Tag: review

Ten Things I prefer to do on Microsoft Surface versus my Apple iPad

My primary tablet of choice for years has been Apple’s iPad. The iPad, iPad 2, and the New (now old) iPad (3). This is after trying at least 20 other tablets with Android phone, Android tablet, Kindle Android, Windows 7, webOS, and QNX operating systems. Before Surface, I used my iPad 2 primarily in productivity mode with a Logitech keyboard in “fridge toaster mode” and used my iPad 3 as my primary entertainment device when paired with the HumanToolz stand. I find that combination suited my distinct needs.

After all of the contextual “research”, I have finally found a device that could make me leave the iPad at home, that is, after some improvements. After using Microsoft’s Surface for about a week, there are some usage models that I prefer to do on the Surface over the iPad. Before you decide to go directly to the comments section and flame me without reading the article, my next column will be on where I still prefer the iPad in specific usage models, which are many.

Email

I have been critical of Windows 8 email earlier versions, but in the final throes of pre-launch, Microsoft redeemed themselves with a very solid Mail update. The email client is fast enough, is threaded, pulls in avatars from other services that personalizes the experience and easily handles attachments in a way that I am familiar with Windows. Emails are very quick with Surface’s keyboard, too. It’s not perfect as I want a unified inbox, in-message web links, and shortcuts like “add to calendar”, but given this is only version 1.0, I am certain Microsoft could enable it if they wanted to. Question is, how good will they make it until it pulls business from Outlook?

Random, Unplanned Web Browsing

Internet Explorer on Surface is a full, PC-grade browser, unlike Safari on my iPad, but it feels as fast as a tablet browser. While I run into sites that are just ugly on the iPad, Internet Explorer just works as it doesn’t need to cut corners. I never get a down-featured mobile site either, which I routinely get on iPad Safari. Like Mail, it’s not perfect either as it doesn’t even have synced bookmarks. For planned browsing where I go down my favorites list I still prefer the iPad, but I have to think Microsoft will add this or lose many customers to Google Chrome, which works very well on X86-based Windows 8 tablets. In fact, on my Intel Clover Trail-based tablet, I’ve already shifted to Chrome because of the lack of IE bookmarks.

The other thing that is, quite frankly, emancipating is being able to interact fully with a web site or service. I am very disappointed with the lack of Metro-based social media apps, but overjoyed that I can do EVERYTHING on my tablet with a social media site I can do with my full PC. Literally, upload, download, post, reply to every and any site without worrying about if that app has connected with that API or not. IE supports every Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest feature. Why? It’s simple, because it is full-featured PC browser with access to the system’s file system and peripherals. That, paired with Nvidia’s quad core Tegra 3 that accelerates HTML 5 drives a complete web experience.

Does this mean I don’t want apps? No way. I want apps for speed too, but want the web when I want the whole experience. I want it all.

Writing Research and Blogs

On my iPad, my blog workflow today moves from iPad Evernote to WordPress on the iPad and then final edit on a PC. If you have ever worked with iOS WordPress and photos, you understand why. With Surface, I start with Word then publish inside the app to WordPress. One app, one device; what could be simpler? And it is so, so much easier with the type cover with a trackpad to pound out a 1,000 word piece of work. For research papers, there is no substitute for Word. It’s just the gold standard of productivity. Enough said.

Wireless Printing

While not that sexy, I have appreciated the consistency of Surface’s wireless printing. Like web browsing, it just works. When printing from my iPad, half the time it prints garbage or ten pages when I really only wanted the first page. This has come in handy for my kid’s school projects and when printing out contracts to sign and scan. For the record, no, Surface doesn’t support my HP or Neat scanner and I do that on a full PC.

Task Switching

It seemed for the longest time, Apple was “holding out” for easy task switching. Then came the very much appreciated two finger gesture for the iPad. I thanked Apple profusely for this. Microsoft and the Surface take this a few steps forward with the simple left thumb flick, which allows the user to keep both hands on the device and task switch. When I am showing friends and family the Surface, they are all “gee whiz” on this very simple feature. I liked webOS and QNX task switching better than Windows 8, but must say, I have warmed up to Windows RT and 8 task switching, and certainly prefer over my iPad.

