The iPad - Day 6

On Day 6 of the iPad's short life, the future was revealed. The iPhone 4.0 OS was revealed and since the iPad too, runs this OS pretty much all of the non-camera features should make it over to the iPad. Sadly, it sounds like that won't happen until Fall. Assuming, we're following the standard calendar, September 22nd is technically the first day of Fall. That's about a half year away at this point, but not exactly out of line for an upgrade cycle to a device just released. Still, the features are many and it provides some welcome changes including the multi-tasking updates, unified inbox, etc. These will especially come in handy on the iPad, though will require me to upgrade from my iPhone 3G to reap all of the benefits.

In other news, the Camera-A/Camera-B application pair that I mentioned on Day 5 was upgraded to use the standard iPhone 3G so I spent the dollar to get it. This was my first iPad application purchase. It is functional and it does bring a camera like experience to the iPad, but it is excruciatingly slow and I saw some stability and connectivity issues in my limited use. I'll be looking at it more over the next few days. 

I've also purchased my first e-book. Don't get me wrong, I certainly have a lot in my iBooks library as there were quite a few classics available for free plus the included Winnie the Pooh. But, I also downloaded the Kindle application for the iPad which is quite good as well. Amazon provides a quite a few free books and is very price competitive on both. So when I was looking for a book I needed for work, I checked the iBooks store first and then the Kindle store. Amazon was ten bucks and the iBooks store was $23. Guess which one I bought from?

Also, I can't quite figure out why the only place I can browse for books on the iTunes store is on the iPad. Why can't I search through iTunes like you can for apps, music and movies? It seems like a serious overhaul is in order for this aging application.

Is There an App for That?

I was asked yesterday whether my company would consider creating an application for the iPad. Our flagship application is a product that produces insurance rates for an insurance agent that they can easily compare and provide to a customer looking for insurance. It is called a comparative rater. Information is entered once about a person including their cars or their home and then insurance quotes are produced from potentially hundreds of companies.

But, I digress. Back to the question. Would we produce an application like this for a mobile device? Our application relies on really heavy data entry. Each year, in fact, insurance companies seem to need additional information in order generate quotes. The best way to navigate through such a set of requirements (at least right now) is a keyboard and mouse. In addition, our comparative rating ecosystem relies upon integration with other systems to exchange data. Many of those do not, and will not live on a mobile platform because they are designed for a local workgroup environment. Lastly, in order to perform actions like verifying an address, looking up a car by a VIN and producing and submitting rates to a carrier, you need solid Internet connectivity. 

Certainly, the latter issue seems to less and less of an issue as our wireless networks mature, but my final reason for not building an app for that? If you need portability now, you can have it. A netbook with a data plan or a laptop tethered to smartphone or an aircard gets the job done right now. You keep all the functionality of the current products that are in your life - you just get to take it with you. Our product costs do not go up and everyone's life stay simpler.

That's not to say that we aren't looking at ways to move our solutions to the cloud or provide read-only access for mobile devices. It's just that the mix of functionality and productivity in our current solutions are not directly a good fit for these emerging platforms. We'll be keeping a close eye on them though.

The iPad - Day 5

I wasn't going to post an update today, but then fate intervened.

I couldn't connect to WiFi at work. Uh-oh. Look at me, I'm one of those folks affected by the first iPad problem. As it turned out, I wasn't. The router was hung and needed to be rebooted. No harm, no foul.

The second reason, I felt it was worthwhile to provide an update today was that folks are hard at work to solve one of the significant complaints on the iPad - its lack of a camera. According to this PCWorld article, the solution is a mere dollar away for those who have an iPhone 3G or 3GS. This is pretty clever and I intent to try it out for the novelty if nothing else.

Lastly, I was working with an application that we use at work which is a web app and found something interesting. The iPad doesn't realize that every text box actually IS a text box. I was unable to work with the Rally software solution to edit some story descriptions because Safari on the iPad didn't understand what it was looking that. This one is a first for me, but it was disappointing since I was trying to leverage the small size of the iPad at the time. Oh well, maybe next release.

The iPad - Day 4

This should be a brief update as I didn't have a lot of time to work with the iPad today. My typing on the unit is getting a bit better. I find that you need to keep your wrists up straight (i.e. proper typing form) to have the best results.

I talked in an earlier update of some of the things I can't do with the iPad. I had a bit of an epiphany today when I realized that the iPad enables me to do things that a typical laptop can't. 

• Immediate access. The iPad is an instant-on device. There's no boot time, hibernate wait, etc. It's on and off with the click of a button. That means that if you need to check something quickly - it actually can be done versus a laptop computer.
• Portable like no other. The iPad is a pound and a half and slip as heck. I can comfortably carry the iPad in the file folder area of my Tumi backpack and not even notice the weight. On the other hand, how many bags are there than can carry two laptops? And if there were any, who would want to? Obviously, this doesn't affect everyone, but I keep a very strict separation between my work laptop and my personal life.

