Tablet and Mobile

Archive for the ‘iPad’ Category

I take it all back… the iPad 2 looks amazing. Released today and apparently available in the shops in the US on the 11th of March, the iPad 2 is over 30% thinner than the iPad, it’s lighter, it’s graphics are claimed to be up to 9 times faster, no doubt due to the new A5 processor, it has front AND rear cameras and it’s the same price as the original iPad.

How depressing is that (unless of course you waited and are planning on buying the new model).

Seems to me that this should just about push Android over to one side for lots and lots of potential buyers – AND it transpires that Adobe and Apple are now speaking so we could even see Flash coming to the iPad in the future.

Looking forward to seeing reviews of the new version of the operating system and more importantly looking forward to retrofitting my now ancient iPad to give it at least some of the features of the new device.

Peter Scargill

By the time you read this, no doubt Apple will have had it’s launch and we’ll see the iPad 2 emerge perhaps even with an upgrade of the operating system. The amount of rumour and gossip out there is unbelievable for a device that only months ago was considered to be a novelty.  Back in April when it was released in the USA and I had mine ordered I told you it was going to be a game-changer… and it was.

So what’s going to be in the new iPad?  That’s anyone’s guess and when you think about the manufacturing involving many companies, Apple have done a cracking job of keeping everyone guessing.

The real question will be – what about the millions of iPad 1 owners – will we get the operating system upgrades? Is our old iPad now defunct?

Well, for me – I’m quite happy – sure I’d love a front-facing camera for Skype (and not that horrible Facetime thing).. but you know… iPad developers just keep making the products better-  I’ve a fantastic PDF reader in GOODREADER, some marvellous games, SUGARSYNC works a TREAT, I have video and audio streaming software on my PC that lets me watch my videos anywhere, Apple TV works a treat with the iPad… I could go on but regardless of what happens today I have an excellent product that has been utterly reliable over the past 10 months or so…  if they gold-plate the new one – I’m still not complaining. As for the so-called iPad killers – other manufacturers have had plenty of time to bring out their own superior products – erm… no, Apple still has the lead in this particular market.

Come back soon – I’m sure there’ll be much more to talk about in 24 hours from now!

 

Ok, so you have your iPad, you have your movie on your PC… and it’s not in compatible format.. what do you do?

I use Handbrake, an excellent free program to convert videos for use on the iPad and importantly on the new Apple TV2.  My preferred method of watching movies is to store them all in iTunes on a PC in Apple TV format.. then stream to my iPad as needed using ServeToMe and StreamToMe (the former is a free download, the latter an App for the iPad and iPhone). You may want to merely download movies to the iPad itself for quality/travel purposes… but remember they take up lots of room.

And early night? That was the plan. In bed by 10pm.

By 2.30am the batteries were losing the battle on my iPad and eyes were starting to go… the reason? Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars of course – now FREE for the iPhone and iPad.

Please don’t confuse “FREE” with “RUBBISH”. In this case the carefully crafted game is nearer to a work of art. I’m assuming they made it free as they’ve now released the next version of the game.

For those of you to whom this is new, Broken Sword was a PC hit many years ago. As described by the designers… “One of the all-time classic adventures, multi BAFTA-nominated ‘Broken Sword: Director’s Cut’ pitches sassy journalist Nico Collard, and intrepid American George Stobbart into a mysterious journey of intrigue and jeopardy. Guide George and Nico on their globe-spanning adventure, exploring exotic locations, solving ancient mysteries, and thwarting a dark conspiracy to reveal the secret truths of the Knights Templar.”

And that about sums it up – the game is easy to control, has voice throughout, the graphics have been redone for the iPad and iPhone with some great animations – and part of the storyboard has been re-imagined to give you everything form the French Nico’s perspective without destroying the original story. Indeed while the original game started in Paris with American George Stobbart, this version begins with Nico. Shadow of the Templars was the first of a series of 4 episodes originally and already on the iPad and iPhone, the second is available for purchase. Lets hope they do all four and keep the price reasonable – if so I have no doubt I’ll play the lot. 

This is not a mindless shoot-em-up like some other excellent-graphic-but-rubbish-storyline games coming out right now, the graphics are cartoon-like, not at all state of the art but for the iPad a refreshing return to true adventure gaming (yes, I have an interest, many years ago I designed one of the very first mechanisms for these games for the PC – lookup “Adven-80”. 