Instant Access to Information without Opening Apps

If you want to get an Apple fan boy riled up, just start a discussion about Live Tiles or Android panes. You can just see the blood pressure rising and the next hour of conversation is around ease of use and what normal consumers want. Well, I like Live Tiles because it saves me time and some don’t because they are “confusing”. Without even touching the Surface display I can see emails, calendar, and weather, stocks, Tweets, breaking news, updated podcasts and about 100 other pieces of information. I think other consumers will prefer, too, after some time as icons are so 1980’s. I believe Microsoft jumped ahead of the curve on this tile concept and Apple will follow at some point.

As the industry moves to large surface usage models and environments for full rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, etc., live tiles will be commonplace. And, yes, I had PointCast and Yahoo widgets and stopped using them because they became a hindrance over time, but these tiles are different, as they are the experience, not an add-on.

Rental Videos

I watch a lot of rental movies and TV from the Apple Store on my iPad. I do this a lot while crashing on the couch or in bed. I use the HumanToolz stand to prop up the iPad 3 on my chest so I didn’t have to hold it. When Amazon Prime came to iPad, I still used the iPad, but switched to Prime. It wasn’t about the deals, it was that Prime enables streaming and the Apple Store does not on the iPad. I sometimes had to wait over an hour for an Apple Store video to download. I get the QOS challenges with streaming, but somehow Amazon and Netflix deals with those. Plus, Apple deals with streaming on my Apple TV just fine, so it’s just frustrating. With Surface, I use the Xbox movie store where I can stream or download and play. This is a lot more convenient than the iPad.

One broadcast channel app that was quite good was the ABC Player. My wife and I watched “Revenge” together and Surface provided a better quality and stable video experience than the iPad. I haven’t had the chance to test every service, but I also thought the Netflix and Hulu+ experiences were also very solid.

Anything that Really Requires a Mouse

As I use my iPad for productivity in addition to entertainment, I attempted presentations with Keynote and spreadsheets with Numbers. I tried for years to love these on the iPad but ended up abandoning them after each new release. Pages was fine but spreadsheets and presentations were nightmares even for editing files I created first on a PC. The lack of a mouse was the biggest issue for me as I had to learn a bunch of new gestures on a small 9.7” screen. With Surface, I have a keyboard, trackpad, optional mouse, Excel and PowerPoint. If you’ve done spreadsheets and presentations, you know how much easier this is and can relate. As in web browsing, this is an area where the four Nvidia Tegra 3 cores are making an impact.

Group Music Listening

I still prefer personal listening of music on the iPad as it’s faster and simpler, but in a group environment, Surface is just all that better. Microsoft essentially took the Xbox music experience and put it on Surface. If you’ve never experienced it, you should, as it’s as much about the video as it is the music. As you play a song, you are fed some incredible transitions that go way above cover art.

Sharing Anything

With my iPad, it’s up to Apple to determine what app or service I can directly share to. Like rental movies, this is Apple simplifying for the consumer and ensuring QOS. Also, if all apps had access to all Apple APIs, Apple couldn’t fully monetize its connections. Microsoft has chosen a different another route, one that is more partner-friendly and inclusive. This isn’t Microsoft jut being the good citizen, it’s part of their business model of monetizing the OS and they are years behind in the tablet war.

In Metro, I literally click on the “Share” charm and any, and I mean, any app that has a “contract” to share, I can share with. Let me use sharing pictures as an example. On my iPad from the Camera Roll, I can share a picture to 2 non-Apple apps, Facebook and Twitter. On Surface, I can share that same picture to 6 different non-Microsoft services and apps and that’s only two weeks in before many social media apps even surface.

Hate my iPads?

I love my iPad and it has been the “chosen one” for many years, for basic productivity and for fun. I cannot tell you just now many times I received flak years ago, before the iPad, for forecasting three years ago that the tablet would be the primary content consumption device for the home by 2015. I think there are many more believers now. I am here to say that the iPad finally has some authentic competition, stiff competition, and that’s from Microsoft Surface and from other Windows RT and 8 devices. Holistically, the iPad has it more together, but then again, it doesn’t do as much, either, and has a multi-year head start. Surface is far from perfect, has its flaws, but also delivers a much better experience than expected, and selectively delivers a preferred experience in certain usage models.

