Firstly the app switcher is a mess, one row of 4 icons, no indication if they are just recently used, save state, of actually doing anything in the background, and if you keep swiping to the right there are pages after pages of them, it looks like they will never end. So unless the recently used app you want happens to be within the first 8, it’s quicker to just launch it from it’s regular icon location or use spotlight.

Now onto my main gripe, they way “save state” works. EVERY SINGLE app that has been compiled for iOS4 and save state has it enabled, no option to just enable it for apps that I want it enabled for. Some apps I only use once a day, do I really want that app taking up memory app day just to save 1 or 2 seconds when I next launch it. My iPhone is jail broken so I can see what apps are using memory and how much I have free. Yesterday when I looked, apps that were running included, mail, messages, calendar, ToDo, gallery, camera, Hipstamatic, Twitter, Reeder, Podcaster and iPod, and my iPhones available memory was down to 28MB free. When the iPhone needs more memory it is supposed to close some open apps to free up memory for the one currently needing it, the problem is that it doesn’t seem to “close” them, they appear to crash. If Twitter for iPhone gets closed by the OS, the next time it is launched the timeline isn’t where it was when you last left it, it seems to jump back to where it was last time the app was opened from a closed state, this can be several hours earlier to where it should be. Even the built in apps suffer by this crashing too. If the calendar app is closed to free up memory the next time it is launched it goes through a “Loading” process, I’ve noticed this can take anything from between 5 to 15 seconds, FAR longer than it used to take with any of the 3.x versions.

When iOS 4 was released many people wondered if jailbreaking would still be necessary because the ability to run apps in the background was one of the main reasons for jailbreak. Well yes it is still necessary as far as I’m concerned because the backgrounder app enables me to globally disable save state and and native backgrounding, and just enable it for the apps that I actually require it for….. rant over.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I’m not going to go into too much detail as to what the iPad can do, it’s already been covered by thousands of others over the past two months since it went on sale in the U.S. so this post is going to be more about my uses, and impression of the iPad based on those scenarios.

The one thing I was most looking forward to with the iPad was getting back into comic book reading, and I wasn’t disappointed. Comics look greet on the iPads screen and there are several decent apps already available for viewing the different formats that comics come in. Comics by Comixology (which I have mentioned in a previous post) allows you to purchase and download comic books at a reasonable price directly from the device. There are also a few CBR/CBZ/PDF etc. comic book readers, the best two being Comic Zeal and Cloud Reader.


The iPad has been praised (by Steve Jobs) as being a great ebook reader and the iBooks app was a big part of the keynote speech back in January. The iBooks app though is a little disappointing. Sure it looks nice, very nice in fact, polished UI, built in bookstore, translucent pages that curl when you turn them and show a mirror image of the previous page showing through from the other side just like real paper. But no amount of polish and shine can make up for it’s lack of content, and more importantly for me, the lack of a companion iPhone app which won’t be released until the 4.0 software upgrade. For this reason I’ve been using the Kindle app, which doesn’t look as nice but does have the content and whisper sync.

I expected to play a lot of games with the iPad but so far I’ve only played for a few hours. This is probably down to the fact that it’s still new and so many other things to try out. But of the games I have played (Real Racing HD, Command and Conquer, Resident Evil 4) I was pleasantly surprised by the graphical detail and playability of the titles.

Reading the daily newspaper was another thing that I was looking forward to doing, but currently there are only two national papers in the UK that have released an app that allows for offline reading in a newspaper style format, those are The Financial Times and The Times. I’ve tried both and not overly impressed with either. Firstly The Financial times, there isn’t anything wrong with the app, it does seem to work well, it’s just that the content isn’t to my liking. The Times on the other hand does have the type of content that I would read but is let down by a very buggy app that when crashes (and it does several times a week) looses all it’s offline content.

I have done a lot of web browsing on the iPad this last week, much more than I have done on a “proper” computer and it has been an absolute joy. It’s much easier/quicker to navigate some pages than on a desktop and the page rendering is lightening fast. Now the big downside for some people with the web browser is the lack of flash. This hasn’t bothered me in the slightest, probably due to using an iPhone for two years I have changed the regular sites that I visit to ones that are not flash heavy and I’m already accustomed to seeing the odd blue Lego brick, which usually just indicates that flash is not supported and sorry that they can’t show me that advert, big deal.

