I haven’t spoken much of cool adds-on the my gadgets, but with the raft of new cases announced for the iPad2, I wanted to mention what I think is one of the finest cases I have ever had for a piece of electronic gear. In serach for the best case for my iPad, I started with the requisite Apple rubberised case. For the €29 it was actually not a bad piece. It protects the nice shiny object of affection, has a light flip cover and also a bit of a stand. It wasn’t that bad, but to add a touch of class i picked up a Cygnett Lavish leather case. Again it is not a bad case. This one set me back €39 and is fine soft black leather. There is no stand function and the clasp is a magnetic one. Read the rest of this entry »
strikingly random thoughts and 'maximum data existentialisation'
Archives for category: Apple
Everybody’s doing it. They are sitting on that great idea for a next amazing application. The first lesson that Yarmosh empahsises in App Savvy is that your ‘app idea must be more than just an idea.’ The amazing rate of adoption of iOS-based appliances and the confluence of the effective marketing tool that is the appStore have created a new business model. One that allows for amazing exposure, huge first mover advantage and extremely low barriers to entry. One of the biggest challenges beyond actually creating the application is understanding the labyrinth that is getting it added to the store. Thankfully this book addresses this challenge and provides much much more. This is *the* textbook for iApp development. However, this book is not dealing with iOS coding, but instead with the larger process. It rises above the process of building the application and addresses the entire development process through building to delivery — moving from conceptualisation to realisation.
Ok. First blush reaction to the latest O’Reilly Press title “Best iPad Apps” was that it although timely it would quickly grow dated and the premise seemed best suited to a periodical magazine or website than a book. But…I was prepared to be convinced that the editors at O’Reilly had made a correct and in fact bold move with this title. The premise of the book is to excite users about the amazing things they can do with their new iPad by identifying the best apps available to take advantage of the revolutionary device.
Yes, iSync has been with us for few years now. It should be rock solid. It’s not — yet. I recently wrote about my impressions of data detectors. Not rocket science, 
but a small and powerful addition to useful workflow on a Mac. That they also remind me of the promise that was the Newton makes them all the more welcome. But what can I say about iSync? One of the things that makes OSX such a compelling choice for day to day computing is the consistency of interface between applications and their ability to share information…not just data, but contexts and preferences and thus recognition and adaptability to user peculiarities that anthropomophise the laptop. The computer becomes somehow just something a little more. A trusted companion — not merely a clone of millions of other identical collections of aluminum, silicon and other substances.
I feared the trackpad. I am not the biggest fan of the trackpad. I gather that my namesake, the CTO at Synaptics is responsible for some of the biggest breakthroughs as the trackpad gained laptop cred during the 1990’s and 
so I feel a little loyalty if only by association. However, my favourite means of input is the TrackPoint — the little red nubby (that becomes less red real fast) that the IBM ThinkPad is most closely associated with. This is a very personal area. I know many users that could just not get used to using a single finger on an ultra-sensitive tiny joystick. The cursor and they could not become friends with the TrackPoint in the equation. Random survey indicates most people still carry a mouse with them and connect it — this is the case for TrackPoint as well as trackpad users. I am glancing around the coffee shop right now and frankly I am the only one relying on the built in tracking device. There’s a lot of users with big mice and small mice, but mice nonetheless. There is even a user carefully balancing one on the arm of an easy chair — that can’t possibly be comfortable. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week Stéfan Sinclair noted that his upgrade to Leopard had largely been a less 
than awe-inspiring experience. he did find some amusement with the new Mosaic screensaver and I will admit that after trying it on his instigation, it’s pretty cool. I have to add another rather impressive addition to the list. DataDetectors! Wow. I can remember being one among many that saw the power of this sort of recognition of disjointed info on the Newton and having it take a scribble about lunch with Joe and make some assumptions and create an event in your calendar linked to the first Joe it found in your address book. So, Apple’s been playing with the technology for awhile. DataDetectors are so subtle that I suspect many people might be missing them. I did. Read the rest of this entry »
Perhaps there is an inner historian within me. The latest spate of reviews featuring the iPhone versus this challenger and that has me thinking that at the pace that we move today we don’t take enough time 
to reach a little further back to consider our forward progress. This case in point, everyone evaluating the iPhone or the iPod Touch (hereafter ITouch — as I am sure Apple would have rather called it) seems to be pitching it against the Nokia N95, HTC Kaiser, or the latest Blackberry. All appropriate for being the current flavour of the market — and when it comes to cell phones, they have such a limited shelf life. How long does the average phone remain current these days? Despite Apple’s slight revamp of the iPhone, I will go out on a limb and suggest that it may have greater longevity than most. However, not because for technical prowess, but to Apple’s marketing panache. Nonetheless, as I look at the comparisons, I am struck that we might best be able to gauge how much of a technical marvel it is by comparing a little further back. Read the rest of this entry »
So…48 hours back on a Macintosh laptop and I am in seriously danger of getting drunk on the kool-aid again. What is it that pulls one back?
