I agree with every single word Gruber writes here.
Gruber on the Kindle Tablet
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Category Archives: iPad
Tech Writers Are Idiots, part 82
In its latest report, McAfee notes that among the plague of malware, the fake antivirus software problem is now hitting even the Mac. "This puts the Apple platform squarely in the crosshairs of malware authors. It will be interesting to see if this type of malware makes its way to the iPhone and iPad as well. It is probably a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if.’
Anyone who knows anything about iOS apps knows that they are sandboxed. If an app was infected, it can’t affect the system or any other apps. And if an app is straight up malware or spyware, Apple will pull it from the App Store, assuming it gets in in the first place. If you jailbreak your phone, all bets are off. And frankly, who cares?
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!
Pardon the horrible image quality. I found it and stole it quickly.
Neven Mrgan and Marco Arment were just having a little discussion on Twitter about the merits (or lack thereof) of the iPad 2 Smart Cover. Their related blog posts on the matter are here, here, and here (in chronological order).
Now the thing that’s odd to me is that no one, not just Marco and Neven, mentions the fact that the original iPad case, for all of its problems, allows for two very nice uses, which I’m picturing below. In fact, no one seems to even mention these usage scenarios or how the Smart Cover handles them.
The first is the “I’m eating a bowl of chili and want to read (in portrait orientation) at the table” scenario. The case gives the bottom of the iPad a non-slip texture that makes leaning it against something totally doable. This doesn’t just come in handy at my admitedly unusual kitchen table setup. I use this at my desk as well, where I can rest the iPad against a small Bisley drawer unit that sits on my desk.
The second is the “I want to rest the iPad on surface that isn’t flat and not have to hold it there with my hands to keep it from sliding around” scenario. In case you can’t tell in the picture, I’m sitting on the couch, resting the iPad on my bent leg. The opened iPad case gives the iPad a non-slip texture that keeps it “stuck” to my jeans, or whatever pants I happen to wear. I do this all the time. Sometimes there’s a blanket over my legs, but you get the picture.
These are two uses that are near impossible to pull off with a naked iPad.
It seems that, based on the iPad and iPad case reviews I’ve read, I’m the only one who uses their iPad in these ways. How is that possible?
But, more to the point, is there a better solution to make the back and bottom of an iPad or iPad 2 non-slip like this? Because I really don’t like the case otherwise.
A related footnote: I’m reading an older programming book I’ve had for years. Reading a old fashioned book, with, you know, pages, is a pain in the ass.
AppleInsider | New York Post website now blocking Safari access on Apple’s iPad
The New York Post has setup a new paywall targeting mobile Safari users on Apple’s iPad and directing them to download the publication’s app through the App Store.
via AppleInsider.
Yeah. Good luck with that.
Also, can I mention how much it irks me that they wrote “setup” instead of “set up”?
The Adobe/Apple Brouhaha – My Thoughts
Flash CS4 is a bit of dog. I’ve documented a few of those issues. When I first heard that Adobe was adding the ability to create iPhone apps with Flash CS5, I rolled my eyes and thought, “Why are you working to add this major feature, the ability to make shitty iPhone apps, when you should be FIXING the Flash IDE?”
So, while I think it’s a shady move for Apple to ban the ability to write iPhone apps using tools like Flash, I also don’t really care that much. And there are probably some good reasons for it. I really didn’t have any interest in using Flash CS5 to make iPhone or iPad apps. My gut tells me that you won’t be able to make top-notch apps with Flash CS5. If you want to make a really solid iPhone app, you’ll need to create it with the native languages. This partly comes from my experience with Adobe Air apps. I gave up on them pretty quickly because they were pretty laggy and generally gave a poor user experience. This had as much to do with the nature of the technology as it did with the developers. Meaning, it isn’t really the developer’s fault that Air apps are slow and laggy and just don’t feel like native desktop apps. But, since Air apps look and feel different from native apps because they aren’t written created with the native frameworks for the OS, they are automatically NOT going to feel right.
By the way, the whole concept of “write once, deploy everywhere” is an idiotic pipe dream. Making something for a 3-1/2 inch touch screen is not the same as making something for a 10” touch screen which is not the same as making something for a 24” desktop PC. You can do it (most websites only exist in a single version that runs everywhere) but at best it won’t be ideal and at worst it will make people want to punch you in the face.
Oh, Flash CS5 does have some cool new features. The most exciting to me is the uncompressed XFL format, which will make Flash source files (FLAs) play nicely with version control systems. Score.
iPad multitasking *would* be nice
I just got my first real urge for multitasking on the iPad. I was watching a game on the MLB At Bat app, during a commercial break, and I wanted to check my email. Or Twitter. Or RSS. Or look up something on the web. But it takes too long (read: 15-30 seconds) to open the MLB app and get the game streaming again. So it doesn’t seem worth it. Usually closing an app isn’t a big deal because it’s fast and easy to open it back up. Not so with this MLB At Bat app.
I, and the rest of the tech world, will be flabbergasted if OS 4.0 doesn’t add 3rd party multitasking. I’m just wondering how it will work. How will you leave an app but keep it open? How will you close an app? Will the default Home button action change?
My interest is piqued.
Getting videos onto the iPad is hit and miss
One of the first things I did when I got my iPad was try to get some of my paid video tutorials onto it. I’ve got a couple of screencasts from Peepcode. I’ve got a screencast series from Pragmatic Programmers. And I’ve got a ton of videos that I’ve downloaded from Lee Brimelow’s goToAndLearn site. Some of the videos were gobbled up by the iPad immediately without any problem. Some were rejected. But I think I figured out an easy way to convert the videos that don’t get loaded onto the iPad.
I’ve got “Meet the Command Line” and “Meet Mercurial.” Now Peepcode is nice enough to give you iPhone ready versions (640×384) of the files along with higher res versions (1000×600) that are meant to be played on your computer. The iPhone videos naturally load right onto the iPad. But I’ve got a 1024×768 screen on this thing and I want the high res versions! The formats of the two desktop videos appeared identical to me. But only the Mercurial video was accepted by the iPad and the command line video was not. This is still a total mystery to me. But I seem to have found a solution that works. Using Quicktime X, you can “Save As” and use the HD 720p preset. As long as the video’s dimensions are under 1280×720, it won’t resize the clip. It just re-encodes it in a different format. However, it might give it a slight gamma shift, making the video appear a little bit lighter. I can live with that in this case. But the important thing is that you end up with a video that loads onto the iPad. I should also note that, now that I’ve done this conversion so I can watch the 1000px version on my iPad, the 640px version works just fine for a screencast that consists of mostly command line input.
The high res videos from Pragmatic Programmers didn’t load on, either. Those guys are only 800×600 and running them through the Quicktime X HD 720p conversion did the trick. The only goToAndLearn video that I tried to load onto the iPad worked without a hitch.
So I can’t give you a reason why some worked and some didn’t. Having one Peepcode video work and the other not work really threw me off. I don’t know if there is a way to glance at the video’s info and know for sure if it’ll work without a conversion. At least I know how to fix things if they don’t work straight away.
Another weird thing with how iPad handles chapters in the video files. First, you can’t access chapters as quickly as you can when viewing on the iPhone. That raised an eyebrow. And if you’ve got the video classified as a TV Show in iTunes, you can’t access chapters at all on the iPad. Weird. Hopefully Apple will address that issue in the next OS update.