How is the iPad for blogging? Well we will soon find out. I’ve written this article, edited the screenshots, plan on arranging the layout and posting it using nothing but the iPad. If there are problems with any stage I’ll add an addition to this paragraph, if all goes well it will end here. So blogging didn’t go too well but got there in the end. The problems were mainly down to the WordPress app and site. I wrote all the text for this post in a notes app then planned on copying it into the word press app, attaching the images which would all appear at the end of the post, then arranging them through the website. First problem was that you can’t paste into the word press app? WTF!!! That’s one HUGE bug that should never have existed. The solution was to upload the images in a blank draft post using the wordpress app, just to get them into the media gallery, then delete the draft post. Go to the wordpress website, create a new post and insert the images from there. Once I’d worked this out it didn’t add much extra time to how long I’d imagined it would take. Also the visual editor does not work in Safari on the iPad so editing has to be done using the HTML editor.

So am I happy with my new purchase? HELL YEH, it really is a magical and revolutionary wonderful device, I’ve hardly used my iPhone or computer all week for 90% of tasks. Since it was announced back in late January I have changed my mind about getting one so many times but I’m glad I decided to get one in the end.

I have had their iPhone app for some time now but never really used it other than for storing credit/debit card details. I downloaded their Mac app any was blown away by it’s features and ease of use. Firstly it has a very nice user interface that’s quick and easy to get used to, you can be up and running within minutes without reading any instructions or tutorials (but they are recommended to get the most out of it). Two of the features I like most about it are it’s integration with Safari and several other apps and it’s random password generator. Whenever you log into a site a 1password bar will drop down at the top of the browser window in Safari and ask you if you want to save the username and password for this site, similar to how save username/password works in FireFox. Your details are then stored in 1passwords encrypted database, next time you visit that particular site all you need to do is click the 1password icon on the task bar, enter your 1password password and it fills in your details and logs you in. This is much more secure than the “save username and password” feature of most web browsers. If your computer is lost or stolen no one can gain access to any of your online accounts. Combine this with it’s random password generator and you can use unique, unguessable, randomly generated up to 50 character passwords for each site. But what if you want to log on to a site using a different computer, well they have a perfect solution to that too. If you keep a copy of your keychain bundle stored on a flashdrive it can be opened from any computer mac, windows, Linux within a web browser with a very similar interface to their desktop app and this can only be opened with that same password. Now there isn’t the same integration as you get with the desktop installation, you need to copy the password and paste it into the field on the site that you want to log into, but that’s a small price to pay for the security it offers.

There are many more nice features like it’s ability to sync with multiple macs by keeping your keychain stored in a dropbox account, and it’s wireless sync with their iPhone app. While I’m on the subject of syncing with multiple Macs, the developers are very open about the licence agreement, a single user licence means just that, a single user not a single computer. I have 1password registered on my MacBook and Mac Mini with a single licence and the developers are totally fine with that.

Ive only scratched the surface of what it can do in this short review, there is much more.  If you haven’t already tried it I would highly recommend doing so. It’s one of those apps that you think you don’t need until you start to use it, then you wonder how you ever managed without it… well I do remember how I managed without it, by using the same simple password EVERYWHERE.

A few days ago I noticed that Marvel had released their own app for the iPhone so I downloaded it. I was a bit sceptical of how it would look on a small screen but they have plenty of free issues to try it out with. They have done an excellent job with the transfer, text is easy to read and navigating the pages/panels is a joy with slick smooth transitions.

The online store within the app is also easy to use and purchases are done “in app” through your iTunes account. There are some nice touches too like push notifications when new episodes of a particular series get released.

Since downloading the app I’ve noticed another one called Comics, by ComiXology. It has the exact same interface, the store and all settings look the same but it has the advantage of not only selling Marvel comics but lots of other publishers too. From what I can tell, the comixology app was released well before the Marvel one. So have Marvel ripped off the UI etc or struck up a deal with them. Either way I’ll probably be using the Comixology app from now on. The prices for Marvel releases are the same at £1.19 plus it has access to many more publishers, most of which sell their issues for 59p

Now I just can’t wait until the end of April when the iPad gets releases in the UK, comics on a portable device is not something I had thought about until now, but with that larger screen the artwork will look amazing.

