I hope you watched CBS 60 Minutes on October23, 2011
Following an informative segment on the life of Steve Jobs (he was much more of an unbathing mystic hippie than I realized), there was an even better segment on the impact of the iPad on many autistic people (not just children, but it's best to try them on iPads as early as possible). Note that the iPad is not a magic bullet for all people afflicted with autism. But for some the touch screen using some amazing autism apps became a miracle that allows them to communicate what has heretofore been locked inside their heads. The iPad for some is an amazing way for them to reveal their talents and their emotions. Also note the recent discoveries using brain scans of autism victims.

I still have no incentive myself to invest the time and money in an iPad, although I should perhaps begin testing some apps that might be relevant for my life and work. But for autistic victims and their families, it's grossly negligent not to try out iPads. Note that it may be best to also have teachers specially trained in both iPad apps and autism rather than just starting an autistic person out cold with an iPad.

The video segment entitled "Studying autism and iPads" is for a short time available free at
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7385702n&tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea.1
This is a fantastic module as long as you realize they might've cherry picked the success cases.

The earlier segment "Steve Jobs: Revelations from a tech giant" us fir a short time available free at
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-20124391/steve-jobs-revelations-from-a-tech-giant/?tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel
Note that he was not a particularly good manager of people and did some mean things in his life. This segment illustrates how even our heroes have their imperfections.

"Working In Word, Excel, PowerPoint on an iPad," by Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2012 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203436904577154840906816210.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_RightMostPopular

Although Apple's popular iPad tablet has been able to replace laptops for many tasks, it isn't a big hit with folks who'd like to use it to create or edit long Microsoft Office documents.

While Microsoft has released a number of apps for the iPad, it hasn't yet released an iPad version of Office. There are a number of valuable apps that can create or edit Office documents, such as Quickoffice Pro, Documents To Go and the iPad version of Apple's own iWork suite. But their fidelity with Office documents created on a Windows PC or a Mac isn't perfect.

This week, Onlive Inc., in Palo Alto, Calif., is releasing an app that brings the full, genuine Windows versions of the key Office productivity apps—Word, Excel and PowerPoint—to the iPad. And it's free. These are the real programs. They look and work just like they do on a real Windows PC. They let you create or edit genuine Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.

I've been testing a pre-release version of this new app, called OnLive Desktop, which the company says will be available in the next few days in Apple's app store. More information is at desktop.onlive.com.

My verdict is that it works, but with some caveats, limitations and rough edges. Some of these downsides are inherent in the product, while others have to do with the mismatch between the iPad's touch interface and the fact that Office for Windows was primarily designed for a physical keyboard and mouse.

Creating or editing long documents on a tablet with a virtual on-screen keyboard is a chore, no matter what Office-type app you choose. So, although it isn't a requirement, I strongly recommend that users of OnLive Desktop employ one of the many add-on wireless keyboards for the iPad.

OnLive Desktop is a cloud-based app. That means it doesn't actually install Office on your iPad. It acts as a gateway to a remote server where Windows 7, and the three Office apps, are actually running. You create an account, sign in, and Windows pops up on your iPad, with icons allowing you to launch Word, Excel or PowerPoint. (There are also a few other, minor Windows programs included, like Notepad, Calculator and Paint.)

In my tests, the Office apps launched and worked smoothly and quickly, without any noticeable lag, despite the fact that they were operating remotely. Although this worked better for me on my fast home Internet connection, it also worked pretty well on a much slower hotel connection.

Like Office itself, the documents you create or modify don't live on the iPad. Instead, they go to a cloud-based repository, a sort of virtual hard disk. When you sign into OnLive Desktop, you see your documents in the standard Windows documents folder, which is actually on the remote server. The company says that this document storage won't be available until a few days after the app becomes available.

To get files into and out of OnLive Desktop, you log into a Web site on your PC or Mac, where you see all the documents you've saved to your cloud repository. You can use this Web site to upload and download files to your OnLive Desktop account. Any changes made will be automatically synced, the company says, though I wasn't able to test that capability in my pre-release version.

Because it's a cloud-based service, OnLive Desktop won't work offline, such as in planes without Wi-Fi. And it can be finicky about network speeds. It requires a wireless network with at least 1 megabit per second of download speed, and works best with at least 1.5 to 2.0 megabits. Many hotels have trouble delivering those speeds, and, in my tests, the app refused to start in a hotel twice, claiming insufficient network speed when the hotel Wi-Fi was overloaded.

