OnLive Desktop – another take at MS Office on the iPad

Posted on January 13, 2012 by

I was pretty excited about CloudOn when it was announced. The idea of having a “real” version of Microsoft Office on the iPad was pretty exciting, at least until Microsoft gets around to doing the inevitable.

However, upon real world usage I found the general lagginess and overall complexity of the interface to be a bit much for me.

I’m pretty excited to try the competing OnLive app which was announced recently. I just installed the app. Unfortunately, using it requires you to set up an account at their website, rather than within the app. Bad form! Also, you have to enter a fair bit of info including your birthday in order to get an account. Again, bad form. Finally, your account doesn’t immediately go live. I assume I’m waiting for an email activation.

Sigh. I guess OnLive takes its cues from Microsoft – let’s make it as cumbersome as possible for people to even try to use our software!

Anyway, once they decide to let me actually use the app I’ll be testing it and reporting back here. Stay tuned.

By the way, this is my first post using Blogsy, recommended by commenter Jen. Pretty interesting so far…

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VueScan app solves one of the few remaining iPad alone issues

Posted on January 10, 2012 by

For those who’ve followed my exploits, you’ll know that scanning is one of the things I still rely on my iMac to accomplish. I only need to scan a handful of times each year so it’s not a big deal. Still, it’s surprised me that there hasn’t been a great solution to this issue, especially when printing was solved so long ago.

I have an HP all in one. It’s networked, and I print to it all the time from my iPad. While following news out of CES I saw that Xerox announced a $249 portable/wireless scanner that could scan directly to an iOS device. I was intrigued. It got me wondering – where has scanning to an iOS device evolved to of late?

A quick search led me to a Wired story about an app called VueScan.

It promised exactly what I’ve been looking for, as well as broad device compatibility. In fact, though the full featured app costs $5 (technically $4.99) they offer a free, stripped down version which you can use to test and ensure that your specific device works with the app. This was important to me because while their device compatibility list included the HP 7700, it didn’t explicitly include the 7780 that I own. I was optimistic – and it does work fine – but having the free app to confirm made me much more comfortable plunking down the $5.

Bottom line: I love this app. It works and works well. I can scan from the document feeder, rotate and/or crop if needed right on my ipad, and attach the scan to an email or save it to outside apps like Dropbox (which is my de facto file system).

Frankly I’m shocked that no one tackled this sooner. Maybe we really do live in an increasingly paperless world. Still, for the few times I need to scan, VueScan does the trick and does it wonderfully. One step closer to retiring my iMac for good. Now if only iTunes match would drop the 25000 song limit, photostream held as many albums and photos as you wanted, and you could also save videos to the Apple cloud…

Posted in Apps, Features, iOS | Tagged | 2 Comments

CloudOn, Office, iPad…Oh My!

Posted on January 4, 2012 by

EDIT: upon further usage (read: real world, every day, on a variety of networks with varying speeds) I have come to the conclusion that CloudOn is NOT a viable productivity tool. There’s just too much lag. For very minor editing, and/or viewing it’s fine. But even for that there are many better alternatives, though most of them aren’t free like CloudOn.

Original post:

If you’ve not checked out CloudOn iTunes Link, you’re a big DropBox user (or thinking of becoming one) and like to be productive on the iPad, then CloudOn is an app you must explore.

Put simply, it’s Office for the iPad. And it actually works pretty well. Surprisingly so in fact. I’m still exploring it myself, and getting used to the mouseless convention of using office apps on the iPad, but…wow.

Apparently what they’re doing is hosting Microsoft Office in the cloud and allowing custom access via the app. They’ve baked DropBox into the app for the file system, and you need an Internet connection to use it all.

If you’ve followed my exploits and efforts to use the iPad Alone, then you know that as much as I’ve explored Quick Office and the like, I’ve stuck with my iWork/Dropbox/dropDAV solution for some time now. It works pretty well, and there’s only one step in the process (saving files from iWork back into Dropbox) that feels like a workaround.

