Has Google Wave gone the way of cold fusion?

So, I realized this morning that I hadn't logged into Google Wave since February. I was never a big wave user, even at the best of times. However, I noticed that all the waves I had been following appear to be long dead.

I don't hear much about it in the tech news lately either.

On the other hand, a quick search of with:public shows a lot of activity, so maybe it's just me. I like the idea of Wave, but seem to have trouble fitting it into my digital lifestyle.

Is it just me? Is anyone out there actually using Wave? And, if so, what do you use it for?

-Rich-

Why does Apple hate MobileMe?

Ok, so I've got this new iPad. While I truely love it, there is one slight problem. Syncing documents back and forth is just a little too complicated for my tastes. But, that's OK. I mean, Apple has this other, cool technology called MobileMe. It's specifically designed to help us keep all our computers in sync. It even has an app in the app store. So, I can use MobileMe to shuffle files onto my iPad...except, the MobileMe app is still iPhone only. Oh, you can run it on the iPad, but it does not support opening files using other applications, which makes it pretty much useless.

No worries. The iPad has a full web browser. MobileMe has a full-feature web interface. I can just open up www.me.com and download my files from there...except, www.me.com only gives me access to an iPad specific version of the web page. Sure, it has instructions for setting up email and contact syncing, and for installing the various (iPhone only) apps. That's nice I guess. Oh, and I can even access "Find My iPhone," but I cannot access iDisk directly. Yes, that's right. I can find my iPad from my iPad, but I cannot download a PDF file and open it in GoodReader.

So, the bottom line is, there comes a time in every man's life when you just stop beating your head against the wall and start using DropBox. Just sayin'.

-Rich-

PS: To all the web developers whose pages redirect my iPad to a stupid mobile version. Stop! It! Now! I swear to all the TCP/IP gods, if you keep this up I will hunt you down and punch you in the throat.

Location:Spencer St,Honolulu,United States

What would you like to see?

I'm about to start working on another set of iPhone/iPad articles. Are there any topics you'd like to see covered? Leave a note in the comments, and I'll see what I can do.

-Rich-

Location:Waialae Ave,Honolulu,United States

iPad as ebook reader

When it comes to just reading text, I much prefer my Kindle. I know a lot of people say they don't notice any eye strain when reading from the iPad, but boy I sure do. Especially if I'm already tired. Now, admittedly, I will gladly spend several hours reading a good novel at one sitting, so I might not be a representative sample.

But, here's where things get interesting. I tend to read four things: novels, computer books research papers, and pen and paper RPGs. Of these, only the novel plays nice with the Kindle. The Mobi ebook format just doesn't handle the formatted text well. Yes, several computer book publishers have worked very hard to make Kindle compatible versions of their books, but the end result always feels a lot clunkier than either their epub or PDF equivalents. And many books (not to mention all research papers and RPGs) are only available in PDF. The less said about the Kindle's PDF support, the better.

With the help of some third party apps, the iPad can easily handle all three common ebook formats. It may not be the best ebook reader, but it is the one reader to rule them all. So, while I may prefer to read on my Kindle, I think I may find myself spending more and more time reading on the iPad.

-Rich-

The age of the iPad

Ah, yes. I finally got my hands on an iPad. Yes, I know I'm a month late, coming to the party, but. I really wanted to wait for the 3G iPad. There's been a lot of chatter about which device users should choose. I suspect it depends on how you look at things. If the iPad is primarily a couch computer for media consumption, then WiFi is for you. If it's primarily a mobile device, then you'll want 3G. Personally, I prefer to work outside the house/office as much as possible. So, I'm mobile all the way.

I've only spent a few hours with the device so far, so it's too early to give anything but very superficial initial reactions.

In general, I love the richer UI. There are so many more possibilities than on the iPhone. But, of course, with great power comes great responsibility. Some iPad apps actually feel a lot less useful than their iPhone equivalents I'm looking at you, Mail. Admittedly, I'm trying to use Mail to manage four different email accounts. But, bopping between accounts never bothered me on the iPhone. On the iPad, however, it feels a lot clunkier.

Similarly, I love having official support for transferring documents to and from the iPad. I don't even mind having to physically plug the iPad into my computer (though Mobile Me based document syncing would totally rock...just sayin'). But, why oh why has apple forced us into a process that must be 100% manual! Ok, fine. Funnel everything through iTunes. I'm OK with that too. But please, let the app drop boxes appear as folders or drives in the finder. Or, at the very least, give us Automator or AppleScript support for slurping these files around.

Most surprisingly, I find the onscreen keyboard much more useful than I would had expected. With the help of the autocorrection, I can type at almost full speed. I mean, I've written this entire post on my iPad. I'd never have managed anything this length using the iPhone keyboard. And I'll probably get faster as I use it more. While a Bluetooth keyboard would br nice, I think I'll favor mobility over raw typing speed, and just go commando.

Well, that's it for now. I'm going to give myself a couple days to just explore the device as a user, before I really start looking at it as a developer.

-Rich-

iPhone Uproar Revisited

Just wanted to add a quick note.