The free version of the app has some other limitations. You get just 2 gigabytes of file storage, there's no Web browser or email program like Outlook included, and you can't install additional software. If many users are trying to log onto the OnLive Desktop servers at once, you may have to wait your turn to use Office.

In the coming weeks, the company plans to launch a Pro version, which will cost $10 a month. It will offer 50 GB of cloud document storage, "priority" access to the servers, a Web browser, and the ability to install some added programs. It will also allow you to collaborate on documents with other users, or even to chat with, and present material to, groups of other OnLive Desktop users.

The company also plans to offer OnLive Desktop on Android tablets, PCs and Macs, and iPhones.

In my tests, I was able to create documents on an iPad in each of the three cloud-based Office programs. I was able to download them to a computer, and alter them on both the iPad and computer. I was also able to upload files from the computer for use in OnLive Desktop.

OnLive Desktop can't use the iPad's built-in virtual keyboard, but it can use the virtual keyboard built into Windows 7 and Windows' limited touch features and handwriting recognition. As noted above, I recommend using a wireless physical keyboard. But even these aren't a perfect solution, because the ones that work with the iPad can't send common Windows keyboard commands to OnLive Desktop, so you wind up moving between the keyboard and the touch screen, which can be frustrating. And you can't use a mouse.

Another drawback is that OnLive Desktop is entirely isolated from the rest of the iPad. Unlike Office-compatible apps that install directly on the tablet, this cloud-based service can't, for instance, be used to open Office documents you receive via email on the iPad. And, at least at first, the only way you can get files into and out of OnLive Desktop is through its Web-accessible cloud-storage service. The free version has no email capability, and the app doesn't support common file-transfer services like Dropbox or SugarSync. The company says it hopes to add those.

OnLive Desktop competes not only with the iPad's Office clones, but with iPad apps that let you remotely access and control your own PCs and Macs, and thus use Office and other computer software on those.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads in Tricks and Tools of the Trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm

A USB Port of Sorts for the mobile phones, iPads, Kindle Fires, and other tablet computers
"For iPad And Mobile Devices, a 'Port' out of the Norm," by Water S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2012 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204136404577211141651710950.html

The pocket-size USB flash drive has become nearly ubiquitous in the PC world, for moving files among machines and for adding extra storage. But it can't be used with most tablets because they lack standard USB ports. 

Now, there's a special, modified, pocket flash drive that works as usual with PCs and Macs, but can transfer and stream files to popular mobile devices without standard USB ports, such as Apple's iPad and iPhone, Amazon's Kindle Fire and many other Android devices. Its secret: It has built-in Wi-Fi to beam the files to and from tablets and smartphones wirelessly. It can even stream files like videos to many devices simultaneously.

It's called the AirStash and is made by a tiny company called Wearable Inc., and distributed by Maxell Corp. It's available at Amazon.com and a few other retailers for $150 for an 8 gigabyte model, which can increase the storage capacity of a base iPad by 50%. An AirStash model with 16 gigabytes is $180.

The AirStash is a clever device that solves a genuine problem, though not without some issues. In my tests, it worked as advertised, without crashing or exhibiting bugs. But it's pricey and has one big drawback: When a device is connected to the AirStash via Wi-Fi, it can't be connected to the Internet. The company plans a fix for that as early as next month.

The AirStash looks like other USB flash drives, except a bit wider. Its storage is provided by a removable SD memory card that pops into the bottom edge. You can substitute your own larger card. In fact, you can swap in the memory card from your camera and beam your photos. [PTECH] Wearable Inc.

The AirStash drive with removable SD memory card

This product is aimed at the iPad and iPhone, and the company has a free app for those products that makes it easy to manage and view the files on the drive. But its wireless file transfers also work, via the Web browser, on non-Apple devices, even computers. And the company plans an Android version of the app.

A typical way to use the AirStash would be to first plug it into your computer like any flash drive and copy onto it photos, documents, videos, podcasts or songs. Then remove it from the computer and press a small button on the front of the AirStash that turns on its Wi-Fi network. Next, you connect your iPad to this network, launch the AirStash app and all the files on the drive show up.

Enlarge Image PTECH-JUMP PTECH-JUMP Wearable Inc.

The AirStash app allows an iPad to wirelessly import photos from the drive.

Enlarge Image PTECH-JUMP PTECH-JUMP Wearable Inc.

The AirStash app allows an iPad to create a new directory on the drive, below.

From the app, you can view documents, play songs, watch videos, view photos or listen to podcasts. On a non-Apple device, there's no special app, but you can still access the content on the drive. You just link up to the AirStash Wi-Fi network, launch your Web browser and go to airstash.net. A page appears with a list of the drive's contents.

