A neat idea from Ian Collins. Make an iPad stand from its own packaging.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Are you a nerd, dork or geek?
http://www.greatwhitesnark.com/2010/03/25/difference-between-nerd-dork-and-geek-explained-in-a-venn-diagram/
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Live: iPhone OS 4.0 preview at Apple headquarters
And we begin. Steve Jobs is on stage.
He's giving a few updates.
First, iPad. He's showing his favorite reviews, from Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal, and Baig at USA Today. Today, Apple has sold about 450,000 iPads. He says Best Buy is out of stock, Apple stores selling them as fast as they can get them in.
Users downloaded 250,000 iBooks titles the first day, now more than 600,000 to date. Users have downloaded more than 3.5 million iPad apps.
He says people are loving the product – shows a photo of a little girl hugging one in an Apple store.
Now on to the App Store. More than 3,500 iPad apps in the store. He’s showing a bunch of apps now, including Major League Baseball, various games, Etrade and IMDB. He’s showing a bunch of news apps now, including Time magazine, our sister pub, and the New York Times and Popular Science. Jobs gives special attention to Netflix.
There are now more than 185,000 apps in the app store.
Now he’s talking about how Apple has won the JD Power award for smartphones the last three years. Now he’s calling out Net Applications’ numbers on browser use, pointing out that the iPhone has 64% of the mobile browsing market as far as use. Apple has sold 50 million iPhones and 85 million iPhones and iPod touches.
Now, on to OS 4. Developer preview comes out today, official version ships in summer. 1,500 new APIs. Developers will have access to calendar, in-app SMS, full map overlays, full access to still and video camera, and more.
There are more than 100 new user features, including creating playlists, tap to focus on video, gift apps, spell check, Bluetooth keyboards, file & delete mail search, places in photos, 5x digital zoom and home screen wallpaper.
Apple is going to focus on seven “tentpole” features today.
The first is multitasking. (Finally!)
We weren’t the first to this party, but we’re going to be the best, Jobs says – similar to cut and paste. It’s really easy to do multitasking in a way that drains battery life. It’s also easy to do it in a way that sucks the performance from your foreground app. Apple has figured out how to do it and avoid those things. That’s what took us a little longer, he says, but I think we nailed it.
Now, a demo.
He’s launching mail, looking at a message. Touches a link in the message and goes to the browser. Now he wants to get back to mail. He double-clicks the home button, and the window rises and shows the apps that are running.
Now he goes to eBay, checks his auction. Now he goes to play Tap Tap Revenge. Now he goes back to the website and mail, then goes back to the game. It always takes him back to where he was in any app. (Lots of applause here.) So that is our multitasking UI, he says; and it’s really wonderful. (Still a lot of questions about exactly how this works.)
Steve Jobs sounds better than he has in a long time, by the way.
Scott Forstall is coming out to give us some more detail on Apple’s multitasking implementation. He explains that Apple is providing seven multitasking services.
First, background audio. He’s talking about Pandora as the most popular music streaming app. Until now, if you closed the app to do something else, the music stop. No longer. Pandora founder Tim Westergren is coming up to talk about it.
Tim says the iPhone has singlehandedly changed the direction of Pandora, making it mobile and so much more useful. “It was this completely transformative moment for us. … Our growth rate doubled overnight.” He says it took his developers one day to make Pandora’s iPhone app background aware. He’s demoing it, showing that he can skip songs. He can also go to buy a song that’s playing from iTunes, even as the song is playing. (As a Pandora iPhone user, I can tell you this is great. Android and Palm have had this for a while.)
Now, Skype. You can stay in a call and use other apps. Even if you’re not running Skype in the foreground, you can receive Skype calls. David Ponsford from Skype is up to demo. He says Skype has more than half a billion users. (This is a very important feature that will appeal to a lot of business customers.) Even in another app, if someone calls a notification pops up and you can pop over to Skype to answer. While he’s on the call, he goes to OpenTable to pick a spot to eat. (I wonder what happens if another call from the main phone app comes in at the same time? He doesn’t say.)
On to background location. (This is really important for turn-by-turn direction apps and check-in apps like Loopt, Foursquare and Gowalla.) Forstall demos a GPS system working while music is playing in the background. Apple came up with a cell tower solution that allows these apps to work without having GPS on all the time – because GPS is a major power drain. Apple came up with a way to wake up location apps and tell them your location as soon as you move. Apple is adding an icon indicator to the top menu bar that shows if any app is tracking your location, and a location services menu that lets the user control what apps can access location, and let you know if any app has tried to locate you.
