Month: June 2010

Today is the official start of the conference. And so my experiment will begin. Initially I was going to only bring my 1st Gen iPhone to this mobile conference to see if I could get away without having to bring a laptop. Then, I found out that the department was getting iPad’s and so we made arrangements to bring one of them here. In the end, I signed up for the pre-conference certificate: How to Create mLearning Content for the iPhone and that all-day session required a laptop (my just so happens to be the largest and heaviest Apple makes).

So in the end, rather that getting away with little, I end up bringing more than I might have. Maybe and maybe not. Laptop, well that’s a no brainer for most folks at a conference. I canceled my AT&T plan for my iPhone, so it’s more like an iPod Touch right now. Having said that, I probably would have brought it anyhow to read and entertain myself on the plane. The iPad, well I couldn’t show up to a mobile learning conference in 2010 with out one 🙂 They are all the rage around here 🙂 I mean people pity those without them… just joking. But, there is a lot of buzz around them. Actually there’s more buzz about the two guys from NYC who had inside connections that got them cases for their iPads and the cases are rarer than the actual iPads.

The big thing we were all wrestling with yesterday was the internet connections. I wonder if that’s going to be what 2010 is remembered for. Crappy WiFi connectivity. Steve Jobs is being made fun of, no fault of his own, for the lack of connectivity for his recent iPhone 4.0 unveiling. The same jokes are being made around here with regards to our wireless and it seems most rooms have WiFi repeaters sitting near the podiums. Well, if you figure everyone here has at least two, if not four, wireless devices and there’s about 200 people here… that could be a strain on their infrastructure. To conference planners: WiFi can make or break your event. Before it used to be the food. People would rather eat McDonald’s every meal and have fast, reliable and secure network connections… than come to a beautiful place like San Diego with all it’s beauty and good eating. Just my observations and opinion.

Yesterday, I was trying to capture everything in Mindmeister, but that’s not a good idea. If I get a time-out, I can actually lose content. If it stalls and I don’t notice and keep typing, what sometimes happens is that when it reconnects, it goes back to the last saved state on the server and automatically deletes your most recent content! I might be better with MT4 that only access the internet when I save (I believe), but in the end, I think I’m just going to use a good ‘ole local text editor (on the iPad) to capture everything and then transfer it over to MT4 later. Sorry, not many graphics for the visual learners (like myself).

Finally, someone asked me. I don’t know, I’m sure someone around the office has asked the same question. I hang out with Linas and Ravi almost everyday for lunch and we talk about a huge variety of things. Maybe we’ve already talked about my impressions of the iPad. It doesn’t really make a difference, because I just don’t have a good answer.

I couldn’t give a good answer to the Australian sitting next to me on the plane and that’s just disappointing. I’ve had this thing for something like a month now. I keep making mental notes, but have never gotten around to jotting them down until now. I’m not going to make you wait for my “better” answer. I’ll tell you now: I wouldn’t spend my own money on one. Even if someone gave me $800 right now, this iPad wouldn’t be on the top of my list of things to spend it on. I’m not even sure I’ll by a second gen model. Why? Because the hardware and software aren’t “there” yet. Keep in mind, even though I love gadgets, there’s still a few nooks and crannies I haven’t gotten to. So this review is only partial. Also, even though I’ve had Apple products since our first Mac Plus back in the late 80’s, I’m not nearly the fanboy I used to be. There are just too many good products to live and die by Apple.

Starting off with the hardware:

• heft: it feels like a quality piece of hardware, but it is heavier than I’d like; if they could cut something like four to six ounces off, it would be more comfortable to hold for longer periods of time
• display: fantastic, but the glossy-only display smudges too easily and the glare makes it difficult to view in certain lighting conditions
• case: I’ve protected it the best it can, but we’re going to need a case for this thing; it’s just too much of an investment to tote around without a case

3.2 OS:

• Vs. 3.1.3: there are definitely some differences between my 2G iPhone and this thing; nothing major, but its missing some apps that I’m used to like the Clock, Calculator, Voice Memos… They aren’t anything you can’t find in iTunes but it’s curios why they left them out
• keyboard: in portrait mode the keyboard is too big for fast, one-hand entry; in landscape I can kinda touch type with pretty good accuracy and speed, but I’m just going by muscle memory… There’s no tactile feedback where you are on the glass screen, in fact if there are errors in this entry, its because I’m writing it entirely by touch typing on the iPad, of course it only works if you can rest it on your lap… Typing on a hard flat surface is difficult sometimes because the back is curved and it wobbles around as you type

Perception:
this is a huge one and I’ll dedicate a separate section for is one because it is so important… Have you ever used your iphone in an important meeting, to take notes, look up emails, reference relevant online materials, only to feel as though others think you are “fooling around” (i.e. Texting, etc.)? Even if you are doing work related tasks, the perception is that you arent focusing on the tasks at hand… People use smart phones to keep up with work, not during work. I dunno maybe it’s just me but I always felt as though people don’t legitimately consider an iPhone as a during-work implement; well that feeling goes away with the iPad, I dunno if people consider it more like a laptop or if they can just see that you’re not texting or playing a game of scrabble during the meeting

Software:
I’ll keep this one short, in general most iPad apps are rushed to fill up the big screen; the worst are ones that reformat small screen content into multiple panes… People are still porting their iPhone apps into iPad apps… They aren’t considering it as a separate platform yet… And thats generally speaking… I think there are some excellent examples out there, but I haven’t paid for any yet… Because I don’t own an iPad… And there’s the rub! Frankly ilm going to cut this short because i’m tired from. The jet lag and typing on a flat glass screen and having to fix meitakes…

To close, what it want before I spend my hard earned cash: OS4 (I know it’s coming soon), a forward camera, morphing substrate tactile surface that uses small electrical differences to “raise” keys on the surface of the glass that changes as the keyboard changes and appears and disappears, cheaper data pplans and $300 off the sticker price of the 3G model. Is that gonna happen, maybe, but not for a long time