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What’s new in the Apple iPad 3 (or iPad HD)?

09 March 2012

Apple has unveiled the iPad 3, and perhaps the most surprising thing is that there were few surprises. There had been so much speculation before its release, some of it informed by leaked photos of parts and some of it possibly planted, that there was already some consensus on what would be introduced in the iPad 3.

There were a few predictions that didn’t come true, including a fascinating story in The Guardian about a haptic technology that makes the flat screen feel like it has texture, so you can feel the edges of keys, for example. There were rumours the Home button would be removed so that all the controls are gesture-based, although this seemed unlikely, both for usability and branding reasons.

We now know that there are two main changes: the first is that the camera quality has been improved. It still lags behind the iPhone’s camera quality or a dedicated digital camera, but it’s significantly better than the iPad 2. Until I get my hands on one, I won’t be sure what kind of shots it will be good for, but the previous camera was only really suitable for video calling or for quick grab shots. It couldn’t be used as a real camera, to make photos you’ll want to keep forever. Hopefully, the iPad’s new camera will be much closer to what we would expect from a camera phone.

The other main change is that the screen resolution has doubled, so text and images will look sharper. The device will be able to play back HD video at its full resolution, which led to some speculation that the device would be called the iPad HD, although there’s no indication of that on Apple’s website. Apple just calls the device a third-generation iPad. Apple says the higher resolution has no significant impact on battery life, which is good news.

There are a few other changes that will be less obvious. The iPad now supports 4G mobile communications, but since there isn’t much coverage for these in the UK, that’s unlikely to make much difference here. You can use your iPad’s mobile connection to create a wi-fi hotspot for other devices, although this is probably of most use if you’re getting superfast 4G speeds in your mobile connection.

The new iPad also has a new processor, called the A5X, which has double the graphics processing capability of the previous processor, so it can manage the enhanced screen effectively.

The release of the iPad 3 also came with some software enhancements. The camera app has been redesigned, most notably so that the button to take a photo is somewhere you can actually reach it without having to juggle the iPad with one hand. It’s now possible to delete photos from the Photo Stream folder on the iPad, although that delete instruction doesn’t seem to synchronise with other devices, so you’ll need to delete the photo on your other devices too. The camera is also said to have face detection built-in, so that it can optimally balance the exposure across all the faces in your photo. Apple says it’s also improved the sound quality on the iPad so that films and TV shows sound better. All these features, plus some bug fixes, are available to owners of older iPads who upgrade their iPad software to version iOS 5.1 (obviously, you still need an iPad 2 with a built-in camera to use the Camera app). If you’re not yet running iOS 5.0, see my guide to upgrading to iOS5. If you have upgraded to iOS 5.0, you can upgrade again to this latest version iOS 5.1 by going into your Settings app, tapping General, then Software Update.

There’s also a new software feature which Apple hasn’t rolled out to older iPads, which is a new dictation button on the keyboard which enables you to dictate text to the screen. At first I thought this was a simple software feature that could easily have been given to those with older iPads, but on reflection, voice recognition is quite processor-intensive, so it might need the new A5X chip to work.

Apple has also released iPhoto for the iPad (pictured, above). When Apple announces a new application like this, I feel a little conflicted. On the one hand, it’s great that they’ve invested in creating new software. On the other hand, given the device costs about £500, it wouldn’t hurt them to give away the software, rather than charging £3 for it, which almost seems petty. When you buy a new Mac, you get iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband for free, and these are all sold separately for the iPad. Apple did introduce basic photo editing capabilities in the iOS5 software upgrade for the iPad, so perhaps I shouldn’t grumble about them making enhanced features available to those who are prepared to pay a bit for them, given they have to invest resources in creating the software.

The iPad 3 will be released on Friday 16th March and Apple is taking pre-orders now if you’re interested. Amazon doesn’t have a proper listing for the iPad 3 yet, but I expect other retailers will be advertising it for sale and pre-orders over the next few days.

(Corrected, with thanks to Michael Hülskötter, to clarify that the quad-core is for graphics only).