Background notifications are next. Apple has pushed more than 10 billion push notifications in less than a year since the feature came out. Now Apple is adding a new feature called “local notifications” that doesn’t require I link through Apple’s servers. For example, a TV app can notify you when a show is about to start.
Next, task completion: Basically, programs can finish uploading something even after you close it.
Fast app switching: Quickly move between apps without having to relaunch them.
Now he’s wrapping up the multitasking talk.
Steve Jobs is back.
He’s going to talk about folders. It’s a better way to organize apps.
He’s going to make a folder with games in it. He pushes his finger on an app, drags one app on top of another and it instantly makes a folder. It automatically names the folder based on the category they came from in the app store. (This is very cool, very useful, and unlike anything Apple’s competitors have implemented in their OSes.) You can even put folders in the dock.
As an aside, he demoing how you can change the iPhone’s wallpaper. You can set the home screen or lock screen, or both to display the wallpaper. (Others have had this feature for a while.) “An incredibly great drag-and-drop UI,” he says. Yep.
Now Jobs is on to Mail.
First he’s going to talk about unified inbox. You can have multiple accounts all feeding into one inbox, and you can now use multiple exchange accounts. You can also switch quickly between inboxes if you want to keep them separate. There’s mail threading now, too. (This is important. Gmail has made this a must-have feature.) You can now choose to open inbox attachments using a third-party app. (Again, Steve Jobs has a lot of his old stamina back. He’s doing longer stretches of the presentation than he has recently.)
Now Apple is adding iBooks to the iPhone. It looks much like it does on the iPad. He’s showing the Winnie the Pooh book. (Looks good. This is trouble for Amazon.) You can buy a book once and read it on any of your devices. Current page and bookmarks will wirelessly sync. As with the iPad, Winnie the Pooh will come free with the iBooks iPhone app.
Scott Forstall is back to talk about enterprise features. There’s better encryption in email, and making APIs available to allow app developers to encrypt data in apps. Apple is also improving mobile device management. Now enterprises can easily manage iPhones like they do BlackBerrys and Windows Mobile phones.
There will also be wireless app distribution, allowing companies to wirelessly push apps to devices. Also multiple exchange accounts now supported, VPN and more.
Now on to Game Center. He’s showing Apple has more than 10x more games than PSP and Nintendo. This will allow you to find people to play games with, and compare your progress on leaderboards. It will be available “later this year,” he says. This is huge.
Steve Jobs is back. The final big feature is iAd. Mobile advertising built in to OS 4. He’s explaining what this is. “We think most of this mobile advertising really sucks,” he says, “and we thought we could make some contributions.” He says that on a mobile device “search is not where it’s at. … They’re spending all their time in apps.” (Google just got slapped.)
The average iPhone user spends 30 minutes a day using apps. An ad every three minutes would be 10 ads per device per day. Apple will soon have 100 million devices, which roughs out to 1 billion ad impressions per day, he says. “We want to change the quality of the advertising.”
The ads on the web today are not capable of delivering emotion, Jobs says, which is why most ad dollars still flow to TV. Apple wants to be more interactive than TV ads, but deliver just as much emotion. He also wants to bring ads that keep you in the app. The result is that people don’t click on ads, because they don’t want to be yanked out of apps. “We have figured out how to do interactive and video content without ever taking you out of your app,” he says, which will make people more willing to look at ads.
“Apple is going to sell and host the ads,” he says, “and give developers an industry standard 60% of the revenue.” (Now it’s all-out war with Google … and Microsoft for that matter. I wouldn’t be surprised if competitors try to raise legal concerns here.)
iPad mini coming next year?
Written by Andrew on April 8, 2010 – 4:00 pmComment
This rumour comes from a senior Digitimes analyst, Mingchi Kuo. He cites talks been component manufacturers as his source, but we’re going to treat this as an outside-change rumour at best for now.
While the idea of an iPad Mini is cute, it raises questions about whether, hardware and software-wise, these smaller devices would be more similar to an iPhone or iPad. One of the biggest differences between an iPhone and iPad is the screen resolution, and we doubt whether a 1024×768 screen would fit onto a 5-inch device.