With CloudOn, I finally have an alternative that I may actually prefer. Time will tell, but so far so good.

The only wrinkle are the rumors, reignited of late, that Microsoft itself is working on Office for the iPad. To be honest I’m shocked that it hasn’t appeared already. And if Microsoft does it right (and I’ll discuss that some other time) then it’ll be a no brainer. That said, CloudOn raises the bar. If Microsoft was planning on some stripped down experience, they can pretty much forget it. CloudOn feels more like Office on my iPad since, well, Office on my Mac.

Check it out!

Posted in Apps, iOS, Musings, Rumors, Speculation | Tagged | Leave a comment

My long overdue take on iOS 5 and the iPad as your only computer

Posted on December 6, 2011 by

iOS 5 has been available for some time now. Though there was great anticipation surrounding its release, in the end for me as an established iPad user iOS 5 primarily brings important but basically evolutionary changes in how I use the device.

For new users, it’s safe to say that iOS 5 is revolutionary, and finally delivers on the promise, pretty much without exception, of the iPad as a standalone computer. The required workarounds are getting fewer and further between. So if you’re new to the iPad, or contemplating making the leap, there’s no good reason I can think of to wait any longer. You truly can use the iPad Alone, and without much if any compromise.

Here’s my take on iOS 5, and how it impacts usability. Not a full review as there are slews of those around, just my take as someone who bangs on his iPad pretty much all day long. So without further ado…

Likes:

The Longer Space Bar!

20111206-132441.jpg

Here at long last, after being teased in early betas of much older versions of iOS (wow was that 3.x where these images first surfaced?) we finally get a space bar that extends further right to the exact spot my thumb lands. Hallelujah!! My typing errors have decreased by an order of magnitude. Yes, seriously.

The space bar has also disappeared from Safari when entering URLs though for the life of me I can’t recall if it was gone prior to iOS 5, and yes I am too lazy to check.

You Can Add and Rename Folders in Mail

This is a nice one, though to be honest it’s an incomplete function as you cannot nest a new folder within an existing one. Still need to fire up Mail on the Mac for that. Still, better than nothing and a feature I’ve now used more than once.

Up To 1000 Emails Per Folder

This is a big one too as it makes searches much faster since local emails obviously can be searched pretty much instantaneously whereas those on the server take some time

No Mac Required

I was of the view that no Mac was required even prior to iOS 5. You could simply plug an iPad into ANY Mac to set it up initially…at a store, a friend’s, wherever. But now even that limitation has disappeared. And along with Apple’s tweaks to the way we can now re-download apps any time and on any device, and perform cloud backups, the iPad really can and does stand alone now. Bravo! (And it’s about time…)

iWork file sync

This is a pretty neat feature though as a “file system” it still suffers from some pretty big drawbacks which I get into in my Dislikes below. I can’t help but think Apple will ultimately figure out this out. Still, it’s sort of disconcerting that the limitations still exist.

Wifi sync

This one is really cool. It doesn’t seem to happen automagically as I believe it should whenever connected to a charging source, but it does seem to work when I select Sync Now in the iPad’s settings. Note I have the same experience with my iPhone.

iCloud backup

Another cool one, though it’s not clear to me exactly what does and doesn’t get backed up. Specifically…user supplied content. Are 20GB worth of music or movies getting backed up if I supply it (as opposed to having been purchased from iTunes?). It says Documents but i can’t find a clear answer as to what that does or doesn’t include. And like Wifi Syncing, I seem to sometimes have to force this rather than have it happen automatically.

Safari tabs

Finally. Enough said.