Labels: Apple, iOS5, iPad, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad HD

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Download free Back to the Future game for your iPad

16 February 2012

For a limited period, you can download episode one of the Back to the Future iPad game for free. The game is a lovingly crafted tribute to the 1985 movie and its sequels, developed with the help of many of the team from the original movie, including co-writer and producer Bob Gale, and Christopher Lloyd, who played Doc Brown.

The game itself is like an interactive film. You control Marty, who can wander around the rooms and streets you travel through. You can talk to characters by tapping them and selecting one of the predetermined phrases, and you can examine objects by tapping them in the background. This interface can be a little frustrating at times. There was one puzzle where I knew what I had to do, but couldn't work out why it wasn't working and that was because I wasn't quite tapping the right place, but there is a good hints system that gives you graded hints until it reveals the answer, so you can push the story along. The graphics and characterisation are great, and the music from the original films helps to build atmosphere.

I experienced a couple of bugs playing the game, the most significant of which is that a couple of lines of Marty's dialogue were inaudible. The save game feature would benefit from being more finely grained: you can't control when the game saves, and the chapter chunks are quite large, so the game doesn't suit the kind of dip-in-drop-out play that I usually associate with iPad games. There's enough richness in the story and its presentation, though, that I was happy to be sucked in for longer periods of time.

I'm a huge fan of the Back to the Future films, so I loved being able to wander around Hill Valley myself, and appreciated the details they've added which non-fans might not notice. So far, it feels like an extension of the original films, taking the much-loved characters in new directions, while respecting their personalities and shared histories.

There are five episodes in total. For now, episode 1 is free and the others are reduced in price. For tips on downloading apps to your iPad, see my book iPad for the Older and Wiser.

(With thanks to Mark for telling me about this. We saw the original film together in the cinema 27 years ago. Great Scott!)

Labels: games, iPad, iPad 2

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Apple releases free multimedia ebook authoring tool for iBooks

26 January 2012

Last month, I wrote about The Beatles' Yellow Submarine ebook, which is like a modern pop-up book, with animated illustrations, interactive pictures, embedded videos, and text that reads itself aloud. Since that was published, there have been some educational interactive books appearing in the iBooks store. It's clearly something that Apple is putting a lot of weight behind, and it represents a new class of content that is ideal for the iPad.

Now Apple has released the software for creating these books, iBooks Author, for free on the Mac app store. It's only for the Mac (obviously), but it enables authors and self-publishers to lay out their books and embed video, images with pop-up captions, custom HTML (web page code), photo galleries, Keynote presentations and 3D objects.

This will make it much easier for anyone (with a Mac) to publish their own interactive ebooks, which has an upside and a downside. The upside is that authors can express themselves in more interesting and creative ways, and readers can benefit from a richer catalogue of original content, unfiltered by major publishers. The downside is that not everyone is brilliant at video, layout, writing, design and all the other skills that are required, so there's bound to be some rubbish content that undermines faith in the format as a whole. We've seen the same phenomenon in website publishing and print-on-demand publishing. I'd much rather that people have the opportunity to use these tools, but the best way to exploit them might be for writers to team with other creatives who can help to bring their ideas to life. For now, before the masses adopt the tool, there's clearly an advantage for authors who can move quickly to publish compelling interactive content.

You can find a short guide to iBooks in my book iPad for the Older and Wiser, and my articles for writers and publishers here.

Labels: iPad, iPad 2, journalism, webdesign, writing

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Publication day: iPad for the Older and Wiser

09 September 2011

iPad for the Older and Wiser has now been published, and I've just received my box of author copies. Even though I've seen the laid-out pages for the whole book, it doesn't really look like a proper book until you've got the lavishly printed copy in your hand, so it's a good feeling to see all the months of work solidified in the finished product. The screenshots and photos have come out great, and Stephen Long has created some colourful cartoons to introduce each part.

The book is also available in a range of digital formats for reading on ebooks, including Kindle and iBooks. In due course, I'll add links to those in my shop, but if you prefer digital, you can probably find the book by searching for it in your preferred store.