Digitimes suggests that these diddy iPads will cost less than $400, so a full hundred dollars less than the lowest current iPad model. What do you think? Hot air or a dead cert?
via Digitimes
This rumour comes from a senior Digitimes analyst, Mingchi Kuo. He cites talks been component manufacturers as his source, but we’re going to treat this as an outside-change rumour at best for now.
While the idea of an iPad Mini is cute, it raises questions about whether, hardware and software-wise, these smaller devices would be more similar to an iPhone or iPad. One of the biggest differences between an iPhone and iPad is the screen resolution, and we doubt whether a 1024×768 screen would fit onto a 5-inch device.
Digitimes suggests that these diddy iPads will cost less than $400, so a full hundred dollars less than the lowest current iPad model. What do you think? Hot air or a dead cert?
via Digitimes
Monday, April 5, 2010
How to Prepare for Email Marketing’s Biggest Challenge Ever: Facebook Project Titan
Are you ready for Project Titan?
Facebook, the largest social network in existence (400 million users and growing) is growing its own email system, codenamed Project Titan. Details are a little thin, but articles from Techcrunch and other sites on the Web indicate that Facebook’s mail system is going to be an actual, standards-compliant mail system with POP3/IMAP and SMTP with users getting an @facebook.com address.
Here’s the zinger: if Project Titan is adopted by its userbase, it’s going to absolutely devastate your current email marketing efforts. Deliverability will go out the window. Open rates will drop to near zero. Your email won’t even get to users, much less get read.
Why?
Simple: Facebook will throw out the book on email deliverability because it will likely be the first mass-user email platform that is whitelist-based. In other words, you will NOT be able to send to a user unless they have given you explicit permission to do so.
This is already baked into Facebook. Messaging and privacy are very limited on Facebook. Brands and companies have to resort to Fan Pages and pay per click advertising to gain any leverage among the user base. A Facebook email system is likely to verify that you, the sender, are friends with the recipient before allowing your message to even show up in their inbox.
It’s already baked into Facebook’s existing messaging.
This will do two things: for users, this will make email an incredible experience again because all the junk we’ve dealt with over the years (from companies we don’t want to hear from) will simply not get through. What will drive adoption of Project Titan is the promise of 100% spam-free email. Friends and family will always get through. Corporations? Probably not. Spammers? Locked out forever. For marketers, you’re not going to get through at all unless Facebook recognizes your connection to the recipient.
What a game changer that would be.
Of course there will always be corporate email. Of course there will always be other services. However, if Facebook uses its existing friends architecture to determine email deliverability, its inbox will be the most valuable real estate of any email inbox because it will only contain messages from people you want to hear from, and it will be inside a website where users already spend an incredible amount of time anyway. Facebook’s inbox will be the email you always want to read.
Now, how do we know that Facebook is likely to leverage friend lists? Simple. In the Techcrunch news piece, Facebook’s email system will be based on the vanity URL system they rolled out last year. Facebook.com/blueskyfactory will become blueskyfactory@facebook.com. Facebook.com/cspenn will become cspenn@facebook.com.
Get it? If I want blueskyfactory@facebook.com to send to cspenn@facebook.com, I’d bet you a beer that the two must be connected as friends, fans, or the recipient has to permit anyone to contact them by email (which will probably NOT be the default).
So you’re probably saying to yourself, okay, apocalyptic prediction received, now what? Here’s our recipe for preparing for Project Titan.
1. Get in the habit of not sending garbage to your existing email lists. As DJ Waldow tries to beat into your head every opportunity he can, send relevant, timely, targeted, valuable (RTTV) email. If your users are in the habit of receiving RTTV email from you now, they’ll likely be receptive to receiving it from you in the future, no matter what the platform is. Are you just emailing worthless ads to your audience? Are you sending stuff like product announcements full of corporate-speak to your audience? Take a look in your email analytics right now. If your open rates are below industry standard, chances are you’re not providing value to your customers. (Blue Sky Factory customers, ask your client service manager for suggestions on your current performance. Not a Blue Sky Factory customer but want to be? Click here.)
3. Get 25 fans on your Facebook fan page right now. Why 25? In order to obtain a vanity URL (Facebook.com/yournamehere) you’ll need 25 fans at a minimum. (Hat tip to Bryan Person for the update)
4. Get your Facebook vanity URL. Go to Facebook.com/username and grab that URL right now, because it will be the basis of your @facebook.com address later. Make it consistent with your other online identities. (e.g. if you’re @blueskyfactory on Twitter, you should be atfacebook.com/blueskyfactory)
5. This is the hard part but the important part. As soon as you have steps 1-4 complete, start contacting your user base, your customer base, anyone you have permission to contact, and get them to become fans of your Facebook Fan Page. Offer incentives, coupons, exclusive info, whatever it takes for them to become a fan, because this will almost certainly be the gold standard of deliverability in Project Titan. Fan or friend? Your message will probably get through.
