4 months of iPad…
October 3, 2010 § 2 Comments
It is now more than 4 months since I got my iPad and it has been a wonderful experience so far. If I used my laptop 40% and my smartphone 60% during a normal day, now, with my iPad, I am using my laptop 20%, my smartphone 50% and the rest (30%) goes for the iPad.
After some hard test and after some money spent in hundreds of apps (165 actually are installed included all those free ones), the iPad happens to be the greatest pleasure and experience for the following (display in order of usage):
- reading news, articles, twitts and blogs (Reeder, Flipboard, Instanpaper, Pulse, Twitter)
- reading news from special newspapers (Financial Times, BBC, NYT, WSJ, etc)
- reading books (iBooks, Kindle, Nook)
- reading Magazines (Wired, Zinio, Fortune, Newsweek, Times)
- reading and writing emails and even writing drafts of my blogs (WordPress)
- watching videos in YouTube, podcast, or rented/purchased videos from iTunes.
- Playing games and doing other stuff I never though of doing
Still, the iPad is yet not for super users and probably will never be. Enrique Dans mentioned some good arguments which I completely agree. Most of the reasons are still due the obvious iPad limitations like no multitasking and no printing. But many of these will be addressed with the software update iOS 4.2 in November. And lets face it, there will always be phisical limitations for higher performance activities like those done while sitting for 8 hours in an office!
I think I agree with the analogy that Steve Jobs did during the D8 Conference, where he compares desktops and laptops in the future to be like trucks and tablets like cars. Trucks will always be needed, specially for heavy duty tasks, but for the rest, tablets like the iPad will be the gadget to use.
With the iPad I can enjoy all those activities which are quite inconvenient to do on a laptop, plus, I don’t need to carry cables with me, no extra battery (actually not even worry about battery life throughout the day) and best of all, it does not heat on my lap! (or hands!) and doesn’t makes sound! With the iPad I can enjoy doing things I couldn’t do before and there is no week that goes by without finding a new App that changes the way I do certain things, or better, do things in a more convenient and productive way (taking handwritten audio-notes sync with dropbox for example).
2010 was the year of the tablet, even though the iPad has been the only one to arrive the market sofar. 2011 will definitively be interesting with Blackberry Playbook, Samsungs Galaxy and the rest to appear from HP, Microsoft, etc. Having more and better tablets will make my future iPad even better, just as it happend with the iPhone. Due Apple’s philosophy of doing certain things right, rather than many things wrong, I am confident that there will be no Killer iPad for the next years.
So, once again, those iPad skeptics were wrong! As Steve Jobs said on the D8, consumer goods are fascinating because they are the ones that choose what to or not to buy (not like enterprises, where decisions are taken somewhere and sometimes by old fashion IT managers who are experts on making the wrong decisions). The iPad has been selling like crazy, so Apple most have done something right.
Ps: this post was written from my iPad, reviewed from my smartphone and shortly edited (links) from my laptop.
MUST HAVE iPad Apps!
August 31, 2010 § 6 Comments
For the last 3 months I have been testing many Apps for the iPad. Below see my list of MUST HAVE apps.:
1. Flipboard (Free): This is without doubt the iPad killer app! Your Flipboard is a fast, beautiful way to flip through news, photos and updates your friends are sharing on Facebook and Twitter. And it’s an incredible place to discover fresh content from around the Twittersphere. Flipboard is the world’s first social magazine! Watch video.
2. Reeder (3,99€): Best RSS reader out there! It syncs with your Google RSS account! You can follow my recommended feeds here:http://www.google.com/reader/shared/meynieto
3. Instpaper (3,99€): Best way to saved web pages for later offline reading, optimized for readability on your iPads screen. Visit http://www.instpaper.com to open a FREE account. You can follow my favorite articles under this address g.m.n@mac.com.
4. Dropbox (Free): Keep all your files in the Cloud that you want to have access from anywhere, anytime! Share me your files to this address: meynieto@gmail.com
5. iAnnotate (7,99€): iAnnotate is both an elegant PDF reader and a powerful annotation tool that finally lets you work with your PDFs. You can open documents from email, sign and send out contracts, enter notes for edits, sketch diagrams, copy text, and add highlights or underline with the drag of a finger!
6. Kindle (Free): Read, make notes, bookmark, highlight, see what other have highlighted, sync with ALL your devices (incl PC and MAC) and purchase books via Amazon. Almost all eBooks can be found here. See my books and samples (my waiting list):
7. iBooks (Free): If you haven’t installed yet, you have to do it! its free! The user interface is much better than that of the Kindle. The only drawback is that is has not the social feature the kindle has. Also, if you manage different iTunes account, it can be a hassle if you are syncing different devices. Only for iPad devices and not available for PC or MAC. I preffer to read on iBooks, but unfortunately not all books I want are available. See my books and samples (my waiting lists):
8. Pages (7,99€): Pages is the App I use to talk notes. I can edit from here like a normal processor. If you have the iPad Dock with Keyboard, you are going to love writing in Pages. Pages can open and export .doc documents!
9. Keynote (7,99€): Great app interface! You can really make a professional presentation with this App (much better than using Powerpoint!). Keynote can upon powerpoint presentations. Unfortunately it can not export to powerpoint yet…only to PDF.
