Why I’ll Replace My MacBook Pro with a Desktop Because of the iPad

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picture of mac pro

Power-house

My 2.0G 15″ Macbook Pro is getting a little long in the tooth. I went to the Apple store yesterday to replace an unexpected failure in the external Mag-Safe power supply. I’m now on my fourth power supply – yikes. It wasn’t covered by AppleCare – the guy behind the counter pitifully reminded me that my laptop was now over four years old. That’s at least 28 years old in computer-hardware years, and in dog-years. So it is probably time to upgrade. But I don’t think I’ll replace this laptop with another – I’ll get a desktop instead. Unlike times past, the arrival of the iPad releases me from the laptop upgrade cycle.

Happily, unlike in my old Windows days, my computer isn’t slowing-down, per se, but I’m asking a lot more of it than I used to ask. I’m doing a lot of cross device smartphone development lately, which involves running multiple simulators – tough work for any computer, let alone a laptop. The recent upgrade to Snow Leopard breathed new life into my old beast. Also, my recent upgrade to a SSD hard-drive helped, too. But my hard limit of 2Gig of RAM is killing me.

I’ve written about how my iPad is proving to be a fairly useful portable computer. I find myself writing blog posts, catching up on reading long articles using Instapaper, and writing presentations and business plans using Keynote. I can even do some emergency SSH’ing to manage basic server maintenance. I plan to eventually do app requirements development and wireframe moch-ups, too, once I get around to building those apps.

So the thing is, even good laptops don’t perform as well as good desktops. I’m realizing that my next computer might last a long time, longer than I’m used to in the Windows world. My single biggest desire, other than more horsepower, is a large screen with letters big enough to let me avoid reading glasses. I also know, from experience, that a very high quality monitor can last many, many years. So my need for an upgraded laptop just isn’t too pressing. My old laptop will probably serve my increasing occasional heavy-usage mobile needs. My iPad will probably serve my lite-usage mobile needs. My new desktop will likely serve my big screen and big cpu needs. My spectrum of needs (I’m needy), will get met.
iPad
I’ve been relying upon laptops since I got a Dell Latitude in 1998. I just need to last the two years of business school. That is about how long it lasted, too. The thought of moving away from laptop-land is weird. Scary. Exciting. Visions of three 30″, side-by-side, monitors are dancing through my head. Home office utopia might be near. Ahh, peace is settling across my being.

Good bye laptop upgrade cycle. Thank you, iPad.

iPad vs. Jesus: Healing the Blind and the Silver Market

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[Guest Post by my father-in-law, William Haueisen, PhD., CEO of Sterling Research Group (SRG). William agreed to share his recent experience with the iPad touching the older generation that has been sadly overlooked by recently technology innovations. That older generation is rapidly growing and sometimes referred to as the silver-market because of their under-addressed needs and under-tapped purchasing power.

About SRG: SRG designs and executes high-quality, and high-volume, customer satisfaction surveys.]

Gavin and Maddie’s great grandmother, aged 86, has suffered from macular degeneration for a decade. In earlier times she was an avid reader, sometimes with multiple books “under process” at the same time. But the macular degeneration has robbed her of any ability to read. She “reads” now only by sitting under a bright light and holding a fairly strong magnifying glass. That is until a week or two ago.

Great Grandmom lives in a retirement center so meals are always a big social time. Recently she’s been hearing her friends talk about Kindles. And while she hadn’t actually seen one, she had a feeling that it might be something that could help her read again. So we took her on a shopping trip, first to Best Buy to look at Kindles. They were interesting and she was fascinated with the idea of the thing, but unfortunately, even with the text enlarged to its maximum, she couldn’t read from a Kindle except with the ubiquitous magnifying glass. Part of the problem was the lack of contrast. But, even though it didn’t help her, she sure liked the basic idea of the thing.
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Next we took her to Barnes and Noble to see a Nook. No dice, not enough real estate, and otherwise the same problem with lack of contrast.

… Read More

The Killer App for the iPad is, wait for it…, Writing.

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The killer app for X. Everyone always wants to know, when a new widget is built, what it really does well. Often, it seems, it isn’t what was advertised. The killer app for the iPhone was suppose to be, according to Jobs, Making-Phone-Calls, with a heavy emphasis visual voice mail. The killer app for the personal computer, for those of us that can remember back that far, was supposed to be Cooking-Recipes (OMG!). The killer app for the iPad, again, according to Jobs, is Media-Consumption. All wrong.

The iPhone, although it needs to make phone calls, is only so-so good at it – but it is great for always-within-arms-reach-apps. Granted, there are lots of other uses for it, like games, web surfing, etc, but the Unique thing about the iPhone (and other smart phones) is that it is a little computer that you carry in your pocket that is connected to the Internet – and it does it Good-Enough(tm). I used to carry a Palm Treo 650 – which was also in your pocket and connected, but not it didn’t quite do it good-enough. It arguably did it better than others, but key functionality was really crippled if you weren’t employed by a company that could afford the Good e-mail back-end server. The Good software made the Treo very Blackberry-like. Apps were relatively difficult to install – more difficult than for a normal PC. The killer app for the Treo was the e-mail. Same thing for Blackberries. Maybe the twist for the iPhone is the ease of app installation and their security – you really can’t screw up your phone by downloading hack-apps. You could screw up your Treo, and you can still screw-up your Android phones.

So, what does the iPad do that is unique and awesome. Sure, you can read books. Sure, you get most of the benefits of the iPhone. But that isn’t unique. Browsing the web while I lounge in the living room, without having to fumble with a a mouse is truly awesome. Watching Netflix and ABC is, without a doubt, a game changer for media consumption. The Wall Street Journal app is within spitting distance of demonstrating how newspapers will survive. But, those are all, oh, how to say it, too obvious. However, when I attach my Bluetooth keyboard to my iPad, I roam to where there are no distractions, and write like I haven’t written in years (though, still, badly).