AirStash performed some feats I found impressive. In one test, I was able, from about 75 feet away, to flawlessly watch three movies stored on the AirStash at the same time on three devices. I had "Inception" playing on an iPad; "The King's Speech" playing on a Kindle Fire; and "Star Trek" playing on a Dell laptop. I stress, none of these movies was stored on the devices—all were stored on the AirStash.

In another test, I was able to watch a movie on an iPad, play a song on an Android-based Motorola Droid and read a PDF file on a Mac, simultaneously. Once again, all these files were stored on an AirStash drive 75 feet away.

The AirStash can beam material to as many as eight devices at once, except for video, where the limit is three devices. It can beam the same video to three devices at the same time. A parent could use one AirStash to provide different videos to each of three kids during a drive in the car.

Wearable, the maker of the AirStash, boasts it works in both directions: You can also write files to the AirStash from a device like an iPad. Technically, this is true. For instance, from the AirStash app, you can export photos stored on an iPad or iPhone to the drive.

But several iPad apps for viewing or editing documents, which the company says work with AirStash, require a geeky setup process, and I couldn't get them to send edited documents back to the drive.

There are some other limitations. For instance, on non-Apple devices, the Web interface is rudimentary, and on the Kindle Fire, music can't be streamed from the AirStash.

Continued in article

Video Tutorial
"Windows on an Ipad," MIT's Technology Review, January 30, 2012 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/video/?vid=796&nlid=nldly&nld=2012-01-31

"Working In Word, Excel, PowerPoint on an iPad," by Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2012 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203436904577154840906816210.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_RightMostPopular

Although Apple's popular iPad tablet has been able to replace laptops for many tasks, it isn't a big hit with folks who'd like to use it to create or edit long Microsoft Office documents.

While Microsoft has released a number of apps for the iPad, it hasn't yet released an iPad version of Office. There are a number of valuable apps that can create or edit Office documents, such as Quickoffice Pro, Documents To Go and the iPad version of Apple's own iWork suite. But their fidelity with Office documents created on a Windows PC or a Mac isn't perfect.

This week, Onlive Inc., in Palo Alto, Calif., is releasing an app that brings the full, genuine Windows versions of the key Office productivity apps—Word, Excel and PowerPoint—to the iPad. And it's free. These are the real programs. They look and work just like they do on a real Windows PC. They let you create or edit genuine Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.

I've been testing a pre-release version of this new app, called OnLive Desktop, which the company says will be available in the next few days in Apple's app store. More information is at desktop.onlive.com.

My verdict is that it works, but with some caveats, limitations and rough edges. Some of these downsides are inherent in the product, while others have to do with the mismatch between the iPad's touch interface and the fact that Office for Windows was primarily designed for a physical keyboard and mouse.

Creating or editing long documents on a tablet with a virtual on-screen keyboard is a chore, no matter what Office-type app you choose. So, although it isn't a requirement, I strongly recommend that users of OnLive Desktop employ one of the many add-on wireless keyboards for the iPad.

OnLive Desktop is a cloud-based app. That means it doesn't actually install Office on your iPad. It acts as a gateway to a remote server where Windows 7, and the three Office apps, are actually running. You create an account, sign in, and Windows pops up on your iPad, with icons allowing you to launch Word, Excel or PowerPoint. (There are also a few other, minor Windows programs included, like Notepad, Calculator and Paint.)

In my tests, the Office apps launched and worked smoothly and quickly, without any noticeable lag, despite the fact that they were operating remotely. Although this worked better for me on my fast home Internet connection, it also worked pretty well on a much slower hotel connection.

Like Office itself, the documents you create or modify don't live on the iPad. Instead, they go to a cloud-based repository, a sort of virtual hard disk. When you sign into OnLive Desktop, you see your documents in the standard Windows documents folder, which is actually on the remote server. The company says that this document storage won't be available until a few days after the app becomes available.

To get files into and out of OnLive Desktop, you log into a Web site on your PC or Mac, where you see all the documents you've saved to your cloud repository. You can use this Web site to upload and download files to your OnLive Desktop account. Any changes made will be automatically synced, the company says, though I wasn't able to test that capability in my pre-release version.

Because it's a cloud-based service, OnLive Desktop won't work offline, such as in planes without Wi-Fi. And it can be finicky about network speeds. It requires a wireless network with at least 1 megabit per second of download speed, and works best with at least 1.5 to 2.0 megabits. Many hotels have trouble delivering those speeds, and, in my tests, the app refused to start in a hotel twice, claiming insufficient network speed when the hotel Wi-Fi was overloaded.

