Text will look sharp and native API elements will look sharp but the rest will look very grainy. Non-Retina optimized apps look worse on a Retina display.

  • In the presentation yesterday Tim cook called iOS, “the world’s most advanced operating system and the easiest to use.”

  • Also from Tim Cook: “Our post PC devices made up 76% of our revenues. We have our feet firmly planted in the post PC future.”

  • Yesterday’s was the first iPad event with no armchair on the stage.

  • It’s a bit hard to be surprised when you already knew something was coming. Yesterday’s announcement contained nearly everything we expected. We pretty much knew there’d be a new Apple TV, iPhoto for iOS, and all the main specs about the new iPad. However, being savvy to a spec sheet and feature list is much different than using a device.

If you’re like me, you too have yet to get used to the iPhone’s Retina display. And so, though it won’t be until next Friday that I am able to start using my new iPad, and it won’t be for another few months before I know how often I do (or don’t) use the 4G, I suspect this new iPad will be amazing for the long haul.

Could the new iPad end up being the finest device Apple has made yet? And it raises the question: what’s in store for the new iPhone?

Thoughts and Observations Regarding Yesterday’s iPad Event

Why a New iOS Home Screen is a Big Deal

In his iOS 6 wish list, Federico Viticci wishes for a new iOS Home screen. Viticci has written about the problem of the iOS Home screen before, concluding that “Apple needs to tear apart the whole concept and rebuild it from the ground up.”

I agree. I think Apple does intend to rebuild the iOS Home screen from the ground up. I also think their intentions for the new Home screen are exciting, ambitious, and will prove to be a big deal.

Not until recently have we felt much of a need for a revamped home screen. Since 2007 iOS has evolved significantly in both its functionality (i.e. multitasking and Notification Center) and in the amount of available apps (thus folders, and multiple Home screens). After five years the Home screen is feeling cramped and outdated.

If I were a betting man, I would wager that the iOS Home screen as we know it today is not Apple’s long-term plan. My hunch is that the Home screen is still the way it is because the long-term ramifications of what it could be are huge.

A reimagined springboard is a prime opportunity for significant innovation. And significant innovation takes time.

Rebuilding the Home screen isn’t just about increasing usability. It is also about innovating at that “front-door interface” of how and where we get to the stuff on our devices (you can hardly do anything on your iPhone without going through the Home screen). Moreover, the ramifications of a reimagined Home screen go beyond iOS. As we are now learning via Lion and Mountain Lion, innovation on iOS is a setting of the stage for innovation on OS X.

During a recent episode of The Talk Show, John Gruber talked about how OS X is stuck with the “Desktop” whether they like it or not. Twenty years ago the Desktop as a folder for quick access to your files and your file system made sense. But that was when people predominantly interacted with files first before launching an app. Apple is now steering people away from the need to interact with the file system. With iCloud, automatic and in-app document saving, and versioning, we are seeing a shift in personal computing where people interact less with files first and more with apps first.

Khoi Vinh recently said:

Right now the most interesting [design] thing happening on the desktop, by far, is Apple’s iOS-ification of OS X. They’re clearly in the process of upending a decades-old paradigm for thinking about desktop software, and whether it’s successful or not is going to be very interesting.

A new iOS Home screen is Apple’s chance to get the “front-door interface” right. When they change the Home screen it’s going to be a big deal, and it will become a core part of iOS for the next decade.

Another reason why a new Home screen is such a big deal is because what Apple does to reimagine it on iOS will impact OS X and the Desktop and Dock (or perhaps the next evolution of Launchpad).

Put another way: I don’t see Apple just stealing ideas from Android and Windows Phone and implementing “live widgets” onto the iOS Home screen. When they update the Home screen they’ll have skated to where the puck is going to be.

Why a New iOS Home Screen is a Big Deal

Tweetbot for iPad Review

Great design is often polarizing. When opinions about your design work seem to be either extremely positive or extremely negative then it’s likely that you’ve hit a home run.

And I can think of no other Twitter client that has received more polarized praise and criticism than Tweetbot. People seem to love it or hate it; very few are just “meh” about it.

I check Twitter on my iPhone an order of magnitude more than on my Mac and especially on my iPad. It’s no secret that I love Tweetbot. I’ve been using the iPhone app as my main Twitter client since late 2010 when the app was still in its early beta days.

Up until recently I have always used the “official” Twitter for iPad app. It always struck me as odd that an app on my iPhone (Tweetbot) could serve as a better twitter client than one on my iPad (Twitter). But now Tweetbot has an iPad version. And it rocks.

The most obvious differentiator between Tweetbot and other Twitter clients is that Tapbots-style of design. It permeates all of their apps and it is a part of their brand. But design for the sake of design is never enough.

No doubt that the vast majority of those who read this site are familiar with form-versus-function commandment: thou shall not let form trump function. The way an app works is far more important than the way an app looks.

Tweetbot is that rare bird of an app that carries an extremely strong and unique mix of both form and function.