My desktop, for me, is for programming, and spreadsheets, and sort of serious endeavors. Writing, for me, is one of those things that is important to do, but never urgent. How could I ever justify writing? If I’m sitting at my computer, how can I allow myself to write when I should be programming? Well, nobody programs directly on the iPad. Nobody does serious spreadsheet work on the iPad. You get the idea. But an iPad with an external keyboard provides a wonderful, portable, low-distraction, writing environment.

I’m drafting this post at my kitchen table. I probably won’t add the links and pictures until I get back to my desktop, because rapid switching between programs, image uploads, etc., are a bit of a pain on the iPad – which is great – because I should be writing, not cropping images! The value is in the content, and thought, not the links and eye candy.

My 1st grade son and I have a semi-regular routine of going to a coffee shop, before his school starts, and we both write. Frankly, grabbing my laptop, the mouse, maybe the power supply, ejecting the external drive, grabbing the backpack, is just a bit too painful. Grabbing the iPad and keyboard, is cake. Not much bigger than my son’s composition notebook. I can grasp those two with one hand. He gets a the good influence of seeing a parent write. I get good writing time and good quality time. He gets to practice his writing and gets to see that an otherwise dull homework activity can be spiced up by just changing locations. We wrap-up by reading our creations to each other. His are more interesting.

iPad Annoyances

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I’ve been using the iPad since day one, and I thought I would categorize some things that I still find annoying about the iPad. Consider this a Dear-Apple letter for things they should refine.

1) The brightness controls are not calibrated for dark rooms. I often read my iPad in bed, at night, but the screen is simply way too bright. It is bright enough that a bed partner will need to turn away from it so that they can sleep. So, every night, I go into Settings and lower the brightness to its darkest setting. The next morning, I reverse the process. This is not ok.

2) The iPad has a bad habit of doing an unwanted screen orientation rotation when it is moved from vertical to flat. Flat, like, flat onto my lap or table top. The is really never the desired behavior, because hey! – I was looking at that!

3) The wireless-keyboard connection is way too sticky. As I write this, I’m sitting at my kitchen table with my iPad and bluetooth keyboard. Its great. If I were move to the couch to surf the web, I wouldn’t want to use my keyboard anymore that is still sitting in the kitchen. However, the iPad stubbornly refuses to bring up the on-screen keyboard until I go into settings and disable bluetooth. I would really like to just hit a button on the keyboard to disconnect it, like, say, the Eject button…
[Update] I’ll be damned – guess what the eject button does! It brings up the soft keyboard – but its only temporary. I bet there is a way to totally disconnect – hmmm.
[Update – 24 May, 2010] I’m an idiot. You can get this to mostly work by remembering to turn off the wireless keyboard when done. You do this by pressing and holding the power button for about three seconds. When you press the power button, the little green light will turn on, and then off after a few seconds, which is how you’ll know it is off. At that point, your software keyboard will pop back up. This solution isn’t perfect, but it isn’t bad. My happiness quotient just went up!

The keyboard dock I settle on

[Update – 10 August, 2010] My old wireless keyboard simply wasn’t good enough. The Apple iPad Keyboard Dock just arrived today. You know – the one the physically plugs into the base of the iPad. It isn’t an ideal solution since it isn’t as portable as the wireless keyboard, but it seems solid and has a few iPad specific keys. Most importantly, since the connection is physical, the device shouldn’t get confused as to whether or not I have a physical keyboard in front of me.

4) Don’t get me started on Apple’s official iPad case.

5) On physical keyboards, I can hit the Delete key to left-delete, but I can hit, say, fn-Delete to right-delete as if I were on my desktop.

6) [new] The home button is too loud. While in bed, I’m afraid to hit it. It would be too loud for some meeting situations, too.

So, that is a pretty short list. Since, though, you can’t hack the iPad or iPhone much, unlike the Android phones, we’ll all have to wait patiently for Apple to address these. None of the above are show stoppers, and competition in the field is hot enough, that things do seem to get addressed by all of the vendors eventually.

Nightlight now on the iPad – first impressions.

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Happy iPad day. I picked up my iPad at Pentagon City this morning. We made it a family outing and my six year old son was at least as excited as I was. We got in and out of the Reserved line a in about 20 minutes, so really a pretty good experience.

I like the iPad so far. Nice screen. Nice keyboard. Nice heft. Very few things to complain about.

Here are my complaints. My home button is a bit loud. A little too loud if you are typing in bed and don’t want to wake your partner. It would be too loud for a meeting, too. I seem to recall, though, that my last iphone had a loud home button, but that it quieted down with use, so take this complaint with a grain of salt.

I also resent that I can’t seem to use my old iPhone cable to charge my iPad. It’s like a big loyalty tax. What is is up with that? Correction: The problem wasn’t with the cable, it was with what it was plugged into. If I plug into my older MacBook pro, then it won’t charge, but it will charge if I lug it into the wall. What is up with that. More correction: charges sometimes on the MacBook a maybe when the iPad is turned off?

All in all, a great product, though. I’ve had a lot of fun with it so far.

I launched an upgrade to Nightlight for the iPad – check it out. Although I was stoked to have that out on opening day, I’m really bummed that I’m still having issues with getting my Powernap upgrade out the door. It’s seems to work fine for me, but apparently crashes on Apple’s test rig – arghhh. [Update: Powernap: Forty winks anywhere is doing just fine.]

I also launched a simple, but useful upgrade to Elegant Quadratic and launch a Pythagorean equation solver and generic math expression solver called Lil Math. These three are using a new technology that I’m developing to streamline app development – especially cross platform stuff. More about that later.