Having never really left was part of it. I simply was being interdenominational.
I have my iMac in the living room and an HP Media Centre in the den. I conduct most of my daily work on my laptop though. I am a happy user of an IBM ThinkPad X32. I did not come to the X32 blindly. I started using ThinkPads on a daily basis back in 1999. Before that I was that bane of the Windows world: the Mac bigot. Read the rest of this entry »
So, another Steve Jobs/Apple keynote over and the hype of the advance pundits leaves one feeling a might let down. This is the first keynote that I can recall that sparked mainstream news coverage in advance. I was watching my local news station this morning and they gave Steve & Co., at least 30 seconds of air time in anticipation (admittedly of things iPhone). I can remember when introduction of machines that would go on to become incredibly successful (the phrase ‘insanely great’ wafted through my memory for a second) didn’t rate coverage outside of technology media as recently as two years ago. It only took Apple 30 years to achieve this.
On the upside, I am writing this on Safari for Windows and so far am very impressed. The anti aliasing is finer than FireFox and the screen-render speed is somewhere in the vicinity of where Steve claimed it would be — blazingly fast. Colour me pleased with it thus far. I really like the little things that you note, such as the browse button behaviour and better indication (an icon and title) that the file you uploaded is linked to. These are nice touches. Read the rest of this entry »
There’s an interesting short article on Low-End Mac about how the author uses an Apple Lisa for his writing tasks. He cites the fact that he can turn it off and resume exactly where he was by turning it back on, not having to worry about either saving documents or power outages. More importantly he reminds us to consider whether all the bells and whistles of the latest greatest productivity appas are things we actually use. I blogged earlier on this point and was comparing Word 1.0 on the Mac to the current incarnation. Without being some neo-Luddite and pretending like the older technology is that far superior, I think that there are points to be made for simple and fast.
Nonetheless, its not quite that black and white. I have tried to find an alternative word processor for use under Windows with less baggage than Word. I have been unsuccessful. Both AbiWord and OpenOffice seem as bloated and frankly try to emulate Word at the expense of actually thinking about how the human actual processes words. Admittedly there are a few challengers of note on OSX. But, what about starting with TextEdit or the like and simply being able to modularly add features as desired.
One of the other points raised relates to the concept that some tasks haven’t been improved upon by faster processors and the like. Word processing can get away with the older 68K…frankly given the choice, I would actually be very happy doing my word processing on one of the NeXT boxes and WriteNow. That was (and still is) speed with an awesomely crisp display. Pure monochrome (I have little need for colour when word processing) and a joy to the eyes. strangely far less eye candy than OSX has become bloated with. A purpose built word processing engine. I should crank up the old NeXT laser printer and see if it still works as well.
As to the age of the machine we use…think about that for a sec — a twenty four year old computer. And its not the oldest working ones about…alas, it seems like just yesterday.
Update: The pondering is usually good enough to get me exploring. In this case I happened upon PolyEdit from Russian publisher PolySoft. They have a tiny 1.3Mb word processor that reads and writes .docs and seems to have a rather robust feature set, yet runs like a wee demon. I’ll post comments if my trial goes well. So far so good.
Further Update: Well, if I didn’t need footnotes or endnotes I’d be doing well, unfortunately PolyEdit has neither. Additionally, while it will import Word 2000/XP/2003 versions, it will only save as Word v6. Pity. Its super fast and does offer a wide variety of features and the interface really works.