Put your Become a Fan button on your website, on your blog, in your social networks. BSF Customer? Make use of Share With Your Network on ALL your creatives. (Contact your client service manager if you don’t know what that is.) Provide hooks in every touch to your customers (email footer, etc.) letting people know that your Fan Page exists and that you should connect.
6. Make much more use of your Fan Page right now, today. Start interacting with your customers there, so that they get in the habit of seeing your name and brand more often. Put up a web form on your Fan Page (BSF customers – ask your client service manager about how to integrate Publicaster into Facebook), so that customers can do business with you if they so choose.
Above all else, follow the RTTV rule on Facebook from the moment you get started. Be a part of your customers’ Facebook experience in a relevant, timely, targeted, valuable way, in everything you do. Once Facebook’s walled garden goes up around email itself and proves its value to users (look, no more spam, ever!), the ONLY way as a marketer you will be allowed into that Friends category of messaging is if you’re behaving like an actual friend – a real life friend – would, bringing value to your relationship.
The implications around Project Titan are huge. The consequences to unprepared email marketingprofessionals are likely to be dire. Make sure you’re prepared for Titan’s rollout and do the appropriate groundwork now so that if it does explode (as many predict it will), you will obliterate your competitors. Even if it doesn’t, the steps you take to prepare for it will give you a valuable Facebook outpost that you can use for all your marketing efforts.
Christopher S. Penn
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Before you buy: 12 things to know about the iPad
By John D. Sutter, CNN 
(CNN) -- You've seen the television commercials and the product reviews.
But maybe, like many gadget lovers, you're still debating whether you really need this new touch-screen computer from Apple.
To help you make sense of the hype, here are answers to 12 common questions about the iPad, Apple's much-anticipated "slate" computer, which goes on sale Saturday.
Buying an iPad? What will you do with it?
Is there anything else you'd like to know? If so, please post in the comments section below and we'll do our best to answer your questions.
1. How is the iPad different from a laptop?
The word "laptop" is getting somewhat brushed aside for a truckload of new, confusing categories.
The Apple iPad falls into the slate (some people say tablet) category of portable personal computers, because, unlike a laptop, it doesn't have a hardware keyboard.
Another key difference: To type and to navigate through files and photos on the iPad, you touch its screen in the same way you operate an iPhone or iPod Touch. That's possible on some laptop models, but not many.
2. How is the iPad different from e-readers like the Kindle?
Reading digital books on "e-readers" like the Amazon Kindle
is becoming increasingly popular. The iPad acts like an e-reader and like a personal computer, but there are some notable differences between the two.
For one, the iPad has a color display. The Kindle, by contrast, is only black-and-white. Some people think the iPad, partly for this reason, will be popular with students who read textbooks with colorful diagrams. Others say the Kindle's screen, which isn't backlit, will be easier on the eyes over long periods.
It takes you through a series of questions about your gadget preferences and then decides for you. There's an aesthetic difference, too: The iPad will display books horizontally, with two pages showing, or vertically, zooming in on a single page of text. The Kindle only works in vertical mode.
Perhaps more importantly, the devices access books from different online bookstores. iPad users buy books from Apple's new digital bookstore, called the iBookstore, which supports an open e-book format called ePub
. Kindle users must buy their books from Amazon.com.
3. How much does the iPad cost?
Prices range from $499 to $829. The more expensive versions have more storage space, which means you can put more music and videos on the device.
iPads that connect to the Internet with Wi-Fi only are less expensive than those that can connect through Wi-Fi and through AT&T's mobile Internet network.
4. Do you have to sign-up for an AT&T contract when you buy the iPad?
You don't have to buy an AT&T mobile Internet contract to purchase the iPad.
If you buy a Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad and have a Wi-Fi connection at home, or you want to use the iPad primarily at coffee shops or public places that have wireless Internet connections, then you probably won't have to deal with AT&T at all.
Pricier versions of the iPad are able to connect to AT&T's mobile 3G network, allowing them to browse the Web from many more locations.
Surprisingly, you don't need a contract with AT&T to use this service, either.
