Ramble On

I bought an iPad on the UK day of release so have now been using it for about 6 months. So I thought it was about time to reflect on how the iPad is working for me.

I know many people have bought the iPad and then found that they had no use for it. But I find that I’m always pawing at it and on reflection, I think with the iPad, content is king. Out of the box all it really does is email, video, music and web. It does them very well, but I’m not sure the basic functionality is enough to justify it’s price. Many of the people I’ve met who don’t like it, never download content or applications and so judge the iPad on the installed software. In my case, I already consumed the majority of my media through the internet and the iPad makes accessing this information so pleasurable.

The most obvious change is that I’m reading more ‘traditional’ media, albeit, electronically. I had stopped reading newspapers and I although I still have a few magazine subscriptions, I rarely buy magazines or newspapers from a shop. The iPad has transformed this through two applications, Zinio and PressReader. These two applications provide an easy way to buy newspapers and magazines. Zinio offers a wide range of magazines from across the world, often cheaper than the printed version. PressReader is the newspaper equivalent. Purchasing is very simple. You open up the inbuilt stores, select the item you’re interested in and purchase. PressReader’s purchases are charged to your iTunes account. Zinio’s slightly more complicated because you have to setup an account on Zinio’s website before you can purchase.

Newspapers and magazines are really suited to the iPad’s form factor. The large colour screen shows magazines at their best and you can zoom in by double tapping or through a simple mutlitouch gesture. With PressReader you can also view a text version of an article, ask the iPad to read it to you or even email the article to friends. It’s amazing how natural all of this feels and I can’t see me ever buying another physical newspaper and the few magazine subscriptions I still have, will soon be cancelled.

The second area where the iPad has caused a change in practice is reading books. As with newspapers, I find I’ve been reading more. Through iBooks and the Kindle reader, it’s easy to download most books. Not everything is rosy with using the iPad as an ebook reader. Ebooks are often more expensive than their paperback cousins. But with several eBook reader apps available, it’s possible to shop around to find cheaper options. I find the iPad’s screen perfect for reading books. Possibly too perfect, as I often read in bed with the brightness down and with the lights out and this probably isn’t good for my eyes. One issue with the iPad screen is that it’s very glossy but so far I’ve not found this to be much of an issue.

Although the iPad was a personal purchase, I use it regularly at work and I’m finding it works really well in meetings and means you don’t have a table full of people sitting behind laptops.

I’ve tried a number of note taking applications. Penultimate, was one of the first note taking apps available.  Penultimate captures hand written notes. It works reasonably well allowing you to jot down ideas and capture graphics with your fingure. I did briefly flit with using a Pogo Stylus to improve the quality of my note taking, but after a while I found that I preferred typed notes, something Penultimate doesn’t support. So I switched to applications that allowed me to use the iPad’s keyboard to type notes and I have been using Evernote to store and organise meeting notes. These are then synced back to all my devices connected to my Evernote account. This means that my notes are available on all my computers as well as the iPad.

Recently I’ve started to use a new application called ‘SoundNote’. SoundNote records both the audio and the time you type a word or add a sketch. So after a meeting, if you can’t remember what your note refers to, you simply click on the word and the audio from that point of time is played back. The amazing thing about the app is that even in big rooms, the recording is often clear enough to be listenable. At the moment there’s limited functionality for sending documents, with file sharing via Wireless and a facility to email documents. The lack of syncing and organisational tools, means that I continue to use Evernote on a day to day basis.

I bought the camera connector kit hoping that the iPad would become my route for uploading photos to Flickr when away from base. The kit provides a USB connector and a SDHC card reader. The USB adapter is very useful, allowing you to add a card reader for compact flash and memory sticks. But it also allows you to plug in other USB devices such as keyboards and microphones.

Inserting a memory card opens the iPad’s import interface. This works like iPhoto with options to import everything or selected photos. Unfortunately, iPhoto isn’t yet available on the iPad. So once imported you are reliant on third party photo applications.

I photograph in RAW and it’s saved me on a number of occasions. I use Aperture on my Mac to edit these photographs before uploading them to Flickr. The iPad is able to import the RAW files from my Sony A700. Unfortunately, there appears to be a bug with the RAW processor for my Sony NEX5 which causes applications accessing these files to crash. Although there is RAW support, I don’t think RAW is supported natively. I believe the files are converted to JPEG when used by applications and this defeats the object of using RAW. Unfortunately I’ve yet to find any applications that mimics my current workflow, or even provide the equivalent to iPhoto. Some of the best applications available are Photogene and Photo fx Ultra and Adobe’s PS Express. They’re all pretty decent applications but they’re not yet mature enough to replace my current setup. So apart from processing the odd photograph, I’ll continue to take a laptop with me when I’m away from base for several days.

Probably the thing my iPad is used for the most is to consume what I consider ‘the basics’, web, email, twitter, RSS feeds etc. The basics that keep me up with what’s happening in the world. The instant on nature of the iPad, like the iPhone before it, means that these information channels are always a touch away.

