ipad

Apr 1, 2011

A (mostly subjective) review of Essay, the rich text editor for iOS

Essay is more fancy. Essay isn’t perfect either, but first, here’s what it does do. Firstly, it’s a text editor. Off to a great start there. There’s no accompanying web-app for easy access to my writings away from the iPhone, but it does sync the HTML-formatted files to Dropbox which is fine. For a writing app, it has some pretty advanced features. Things like rich-text, combined with pretty standard HTML stuff like lists (ordered, unordered), sections, paragraphs, and so on like in the screenshot above. You can create hyperlinks to other files within Essay, or to actual web locations. Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough — all present, all easily accessible through the custom keyboard add-on (which works brilliantly, by the way. Fluid, simple, all-round excellent implementation that could have been very convoluted indeed). The iPhone app is very new (just released today, in fact), so there’s no word count (that I can find, although I assume it is in the iPad version), and it even has a full blown web browser in-app to allow you to browse links.

The number one issue I have with Essays is that it isn’t fully native. Not that it’s a web app or anything like that, it isn’t, but that the main editor view is basically some glorified HTML interpreter. Let me tell you what I mean. While the editor tries its very hardest to appear native (at least it includes the standard text selection tools), it’s unlike any other editable text section I’ve ever seen. This is evidenced by a couple of factors:

  1. The marquee tool that appears when you tap and hold to finely place the cursor makes text look pixellated. I’ve never seen that before, on any app. Example: Essay, Simplenote. It’s not just the iPhone version that does this, it looks just as bad on the iPad too.
  2. The cursor blinks at a different rate, in a slightly different way to any other cursor I’ve seen.
  3. Selecting text is sloooow. There’s a lag associated with everything.

Points one and three lead me to the conclusion that it must be some sort of emulated HTML interpreter, not the native iOS text view that I know and love. I’m guessing it’s this non-native text view that allows such advanced features as text styling, lists, highlighting, and so on, but it’s also this non-native text view that has some serious drawbacks:

  • Selecting a part of text, hitting “select all” frequently results in the standard “cut copy paste” popup not popping up. Selecting a few words works, however.
  • Tapping the time doesn’t take you to the top of the current scroll view, like it does pretty much everywhere else.
  • Points one and three above — sure, pixellation is just a cosmetic issue, but having slow text selection is a functional one. It’s also terrible UX, that’s how much the cursor-placing lags.

It’s these small things that make Essay not what I’m looking for at the moment. Sure, it’s fancy — but when fancy comes at the cost of serious drawbacks I’ll have to turn down that particular offer.

via iOS Reviews.

Written by yours truly, of course.

Aug 18, 2010

For the life between buildings – some notes on the iPad

It’s a device for cities.

It’s not that it couldn’t be used in rural environments of course; just that it wouldn’t be. The general lack of third spaces in such places means that a phone and a PC are sufficient. By living in cities, in other peoples’ places, a different kind of device becomes appropriate. Something light and small enough to fit in a handbag or satchel, yet powerful and productive nonetheless. In the old view of city living – say, the classic Parisian apartment – the small size of dwelling meant that the bistro downstairs at the street level of the block becomes the dining room, the bar/coffee shop becomes the living room, the shared courtyard becomes the garden, and so on. While this vision is hopelessly romantic, there are numerous urban variants on this kind of living, and these transient (yet personal) spaces are where the iPad will fit right in. (Again, exurban environments clearly have coffee shops too, but they are not part of a integrated system of living in the same way. And so different tools will suffice.)

As software becomes a service, data resides in the cloud, various forms of wireless connectivity coalesce over the city, and yet face-to-face physical connection becomes more important than ever, a device like the iPad becomes obvious. The cloud is the connective tissue between these spaces, the software provides the platform for interaction with information, the tablet is the tool, and the forum is the city.

via cityofsound: For the life between buildings – some notes on the iPad.

May 23, 2010

iPad + Velcro

via iPad + Velcro on Vimeo.

Apr 14, 2010

I name it… iPad Kitteh.

via YouTube – iggy investigates an ipad.

Apr 10, 2010

Daring Fireball: The Original Tablet

I’ve long pondered why the Newton failed. I think it defies any simple explanation. Its problems and shortcomings were multivariate — it was a confluence of factors that led to it never really taking off. Ultimately the entire Newton product line was killed by Steve Jobs when he returned to the helm at Apple. I, among many others, would argue that the Newton could have still been saved. It certainly never flourished, but it wasn’t a total market failure, either. And Palm’s success in the 1990s proved that there was a market.

via Daring Fireball: The Original Tablet.

Apr 10, 2010

iPad Snivelers: Put Up or Shut Up

Nerds! You’re not smarter or better than the people who just want to use your creations for their own purpose. You want it both ways: to be able to complain about the incompetency of your family when you’re asked to help them work on their computers, but to swing around the half-understood ideas of dead authors when a company actually decides to build a computer that doesn’;t crumble to dust as a matter of course.

via iPad Snivelers: Put Up or Shut Up – Engineers – Gizmodo.

I posted something about the best quote ever that came from this article, but I thought this would be worth a second mention.

Mar 28, 2010

A message to the Internets regarding the iPad

Today Apple announced the iPad. Amazingly it did not fulfill every expectation that was floating out there. Most importantly, it does not fulfill every, specific desire you have and expected. The rumor machine of tech web sites promised you so much more.

Oh noes.

Let me explain it clearly and talk you off the ledge before you go and do something stupid.

Remember way back to January 2007, when the iPhone was announced? Oh Internets, you wailed and gnashed your teeth endlessly. No 3G network? No MMS? No apps on the iPhone? No replaceable battery? Oh, your complaints were endless. You were sure that the iPhone was doomed because it didn’t meet all your requirements.

And what happened? Well, Apple has sold 40 million iPhones. FORTY MILLION. They have become the largest mobile device company in the world.

So today, you moan on and on about all the features you expected and demand in the iPad. What no Verizon? No two-way camera? It’s not weightless? A full half inch thick? Only 10 hours of battery life? You make tons of predictions on the success and failure with scant details and without ever actually trying one.

via Cruft: A message to the Internets regarding the iPad.

You’ll forgive me that this is a little old – what was being said then still applies now, on the verge of the US launch of the iPad.

Feb 4, 2010

iPad: Secret formula.

ipad

iPad: Secret formula.

via The Daily What.