Users can pay by the month and cancel at any time without penalty, Apple CEO Steve Jobs
said at the iPad unveiling. The unlimited data plan with AT&T costs $29.99 per month.
The Wi-Fi-enabled iPads go on sale on Saturday. The AT&T-enabled iPads will ship in late April, according to the online Apple store.
5. If there's no keyboard, how do you type on the iPad?
Instead of being a piece of plastic with physical keys, the iPad's keyboard is a graphic that pops up on the device's touch-sensitive screen -- an interface that will be familiar to iPhone
and iPod Touch
users.
iPad users type by touching pictures of keys on the screen. The iPad keyboard is about the same size as the one on your desk, but you can't feel the keys.
When he unveiled the device in January, Jobs said the iPad is "a dream to type on." But some bloggers, including this writer, have complained that the iPad's touch-screen keyboard is difficult to use.
6. What does the iPad do best?
The iPad is designed for consuming various types of media -- reading books, browsing the Web and watching videos, in particular.
It's also marketed as a portable gaming device, and there are hundreds of games for sale in the iPad App Store.
The device doesn't have a DVD player, but you can download videos from Apple, or stream them from the Web.
The iPad is best suited for people who would, say, want to read their e-mail, but wouldn't have to compose lengthy responses.
It's better for a blog reader than a blog writer.
7. Can you create documents, spreadsheets and presentations with the iPad?
Apple created a new suite of "apps" specifically for the iPad. These iWork
programs, which cost $9.99 each, let users create documents, edit spreadsheets and create business presentations from the iPad.
It's unclear how easy these programs will be to use. Some reviewers say it's easy enough to compose business documents on the iPad. Others say serious users will need another computer to be productive.
The iPad has a Wi-Fi connection, which, in theory, could be used for printing documents wirelessly through your printer. There is some debate online about what apps will perform this function.
8. Can you view any Web site on the iPad?
A certain format of online video, called Flash, does not play on the Apple iPad.
While there are some workarounds for this, many Web sites are redesigning themselves, using a type of code called HTML5, so they will work on the iPad.
That code allows video display on the device, but you may notice some sites will have holes because the iPad doesn't support Flash video.
9. Will the iPad replace my current computer? Or do you need both?
Some technology writers and critics say the iPad is an all-in-one machine. Others argue that it's more of a portable accessory, and that most computer users need a desktop or laptop computer in addition to an iPad.
What works for you really depends on what you use your computers for. If you spend a lot of time typing or creating things with your computer, it may be easier to use a laptop. If you just want to surf the Web, read books, play games, watch movies or send an occasional short e-mail, the iPad might work.
Apple and others sell keyboards that can be attached to the device in case you need to write a longer e-mail and don't want to fiddle with the touch-screen keyboard.
10. Is the iPad lighter and smaller than other laptops or e-readers?
The iPad will be about a half-inch thick and weigh about 1½ pounds.
Its screen is 9.7 inches across, when measured diagonally.
That's smaller and lighter than some laptops. A 10-inch netbook from Dell is similar in size but weighs about a pound more.
Amazon's Kindle DX
is slimmer than the iPad, at only a third of an inch thick, and it weighs slightly less: 1.2 pounds, according to Amazon.
Its screen is the same size as the iPad's, but it doesn't display color.
11. Can you subscribe to newspapers and magazines on the iPad?
Some magazines and newspapers have said they hope the iPad will help save their struggling industries. A number of them have reformatted their publications for the iPad's screen and are offering new digital subscription plans.
The Wall Street Journal
, for example, will charge $17.99 per month for an iPad subscription to its newspaper.
12. Are there iPad alternatives?
Apple is not the only computer maker offering a slate device. Some are on the market now and others will come out soon.
HP briefly showed off its slate computer before an audience at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Dell has announced plans to make a personal computer in the slate category.
April 2, 2010 10:01 a.m. EDT
The iPad is a portable "slate" computer with a touch-sensitive screen and no keyboard.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Apple's much-awaited iPad goes on sale Saturday, April 3
- CNN answers 12 common questions about the iPad
- The gadget fits into the "slate" family of gadgets
- It has a touch-sensitive screen and no keyboard
But maybe, like many gadget lovers, you're still debating whether you really need this new touch-screen computer from Apple.
To help you make sense of the hype, here are answers to 12 common questions about the iPad, Apple's much-anticipated "slate" computer, which goes on sale Saturday.