One other thing I noted today? After using the iPad, the iPhone seems incredibly small. I feel suddenly like I have giant hands and I'm looking at a telescope at my apps and the Internet. Again, though, I'm not suggesting that the iPhone get much bigger - it's just the affect that the iPad has upon me.

The iPad - Day 3

So after picking up an iPad on launch day, it was an illuminating first couple of days. Since yesterday was Easter, there was plenty of time to veg out, do some couch surfing and get everything squared away on the iPad.

First advice? If you're in a relationship and both of you like gadgets, you better buy two.  It takes quite a while to set it up how you want and get some key applications chosen and configured. I already had about 200 apps loaded and unfortunately once you set iTunes to sync apps it selects all of them. The interface is also rather clunky for a lot of apps. After going through that, adding a few movies and so forth, the first syncs took awhile. After the lion's share were done, it went much faster for subsequent syncs.

Movies and music were a breeze to put on the device. The App store already has over 3,000 apps so there were a lot to choose from. However, a lot of them are quite pricey - FAR more expensive than the typical iPhone app. I have yet to buy an iPad only app, preferring to stick with the enhanced apps that work on both (they are the ones with the plus) so that I can get maximum utility out of my purchases.

Since Microsoft is unlikely to make Office for the iPad, I may give in and get Pages and Numbers. I'd prefer to get the Powerpoint equivalent as well, but only intend to do so if I can buy the iWork suite. Speaking of which, the typing... for those of you who have never met me I'm about 6'2" and thus have large hands. How is the typing on the screen?

Well, it's going to take some getting used to. In landscape mode, it IS relatively usable. I need to keep an eye on my typing though, since it's easy to brush a key on a touch screen. In portrait mode, I have to resort to thumb typing and it's pretty awkward.

I have yet to find anything to hook up to the Bluetooth on the iPad, so I've turned that off. Perhaps some wireless headphones? What would be really great is if I could pair my iPhone to it as a wireless, go anywhere modem, but I'm probably dreaming. The WiFi is working well so far - it's very quick at downloads and rendering web pages. The iPad is also VERY good at knowing where you are by WiFi triangulation. It was a little off when I was out and about today, but incredibly accurate at home.

I've started reading a book on it and find it very easy to use and read. It's not too rough on my eyes. Of course, I guess I'm very used to doing a lot of screen reading at work all day... I do find the screen, since it's shiny, just like the iPhone to be a bit of a challenge in certain light, but still usable.

So that's the update so far. Still happy, still exploring and still tweaking. :-)

The iPad

If I hadn't picked up an iPad today, on the day of launch, I would probably be writing a different blog about how the media has over-hyped the device, that's it's not big of a deal and it's just fine to wait.

After spending the last 3 hours or so with the device, I'll be clear. All of the above is true.

But.

This device breaks a lot of walls down. It certainly delivers functionality that I wanted in my iPhone but couldn't have. In no particular order that is:

1. Much better battery life
2. A much larger screen
3. Faster processor

For a device like a phone, you really don't want to have a giant screen because that means a giant device. But watching a lot of videos on a flight such as our recent trip to Maui gets painful. In addition, when you do want to watch 5 hours of movies, you also get to watch your iPhone battery slide ever downward. When you land, your phone is out of juice.

As of right now, I've been near constantly using the iPad and it sits at 73% battery left. That's from out of the box in which it didn't have a full charge. And when I sync it on my PC, it doesn't charge. Apparently you need to plug it into the wall for that.

I have little else to add that this review, or this review doesn't cover. But, I can tell you that some of the apps I use work far better on this form factor. I can also tell you that I cannot take my online classes on the iPad because they are powered by Flash. Lastly, I can say that while there's a lot more to go, I have a feeling this will finally move me to ebooks for real. We're finally there.

Now, off to play! :-)

Anti-Virus on the Home Server

I had previously written in my review about my Windows Home Server how I disliked the McAfee anti-virus solution that was included. Sure, it was a year of service, but the product wasn't the best and trying to update and extend that subscription actually seemed to be impossible. I tried. For a while.

So I looked for alternatives and the options are limited. I finally located Avast Windows Home Server edition, downloaded and installed the demo. It seemed to work fine and I decided to purchase it once the demo warned me that it was about to expire. As it turns out, that's probably a little too late.

Once the system went into that, "Hey you are about to expire" mode, the console on the Home Server simply hung and was unresponsive. License file in hand or not, you couldn't update it. Luckily, I found a bit of a workaround in the forums. I set the clock back a few weeks on the server. This seemed to allow the server to get back to the point where it could launch the Avast console. Then, I set the date back to the current date. Only then was I able to update the license file and update the Anti-virus to the current definitions.

After getting through this process, I have to say that either Microsoft needs to improve the way software is installed on this thing or anti-virus vendors really don't know what they're doing in as far as WHS. Perhaps it's a little bit of both, but I can say that it's unlikely that an average user would want to grind their way through these kinds of issues.

It's at this point that I'm questioning whether I've just made things better or worse. I suppose only time will tell, but I have a year to find out.