It’s rather frightening to recall that almost everything I know about the Knights Templar comes from a game!! Still – beats learning about killing aliens!

If you’ve any interest in adventure? never been to Paris? yearn to visit a pub in Ireland? Get this free game, be prepared to lose several hours and quite possibly get hooked on the genre!

Pete Scargill

Anyone for a country break?

AT LAST and without even as much as an announcement that reached my enthusiastic ears (I regularly check, Skype have made a FREE upgrade to allow VIDEO calls on the iPhone and iPad.

In an amazingly understated development which was not appearing in any of the usual chatter blogs, an update for Skype appeared today for the iPhone and the iPad, to version 3 – which supports video.  Obviously video OUT isn’t going to happen on the iPad but incoming video works a treat – and on the iPhone it’s down to which model. The 3GS has only the one camera (unfortunately on the wrong side of the phone) – I’ve no doubt now some enterprising Chinese company will come up with a clip-on mirror arrangement to turn the camera around because this development finally turns both iPhone and iPad into serious communication tools. Forget about Facetime, Skype has countless millions of users and apart from last week where they screwed something up, has proven to be an excellent alternative to the telephone and at least for one-to-one video it has for some time worked across a variety of platforms excluding of course the mobile phone and iPad.

All of that is now history, it worked at least for me straight out of the box and I’m now scouring the web for a mirror arrangement so I can do full video calls while I’m out and about.

While I’ve no doubt Skype will eventually get around to supporting the many and varied Android phones, don’t count on instant success there due to the hardware variations – iPhone users on the other hand – not a problem! Needless to say, their website doesn’t even MENTION Windows Phone!

What a nice Christmas present – Thank you, Skype! All you need to do now is add a “Send to Apple TV” button just to round things off nicely.

 

I’m still counting on SKYPE getting their act together and bringing out a Video Skype around the same time that Apple bring out an iPad 2…   I’ve been following Skype and ooVoo and it’s hard to tell which one is making the biggest mess. You’ll be aware of the SKYPE outage – well, I’ve also had crashes on PC Skype recently – indeed ever since they brought out version 5… there have been sound issues. ooVoo has much better sound but it’s so riddled with adverts it’s almost embarrassing. The problem for the iPad and iPhone is that ooVoo don’t have running versions for these operating systems. They’ve just released ooVoo beta for Android and I just tried it.  The video just doesn’t work AT ALL, in either direction – at least, not on the HTC Desire.  Someday one of these companies will get their act together and clean up house.

Meanwhile I have to say I’m still sticking to my guns – Android is just not making an alternative to Apple… many of the so-called iPad killers have fallen by the wayside and the only one to really get anywhere, the Galaxy Tab is too small for many purposes.  Meanwhile APPS for the iPad just keep getting better and better. There are now a couple of games out that are as good as console games (Infinity Blade being one example), there are now a ton of newspapers and magazines for the iPad and various other programs for both iPhone and iPad just keep improving and improving.

After all the media hype about “iPad killers” – has anyone noticed how quiet things have gotten recently? Novatech’s Windows 7 tablet got a severe bashing because Windows 7 remains badly-equipped for use by large fingers and the screen on that machine apparently isn’t that clever at an angle. Currys withdrew one of their two available Android models and so basically if you go shopping you’ll find the iPad and the Galaxy Tab, the latter of course being only 7” and having a lower-resolution screen than the iPad – the Tab did however in it’s first month manage to sell a respectable 1 million units so one would be daft to ignore it.

Other than that, what? The Dell Streak is basically a phone so really the Tab and the iPad are the only real players actually out there if you ignore the many units available on the web using older versions of Android and therefore hardly in the game. It amazes me that other manufacturers look to be going to miss the Christmas opportunity – I’d hoped that the Archos 101 would be the next contender because of it’s amazing price but according to PC PRO, it too has issues with poor screen readability. The reason this is important is because, unlike software, you can’t really upgrade the unit later to overcome such difficulties.

