Roger1 here. Saint Roger of the Portals.
Another peaceful Wednesday at home. My dear wife and Roger are both gone for the day. She’s at school. He’s off getting chemo in Ridgecrest. She’s at school every day, but Roger is home most of the time. In solitary, like me (time travel is the loneliest profession). So I can be here only on the Wednesdays he is gone.
Getting into my own house is hard. I have to put a video camera through the portal, and do it for each room, just to make sure it isn’t one of Roger’s week off from treatments. If it is, then I cannot come home that Wednesday, because he is home, and I will not risk meeting myself. Paradoxes cannot be paradoctored (I don’t think).
Besides, my dog Ty enjoys me being here. In dog years, each day is like about a week, so having me here eases his solitary. The cats could care less, but they still lie by my side on the couch on the cusion on either side of me, or on the back of the couch. Anywhere is fine for them as long as they can have a gentle paw touching me. And, yeah, I’m playing tricks on Roger. I let the dog out, before he comes home. After being gone so long, Roger finds that the dog doesn’t need to go out. So he runs around looking to find where the dog peed in the house. (Yeah, I’m a louse, but it’s funny.)
Ahem…
Where did Roger get it? He cannot afford this, since chemo takes all his SSI. My wife cannot afford it either, on her teacher’s salary. I found a letter, though. It was from his Publisher at mymac.com! Tim, and nine of his writer friends pitched in and bought Roger the iPad. How cool is that?
Roger evidently is a fair writer (me? I’m too busy time traveling to write). He’s been at mymac for a decade, and he has good friends. Really good friends. (I am trying not to be jealous here.)
(I never realized what a person gives up when they go time travelling. They give up everything, including family and friends. And their career.)
This artifact from Apple, is the most beautiful thing they ever made. It is amazing to hold. The screen is very detailed and seductive. Everything about it breathes elegance and beauty. Apple must be selling millions of these things.
(Note, It does also seem to have some DNA from Cyan Worlds, who gave us the interactive game, Myst. Ironically, they do not yet have an iPad, flash-free version of Myst out.)
I found that Roger has put some apps on his new iPad, evidently gotten from the App Store icon on the desktop. (Is that what they still call it: desktop?)
I don’t know much about this device, but I do know that holding it on my lap and using it, is enough to make me quit travelling for a while. I had no idea it could actually cause me to stop and sit down with it, and not want to leave it.
But there is no way I could ever travel with one of these – not the places I go. So I am not going travelling at all. Not as long as I can sit here with this beauty and discover all her secrets. Wowser!
The dock on Roger’s screen contains Safari, Mail, Photos, iPod, Settings, and Bible. Yeah, six icons, not four like the iPhone. They are always there regardless of what page your screen is on. The dock, however resembles the one on the Mac, instead of the one that is on the iPhone. It is a very beautiful effect. Man! This thing is nice!
The iPad seems almost alive. I am using DRAGON to dictate this story.
DRAGON is an app from Nuance Communications. Its pretty awesome to use. There is a list on the left, of your recordings. The main field has a record button at the top. At the bottom is a keyboard icon where you can format what is being dictated, while you are speaking. Your text magically appears on the main field as you dictate it. At the top right corner is a plus sign for a new recording, a trash can, and an arrow, to use to email your text. Amazing! (and Free)
There are other apps too. Roger has the excellent PAGES, KEYNOTE and NUMBERS, from Apple ($10 bucks a piece). But if he does not have the latest iWORKS package ($80) on his Mac, using OS 10.5, he cannot share or print from these iPad apps on his iPad.
Here’s where the gaming part of Myst on the iPad comes in; with Pages. Just try to save the blank document you built, with your words and your photos. No Save button. How do you save it? Nothing in the Help file mentions it. It’s a mystery. So open another blank document, and risk losing your work. OK. Now you have two blank pages on the screen; one with your work. How do you name them? Keep picking at the puzzle. Eventually, you will solve it. Just like Myst.
Roger also has OFFICE HD, by Byte ($8 bucks). This app has much more formatting options than Pages, and also works with spreadsheets, Google Docs (whatever those are), Word docs, PDFs, and the MobileMe cloud. It reminds me of the old PageMaker, of long ago. Nice.
And Roger has STORY TRACKER, by Andrew Nicholle. It is not used yet, but it is a way to track all your writngs, submissions to publishers, etc., so a person knows who they sent something to, and what they sent and when. Pretty useful. But I think my wife would like this much more than Roger would. I suspect it was she who put this on his iPad. (grin) The app is free.
Oh cool! Roger has iWALLPAPER on the iPad too. That’s where he got the very Myst-like photo for his background (below). The app is .99 cents for hundreds of professional photos and live textures.
Roger also has CAMERA FOR iPAD, by Headlight Solutions. This is a very cool app, that links your active iPhone camera to the screen of the iPad, where you can edit your photos and save them in Photo on the iPad, right from your iPhone.
(Yes, I have my own iPhone. I am not using Roger’s. He would never let that out of his sight. I have my own AT&T account and number too. Had to. Couldn’t live without my iPhone, once I got back from being lost for so long in the past. Talk about device withdrawal!)