Today I've also published the list of the top 20 best iPad apps (no longer online) which appears in the book. With my books, I try to provide links and other resources on this website to save readers having to search for things I can more easily just give them on this website. The online version has been enhanced with some videos demonstrating three of the apps, and links to all the apps so you can go straight to them in iTunes. Did I include your favourite iPad app? If you've got another to suggest, feel free to leave a comment or email me.

Labels: books, iPad, iPad 2

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How to customise your blog for the iPad

08 September 2011

Although I use Blogger myself for managing this blog, I typically recommend Wordpress as being more fully featured. I use it for some other blogs I write, and it’s a bit more flexible and more powerful than Blogger, especially for newcomers. I wrote a section outlining the basics of getting started with Wordpress in my book Web Design in Easy Steps.

When I was looking around one of my Wordpress-hosted blogs recently, I discovered a new section in the Appearance section of the settings. If you log into your Wordpress dashboard, and scroll down, you should see ‘iPad’ in the Appearance section, on the left. These settings give you the option to upload an image that will be shown when someone launches your blog from an icon on the iPad’s home screen, and to upload a cover logo. These help to give a visit to your blog a more native app-like feel on the iPad. By default, the option to display a special theme for iPad users is ticked, and you can confidently leave it ticked.

Although I’ve been using the iPad a lot, especially while writing my book iPad for the Older and Wiser, I hadn’t visited any Wordpress blogs with it, so I was intrigued to see what this was all about. Basically, with the theme selected, Wordpress presents your blog in a format that is optimised for the touch screen and that will be familiar to iPad users when they view it. On the iPad, you see boxes containing headlines and a short summary of your story. When you tap one, a window opens to show the story in full which can be dragged up and down. To move between the pages of summaries, you swipe sideways to turn the pages. The whole experience is similar to the superb Flipboard app, which turns updates from social networks and your favourite websites into a magazine-like experience.

This is a great innovation from Wordpress: it feels like a native app on the iPad, and doesn’t require any additional work from the content creator, nor does it interfere with the experience for those using desktop computers. If you want to see an example of it, try visiting Finepixtrix, a photography blog I picked from Wordpress’s homepage, with your iPad. It features some great photography by Grahame Hall, who lives in South Africa. On a desktop computer, his blog looks much like this blog: the blog posts are stacked on top of each other and you scroll down the screen to read them. On the iPad, it’s more like a magazine, with headlines and images laid out neatly on the screen, so you can quickly find what you want to read. This screenshot shows the blog’s iPad theme:

If you have a Wordpress blog and want to offer iPad visitors a similar experience, the good news is that Wordpress is already doing it for you. However, you can make the experience even slicker by uploading a splash image and logo in your Wordpress settings. If you customise your blog for the iPad, leave me a comment and I'll check it out.

Labels: blogging, blogs, books, iPad, iPad 2, webdesign

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Is it worth buying a 3G iPad?

01 September 2011

If you’re wondering whether you should get the 3G iPad or just get the Wi-Fi one, there’s a new tool from the BBC that might help you to decide. The BBC invited volunteers to download an app for their Android mobile phones, and the app tracked where mobile signals were available. In total, 44,600 people submitted 1.7 million hours of data across the UK.

What it means for you is that you can enter a postcode on the BBC’s UK mobile coverage map, to see whether there is 3G coverage in that area. If the map is green where you live, it means there is coverage. If it’s purple, it means there is 2G coverage, which is slower but will still work on your iPad. The white areas have no data, which means nobody participated in the survey there. (It doesn’t matter that the data was collected using Android phones, because the iPad uses the same network).

If you have somewhere you might want to use your iPad regularly and won’t have access to free Wi-Fi, it’s worth checking it to see what the 3G coverage is like there using the BBC’s map. Technology news site The Register warns that you should take the data with a pinch of salt: if there’s one square showing superior coverage to all the squares around it, that’s probably a blip in the data. But the data should be broadly accurate and is based on actual coverage experienced by people using mobile phones.

As my book iPad for the Older and Wiser explains, Wi-Fi is usually free to use at places like cafes and in your own home. 3G requires a payment, typically a subscription that allows you to access a certain amount of data in a certain timeframe (such as 1GB in a month, which would be enough for about 200 songs or 10,000 web pages, according to O2’s estimates). Generally, I’ve found it helpful to have a 3G iPad for when I don’t have Wi-Fi coverage, including when in the car or when my home Wi-Fi network goes down.