So why do we even need competition for the iPad? The unit is solid, reasonably priced, works a treat… yes indeed but the Apple unit still has some way to go before you’d throw the laptop out…

I’ve written a lot about the benefits of the iPad…. here’s a list of things that are NOT so good about the current iPad:

• No memory expansion
• No USB
• No camera
• No FLASH
• Airplay is still far from perfect
• Airprint is currently a joke, working only with a very limited number of printers
• The WIFI on the iPad still does not handle multiple access points properly

When the iPad came out, mobile connectivity packages were pants in the UK, with Orange and Vodafone competing to see who could offer the least monthly download for your money – and so 3G connectivity seemed like a joke which is why I bought the WIFI-only model – well that and the price, the top-of-the-range iPad is IMHO just too expensive for what you get – but then along came THREE who offer up to 15GB a month – now THAT’S more like it.  I’m using their branded MIFI unit and believe me, going through that amount of data is QUITE DO-ABLE so running a tablet on 3G really does need this kind of monthly allocation if you’re going to make heavy use of the unit.

Internet beginners might well ask “how on earth can you use up 15GB in a month” – well, let’s see, in a one-hour trip up the M6 listening to “The Big Cheese” radio station (as against various crap BBC stations which fade in and out and tend to bore one to death) I managed to consume 250Mb. I’ve never checked but I’m prepared to bet that watching an episode of “Have I got News for You” on the iPlayer would use up even more! Hopefully you get the point… if all you do is browse the web then the likes of the 3GM/monthly packages will probably do the job for you but once you see the possibilities that modern mobile systems such as the iPad, Galaxy and the new, larger mobile phones can give you, data use tends to rocket. I could see daily use of 1GB quite easily which takes you up to around the 15GB monthly allowance.

Once Apple get their act together with Skype and give us an iPad 2 with Skype video (or more likely, short term, Skype adds video to it’s Android line-up?) I could see video calls finally taking off en-masse – and that could change everything.

The good news is that various mobile operators are now starting to subsidise these tablets with contracts so the price barrier is starting to go away.

Meanwhile I’ve been struggling with the limits of Apple’s iTunes, probably the most miserable program in my PC armada of programs, iTunes excels in one thing and one thing only – organising your music collection.  If you’ve never looked at this, here’s my music line-up….

I’ve one PC at home that looks after our pictures, music and videos and stays turned on (monitor off) 24/7. It runs iTunes and talks to the Apple TV2 unit attached to our TV. Simply inserting a CD into the computer results in the entire contents of the CD including cover artwork, ending up copied to the hard drive and hence available within iTunes along with our pics and movies.

That in itself isn’t a great deal of use, but thanks to the addition of Apple TV and REMOTE (an App for both iPhone and iPad which lets you remotely control iTunes, select tracks and even build playlists) it is now possible to access all our media on the TV via a choice of remote control, iPhone or iPad – and it all works very well indeed. We tend to keep our latest pictures on Google Web Albums and access to that is missing like a sore thumb from Apple TV which prefers FLICKR (I don’t, mainly because of their association with Getty and Corbis) and I’m looking forward to the advent of APPS for Apple TV in the hope that one of them will add Google Web Album capability.

iTunes of course is far from perfect, the Airplay output to Apple TV straight from the PC will not work on either our main media PC or my laptop however thankfully via REMOTE, the PC will indeed stream to the TV without issue.

iTunes however is woefully inadequate at sorting tunes from a variety of sources or even in some cases at getting the right artwork so I’ve pressed two other programs into service – TUNEUP which is not free but does a great jog of getting artworks – and MediaMonkey which can be free and has some great facilities for organising your media. At long last I now have a working, practical media setup. All I need now is something to convert the optical output from the Apple unit – to work with my slightly-out-of-date HI-FI amplifier – it’s either that or scrap the TV and get one which has audio OUTPUT as well as input!

Anyone new to the iPad may not be aware that there are two basic types – those with 3G and those without. Now of course, Orange are planning on offering the iPad at discounted prices with a contract – but think about this…

Firstly, the contract will be £25 or more monthly, secondly even though the price is discounted, you’ll have also to pay through the nose for the version of iPad with 3G. which is much more expensive than the basic WIFI version. Thirdly you won’t be able to make use of that broadband anywhere else – for example with a laptop – because Apple are really, really restrictive about that kind of thing. You can’t even tether your iPhone to your iPad without jailbreaking it.

All in all, it seems there should be a better way… and there is.

Essentially what you’re looking for is a way to get a signal to your iPad as cheaply as possible and as often as possible – because without connectivity, well, it’s not a lot of use other than for playing scrabble and reading books!!!