And now for the Dislikes

File system

As per my note about the iWork document syncing above, there remains a frustrating issue here: you still can’t mix file types (by say subject matter) and you can’t manage the storage outside of a given app. So first, for example, if you have a Numbers of Excel spreadsheet dealing with your household budget, and some PDFs of scanned receipts and leases, you can’t store them in a single place. Second, if you want to delete a Numbers file, you can only do that within Numbers or the iCloud settings area which has limited functionality. I was really hoping that I could give up my Dropbox/dropDAV/Documents-on-Mac-syncing-to-Dropbox “file system” but alas this is not yet to be.

Lagging in safari

My second biggest gripe is the way safari now lags – pretty obviously – when typing in URLs. And yes it’s the same on both my iPad and iPhone, and no it didn’t do this prior to iOS 5. One step back. Sigh.

Mail folder controls are weak

The folder control functionality in Mail is very limited. Why? Why can’t I search the BODY of an email? Why can’t I create a new folder nested in an existing folder? Grrr.

Edit: Turns out that folder control is somewhat provider specific. With my gmail account I *can* create a new folder nested in an existing one. But not for my primary imap account. Hmm.

25000 song limit in iTunes Match

Who knew I had 26000 songs?? Technically not an iOS 5 issue but a man has to find a place to gripe, right?

More ram please for web page caching!

Again, this is not strictly and iOS issue, really more of a hardware thing. Switching tabs in Safari is better than ever, but still would be a whole lot better if the devices had more ram. Or simply even better memory management/prioritization.

Wifi syncing and Cloud backup wonkiness

I mentioned these above, but to sum up: sometimes these have to be forced as opposed to happening automatically when charging. And, it’s not 100% clear whether one obviates the other or whether they are complementary. What does the backup contain? What does it omit? Just make it clear please, and just make it work. (And before you call me dumb for not being able to figure it out, I’d ask you to read the marketing copy and see if you don’t find some pretty confusing if not contradictory info…)

Posted in Features, iOS, Musings, OS operating system | Tagged | 6 Comments

iPad -> iPad 2 upgrade fever and why I gave in

Posted on June 7, 2011 by

The site’s been dormant for a while despite my efforts to the contrary. Sorry (to those who are interested!) I’ve been busy using my iPad 2 :)

Readers of this site know that I’d decided to stand pat with my iPad after iOS 4.3 was released. 4.3, along with the iTools-hacked 4/5 finger gestures, brought so much new cool functionality and performance to table that it seemed unnecessary to upgrade to the iPad 2. They were also really tough to score early on which made sticking with the iPad that much easier.

Then I got the call from an overseers friend asking me to score one for him. Surprisingly I was able to grab one from a Radio Shack for him during the height of the “zOMG scalpers are buying all the iPad 2s!!!!” fiasco.

Because he’s not technically savvy, the friend asked me to set up the iPad 2 up for him. Before doing so, I took the liberty of installing a back up of my own iPad and used the iPad 2 as my primary device for a couple of days (and yes ultimately I wiped it and set it up as a new device for him!)

What I discovered is that those incremental functions and performance are heightened and made that much more useful for someone who holds the thing in their lap pretty much all day as I do.

I’ve only made one FaceTime call as I haven’t been on the road much. I anticipate that changing, but so far the cameras haven’t been of much use to me. Thinner and lighter are always good. But it’s not *that* much thinner and lighter. Cut the weight in half…then we’ll be talking about a reason to upgrade.

A funny thing about the added ram and beefier CPU/GPU though – I found that I was revisiting websites that I’d sort of stopped visiting, and clicking links that opened new tabs when I had stopped doing so. Because the iPad 2 has less need to reload pages, I wind up going to more complex pages and clicking on more links. In other words, a part of the Internet I’d shied away from suddenly became easily useful to me again.

The other place this horsepower reared its head was in Mail. I guess it’s my multiple imap accounts with hundreds of nested folders archiving thousands and thousands of messages…but I didn’t even realize how boggy Mail had gotten on my iPad until I used an iPad 2 straight through for a couple days.