Of course, I am sitting here with his iPad on my lap, and my iPhone in my hand. Together, they are complete, and perfect. Apple has done us all very well, with such technology. These two, together, are like Artifacts from the future. (And I have seen a few of those!) These are like museum-quality Art. I feel giddy, and very privleged, just holding and using these wonderful things. Owning them would be marvelous (yeah, I want my own iPad too).
And then there is the soft and gentle female voice that comes on, every time you are typing, which offers the word it thinks you want. You see the little word bubble, just like on the iPhone, when you are typing on the virtual keyboard. Well, the voice comes on at the same time. Just the word. Nothing else. Very cool. Of course, you can turn this feature off. There are sound effects too, for sending mail, as well as all sorts of alerts. Believe me, when you are by yourself in solitary, this is all very nice.
Gads, Roger has a lot more very neat apps for this iPad! How long has he had it anyway?
There is PENULTIMATE, by Coco Box Design. These are beautiful little virtual notebooks, in either grid, lined or plain ‘paper’ on your iPad. You can write, scribble, draw or take notes with your finger. The ‘ink’ your finger produces is solid and very readable. $3 bucks.
I am resisting keeping anything I do here, on Roger’s iPad. No need for anomalies, right? You can have multiple notebooks, each with their own name. All the colors are Myst brown, sort of like imitation leather. Too bad you can’t have these in other colors, but this is a pretty awesome app.
There is STAR WALK, by Vito Technology. Wow, this is an amazing app! It is a virtual planetarium for the iPad. And it is as beautiful as all the other apps, if not more so. It has a digital compass, and you can manouver around the screen with the movement of your finger. It has Time Machine (ha ha), and a live screen of whatever is around you right now, night or day. I spent a while playing with this one. You can view the earth from many different places in space, as well. Pretty cool app. Highest rating. $5 bucks.
The iPad is missing some things: CLOCK, and CALCULATOR. Strange. But no matter, there are apps for that, most of which are free (CALC XT, and BahnTech ALARM CLOCK are both excellent).
But the iPad has CALENDAR, MAPS, NOTES and CONTACTS anyway. There are also VIDEOS and YOUTUBE, but I am not sure if they come with the iPad or you have to get them from the App Store.
Roger has ABC PLAYER, NETFLIX, and iTUNES on his iPad, so he is connected for excellent video. I watched Iron Man on the iPad this morning. Wowser, the video display is perfect, and even the fast action had no stalls or artifacts. This iPad must have a very fast processor. The sound is great, through the pizoelectric speakers too.
But, alas, no captioning. HULU.com is the only player that offers captioning on some of their movies or TV shows, it seems. iTunes says they do, if you find the CC symbol on any movie ad, but I have yet to find a movie or show from them, with captioning that I want to watch. But there is no Flash-free Hulu for the iPad, yet.
So, yeah, I am watching Top Gear on Roger’s Dish Network (television) right now, with captioning. Apple and ABC (and CBS and NBC) should get a clue about putting captioning on all their Internet shows, IMO. Too many of our generation, and the next generation are already going deaf, so we need captioning, regardless of whether we admit to that or not.
But the best app of all on the iPad is the iBOOK app. It looks like a bookshelf from Myst. On it are a number of books Roger has bought and downloaded. More books are being offered every day. He already has a great collection of SciFi books.
These books look so real. You almost forget they are virtual. And the page-turning animation is way cool!
I see there is also Sense and Sensability, Shakesphere, and other books Roger would not be caught dead having. My dear wife has been here on the iPad. Her handiwork is evident. I wonder how they time-share this device (grin). He probably has it all day, and she has it when she is home. She needs her school to buy her one of these, for her very own.
The only sour note, if there is one with the iPad, is the onscreen keyboard. Who designed this thing? (Fire him!) A lot of keys are out of position, and the caps lock is just annoying. That’s why I went with Dragon, to write something long. But the keyboard is OK for short emails. (Of course, there is no Texting, since Roger’s iPad is WiFi only, but there is SKYPE and TEXTPLUS from the App Store.)
I know both Roger and my wife are using the iPad to do the things they used to do on their laptops. The iPad seems to be the ultimate computing device. Even my elderly mother could use this computer very easily, without much introductory instruction at all.
In fact, the iPad is nearly perfect as an elegant and powerful computing device. You use only your fingers on the world’s best touch screen. I don’t even mind that it’s wifi only. I really don’t. Because I have my iPhone in my hand for taking pictures, calling people and texting. Roger’s iPad stays here at home (and with me most Wednesdays). Incredibly, it has supplanted my (our) desktop, laptops, and the iPhone as the most desirable and usable computer. The iPad has become my (our) main squeeze.
I can plainly see that the iPad is the computer of the future. You don’t need to be a time traveler to know that.
Apple sure has a winner here. Anything that can cause me to forget my collector and time portals has to be simply amazing.
Roger is incredibly blessed to have such friends as the ones who gave him this awesome iPad. I’m sure he has shown his thanks. If he were not so sick, he would likely be writing this review. This was the least I could do for him.
Ahem…
So, forget this dictation business. While there is time, I’m going to play some more with Roger’s toy!
Regards,
Roger1
Always make time to write.
Refunds are prohibited.
Your mileage is void.
I’m not sorry.
Video at noon.
.
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