– Post From My iPhone

What’s in the box and cost

With the Apple TV you get the device itself, a power cable and an Apple remote, the only other thing you need is an HDMI cable. The device costs£223, plus £10 for a reasonably priced HDMI cable, total cost £233. Now bear in mind that on top of this you will need a computer close enough to the Apple TV that you can connect the two via an ethernet cable, or a wireless network, and I would highly recommend that it’s wireless N otherwise transferring media onto the device is painfully slow.

With the Mac Mini you get the device, power supply and a mini displayport to DVI adapter. On top of this you will also need a keyboard, mouse, DVI to DVI/HDMI cable and sound system. Some have said that with certain TV’s the mini displayport will carry audio through a HDMI cable to the TV but that wasn’t the case for my set up so I can’t comment on if it works or not, or which TV’s it works with. The cheapest Mac Mini costs £510, plus £55 for the wireless Magic Mouse, plus £56 for a wireless keyboard and £25 for a DVI to HDMI cable, you could also add £15 for an Apple Remote if you want one. Total cost £661. You will also need speakers and an amp on top of that but I won’t include it in the cost because you could use anything from a £10 pair of computer speakers up to a few thousand for a 5.1 sound system. If you need all the accessories and don’t already have a keyboard, mouse etc. the cost is nearly three times as much as the Apple TV, but bear in mind that this is a computer, so you won’t need an additional one.

Functionality

The Apple TV gets all it’s media by syncing with iTunes, just like an iPhone or iPod. This means that if iTunes won’t play it then neither will the Apple TV, unless you patch it with modified software, but this is unofficial and can be buggy so I’m not going to cover that here. So no viewing AVI, MPG, FLV etc. if you have already used iTunes you’ll already be aware of what it can and can’t play. For anyone that uses iTunes to organise all their media then this won’t be a problem and I was quite happy with the Apple TV for nearly a year. As well as media that is synced over from your computer you can also access YouTube from the built in application, purchase and download movies and TV shows and also rent movies, all this is accessed using just the Apple remote.

The Mac Mini on the other hand can play nearly anything you throw at it, if a Mac can play it then so can the mini. You arent restricted to just content that iTunes can play, it will play all video and audio formats plus you have the advantage of streaming from other services too, such as BBC iPlayer, Hulu if you are in the U.S. and the recently launched SeeSaw. And it’s not just for watching pre recorded content, plug in a TV card and you can also watch/record live TV. The Mac Mini is a much more versatile device compared to the Apple TV and this is the main reason that I bought one. Also you aren’t restricted by hard drive size. The Apple TV comes with a 160GB drive and that’s all you can have, unless you modify the software like I mentioned earlier. With the Mac Mini you can plug in as many external hard drives as you like. I currently have my iTunes library stored on a 1TB external drive, that’s storing all my movies and TV shows but not music as I don’t used iTunes for that. This brings up another point, I don’t have any music in my iTunes library any more because I listen all music via Spotify, this is another thing that the Apple TV can’t do but the Mini can.

Usability

Now this is where the Apple TV really shines. Navigation the interface with the Apple Remote is so easy or you could use the iPhone/iPod Touch remote app, sit back, relax and browse through your collection for something to watch, or pop onto the iTunes store and look for something new, maybe watch a few trailers and buy or rent a movie. It’s so easy and enjoyable, I could easily pass an hour just looking round the store and watching trailers, time slips away, it’s a very easy and pleasurable experience. Before I got the Apple TV I hardly ever bought downloadable content, now most of my movies are bought or rented this way. It even makes piracy a hassle, no sitting at your computer having to look for a decent source with a reasonable amount of seeds, reading through all the comments to see what people are saying about the quality and if there are no comments then just hoping that it will be of a decent quality. Then waiting for half an hour to a few hours for it to download. Instead you sit back, relax, browse through the iTunes store, choose a film, select rent or buy, then 30 seconds later you can start watching it. It’s so simple and time saving.