The free version of the app has some other limitations. You get just 2 gigabytes of file storage, there's no Web browser or email program like Outlook included, and you can't install additional software. If many users are trying to log onto the OnLive Desktop servers at once, you may have to wait your turn to use Office.

In the coming weeks, the company plans to launch a Pro version, which will cost $10 a month. It will offer 50 GB of cloud document storage, "priority" access to the servers, a Web browser, and the ability to install some added programs. It will also allow you to collaborate on documents with other users, or even to chat with, and present material to, groups of other OnLive Desktop users.

The company also plans to offer OnLive Desktop on Android tablets, PCs and Macs, and iPhones.

In my tests, I was able to create documents on an iPad in each of the three cloud-based Office programs. I was able to download them to a computer, and alter them on both the iPad and computer. I was also able to upload files from the computer for use in OnLive Desktop.

OnLive Desktop can't use the iPad's built-in virtual keyboard, but it can use the virtual keyboard built into Windows 7 and Windows' limited touch features and handwriting recognition. As noted above, I recommend using a wireless physical keyboard. But even these aren't a perfect solution, because the ones that work with the iPad can't send common Windows keyboard commands to OnLive Desktop, so you wind up moving between the keyboard and the touch screen, which can be frustrating. And you can't use a mouse.

Another drawback is that OnLive Desktop is entirely isolated from the rest of the iPad. Unlike Office-compatible apps that install directly on the tablet, this cloud-based service can't, for instance, be used to open Office documents you receive via email on the iPad. And, at least at first, the only way you can get files into and out of OnLive Desktop is through its Web-accessible cloud-storage service. The free version has no email capability, and the app doesn't support common file-transfer services like Dropbox or SugarSync. The company says it hopes to add those.

OnLive Desktop competes not only with the iPad's Office clones, but with iPad apps that let you remotely access and control your own PCs and Macs, and thus use Office and other computer software on those.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm

iPad 3 Video --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8ecN36Ffpc

"The New iPad: It’s in the Apps," by David Pogue, The New York Times, March 7, 2012 ---
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/the-new-ipad-its-in-the-apps/

¶At one of Apple’s trademark press events here,  Tim Cook, the chief executive, took to the stage to unveil this year’s iPad — and a few other surprises.

¶I’m calling it “this year’s iPad” because it has no other distinguishing name. Apple says the name is not “iPad 3,” even though the previous model was called the iPad 2. And it’s not “iPad HD,” even though its new retina screen has higher resolution than a high-definition TV screen.

¶I played with it a little Wednesday and I will be doing an extensive review later. For now, here are a few first impressions.

¶In addition to the retina display, it has:
• a faster processor chip
• a better camera (a five-megapixel)
• 1080p hi-definition video recording (with stabilization)
• voice dictation (speak-to-type — not, however, the whole Siri voice-command feature)
• Personal Hotspot (pay your carrier an extra monthly fee; the iPad broadcasts its Internet signal to nearby laptops and other gadgets over Wi-Fi, wherever you are, even in a car)
• 4G LTE, which means super-high Internet speeds in cities where Verizon Wireless and AT&T have installed 4G networks.

¶The prices, storage and battery life are identical to the previous iPads’. Which is impressive — 4G is famous as a battery hog. That’s why this new iPad is a tiny bit thicker and heavier than the last one; it needs a beefier battery.

¶That wasn’t the only news during the unveiling. Apple also revealed that its $100 Apple TV would get a minor upgrade on March 16. It will be able to play movies in 1080p high definition, and it will have a new icon-based software design.

¶Oh — and movies you buy from Apple’s online store are now available in an online iCloud locker, available for viewing on any Apple gadget, just as music and TV shows are.

¶To me, though, the most interesting developments were the new apps that Apple has developed for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

GarageBand, for example, has been blessed with several new music-making features. One of them lets up to four people play different instruments simultaneously. Somehow, their four touchscreen devices stay synchronized over Wi-Fi, and they make a master, perfectly synced four-track recording, ready for mixing, editing (there’s a new note-by-note editing mode) and posting online.

¶My favorite, if Apple’s demo was any indication, will be iPhoto for iOS. (Like GarageBand, it’s a $5 download. GarageBand is a free upgrade if you bought an earlier iOS version..)