UPDATE: My Friend Mark who lives in Shropshire says: "Don't believe the map 100%... says I get 3g when in fact very occasionally I get an unusable 3g signal and most of the time I hardly get a 2g one!"

Labels: books, iPad, iPad 2

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How will Steve Jobs resignation affect Apple?

25 August 2011

Steve Jobs (pictured right in 2010) has stepped down as CEO of Apple, but will continue to be chairman. While Apple argues it will make little difference to the company’s operations, the stock market disagrees. The BBC reports that Apple shares fell 5% in after-market trading on the Nasdaq, and fell 4.1% in the secondary listing on Frankfurt’s stock exchange. The BBC also implies that a 4.1% rise in the share price of HTC and 3.2% rise in Samsung’s share price are also related to Jobs stepping down.

Apple has a talented team, including British designer Jonathan Ive who led the design of the iPod and the iPad, so the company remains in a strong position to innovate and grow. But many people, including many shareholders, perhaps, believe that a lot of Apple’s vision has come from Jobs.

'Revolutionary' is a word that's overused in technology PR and journalism, but Apple really has transformed entire industries under Jobs' leadership. The company has completely transformed the music industry, to the extent that Apple is arguably the most powerful company in the business, making huge amounts of money from the hardware and being one of the leading retailers for downloadable music.

Apple ignored the conventional wisdom on how the mobile phone market worked, and changed the game there too. Before the iPhone, handsets were free and operators got most of the money. Now, many people are willing to pay for an iPhone, and a huge chunk of the money in the industry goes to Apple, for both the hardware and the apps on the phone.

Apple has also dramatically reinvented the software industry. The app store model has changed the way that people discover and buy software, and has also made them much more likely to do so. People who wouldn’t enter a software or games shop are happy to buy apps, and a whole industry of amateur app developers has grown up to create those apps, some of whom have become fantastically wealthy.

Apple has also led the way with tablets, inspiring lots of other companies to try to emulate the success of the iPad. Now it’s a huge success, it’s easy to forget that a lot of people didn’t understand the point of the iPad when it first came out. It was a big iPod, or a computer without a keyboard: it seemed to be neither one thing nor the other. I didn’t get it until I tried one, but when you try one, you see how easy it makes it to do the things you usually do with a computer, and how enchanting the whole experience is. I’m a huge fan of the device, so much so that I’ve written a book about the iPad.

Apple hasn’t always been first to market with its ideas. There were MP3 stores and software downloads before Apple, for example, and there were portable music players before the iPod (including the Rio, which I reviewed for Making Music in 1999, and which could store an amazing 30 minutes of music by default). But being first to market isn’t always the most important thing. Apple shows that you can take existing ideas and improve them, design elegant products, and customers will follow.

Jobs will stay on as chairman of the company, so it can continue to benefit from his vision and ideas. Freed up from the day to day responsibility for running the company, Jobs will be free to focus his energies purely on generating ideas and helping to direct strategy. For a company led by sometimes daring ideas, this could make Apple even stronger.

(Photo of Steve Jobs courtesy of Matt Yohe, via Wikimedia Commons).

Labels: iPad, iPad 2, iPod, music, software, technology

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iPad for the Older and Wiser: book trailer

09 August 2011

Here's a short film my publisher has made to promote our book iPad for the Older and Wiser, which is coming out in September. The video starts with an introduction to the book, and then covers my five top tips for getting the most out of the iPad, especially picked for the Older and Wiser audience.

The video was made by the marketing and media team at the book's publisher, John Wiley & Sons, and they've done a fantastic job of creating this film. Hope you enjoy it! I didn't write a script for it, so I was improvising, which probably made it harder to edit. Next time, I'll definitely write a script.

Meanwhile, the book is going through the last stages of production. I've finished proofreading the pages and checking the index, so the next time I see it, it will be as a real printed edition. Exciting times!