I’ve tried all sorts of combinations, believe me – and one of my favourites until now was to take the SIM from my Vodafone card, put it into a Nokia S60 phone and use a little program called Joikuspot to share the 3G signal via WIFI with the iPad (again for newcomers, the iPad doesn’t have USB so dongles are basically useless). Indeed at one time I used a small plug-in-the-wall unit that took in the dongle and dished out WIFI – but typical of stuff made in China, they never kept up with the ever-changing designs of dongle – this is NOT the way to go.

So, until they kit out the iPhone 9000 with WIFI sharing and an FM transmitter (dream on)… here’s my NEW solution:

The MIFI unit as sold by THREE and others is a little pocket unit (rechargeable battery powered) that takes in 3G and dishes out WIFI – it’s as simple as that. It comes complete with a charger and a USB lead for setup (and even the latter is un-necessary). You turn it on and immediately it appears as a WIFI router to your laptop, phone, iPad etc. BUT — doesn’t that stop you making phone calls on your iPad? Not really, I use SKYPE for all my phone calls and it works a treat. Now that IOS 4.2 is out, you can run Skype on your iPad and leave it running all the time. I have a SKYPE IN number and so now I’m available on the same number whether I’m in my office or on the road – thanks to the MIFI unit.

If you wish to set up the unit to your requirements, you can plug it into a PC and set the name, password etc… but that’s up to you, it works out of the box. No wires, no complicated setup, it just works. Your monthly data allowance on this unit. Please note you get a mains charger, not a car charger – in my case I have 240v available in the car but you might want to consider that situation as the MIFI unit in use gets about 4.5 hours out of a charge (when it’s turned on).

Now, I might hear you say… but Vodafone have coverage country-wide.. well, that’s what I thought and I was very wary about throwing in the towel with my now redundant dongle (there is NO advantage to the dongles now other than battery life as they don’t have a battery), so armed with a lot of travelling to, I set off to test the MIFI unit.

The trip from Blackpool to Wark in Northumberland is fraught with communications issues, the mountainous area around the lakes – and the A69 to say the least. I used my iPhone (as against iPad) for the testing, putting it into flight mode and re-enabling WIFI so I could be sure that any connection was coming from the MIFI unit. I switched on Internet radio, plugged the iPhone into my car stereo… tuned in RIVIERA RADIO – my favourite Monaco radio station – and off I went.

To cut a long story short, from Blackpool to Wark, the first time the radio went off was near Hexham and that lasted about a minute, then about a mile away from Wark, the radio went dead and stayed that way… but then, that’s what happens with Orange and Vodafone!  So was THREE any less available than the others? Well, NO! The little display on the MIFI unit told me I’d used about 250Mbytes along the way, the battery was about half-way down at the end of the trip… as you’d expect… and for the first time ever, I began to realise that listening to radio stations almost anywhere in the world while on the move is, at last a reality!

I’m using Internet radio as an example but of course there are many other uses for constantly available WIFI on the move – Google MAPS being another example.

Normally, using 250Mbyte on a trip would be very expensive, the mobile operators really haven’t yet gotten to grips with the idea that they started setting our expectations high with this nonsense about “unlimited data” which they’ve now all but scrapped… but THREE offer from 1GB a month for £9 up to 15GB a month for £22 and these prices can only come down. I’m sure others will come up with similar deals before long if they’ve not already started – the point being, on the larger contract I could do that trip 60 times a month before running out of data!!

In a previous blog you might notice I mentioned the free Connectify App for the Windows-7-powered PC which lets you share a hardwired Internet connection (or indeed a dongle connection) via WIFI with your iPad or whatever. In both cases you can share this connection with a small number of machines, so that for example in a small meeting as long as ONE of you has a connection, the rest can share not matter what kind of device you have (I discount phones with no WIFI ability here as being relics of the past not worth considering – if you still have such a beast, perhaps it’s time to move on?). Beware the jury is out on this program – last month’s version was using up PC resources too quickly, the current beta APPEARS to work but if you notice anything up with your computer after installing… there’s your culprit.

So there you have it… with WIFI available all over the UK for free for BT customers (BT FON, OPENZONE) and WIFI via a MIFI available for an entirely reasonable monthly contract,surely this HAS to be the future for your tablet and other devices?

Made my day, I can tell you.

Oh, about Connectify…  great program but this has to be be the cheesiest advert of all time..