These things may seem small, and to many users they would be. But at a solid 6-10 hours/day of use, even a 5% productivity gain really adds up. More than that, it’s like at the margin I’ve bee freed to simply focus on what I am doing, without distraction from the tools at hand. So I did it. Scored a 64GB ATT iPad 2 in black while they were still really hard to come by.

Please don’t flame me for justifying my upgrade :)

Oh, my kids happily inherited my iPad. And I was able to transfer my unlimited data plan to the iPad 2 without issue.

The big iOS 5 /icloud announcement yesterday makes me that much more excited to have an iPad 2. OS updates inevitably place a greater burden on hardware, and my bet is that the performance gap between the iPad and iPad 2 will feel that much more pronouns under iOS 5 even if all the features are present in both devices.

So should you upgrade? I still think it’s not a no brained, even for someone who uses the iPad as I do. But I can say this: if you do upgrade, you won’t likely regret it.

Thoughts on iOS 5 and icloud to come…

Posted in Features, Hardware, iOS, Musings, OS operating system | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

iPad 2 as powerful as a G4 PowerBook!

Posted on March 15, 2011 by

In an incredible post here, Geoffrey Goetz of GigaOm ran some fairly thorough benchmarks, pitting the iPad 2, iPad, and iPhone 4 up against one another.

The Geekbench score of the iPad 2 put its power on par with that of a G4 PowerBook which I find absolutely incredible for a variety of reasons. Goetz rightly points out that this kind of raw power should no longer be the focus, and that instead we should focus on the overall user experience. Regular readers here will know this POV to be music to my ears. He says:

“The iPad 2 is still only as powerful as a 15-inch PowerBook G4 1.33 GHz and just a little more powerful than the original Mac Mini G4 released in 2005.  But considering how much I can get done on each of these iOS devices, including what I can still do with my old iPhone 3G, I really don’t think raw performance alone is where the focus needs to be anymore.”

Though I agree with his conclusion, I find the raw statistic pretty incredible. Yeah yeah I know all about Moore’s law, but to be able to purchase today for $499 something with comparable raw computational power as a laptop that cost $2000-2500 in its heyday seems pretty amazing to me!

There was another raw statistic that jumped out at me. Current MBPs have 15x the raw computational power (again, measured by Geekbench) as the iPad 2. That’s a fairly massive gulf. However, at no time when using a current MBP do I think “wow this thing leaves my iPad in the dust!” Nor do I say the converse when using the iPad…”wow this thing crawls compared to the MBP!”

Obviously they’re running different OS’s and have vastly different capabilities at the end of the day, but the point stands: user experience trumps all, and a focus on specs and benchmarks misses the mark, or at the very least barely begins to tell the whole story.

The other fairly incredible bottom line aspect I find in all this is in simply recalling the kind of stuff we used to do on those G4 PowerBooks. THEY RAN FINAL CUT PRO for crying out loud!! I mean…damn. UI, storage, i/o and other considerations notwithstanding, it’s all pretty incredible to contemplate.

It’s also neat to put the iPad 2 on a sort of roadmap that can be measured against mac hardware. At some point it gets powerful enough to run the converged iOS/OSX I’ve often mused about here.

Just writing this post makes it that much more difficult for me to stick to my decision not to upgrade to the iPad 2!

Posted in Fun, Hardware, iOS, Musings, OS operating system, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Where did the wider space bar go?!?

Posted on March 14, 2011 by

As I posted here, in the iOS 4.3 betas there was an adjustment made to the spacebar: it was wider, extended further to the right all the way under the ! key.

It was a feature that I was excited about as I use my right thumb to hit the spacebar and often find myself hitting the .?123 key in error. Typing as fast as I do, this often results in crazy errors that iOS’ auto correct is unable to parse.

So much time had passed that I’d frankly forgotten about this feature, which had been captured in some early screenshots of the beta. But it’s definitely not there in the GM release.

Which begs the question…I wonder if, like the 4/5 fingers gestures, it can somehow be activated with Xcode? Any enterprising devs out there want to take a crack at this? I’d be most grateful…

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