You can order your copy now (it's an ideal Christmas gift for relatives with an iPad too!) to benefit from Amazon's pre-order price guarantee, which ensures you'll pay the lowest price Amazon offers from your order until the publication day. The book will also be available in all good bookshops.

Labels: books, iPad, iPad 2, video

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A sneak preview of the new iOS 5 for the iPad?

05 June 2011

German magician Simon Pierro claims to have a sneak preview of the update to the iPad's operating system (iOS 5), which Apple CEO Steve Jobs will be announcing at Apple's developer conference tomorrow. He shows how you will be able to play tennis with your iPad, share drinks remotely and make instant print-outs from the screen.

Labels: iPad, iPad 2

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News on three book projects

14 April 2011

It's been a while since I updated the blog, so I've got three bits of news about books I've written to share with you.

Firstly, Web Design in Easy Steps has now been published. It's a full colour 240-page book in the popular In Easy Steps series. It starts by looking at the web design challenge, and then discusses what makes an effective website (with chapters dedicated to content, navigation and layout), before going into more depth on how websites are built. There are chapters dedicated to HTML, CSS and Javascript, and there are tips on using tools such as Flash, Dreamweaver and Wordpress. There is also advice on plugging in to social networking sites and adding a shopping cart. The book concludes with a look at how you can promote your website and measure what your visitors do on the site.

I have written extensively about website design in the past, for magazines including Internet Magazine, Business 2.0 and Internet Works, as well writing and editing a monthly newsletter about usability for a couple of years. I've also managed a few commercial website design projects in the past and am now working on updating my own website to reflect more of the good ideas in the book. Find out more about Web Design in Easy Steps, including how to order your copy, here.

The second bit of news is that Microsoft Office for the Older and Wiser is now available for the Amazon Kindle. You can get a free sample sent to your Kindle device from that link. For more information on the book, see the website for Microsoft Office for the Older and Wiser. I was really pleased with the structure and content of this book. It takes readers from no knowledge of the Office suite up to being quite sophisticated users through a series of projects. The book covers Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. There's also a bonus chapter on email using Windows Live.

The third piece of book news is that iPad for the Older and Wiser is now available for pre-order. I've written over half of it now and it will include coverage of both the original iPad and the features that are exclusive to the new iPad 2. The book will be published in September 2011. Wish me luck with drafting the last chunk of it and let me know if you have any favourite apps to recommend for the book!

Labels: books, iPad, iPad 2, Microsoft Office, webdesign

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Photos from the iPad 2 launch today

25 March 2011

As you've probably read, today was the launch of Apple's iPad 2. I went along to a PC World shop in a sleepy town near me to check it out and was surprised to see a queue of 30 or 40 people there. I can't imagine how long the queues must have been at Apple's own stores, especially in central London. The shop sold out of about 30-40 units fairly quickly, which was surprising for a run-of-the-mill PC store. Don't forget that represents at least £16,000 worth of sales in half an hour. I expect that scene has been repeated across the country, too. Here are some pictures I took...

The marketing materials, waiting to be unveiled

You can look, but don't touch. The shiny new cases were defended by shop staff until 5pm, and then only available to those who bought the iPad.

The queue. I got there at about 4.30, which is half an hour before the official on-sale time, and they had nearly allocated all the units they had. Congratulations to the idiot near the front who changed his mind when it came time to buy later, and so messed up the allocations for those behind him in the queue. When they say 'think different', they don't mean that.

And there it is, on display at last. Those who were buying one couldn't leave the queue to try it out first, which was sort-of funny. Everyone was relieved when they were finally put on display and plugged in, if only because it stopped the table's security alarm whining.

And here it is! Ta-da! I didn't think the physical dimensions would make much difference, but it felt quite a bit lighter than my 3G iPad 1, although that might be partly because I was holding a Wi-Fi demo unit. I don't think the unit's noticeably heavier than my SLR camera, so it might be okay for shooting HD video, although it's still a bit clumsy to point. Still waiting for that tripod!