The official Twitter application on the iPad is fantastic and possibly the best twitter client available on any platform. There’s a fantastic RSS feed reader called ‘Reeder’ that makes good use of the iPad’s multitouch interface. Even the basic email client and web browser functionality are more than adequate for my needs. The lack of Flash support can be an issue. But the reality is that most websites that use Flash, use it for video, and most big web sites provide iPad alternatives video streams so it’s not too inconvenient. But it is still one of the major omissions from the iPad.

One of the most impressive aspects of the iPad is the creativity it’s generated from grassroots programmers. One area I’ve been impressed with is the solutions developers have designed for consuming feeds of information and presenting them in different ways. There’s a number of interesting applications. Pulse is highly regarded by many, but my personal favourite is Flipboard. This application can consume feeds from Twitter and Facebook but presents them in a way that makes them more interesting. It does this by taking several tweets or Facebook status updates and presents them on the same ‘page’, giving each items an appropriate amount of space. The really clever thing is that if the item contains a link, Flipboard requests the page and presents a summary of the page. This approach constantly throws up interesting articles that I’d missed through my convential readers so I now use Flipboard at the end of each day to review the each day’s tweets.

The recent release of iOS4.2 makes a number of applications much more usable. With access to the beta through Apple’s Developer portal, I’ve been using iOS4.2 for several months and the update has helped alleviate many of the niggles I’d had with the ‘single task’ metaphor which the original iPad was based around. This meant that you had to be careful switching between applications because often they would restart causing you to loose your position or even your work. With 4.2 I can seemlessly switch between applications in meetings without worrying.

Until the iOS4.2 update, music on the iPad had been a mixed bag. The built-in iPod was the only application that could play music in the background. Most apps exited as you switched applications. With 4.2 these applications stay active in the background and the native sound controls now controls the current application. There’s a number of excellent music applications. Leading the way is Aweditorium. Aweditorium is a music discovery service. It’s remarkably well done, presenting a screen of tiled images of bands. Clicking on the band plays a track from the band with links to iTunes and Youtube. Very simple to use with a great selection of bands

Other applications I regularly use:

• WordPress – Good for quick writing short blogs.
• KeyNote – now ‘sketch’ presentations using iPad’s KeyNote then finish them off on my computer
• Pulse – RSS reader that’s especially good for image streams
• BBC News (News24)
• TV Guide
• TuneIn Radio – Hundreds of internet radio feeds
• Air Display – Turn your iPad into a second monitor for your laptop. Useful when you’re away from base
• VNC Viewer
• Junos Pulse – VPN client.
• GoodReader – PDF reader
• DropBox – Access to files in your DropBox folder
• Sketch – Drawing package
• TabToolkit – Guitar tabs
• iMockups – Great wireframing application.
• (Plus some great games!)

One of the standout features of the iPad is the battery life and I think this has caused the biggest change.Regularly achieving the 10 hours battery life Apple advertise. This means that I have instant access to a whole range of information, tools and games without the need to open a laptop and after a day or two, you quickly question the continued need for a laptop. The worry I had with the introduction of multitasking was that the fantastic battery life would be reduced, but this hasn’t been the case.

Despite all this praise. The iPad is far from perfect. This blog entry was written on my laptop. I find writing long passages using the iPad’s keyboard frustrating. The lack of a ‘drive’ to store resources in means that applications don’t really share data beyond images and it’s frustrating that you have to use iTunes to transfer content. It would be great to plugin a disk drive to access more content. This lack of functionality isn’t a problem at base, I have a MacPro at work, it’s away from base that this lack of functionality has proved to be an issue. Hopefully the iPad 2 will tackle some of these issue. Luckily until then,  Apple’s provided me with a good compromise. The new MacBook Air and iPad provide the perfect combination.

Posted in Apple

There’s going to be a lot of comment on the iPad and it’s capabilities. I thought I’d take a look at it from a ‘Higher Education’ perspective.

The ‘tablet’ form factor is ideally suited to education. Ever since Microsoft released the first Tablet PC it’s been clear to many in education that this interface was the answer to many of our needs. Unfortunately, Windows and the applications it runs, has never fulfilled the promise. Maybe Apple can provide us with the answer.

The Student Perspective

Laptop usage in Universities has been growing exponentially. Most Universities provide students with access to a wide range of internet based systems and resources, such as email, learning environments, e-books, journals, videos, podcasts etc, along with the wireless infrastructure to enable students to use their own laptop throughout campus. So laptop usage at my University has increased significantly over the last few years.

My first reaction to the iPad was the device when combined with the iBook store and iTunesU, would make the product attractive to Education. But now I’ve had time to think about it, I’m not sure if Apple has developed a product that will (just now) make massive inroads into (UK) Higher Education.

From a design perspective, it looks like Apple have nailed the design. It looks fantastic and it’s core functionality looks great. I can imagine our students finding the portability and user interface perfect for daily use. Whether it’s taking notes in class, using it in group work or even as a data recorder in  a lab, the form factor and the instant access to research materials and our core systems through Safari is perfect in so many ways.