In my last post, I poo-pooed those moaning and crying about the lack of multitasking. And, in general, I think my criticism is valid. Most people want multitasking just to say they have multitasking, not because it will actually improve or affect the experience of using the device at all.

However, there is one edge case that is rather important to some people. You cannot listen to Pandora (or similar services) and use other apps at the same time.

For me, it's not a big deal. I like Pandora, and I find this occasionally irritating. But, I have a rather large library on iTunes (the "My Favorites" playlist has nearly 24 hours of music in it alone), and I've invested a lot of time organizing playlists for different moods. And Apple's built in iPod app multitasks just fine.

But, if you're a big Pandora user, this could be a deal killer.

-Rich-

iPad Uproar!

Wow. Apple seems to have kicked over the beehive this time. Everyone's talking about the iPad, and I thought I would add my small voice to the roar.

My impression, it's a slick device that will be a lot of fun to use for media consumption and light content generation. I don't expect it to replace my laptop. I don't think it will change the world, but I do have an iPad-size hole in my life. Once I can get my hands on one, it will definitely be put to good use.

Interestingly, a lot of the day-after press that I have seen has been very negative. This isn't that surprising. The iPad, like the iPhone before it, is a very closed environment, and that doesn't sit well with some people. Still, some of the reaction seems to be a bit knee-jerk. And I wanted to address some of that criticism here.

It's not really mobile

OK, I'm not sure what people are complaining about. Yes, you can't fit it into your jeans pocket. Big deal. If that's what you want, buy an iPod Touch.

See, I remember the early days of mobile computing. Where you had a 25 lb. box, the keyboard clamped onto the front, and you had to heft it using a luggage-style handle bolted to the top. So maybe I have a different understanding of the word "mobile" than most folks.

Here's the thing. The iPad is smaller than my laptop. The iPad is smaller than a stack of text book. In many cases, I will be able to use it instead, greatly reducing the amount of gear that I need to lug around. To me, that's mobile.


It's just a big iPhone

Well, size has a quantity all its own. The additional screen real estate will allow developers to build applications that just wouldn't work on the iPhone.

But, even if it is just a big iPhone, so what. My iPhone has already replaced a lot of the work I used to do on my laptop. My biggest complaint, the screen is too small. Give me a bigger screen. Make it a little easier to browse the web and do email, and I'll be ecstatic. For me, one of the biggest features will be the ability to read full-page PDFs without having to squint at microscopic type. I print out a lot of research papers because I don't yet have a good alternative. If it's a two-column document I can stick it on my iPhone and zoom in on a single column at a time. That works OK. A bigger iPhone would let me comfortably read even the single-column articles.

And don't even get me started about the gaming opportunities.

So yes, a bigger iPhone would be nice.

A netbook can do everything the iPad does, and do it cheaper

This ignores the whole touch interface, the accelerometers, GPS and a host of other features. I think the touch interface is going to be a big winner here, once people actually get their hands on the device. It's a much more natural way to interact with software than the traditional mouse/keyboard combination, at least judging by the number of fingerprints I keep finding on my laptop's screen.

Being able to reposition the screen between landscape and portrait mode is also very nice. Even nicer, applications can detect this change and respond in interesting, useful ways.

It doesn't support a mouse?

You can buy the keyboard dock or link the iPad with any bluetooth keyboard (which makes Apple's tiny bluetooth keyboard suddenly very attractive). But you cannot link with a bluetooth mouse. This fact has made some peoples head explode.

Here's the thing. The iPhone OS doesn't have a mouse pointer. How would you even use a mouse. And why would you want to, when you can just tap the object directly.

A multi-touch interface allows a considerably wider range of interaction than most mice. Yes, long term mouse users may find the mouse more accurate--but, if you've ever watched a newbie use a mouse, you know that accuracy is a learned skill, not an inherent feature of the interface.

It doesn't support multi-tasking

Why is multitasking such a big deal? To me, multitasking is mostly needed when two or more applications are running on the same screen. The iPad is specifically designed to have each application take up the entire screen. And I think that's the right decision for devices like this.

So, as long as an application saves it state as you use it, restarts wherever you left off, and opens and closes quickly, moving between applications isn't a problem, even without multitasking.

Already, on the iPhone I can be writing an email, close the email-app to look up a word using a dictionary app. Copy the correct spelling, and reopen and paste the word. It's really quite seamless. I've seen bigger delays when switching tasks on multi-tasking machines. And there are definite technical advantages to only doing one thing at a time.

There is, however, one place where multitasking would be useful. Every once in a while, I find myself waiting for an application to download a big file. I would like to switch to a different app until the download was finished. It's not a big deal, but some sort of limited multitasking would be nice.

It doesn't support Flash

OK, this is the one complaint that I agree with. Mind you, I don't like Flash. I think HTML 5.0 is a much more compelling and robust technology. But, I also think it's ridiculous to expect everyone else to rewrite their web pages just because I have a new gadget.

The iPad is supposed to be a premium web-browsing tool. So, its annoying that it cannot be used to access broad swaths of the web.