Every single pixel is completely customized. The Tapbots color pallet of blue and black and grey with textures and gradients is prevalent throughout. So too, every sound is unique with the playful robotic sounds of clicks and swooshes.

But it doesn’t stop there. The amount of custom design in this app is only surpassed by the amount of functionality and usability tucked underneath those pixels.

Tweetbot, even with its extremely custom design, is still an app with greater function than form. Though the first thing you see is the custom designs done by Mark Jardine, and these are the pixels which are always before you when you use the app, what makes the app great is how functional it is.

Over time I’ve become so very used to Tweetbot’s functionality that it’s an app which has stuck on my iPhone’s Home screen since its beginning. And now it’s stuck on my iPad’s Home screen as well.

If you love Tweetbot on your iPhone, you’re going to love it for iPad. It carries all same power-user-friendly bells and whistles that the iPhone version has.

Here are a few of the iPad app’s features which stand out to me:

  • Tweetbot for iPad still treats lists as first class citizens. This is one of my favorite bits about the iPhone app and I am glad that on the iPad it is still easy to set lists as your main timeline view.

  • Reading articles via the in-app browser is fantastic. You get a full-screen browser along with that same awesome Readability / Instapaper mobilizer toggle that the iPhone app when in the in-app browser. Just flip the switch and you get a text-friendly layout of the site you’re on:

Readability view in Tweetbot for iPad

  • Tapping an Instagram or other linked image in your timeline darkens out the background and expands the image:

Viewing full-size images in Tweetbot for iPad

  • Composing a new tweet is a lot more spacious than the official Twitter client, and has the same quick-access buttons that Tweetbot for iPhone does:

Composing a new tweet in Tweetbot for iPad

Tweetbot for iPad is a power Twitter user’s best friend. It’s an ideal app for those who make good use of lists and who follow folks who post a lot of links to articles. You can still apply filters to mute certain users or hashtags, you can see your favorites, and retweets, and more.

I’ve been using it for the past several weeks and the more I use it the more I like it. Highly recommended.

Here’s the iTunes App Store link.

Tweetbot for iPad Review

Is It or Isn’t It?

Yea

Apple, after reporting stellar results, became the leading worldwide client PC vendor in Q4 2011. Apple shipped over 15 million iPads and five million Macs, representing 17% of the total 120 million client PCs shipped globally in Q4.

A personal computer (PC) is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator.

a microcomputer designed for individual use, as by a person in an office or at home or school, for such applications as word processing, data management, financial analysis, or computer games.

I consider the iPad a PC because, in my view, a PC (Personal Computer) is just that: a personal computing device.

In my Big Sky view, the PC is best understood as a bundled trajectory of technologies, of which the iPad is a significant plot point in the development of mobile computing. That is to say, I view iPads in the same vein as laptops, believing that for 98 percent of the world, the iPad is equivalent to a laptop, in terms of intended uses. When we fast forward 15 years, I expect that today’s laptop will seem most antiquated to us, having been replaced by tablet-based experiences. I do not think the home PC will feel quite so antiquated.

Although the tablet doesn’t look like a PC or act like a PC in the simplest sense, it is a PC. From its functionality to its design, there is simply no reason people should look at the iPad and think it can’t hold up against desktops, notebooks and netbooks.

I think it’s possible to use an iPad as one’s primary device for professional-level content creation. Actually, scratch that. I’m positive it’s possible—because I’ve been doing it for the past three months, and I’ve been having a really good time.

The iPad was the first computer built to meet you on your terms. It brings the last 35 years of digital technology into the physical world in a way so natural, not only do grandmas and toddlers get it, but so do kittens and lizards.

When Apple released the iPad, I would argue that it actually released the first, truly personal, computer.

So if you are excluding the iPad from the personal computer category, does that mean there is some checklist of requirements for a device to be a PC? Does it need a keyboard, or perhaps a trackpad or a mouse, or does it just have to be able to install any application you want (without the approval of a gatekeeper such as Apple)? All of these ‘requirements’ are completely arbitrary — with no practical reason as to why they are required to be on a PC.

Look, tablets are PCs, get over it.

It’s replacing people’s needs for traditional computing environments in the home and office, and people are buying it in record numbers.

All you need to know about the “is the iPad a PC?” argument: are people buying them instead of traditional PCs? Sure looks like it.

Nay

The way technology is headed in the future, calling the iPad a PC will set precedence that will only lead to even more confusion and misinformation. […] Let’s stop classifying the iPad as a PC, it only serves to confuse people.

I agree with Moorhead, it’s time to stop the madness. If tablets are classed as PCs then why not smartphones? Or smartfridges? Or digital watches?

People are using tablets for e-reading, Web surfing, and movie viewing. And—at least for now, at least if you focus on real-world usage patterns—I say Canalys is wrong to count tablets as PCs.

But are We Asking the Wrong Question?