Photo by PoweredByLarios

But for me, there’s some killer issues that might stop wide-spread adoption.

Often students in the UK do not need to buy many books. Work for example, provides dozens of copies of ‘core texts’ and provides access to over 50,000 e-books. When students are required to buy texts, they shop around or buy second hand copies from students who studied last year. Apple appear to be positioning the device as the front-end to purchasable content. The iBook store will undoubtably be a massive success, but it’s design appears to be centred around content you intend to keep. Let’s face it, few students will find the ’4th Edition of Introduction to Thermodynamics’ such an exciting page turner that they will want to keep it. Many in education we’re hoping that Apple’s iBook store would adopt ‘micro payments’ allowing students to purchase just the chapters they need, or even ‘rent’ the book for short periods of time.

In terms of iTunesU, we’re not sure our students use it. There’s some fantastic content on iTunesU, but our academics are still quite traditional. Many still believe that they have to stand in front of a class imparting knowledge through a set of Powerpoint slides. Few as yet, would consider requiring students to consume iTunesU content outside of class so that they can concentrate on exploring ‘understanding’ during face to face time. We know that our lecturers are not unique. UK Higher Education has wasted millions on unused ‘reusable’ content. So I don’t think the ease of access to iTunesU will help sell the product.

iStore photo by Gizmodo

There’s also the issue that the iPad is not a ‘computer’. Many courses require specialist software, such as Photoshop, or CAD packages. Also since Microsoft has traditionally supported Universities with relatively cheap campus licenses, and students with cheap Office licenses, Office has been a core desktop application for over a decade. The iPad doesn’t support Office and I can’t see Microsoft developing an iPad version. There’s also the issue that students wouldn’t be able to access all the content we provide in ‘non Apple’ formats, such as Windows media, Real Video and Flash. So it’s likely a student would still require a laptop.

Although the base price seems reasonable, is it cheap enough for students to buy it alongside a laptop? Apple’s UK prices tend to be around $1.25 to a £. If that’s the case, the base product will cost £400. Students can get 15% discount (as can I – probably the biggest advantage of working at a Uni!). So the UK price to students will probably be around £340. Is this cheap enough to purchase as a second computer?

Staff Perspective

From a staff perspective, the iPad seems to be wide of the mark. All our academic staff have laptops so have the freedom to carry their work round with them. It’s unlikely that we would look to replace staff’s laptops with an iPad. But we already have a definite need for a good tablet, maybe in addition to their main laptop, because University staff have to mark assignments. Something as simple as marking paper submissions has proven to be significantly slower, when staff have to mark electronically. Last year we accepted over 80,000 electronic submissions, this year’s it’s likely to be double that amount. Within 5 years, I think all submissions will be electronic. So we’re desperate for a product with an interface that streamlines the marking workflow.

Windows Tablet PCs provide almost everything we require. But because of a number of small problems, they just don’t work. For example, I’ve not found a single member of staff who likes the software keyboard on Windows. So of most our staff use ‘hybrid’ laptop/tablet PCs. These tend to be underpowered, with poor battery life and awful ergonomics. So staff end up being tied to a desk. There’s also the issue that applications are rarely design to work with a touch based interface, so tend to be difficult to use when you are using a Tablet PC.

It’s clear the interface or iPad is excellent. It was designed from the ground up as touch based operating system. The ergonomics of the product look almost perfect. The size and weight should allow staff to use the product almost anywhere. As always with Apple products, the screen looks fantastic. So staff should be able to sit and mark where ever is convenient.

Photo by Gizmodo

It looks like iLife has also been revamped with ‘touch’ as the main interface. But the lack of pen interface is disappointing. I’ve always thought that a pen based interface eases the transition of staff from paper to electronic. But I’m starting to think that this may not actually be needed. The iPad’s software keyboard looks fantastic and most iPhone users quickly adjust to typing on it’s tiny keyboard, so the iPad’s big virtual keyboard shouldn’t be a problem. Most staff use the pen to add comments next to student’s mistakes and  the iPhone’s cut and paste mechanism demonstrates how easy it is to highlight sections with your finger. So adding inline comments should be pretty easy.

Photo from Gizmodo

But there’s one core feature that the first generation iPad is missing – the web camera. Audio visual feedback is becoming a common method for staff to provide richer, personalised feedback to students. Being unable to record video limits how staff could use the iPad and it seem like Apple have intentionally tried to minimise the ‘first gen’ cost. I would expect a camera to appear on the second generation product.

So it’s a bit of a mixed bag really. I’m not sure it will appeal to students and the first gen iPad seems to be missing some core features for use by our staff.

I read a comment earlier that the iPad doesn’t know what it wants to be and although I can see their point, I don’t think it’s true. Yes, it appears like it might be targeted at business and education but I think Apple have a very clear idea of what they want the product to do. They want it to kill off the Kindle and for it to be a consumer device that acts as a front end to their increasing range of stores. To make it easier for consumers to have instant access to digital content, content that Apple control the distribution of. If it finds a place in business or education, then that will be a bonus

A hands-on video from Engadget

Posted in Apple, Learning Technology