¶In some ways, it goes beyond iPhoto for the Mac, in that its editing tools can do more than affect an entire photo in one swoop. It offers brushes that let you dab with your fingers to brighten, darken, saturate, desaturate or otherwise enhance individual parts of a photo. That’s something you can do in Photoshop, but it’s never been possible in iPhoto. Multitouch is used cleverly; for example, with two fingers you can rotate a photo, zoom in and out, adjust the shadowy “vignette” framing, and so on.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
I sure would've liked USB and VGA ports.

Humorous iPad Demo --- http://biggeekdad.com/2012/02/ipad-magic-demonstration/
Amazing things you never thought of trying with your iPad.

Bob Jensen's threads on Tricks and Tools of the Trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm

Styluses for the iPad

"The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Moving Finger versus Stylus
"The iPad Isn't Ready for Working by Hand," by Jon Mitchell, ReadWriteWeb, April 7, 2012 ---
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_ipad_isnt_ready_for_working_by_hand.php

Last week's release of Paper for iPad was a huge boon to the cottage industry of third-party iPad styluses. It was hardly the first app for drawing or writing directly on the screen of an iOS device, but it struck a chord. It was just the right blend of skeuomorphic real-world design and familiar iOS gestures. I had never even considered a stylus before, but this seemed like my chance.

I travel the Internet in fairly Apple-obsessed early-adopter circles, so I went with the stylus I'd seen recommended most often: the Cosmonaut by Studio Neat. Studio Neat made the Glif camera mount, one of the most celebrated iPhone peripherals around, so it seemed like a safe bet.

The Cosmonaut arrived in short order in spartan, Space Race packaging. It's fairly wide to hold like a pen. It's black, grippy and dense, the exact same length as an iPhone. The business end exhibits the capacitive properties the touch screen requires: a soft touch that gives way gradually to pressure, just like a fingertip, but more precise.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm

More on the Rotten Apple

"Justice Dept. Sues Apple and Major Publishers in E-Book Price-Fixing Case," by Nick DeSantis, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 11, 2012 --- Click Here
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/justice-depart-sues-apple-and-major-publishers-in-e-book-price-fixing-case/36025?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

The Rotten Apple iBooks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Ebooks.htm#iBooks

Bob Jensen's threads on Ebooks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Ebooks.htm

"Amazon's Kindle Fire Sales Fizzle in 2012, Market Share Slips to Third," by Joe Brockmeier, ReadWriteWeb, May 4, 2012 ---
http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2012/05/amazons-kindle-fire-sales-fizzle-in-2012-market-share-slips-to-third.php

That Apple remains in first place in the tablet market comes as no surprise. IDC's latest research shows that in the first quarter of 2012, Amazon's once-hot Kindle Fire is struggling. According to IDC, Amazon's share dropped from nearly 17% of the tablet market to 4%, with fewer than 700,000 units sold compared to Apple's 11.8 million.

The inexpensive Kindle Fire took off when it was introduced in late 2011, giving Amazon 16.8% of the tablet market with 4.8 million shipments. Amazon's 7-inch tablet was the right product at the right price at the right time, that being the all-important holiday season. The Fire is an inexpensive tablet that offered many of the features that people want for less than half the price of an iPad. But the Fire didn't knock people's socks off, and many of the reviews were lukewarm, at best.

Amazon Still Trounces B&N

Apparently, the bloom is off the rose. Amazon's Q1 sales put it behind Samsung sales of Android tablets, but still comfortably ahead of Barnes & Noble's Nook tablets. Lenovo took the fourth slot, while B&N grabbed fifth place.

IDC predicts that Amazon will try to win back market share with the introduction of a "new larger-screened device... at a typically aggressive price point." IDC's Tom Mainelli, research director for IDC's Mobile Connected Devices group, also predicts Google will debut a tablet co-branded with ASUS.

Lessons Learned: Price Matters, to a Point

The lesson that Apple's tablet competitors should take from IDC's research is that price does drive sales - up to a point. The drop-off from the last quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2012 is far steeper than is easily explained by the end of holiday shopping. IDC had predicted overall tablet sales to be 1.2 million units higher than they were this quarter, with the shortfall mostly attributed to Amazon's slip.

Even though Apple introduced a new iPad this year, it's continuing to sell iPad 2s at a reduced price, fending off the cheap Android tablets and defending its market share while maintaining high margins on the rest of the iPad line. Apple owned 54.7% of the market in Q4 2011, and has bumped that figure back up to 68% in Q1 2012.

Tablet sales have grown 120% from last year, but were still lower than IDC's predictions. Whether tablet sales continue to slow in Q4 will be interesting to see.

Continued in article