I can’t help but think that asking if the iPad is a PC or not is to ask the wrong question.

Shouldn’t the question be: are consumers buying iPads and other tablets instead of traditional personal computers?

I suppose that the answer to that question would also answer if the iPad is a PC or not, but focusing on the latter seems to be missing the point.

To re-quote MG Siegler:

All you need to know about the “is the iPad a PC?” argument: are people buying them instead of traditional PCs? Sure looks like it.

That is exactly the point. There will come a time when the majority of consumers who are in the market for a new personal computer will consider (and buy) an iPad or other tablet rather than a laptop or desktop computer. And when that time comes, the debate about the iPad being a PC or not will be over.

The market will decide that the iPad is a PC by buying them instead of laptops and desktops.

It seems that those arguing against the iPad being called a PC are really trying to make their own point that, for them, an iPad could not replace their PC. When they say the iPad is not a PC what they mean is that either: (a) there’s no way I would or could give up my PC and use an iPad instead; or (b) the iPad is not yet a PC, but it probably will be soon.

* * *
The reason this discussion about “if the iPad is a PC or not” is interesting is because the iPad is already proving to be disruptive to the PC market.

Horace Dediu writes:

The impact of the iPad is not specific to any single vendor (Apple included). It competes for time and purchase decisions across all computing alternatives and though many times it’s additive, it is also substitutive and will become increasingly so.

Backing away from the minutia of what the true definition is of a PC, we see that millions of people are buying iPads and using them for all sorts of purposes. And why shouldn’t they? The iPad is relatively inexpensive, it is fun, it has incredible battery life, it is extremely lightweight and portable, you don’t have to get it out of your bag for airport security, and it does most all the same basic tasks your laptop or desktop can do.

The fact that: (a) such a young device could be such a smashing success; and that (b) it could disrupt the decades-old PC market, are both interesting topics for discussion. And that discussion is manifesting itself as: “is the iPad a PC or not?”

It’s fascinating that such a small and inexpensive tablet device actually has a shot at replacing someone’s large and expensive desktop computer. But what else is fascinating is that the device and the market are less than 2 years old and people are already starting to make that transition.

For millions of people, an iPad is a perfectly good replacement for their laptop or desktop. They just don’t know it yet.

Is It or Isn’t It?

Yes, No, Maybe So  →

Eric Grevstad’s article for PCMag.com from last November is the best piece I’ve read yet in terms of consolidating the different points of view for and against if the iPad should be considered a PC or not.

The 4 points of view Eric Grevstad lists are:

  1. Yes, the iPad is a PC
  2. No it’s not because it lacks a keyboard
  3. No it’s not because it lacks expandability ports
  4. Yes it is, but if you say iPads and tablets are PCs then you have to say the same of smartphones

Nearly everything I’ve read regarding this discussion lands in one of the above four camps. I’m in camp number 1 — yes, the iPad is a PC.

Grevstad’s conclusion is nearly (but not fully) identical to what I’ve been thinking regarding this discussion. That is: iPads will be considered PCs when consumers begin to use them as such en masse.

It’s only a matter of time until consumers begin buying and using iPads (and other tablets) as their primary computers. Why wait until then to call the iPad a PC? The iPad is a PC today.

Yes, No, Maybe So

An SDK for Writers

There are four primary components to publishing a book:

  1. Writing and Editing: The first and most important component to publishing a book is the actual writing of it followed by the editing of that writing.

  2. Distribution: How will you sell it and distribute it?

  3. Medium: Will it be a PDF, an eBook, a physical book, or any combination? And now there is a new medium: an iBooks book. This is more akin to book-app combos such as Our Choice by Al Gore and Push Pop Press.

Our Choice is a deeply interactive book that shipped as a standalone iPad app. However, version 2 of iBooks now supports books like this natively. If you want to make a powerful, interactive, unique-looking book you can do so via Apple’s new tools, and then you can ship and sell them as books, not apps.

  1. Design / Layout: Until today, if you wanted a book that worked like Our Choice then you needed to hire an iOS developer to build your book in Xcode. If you were designing a PDF or eBook you could do it in Microsoft Word or Pages, or for more control of the design you could use Adobe InDesign. The cost of these tools ranges from $19 (for Pages), to hundreds of dollars (for InDesign), to thousands of dollars (to hire iOS devs).

But now, if you want to make an attractive and interactive eBook you don’t have to hire an iOS developer to build you a dedicated app. If you are even remotely familiar with Pages then you’ll be able to take what you’ve written and turn it into a good looking and interactive book for the iPad and then distribute it on the iBookstore to an audience of millions of iPad owners who can buy it and download it with one tap.

In short, the iBooks Author app is a huge breakthrough for the independent writer and publisher. In this author’s humble opinion, this new and free app from Apple was the primary announcement of Apple’s education event today.

iBooks Author is the iPad SDK for writers and publishers. And it’s been simplified so it’s as easy to use as a word processor.

An SDK for Writers