Here's the Photo Booth software, which enables you to shoot photos with weird effects applied. It's interesting, but feels more like something for a Nintendo handheld than the iPad. I expect we'll tire of seeing photos featuring that Dr Who title sequence tunnel effect, but it's a nice way to have a bit of fun with the camera, even in a PC shop, which isn't the most photogenic place to shoot.

I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the iPad 2 for a proper play with it. The main difference is the camera and video conferencing app FaceTime, plus a couple of minor things in the apps.

By the way, I passed the half-way point in writing the first draft of my book iPad for the Older and Wiser today. Cheers!

Labels: iPad, iPad 2, writing

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Some thoughts on Apple's iPad 2

04 March 2011

Apple yesterday announced the iPad 2, an enhanced version of its iPad tablet computer. This is of particular interest to me because I'm now writing a book about the iPad, called iPad for the Older and Wiser. I'll add more details to this site in due course, but you can already pre-order iPad for the Older and Wiser at Amazon.

So what's new with the iPad 2? Firstly, there are two cameras. One is on the same side as the screen, so it can film you while you're using the iPad. This is useful for video calling, something for which the iPad is a natural fit. The other camera faces away from the device, so that you can take pictures using it, and see what you're photographing on the iPad's screen. That will be a helpful addition, although probably not as useful as it is on the iPhone because the iPad is a bit big to hold up in the air as you try to frame the perfect picture. Perhaps we'll see specialist iPad tripods emerge though, which will make it easier to use this camera, especially for shooting HD video.

two iPads running Facetime to show video conferencing

Two iPads showing the Facetime video conferencing app. Photo courtesy of Apple.

Apple's proud that the new iPad is thinner. While it is remarkable how much computing power they've squeezed into a device that thin, I don't think this really matters to most people. The original iPad was remarkably thin, and there comes a point at which it doesn't really matter how much thinner it gets. We probably don't want the iPad to get too thin, anyway, otherwise it'll start to feel insubstantial and fragile.

The new iPad can also process faster than what we will now start calling iPad 1. It has a multicore chip, which means its processor can do two things at once. That doesn't necessarily mean it will do, though. Depending on the apps you use, they might need to be rewritten (by their creators) to take advantage of the extra processing capability. Combined with the reported improvement in graphics speed on iPad 2, we might start to see richer and more immersive games as a result of this. We should also expect to see operations like search, bulk calculations (if you use it for work) and PDF processing speed up over time as the apps we use catch up with the technology.

Although Apple has often had a gap of several months between a press announcement and its product release, the iPad 2 will be in the shops in the US next week and is scheduled to follow in the UK shortly afterwards. The iPad 1 will continue to be sold, and its price has been reduced. This seems like a smart move: the iPad 1 remains a great device, and will satisfy many people who don't want to pay the extra for the video cameras.

The iPad 2, though, opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. The video filming could work well, if a tripod becomes available, and the video conferencing will, I'm sure be a hit. The Nintendo DSi never really made the most of its built-in cameras, but with Apple's open ecosystem of thousands of developers, I'm sure we'll see some innovative and fun apps taking full advantage of them before too long.

What do you think about the iPad and iPad 2? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Labels: books, iPad, iPad 2, writing

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Credits

Visit www.sean.co.uk for free chapters from Sean's coding books (including Mission Python, Scratch Programming in Easy Steps and Coder Academy) and more!

Discover my latest books

100 Top Tips: Microsoft Excel

Power up your Microsoft Excel skills with this powerful pocket-sized book of tips that will save you time and help you learn more from your spreadsheets.

Scratch Programming IES

This book, now fully updated for Scratch 3, will take you from the basics of the Scratch language into the depths of its more advanced features. A great way to start programming.

Mission Python

Code a space adventure game in this Python programming book published by No Starch Press.

Cool Scratch Projects in Easy Steps

Discover how to make 3D games, create mazes, build a drum machine, make a game with cartoon animals and more!

Raspberry Pi For Dummies

Set up your Raspberry Pi, then learn how to use the Linux command line, Scratch, Python, Sonic Pi, Minecraft and electronics projects with it.

Earworm

In this entertaining techno-thriller, Sean McManus takes a slice through the music industry: from the boardroom to the stage; from the studio to the record fair.