Next week, I will outline usage scenarios where I still prefer my iPad.

HP TouchPad Review – 3 Things Set it Apart

I have been a WebOS fan since it was first released. Actually I have been a Palm fan in general since the first Palm Pilot. So to say that i’d love to see HP succeed with WebOS would be a mild understatement. The Palm Pre devices have evolved and although none have been a massive market success, the Palm team (now part of HP) has learned some key things; they have transferred that knowledge to the hottest part of the tech sector, which is tablets.

I will let the gadget reviewers tackle the speeds and feeds along with all the technical elements of the TouchPad with their reviews. I intend to focus this review more on my opinion of the touchpad, my experience with it, and the things that set it apart.

My overall Opinion

The TouchPad is an extremely good first tablet from HP. WebOS runs marvelously well on a larger screen. I’m not going to go so far as saying it runs even better than on a phone but lets just say that WebOS likes large screens.

The device itself is a bit bulky and heavier than my primary tablet, which is in iPad 2, but still very usable and very portable. The size and weight of the device is comparable to the Motorola XOOM.

Everything about WebOS was clean on the tablet. Gestures, the UI, the speed of the OS; all was fantastic. The only thing glaringly missing was a plethora of apps in the HP App Catalog. I am convinced that if HP had anywhere near the size of an App store catalog as Apple, the TouchPad would make a worthy competitor.

That however is being worked. We are assured from HP that they are in the for the long haul and are investing heavily into their developer programs.

I personally like this tablet quite a bit, more than any Android tablet i’ve used thus far. The software is largely the reason as I like the UI of WebOS and prefer it to Android – just my opinion mind you. The only thing holding the TouchPad back in competing with Android tablets in particular is the apps.

There are however three key things that set the TouchPad apart and are worth pointing out..

Multitasking

I firmly believe that at this point in time WebOS does the best job multi-tasking of any tablet i’ve used to date. WebOS accomplishes this with their “Card View” metaphor where you can see all the apps you have open as slightly smaller windows. With a quick finger swipe gesture “up” from the bottom of the TouchPad you quickly enter the card view.

You can also stack apps on top of each other to create space for multiple card view working environments. Ultimately this lets you have more apps open at one time, letting you jump back and forth between a larger selection of applications.

Multi-tasking is a key part of the tablet and touch computing experience because it allows you to quickly move in and out of apps to accomplish whatever it is you seek to accomplish. An example would be surfing the web, checking a quick e-mail then back to surfing the web again.

Dock aware Exhibition Mode

This is one of the areas I think has the most potential for WebOS. Because the TouchPad charges by simply sitting in the dock, with no need to plug in, HP has designed a way to make each dock location aware.

This means you could set up multiple TouchPad docks, one near your bed, one in the living room, and one in the kitchen. Then you can set your TouchPad to show a different exhibition mode depending on which dock the TouchPad is sitting on. So when my TouchPad is docked next to my bed it would display a clock and the when sitting in the dock in the living room it would display a photo slideshow.

What’s more is that HP has put  into their software development tools the ability for developers to creatve new apps that take advantage of the location aware docks and exhibition mode. So we can expect new apps that take advantage of the location aware dock and exhibition mode to show up in the HP App catalog shortly. I am looking forward to a recipe mode for when the TouchPad is docked in the my kitchen.

Touch to Share

The last real differentiator I want to focus on is touch to share. This is a concept I think is quite interesting.

The basic idea is that if you are viewing something on one WebOS device, like the TouchPad, and you want to transfer what you were viewing to another WebOS device, like a Pre. All you do is touch one to the other and what was on the screen on one device shows up on the other.

The concept is simple but powerul. When you are managing or moving from device to devic,e frequently this solution becomes quite useful. At launch Touch to Share will support transfering a web page from one WebOS device to another.

In the future however you can imagine using this for music, movies, photos, documents and more.

Because your WebOS devices are paired together, you can also use the touch to share technology to recieve and answer phone calls and text messages directly on the TouchPad. This is accomplished by using the cell connection on your Pre or any other WebOS based device.