Buying an iPad? What will you do with it?
Is there anything else you'd like to know? If so, please post in the comments section below and we'll do our best to answer your questions.
1. How is the iPad different from a laptop?
The word "laptop" is getting somewhat brushed aside for a truckload of new, confusing categories.
The Apple iPad falls into the slate (some people say tablet) category of portable personal computers, because, unlike a laptop, it doesn't have a hardware keyboard.
Another key difference: To type and to navigate through files and photos on the iPad, you touch its screen in the same way you operate an iPhone or iPod Touch. That's possible on some laptop models, but not many.
2. How is the iPad different from e-readers like the Kindle?
Reading digital books on "e-readers" like the Amazon Kindle
is becoming increasingly popular. The iPad acts like an e-reader and like a personal computer, but there are some notable differences between the two.For one, the iPad has a color display. The Kindle, by contrast, is only black-and-white. Some people think the iPad, partly for this reason, will be popular with students who read textbooks with colorful diagrams. Others say the Kindle's screen, which isn't backlit, will be easier on the eyes over long periods.
It takes you through a series of questions about your gadget preferences and then decides for you.
RELATED TOPICS
Perhaps more importantly, the devices access books from different online bookstores. iPad users buy books from Apple's new digital bookstore, called the iBookstore, which supports an open e-book format called ePub
. Kindle users must buy their books from Amazon.com.3. How much does the iPad cost?
Prices range from $499 to $829. The more expensive versions have more storage space, which means you can put more music and videos on the device.
iPads that connect to the Internet with Wi-Fi only are less expensive than those that can connect through Wi-Fi and through AT&T's mobile Internet network.
4. Do you have to sign-up for an AT&T contract when you buy the iPad?
You don't have to buy an AT&T mobile Internet contract to purchase the iPad.
If you buy a Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad and have a Wi-Fi connection at home, or you want to use the iPad primarily at coffee shops or public places that have wireless Internet connections, then you probably won't have to deal with AT&T at all.
Pricier versions of the iPad are able to connect to AT&T's mobile 3G network, allowing them to browse the Web from many more locations.
Surprisingly, you don't need a contract with AT&T to use this service, either.
Users can pay by the month and cancel at any time without penalty, Apple CEO Steve Jobs
said at the iPad unveiling. The unlimited data plan with AT&T costs $29.99 per month.The Wi-Fi-enabled iPads go on sale on Saturday. The AT&T-enabled iPads will ship in late April, according to the online Apple store.
5. If there's no keyboard, how do you type on the iPad?
Instead of being a piece of plastic with physical keys, the iPad's keyboard is a graphic that pops up on the device's touch-sensitive screen -- an interface that will be familiar to iPhone
and iPod Touch users.iPad users type by touching pictures of keys on the screen. The iPad keyboard is about the same size as the one on your desk, but you can't feel the keys.
When he unveiled the device in January, Jobs said the iPad is "a dream to type on." But some bloggers, including this writer, have complained that the iPad's touch-screen keyboard is difficult to use.
6. What does the iPad do best?
The iPad is designed for consuming various types of media -- reading books, browsing the Web and watching videos, in particular.
It's also marketed as a portable gaming device, and there are hundreds of games for sale in the iPad App Store.
The device doesn't have a DVD player, but you can download videos from Apple, or stream them from the Web.
The iPad is best suited for people who would, say, want to read their e-mail, but wouldn't have to compose lengthy responses.
It's better for a blog reader than a blog writer.
7. Can you create documents, spreadsheets and presentations with the iPad?
Apple created a new suite of "apps" specifically for the iPad. These iWork
programs, which cost $9.99 each, let users create documents, edit spreadsheets and create business presentations from the iPad. It's unclear how easy these programs will be to use. Some reviewers say it's easy enough to compose business documents on the iPad. Others say serious users will need another computer to be productive.
The iPad has a Wi-Fi connection, which, in theory, could be used for printing documents wirelessly through your printer. There is some debate online about what apps will perform this function.
8. Can you view any Web site on the iPad?
A certain format of online video, called Flash, does not play on the Apple iPad.
While there are some workarounds for this, many Web sites are redesigning themselves, using a type of code called HTML5, so they will work on the iPad.
That code allows video display on the device, but you may notice some sites will have holes because the iPad doesn't support Flash video.