 

Of course, if you’re lucky enough to have an updated Froyo device, say an HTC Desire with Android 2.2 or better, then you may well already have WIFI sharing – that is if your service provider has not disabled it or otherwise made it useless.  I’ll be testing the Desire next to see how it performs.

While still awaiting for my MYFI device to turn up, I was sitting in a hotel in Blackpool last night with a dilemma. I wanted to check for updated APPS on my newly-upgraded-to-ios4.2 iPad… but with no connection (WIFI-only IPAD). Normally in hotels these days, WIFI is widely available but in this particular hotel they only had plug-in free Internet access. FINE for my laptop but not a great deal of use for the iPad as it has neither a network connector nor USB.

With the MIFI one simply turns it on, it picks up 3G and makes that available as WIFI.  Similarly some phones (sadly not the iPhone unless you jailbreak it) have software available to share the 3G as WIFI. I didn’t have one of those either.

Then it hit me – surely someone has a program to share a hard-wired Internet connection on the laptop via it’s WIFI interface.

Sure enough, there is such a beast – and it’s free. Connectify effectively turns your laptop into a WIFI hot-spot, taking in whatever connection you have (3g from a dongle or a hardwired connection) and letting you share this over the wireless connection. (Update… Connectify can use up CPU resources  – ensure you have a fast PC or laptop and if you get issues with your PC – un-install).

The program installed without issue on my 64-bit Windows 7 laptop and once I’d set the name and password, in seconds it was happily dishing out WIFI to my iPad.

GRANTED it’s a bit excessive having to use a laptop for this purpose, hopefully the MIFI will turn up in the post today and I’ll update the blog accordingly after giving it a good hammer.

I’ve also been playing with the now free FIND IPHONE application which together with a free MobileMe account. Simple enough, the account logs your current location with their servers on a regular basis and the free program can be used to tell you where your iPad or iPhone is hiding. Of course the program isn’t much use if you’ve actually lost the device in question and a web-based equivalent will help you out there, letting you start a sound, leave a message or WIPE your iPhone remotely – rather handy if you keep confidential data therein!

The new iPhone/iPad operating system upgrade known as IOS 4.2 is out NOW and available in UK iTunes.

The new upgrade allows multi-tasking and folders on the iPad just (same as iPhone) and at least in theory including new integration with Apple TV – and remote printing!

As you might imagine along with everyone else I was straight onto the updates… as the iPad was well overdue for this unifying upgrade….. and I was straight into iTunes full of anticipation at the new download – which I have to say took only a few moments… and then – the dreaded backup.

I left the backup running and went off for dinner with some colleagues only to return hours later to find I was no further forward, the little barber-shop indicator was STILL flashing away indicating that the backup had not even STARTED.

This is not unusual but normally you can just scratch the backup – but when doing an IOS update, iTunes won’t let you. I started again and went off to bed for the night.

3.30am I awoke for some reason and went over to the computer, STILL the backup was in operation, STILL no upgrades… so off I went on the web to look for a solution – and there is one… though you can spend ages looking for it among all the entries in forums full of doom and gloom about waiting hours for backups.

To save a lot of hassle – and be this on your own head… go here and grab BACKOFF. Close down iTunes, run this program and turn backups OFF.  VOILA. Load up iTunes… it just works. I managed to upgrade both my iPhone and iPad to the latest 4.2.1 operating system without as much as a hitch.

Having now put all my games in one place (thanks to folders) I’m looking forward to trying out the Apple TV upgrades later this week. In the meantime in the morning I’ll be reporting on my latest tool – the MIFI…. which will finally free my simple 32Gig Wifi-only iPad to roam the streets of Britain.

Rather disappointingly, it looks like AIRPRINT only currently works with a limited range of HP printers – which will be a blow for the millions who DON’T use HP printers.. and AIRPLAY doesn’t yet support SOME applications – no doubt in the coming weeks that will change. As long as it ends up working with StreamToMe, I’m happy.  More on the upgrades and the MIFI unit later.

And for UK users… SKYFIRE app is now available for the iPhone (not the iPad yet)… this browser ferrets out FLASH video web pages in a web page and offers to convert on the fly and let you access the video in an iPhone-compatible format. This browser was released some time ago but they had to back off because the conversions were too much for their servers. They’ve now re-released the browser, I went to the BBC website – the first video didn’t work – I gave feedback, the second video I tried on the site worked a treat!

So… the argument about Android versus Apple can start all over again – I suspect some manufacturers have some serious catching up to do…