The Mac Mini on the other hand isn’t as simple because you don’t have just one remote and interface to control everything, well you could do it all from an iPhone or iPod Touch using the remote app and an app like TouchMouse by Logitech both of which are free, but it isn’t ideal. Most of the time you will be controlling it via keyboard and mouse. There are multiple different media centre apps for mac, Front Row which comes as part of the OS, Boxee and XBMC but neither of them is perfect, they all have their pros and cons so I’ve just settled with Front Row for now. For some people like myself this is not a problem and a small price to pay for having a much more capable and versatile media device. For others, especially those that don’t like or aren t too familiar with computers this could be a huge downside. The difference in usability between the Apple TV and the Mac Mini is like night and day.

Conclusion

I haven’t really got a final conclusion on which one is best, for me using the Mac Mini as an alternative to an Apple TV is a huge upgrade and one that I’m glad I made, I wish I had done it earlier. For others the simplicity of the Apple TV and the ability to get away from a computer interface maybe just what they need. Both are great media devices and if it wasn’t for the Apple TV I probably wouldn’t have the Mac Mini now, it completely changed the way I purchase, rent and watch Movies/TV Shows.

I’ve only just set it up today so can’t yet comment on how well it works compared to the Apple TV, that will come in Part 2 next week. For now I’ll just mention the set up, which was straight forward. I bought the Mac Mini, a wireless keyboard and a belkin DVI to HDMI cable, I already have a Magic Mouse and was assured that that’s all I needed, other than a sound system because the DVI only carries video. I was a bit concerned about setting it up with all wireless peripherals as I’d read somewhere that a wired keyboard was needed for the initial set up. I was assured buy the Apple sales assistant that I had nothing to worry about and I didn’t, setup was flawless, it even detected the correct resolution for the TV, this had been another concern as I’d seen reports of the screen being shifted over to one side when connecting a Mac Mini to a TV via HDMI. Keyboard, mouse, TV and remote were all detected straight away and I was up and running within minutes of first booting it up.

So far it’s working well, got most of my media copied to iTunes on the external hard drive, live TV and PVR using and Eye-TV DTT deluxe is set up, and I’m relaxing in front of the TV typing this post on it while listening to Spotify playing in the background. Not much else to say at this point other than it was so simple to set up. I’ll report back in a week and comment on usability compared with the Apple TV.

Unlike the Huawei the Novatel does support WEP encryption and uses a web interface to configure the unit (just like most home broadband routers do). This means that it can be configured from any WiFi device with a browser, so settings can be changed from any PC, Mac or even a mobile phone. This alone is a HUGE advantage over the Huawei. The WiFi security settings come with 3 profiles, open which has no security, secure which can be set up however you want and temporary which is set to WEP. Most of the time I have security set to WPA2, but when I want to play an online DS game it only takes a minute to log into the device from any web browser, switch the profile from WPA2 to either open or temporary and I can play online.

Both the Huawei and the Novatel come with a Micro SD card slot, this shows up as a mass storage device when connected to a computer. The advantage of the Novatel is that it is also accessible wirelessly and it can be set up with a shared folder, so anyone using the MiFi network can access the files on the SD card. I must point out that I have never tried this as I don’t have a spare micro SD card, but this is how it should work.

Both units should be able to work tethered to a computer via the supplied USB cable. For the Huawei this was straight forward using a PC. You plug the device in, install the preloaded software, configure it and you’re good to go. That wasn’t the case with the Novatel, I failed to get it working on both Mac and PC. On the Mac I installed the drivers but they failed to show up in System Prefrences – Network. With the PC I plugged it in, the computer recognised a device and started to install the drivers then failed, I was running Windows 7 on the PC and Snow Leopard on the Mac. I didn’t look into the problems any further because I have no intention of using it tethered so didn’t want to waste any time, I just thought it was worth mentioning.  This does bring up another small problem with the Novatel, if you plug it into your computer via USB to charge the unit, it disables the WiFi and as I couldn’t get it set up to work via USB the device becomes useless. There are a few solutions to this problem. WiFi is disabled on the Novatel as soon as it detects a data conection via the USB port so you can either use a power only cable, or split the outer cable open and cut the two data wires inside, I think it’s the white and green ones. But the easiest solution is to use any USB cable, but when plugging it into the computer, only plug it in half way. If you look at a USB connector you will notice that the two outer prongs are longer than the inner two, these outer ones are for the power. So by only plugging it in part way the power connectors make contact but the two data ones don’t.