9. Will the iPad replace my current computer? Or do you need both?
Some technology writers and critics say the iPad is an all-in-one machine. Others argue that it's more of a portable accessory, and that most computer users need a desktop or laptop computer in addition to an iPad.
What works for you really depends on what you use your computers for. If you spend a lot of time typing or creating things with your computer, it may be easier to use a laptop. If you just want to surf the Web, read books, play games, watch movies or send an occasional short e-mail, the iPad might work.
Apple and others sell keyboards that can be attached to the device in case you need to write a longer e-mail and don't want to fiddle with the touch-screen keyboard.
10. Is the iPad lighter and smaller than other laptops or e-readers?
The iPad will be about a half-inch thick and weigh about 1½ pounds.
Its screen is 9.7 inches across, when measured diagonally.
That's smaller and lighter than some laptops. A 10-inch netbook from Dell is similar in size but weighs about a pound more.
Amazon's Kindle DX
is slimmer than the iPad, at only a third of an inch thick, and it weighs slightly less: 1.2 pounds, according to Amazon.Its screen is the same size as the iPad's, but it doesn't display color.
11. Can you subscribe to newspapers and magazines on the iPad?
Some magazines and newspapers have said they hope the iPad will help save their struggling industries. A number of them have reformatted their publications for the iPad's screen and are offering new digital subscription plans.
The Wall Street Journal
, for example, will charge $17.99 per month for an iPad subscription to its newspaper.12. Are there iPad alternatives?
Apple is not the only computer maker offering a slate device. Some are on the market now and others will come out soon.
HP briefly showed off its slate computer before an audience at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Dell has announced plans to make a personal computer in the slate category.
and 
have Friday, April 2, 2010
I didn't think I was going to want an iPad...
But I do. I think my husband is going to divorce me because of my love of Apple products.
I just, finally, talked him into my iPhone. Talked him into buying the program to train as an AppleCare Technician. Maybe I need to work for Apple specifically so I could hopefully get a discount?
A coworker of mine was telling me how the future is really going to change how we work, what we do, how we do it. I feel like I am already so far gone from working in corporate, office world.
The things I want to dabble in:
• Mac Tech (training during the week of Apr 12 - 16)
• Hunt and sell Morel Mushrooms
• Become a Social Media Strategist - fancy name for helping people with Twitter, blogs, Facebook, etc
• Develop iPhone apps
• Web Design
• Graphic Design
• Sell "miracle fruit"
• Professional blogger. I currently blog for www.cosmoradiorecap.com and this blog.
• Elance projects
• Associated Content - I love to write and research, I think this would be a great way to spend my time
And so much more... I feel like my day-to-day job as a product designer is getting in the way of doing what I really want to do. But it's a vicious cycle. I can't function without money, I can't move on without time. I am already at my max with my blogs and my full time job. My kids and husband suffer from that. So far, I am not making the money I wanted to from my blogs.
Who has suggestions? How can I burst out of this bubble I am in and make use of my interests and talents?
Back to the iPad... How can I continue my obsession with Apple products for the price they run. I feel like I can justify it if I actually take a job as an AppleCare Tech. But I am not sure I can do that from home, full time and do well.
I just, finally, talked him into my iPhone. Talked him into buying the program to train as an AppleCare Technician. Maybe I need to work for Apple specifically so I could hopefully get a discount?
A coworker of mine was telling me how the future is really going to change how we work, what we do, how we do it. I feel like I am already so far gone from working in corporate, office world.
The things I want to dabble in:
• Mac Tech (training during the week of Apr 12 - 16)
• Hunt and sell Morel Mushrooms
• Become a Social Media Strategist - fancy name for helping people with Twitter, blogs, Facebook, etc
• Develop iPhone apps
• Web Design
• Graphic Design
• Sell "miracle fruit"
• Professional blogger. I currently blog for www.cosmoradiorecap.com and this blog.
• Elance projects
• Associated Content - I love to write and research, I think this would be a great way to spend my time
And so much more... I feel like my day-to-day job as a product designer is getting in the way of doing what I really want to do. But it's a vicious cycle. I can't function without money, I can't move on without time. I am already at my max with my blogs and my full time job. My kids and husband suffer from that. So far, I am not making the money I wanted to from my blogs.
Who has suggestions? How can I burst out of this bubble I am in and make use of my interests and talents?
Back to the iPad... How can I continue my obsession with Apple products for the price they run. I feel like I can justify it if I actually take a job as an AppleCare Tech. But I am not sure I can do that from home, full time and do well.
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