10. Wikipanion (Free): Great to search content in Wikipedia. You can save articles as bookmarks and create folders to organize your search content. I am testing also Discover (Free) which are great Apps to read Wikipedia articles, but somehow Wikipanion is still my best choice.
11. DocstoGo (11,99€): Access to all you Microsoft Files and be able to edit them! You can link your account with Dropbox, so all your docs will be update! Now you see why you don’t need an USB port? There is an alternative to this App which is looks much better (which I haven’t tested yet) called Quickoffice (1,99€).
12. Twitterrific (Free): This a great Twitter App to manage what you follow and see all your Tweets.
UPDATE (2.09.2010): today was released the official Twitter app for iPad. This App is great and has already replace Twitterrific from my main homepage! Twitter for iPad is a MOST HAVE app!
13. iThoughts HD (5,99€): Great App to draw Mindmaps. This can be accessed and uploaded to a dropbox account. Can also export to PDF, mindjet manager and other formats!
I am sure you will find some of this useful. Let me know which is your favorite Apps! I will soon post my favorite Games and Magazines/Newspaper for iPad. So, keep posted!
For any question don’t hesitate to contact me.
Blog to you soon…
Why print books will soon die…
August 8, 2010 § 2 Comments
I just finished reading my first “digital” book (To Big To Fail from Andrew Ross Sorkin) using the Kindle App for iPad and iPhone. The experience was delightful. I was using my iPhone in the Bus and sitting on a bench outside Zara, Mango, etc while my wife was shopping. My iPad was meant for reading back home, at school (during break) and sometimes from Parque del Retiro. Independent the time, location and/or device, I was always brought to the latest page read and all my bookmarks, notes and highlights were always there.
Digital Books, which already outsold printed books at Amazon.com last quarter, will soon be the standard format. I am sure I will also be telling my grandkids about this thing called “print books”.
2 simple reasons for this:
Convenience. Read any time, anywhere from any device and bring all your book collection with you. Download sample of future books to read and get personalized recommendations. Bookmark, highlight, make notes and instantly access to dictionary and search…yes, search within the book or with Google or Wikipedia from the book.
Reading becomes Social. Now with the Kindle App you can even see which parts of the book have been highlighted by other readers. This is really interesting, cause the Kindle App just slightly mark you the most popular highlights.
I was never an active book reader. But having this two advantages have made me want to read more and more. I no longer have to go to a library and wonder what to read next. I can now download books sample on the go whenever I get a good book recommendation or advice. Reading is now my main activity for any idle time on my day.
I am now reading What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis from the iBook App for iPhone and iPad and will see if it can beat the Kindle App experience.
Blog to you soon…
For all those iPad skeptics!
June 6, 2010 § 4 Comments
I got my iPad and have been testing it for the last week. Hence, I can now talk about it! and delivery my review for all those skeptics out there. (Watch below, in spanish, as of second 55)
A frequent question I have received in the last week was: what is the added value compared to the iPhone or the iPod touch? 1. Screen Size! it does matter! what you are able to do with this huge and gorgeous display is amazing! 2. Battery life! 10 hours watching video or surfing the net? this is impressive! I start the day at 9am and for 1am I am still with 20% battery on my iPad. NO MORE cables! and 3. Speed! incredible fast and responsive. Amazing, even for productivity tools like keynote, pages, pdf editing, etc.
Still not convinced! here my insights for the frequent concerns of any iPad- skeptic.
1. Fact: The iPhone revolutionized the Mobile Phone industry. It sold 1 million unit in 74 days. The iPad has sold 2 million in just 60 days.
2. The iPad is NOT a big iPod touch. If you see the physical similarities, then consider the iPod Touch as an iPad Mini. (first came the iPad)
3. The iPad is not a laptop substitute, but a complement. Laptops (which will eventually substitute Desktops) will be your mobile computer for your office/home or anywhere you spend bunch of hours working. If you want to be really mobile, the iPad (or any tablet equivalent) is the mobile device for the road, because a) you don’t need cables, b) no worries about data loss (iPad is synchronized and backup via iTunes and can remotely be wiped out), c) battery will get you through an entire day of productivity and/or entertainment, d) its ultra light (650 gram) and e) doesn’t heat in your lap!
4. The iPad (and its equivalents to arrive from Google, RIM, etc) will kill the notebook market.
“The problem with netbooks is that they are better at nothing!” Steve Jobs.
5. Don’t believe the rest will follow? BB
Oh yes, we all criticize Apple for the needless products they make, but still everybody follows them. And I am the crazy one? or just a simple early adopter?
6. only 16-64GB? Please understand that when you are on the go, you don’t need ALL your 10000000 Songs/Videos/Files to move around with you, you just need to sync the data you need and that’s it. Need access to all your files? have you heard about “cloud computing”? Does “Dropbox” ring any bell to you?
7. Apple claims the iPad is the best experience (at least when you are on the go) for web browsing (forget about Flash), E-Mail, watching Movies and Videos, viewing photos, reading books, etc. And when installing some of the many thousand Apps for the iPad, you could do actually much more.
8. No Multitasking? I am sure you have read enough critical reviews about the iPad and you are not seeing the big picture here. Please note that a) the iPhone OS was created for multi-touch mobile devices and therefore, has a better battery performance and user interface and b) Apple is enabling a new way of Multitasking coming this Fall with the iOS 4 that will follow the goals of a) and add more and more features…
Still doubts? Let me know them and will be more than happy to discuss them.