Summary

As you can see HP is not only deeply commited to developing great hardware like the Pre and the TouchPad, but also to further developing the WebOS ecosystem.

What I praise the most is HP’s vision to create experiences where your HP devices work better together, touch to share being a great example.

The TouchPad represents a premium experience as a tablet. A lack of apps are the only things currently holding the TouchPad back.

Time will tell how long it takes for HP to get a critical mass of quality applications in their catalog. There are at launch at least enough name brand apps to keep the early buying base satisfied. But Web OS is a solid mobile OS and HP is tailoring it to meet the need of a broad range of customers. I consider it a very comptetive product and one that has serious market potential.

Wacom Bamboo Stylus for iPad Review

I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, I am a fan of the stylus. I love touch computing don’t get me wrong but there are certain use cases with tablets where I believe a stylus accessory makes sense.

When I reviewed the stylus implementation of the HTC Flyer I noted that it was the best implementation to date and I still believe that. Primarily because the stylus was integrated well into the whole of the tablet. What Wacom has done with the Bamboo Stylus for iPad is the best stylus implementation on the iPad I have used.

The Stylus


When you first hold the Bamboo Stylus in your hand you will note that it is very well balanced, much like a nice pen. The official weight of the pen is 20g. The feel is solid and sturdy and sits nice in the hand like any fine writing instrument.

What sets the Bamboo Stylus apart is the width of the tip. Which is 25 percent narrower (6mm vs. 8mm) in diameter than other Stylus on the market. This allows for not only more precise accuracy but also a smooth pen on paper feel while writing on the screen.

The challenge of any stylus is to create a feeling as similar to writing on paper. The narrow tip and texture accomplish as close a feeling to paper i’ve used yet.

The App

What the folks at Wacom did, that was brilliant, was they included a free app that goes along with the stylus. This way they could include specific things to make their accessory work even better. This app is called Bamboo Paper.

Its a very simple app that lets you create a book of notes. You can change the color of the book as well as choose from blank, ruled or grid style paper.

Inside the app is where some of the great work Wacom did with the software shines. For example pressing and holding on the screen brings up the pen options to change width and color of the stroke.

There is a menu at the top of the app that gives you quick buttons to email the current page or the whole book, undo and redo, change pen options, choose eraser, create a new page and bookmark the current page.

Writing

As I stated earlier, the challenge of any tablet + stylus experience is to mimic as closely as possible writing on paper. Too often when writing with a stylus on tablet screen it feels slippery or glossy. Which makes being precise more difficult. Writing with the Bamboo stylus was as close to writing on paper as i’v experienced. The tip length and the rubber texture add just the right amount of resistance and in the process mimic a pen-on-paper feel.

The pen was also very precise and I felt my writing was very similar to what my handwriting looks like on paper. Normally this is not the case with tablets and stylus.

What was equally as important, which must tablet + stylus implementations fail at, was the software’s ability to distinguish between my palm or hand and the stylus. Too often writing becomes difficult if the app recognizes the palm and either doesn’t let the pen write or makes small dots everywhere the palm touches.

With the Bamboo paper app I could confidently rest my palm on the screen to write and focus on writing and taking notes.

Wrap Up

If you are looking to use your iPad to take hand written notes I highly recommend this setup. I would obviously like to see they stylus work with more iPad apps. For example marking up documents, web pages, presentations etc.

Wacom does state that the Bamboo Stylus does work and has been tested with a few other apps, check out the full list of supported apps here.

GoodReader is one of the supported apps that will let you mark up images, PDF documents and more. One way I did find to mark up websites, images, documents, and more was to take a screen shot on the iPad then open the image in GoodReader to use the Bamboo Stylus to make markings. It is a little bit of a hack but it suffices for the time being.

Ultimately I may be in the minority but i’d love to see Apple make a stylus accessory for those of who want to use our iPad to draw, handwrite, mark up important documents and more. But for the time being the Bamboo Stylus will be my go-to solution.

BusinessWeek for iPad Review: Best Magazine App So Far

I’ve been using the Bloomberg BusinessWeek iPad App for about a month now and I have to say I prefer it hands down to reading the physical magazine. Mostly because BusinessWeek did not simply try to re-create the BusinessWeek experience on the iPad, instead they re-invented it.
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