I’m now using the Novatel MiFi as my main mobile broadband device and keeping the Huawei as a backup. The lack of a web interface, Mac software and WEP on the Huawei is too much of a disadvantage for me.

Here’s just one example

Middle aged couple. Wake up in the morning and read the daily paper on the device while having breakfast, quick look at the weather report and check email. Receive an email from their son/daughter with photos of their grandkids and save the photos to the photo gallery. One of them has a look through a recipe book or recipe online and spots something nice for their evening meal. They decide to go shopping so put the iPad in a dock in the living room. Come back from shopping and turn on the iPad to listen to some music via speakers plugged into the doc, activate the slideshow and it’s now a 9″ photoframe displaying the photos that were received in the email that morning. Later on one of them is watching tv so the other decides to do a crossword on the iPad. It’s late afternoon by now and they are both getting hungry so the ipad goes into the kitchen while a meal is being prepared using the recipe that was found on it earlier that day. Later that night they go to bed, one falls asleep while the other is reading a book on it.

That is a perfect example of how it could be used by an average person who has no need for it as a laptop replacement. Not only that but in that scenario it’s been used at its very basic, no additional software other than the crossword app, and it hasn’t even left the house. Add in the wealth of apps already available and its ability to be used at home, work, school, on the road etc. and this opens up the device to be used in thousands of different ways by anybody of any age group.

Yes the iPad does have a few drawbacks and a few things that I would like to be different. But no product it ever going to be 100% perfect for everyone. It is what it is, so don’t focus on the negative (all too common in today’s society especially on the Internet) and focus on the things that it can do… its potential to be huge far outweigh its potential to be a failure.

One of the biggest users of Flash, YouTube has now started trials of a beta site using HTML5, if they can do it everyone can. Most of it’s uses are not needed anyway, adverts created in Flash? No need for them and they can be annoying.

Now if the iPad takes off in a big way I do believe it could bring about the death of Flash. When the iPod Touch and iPhone were first released it was touted as having the full web experience in your pocket, and it could view and render web sites in exactly the same layout as on a full sized computer or laptop. But still people rushed out and created “mobile optimized” versions of their site. Why? simple, viewing and navigating a fully rendered version of a web site on such a small screen is doable, but a mobile optimized version can be much more pleasurable.

Now if the iPad can have the same effect it will be even easier for web developers this time. No having to create a custom version, all they have to do is remove elements that the iPad refuses to display… FLASH!!

For most sites out there there are 10 others that provide the same information. If enough iPad’s are sold and people can’t view your site correctly because of Flash they ‘will’ go elsewhere, the user has the option of which sites the visit, the site owner has to attract them to theirs.

This could be the push that has been needed for a long time to truly rid the Internet of Flash… well that’s what I’m hoping, only time will tell.

Sow what’s changed my mind? Well if I was to get an iPad it would be to replace my NetBook, that’s why I was wanting it to run a true “full” OS. But what do I do on my netbook, well I go on the Internet, email and… that’s about it really because for anything else a netbook is pretty shit. I’ve edited photos and video on it before, watched movies etc but it’s not an enjoyable experience, in fact at times it can be downright frustrating. And I think most people probably use their netbook much the same, just Internet and email, social networks etc.

I really do think that the ipad is Apples version of a netbook, it’s portable, lightweight and cheap (by apples standards) I rarely use my netbook these days, waiting for it to boot up, wait for the browser to load etc. I can get to the site I want to on my iPhone and be reading it before the netbook has finished booting up… and that is what I need, instant on with a larger display than the iPhone, the iPad has nailed my needs with just the browser. Then there’s all the other things, photo viewer, ebook reader….. I really hope they release an iPhone version of that that keeps books in sync like the kindle does, and the wealth of apps already out there in the store that I bought for the iPhone and will work on the iPad.

I’m sold on the idea now as a netbook replacement, so come UK launch day I’ll have one ordered. That is unless something about it changes my mind once the US public get their hands on it a few months earlier.