Amazon, Boxee, Cloud

The pace of announcements from the media and technology industries will certainly be fast throughout the rest of the year. A couple of important developments this week were things that I had expected, and was very happy to see. First, was Boxee’s announcement (Boxee Blog » Boxee for iPad and more goodies) of their new app for the iPad. I have been following Boxee for years — see story from June 2010. I don’t know for sure they will be successful in the long run, but I really like what they are doing. Boxee is trying to become the TV Guide for video from the Internet. The free iPad app gives you a good view of this — just flip through many video choices and enjoy. As you would expect, a lot of their content is from YouTube, but not all of it. You can also watch video from Vimeo, Netflix’s Watch Instantly library, VUDU’s new Hollywood blockbusters, or critically acclaimed and foreign films from MUBI. There’s something for everyone. Boxee’s philosophy is to offer whatever content you want on a Boxee device connected to your TV, or with the Boxee app on your iPad, and I am sure other apps to come. Boxee provides a single interface to all the video on the Internet, regardless of who it is from. What they are doing is an important step to breaking free from the TV-Cable model of the past.

The other exciting development of the last few days is the announcement by Amazon of the Kindle Cloud Reader (see Amazon, Skirting Apple, Announces Cloud for Books – WSJ.com). The philosophy is similar — more choice for the customer, not trying to lock you in to a proprietary model from the past. Amazon believes you should be able to buy a book once, and then read it everywhere. Up until now, “everywhere” meant on your Kindle, the Kindle app on the iPhone or iPad. You could read a book on the PC or Mac with the Kindle app but that is not quite the same as the handheld devices. The breakthrough with the Kindle Cloud Reader is that it enables your Chrome or Safari browser (on any device) to look and act like a Kindle. That means that on any piece of hardware that supports one of those browsers (and no doubt more browsers to come), you can have instant access to your Kindle library and continue reading even when you are offline.

The breakthrough was achieved by Amazon developing a software version of the Kindle using HTML5, the new and evloving standard for how Web applications are developed. People like “apps” on the iPad and other devices because they are responsive and have a nice look and feel to them. They don’t feel like you are browsing a Web site; they feel like they are doing something locally on your device very specific to the “app”. If you are using Kayak to find flights or OpenTable to make a reservation, or eBay to check your auctions, these apps seem very natural. With HTML5, anyone will be able to build a Web app that is just as natural as an “app app”. The subtle and profound aspect of this is that now you can go to Amazon.com, buy a book, and read it on your Kindle Cloud Reader on your iPad. That means you don’t have to go through anyone’s app store — you just go to the Web. Apple will surely not like this since they take a 30% commission when you go through their store. Amazon will like it a lot! So will the rest of the world. HTML5 is the biggest change in the Web since the 1990′s and it will reeult in better apps and more choice for all of us.

Tags: cloud, ipad, iPhone, Kindle, kindle cloud reader

Pike’s Peak

It was a second time to stay at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Words can not describe this incredible hotel. The occasion was to give a speech at an event that CCC Information Services held for a grouop of its customers. CCC is a private company that provides its customers with collision repair and insurance estimating software solutions, analytical tools and comprehensive data. Their focus is on integrated claims management to  optimize efficiency throughout the claims management supply chain, facilitating communication among approximately 21,000 auto body collision repair facilities, 350 insurance companies and a range of other industry participants. In my talk about the Future of the Internet, I discussed the fast, always on, everywhere, natural, intelligent, easy, and trusted characteristics of the Internet. As usual, I highlighted my optimistic view about cloud computing. CCC is a real believer and pioneer in this area. See a point of view from CCC’s Ron Nelson called Life in the Cloud.

In addition to the day being the kickoff for CCC’s conference, it was also the graduation day for 1,000 cadets at the Air Force Academy, and the 43rd anniversary for my wife and me. We took advantage of being in Colorado Springs by taking a ride on the Pikes Peak Cog Railway. The Manitou & Pike’s Peak Railway Company was founded and track construction began in 1889. The first cog railway was built in New Hampshire in 1869, but Switzerland is where most cog railways are located. The Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway, however, is the highest rack railway in the world as well as the highest railway in North America and the Northern Hemisphere. The maximum grade the train can handle is 25% and it was great to experience it. The train runs all year round but on some occassions, including last week for us, there is too much snow to get to the top. We made it to 12,400 feet and the views were spectacular.

Tags: air force academy, Broadmoor, ccc, cloud, cloud computing, cog, cog railway, colorado, colorado springs, rack railway

Dropbox

When I became a student again in August, I decided to upgrade my computing capabilities and bought an iMac and a MacBook Pro (I don’t play golf or tennis so I have rationalized that whatever I would spend on these sports would be more than I spent on new computers). I’ll have more to say about the Macs in another posting, but suffice it for now to say that they are incredibly easy to use than Windows PCs.

There is quite a bit here in patrickWeb about Cloud Computing, and the evolution away from the desktop to the cloud is well underway. One of the more clever and useful cloud applications that I have found is Dropbox. Dropbox provides file synchronization that simplifies many of the things I do. The initial motivation to get Dropbox was my use of Quicken. Quicken for the Mac is unfortunately inferior to Quicken for Windows, so I installed VMWare Fusion and Windows XP on the Mac. This allows me to run a Windows app side by side with Mac applications in a seamless way. VMWare calls this the Fusion view. Fusion solves the issue of being able to run Quicken for Windows on the Mac but it doesn’t solve the other issue which is the location of the Quicken data file.

The location of the file would not be an issue if I only used the iMac or only used the MacBook Pro, but when you use them both, depending on where you are, the location of the file becomes a major issue. Dropbox solves the problem. Here’s how it works. You install Dropbox on each of your computers. It takes a few minutes at most. The result is you now have a folder on your computer called My Dropbox. Anything you put in that folder is automatically uploaded to the Cloud (a server at Dropbox.com). The file is then automatically synchronized to any other computer you have that has Dropbox installed on it. The usage scenario is as follows. I run Quicken on the iMac using the local file which is in the Quicken folder in the My Dropbox folder on the iMac. After I finish using Quicken and close the program, the file is automatically uploaded to Dropbox.com and then downloaded to the MacBook Pro. No login is required and no actions need to be taken – it is all automatic. The next day I take a trip somewhere with the MacBook. I start Quicken and it automatically opens the latest version of the Quicken data file from the Quicken folder which is in the My Dropbox folder on the MacBook Pro. It may sound complicated but it is actually elegant and simple.

Drop box can be used for many other applications in addition to Quicken. Any application that has a data file and where you can specify the location of that data file can take advantage of the concept I described for Quicken. Another application that I have found quite useful is 1Password. 1Password maintains a secure database of logins and passwords for websites that I utilize. The database is stored in a folder in the My Dropbox folder. The 1Password application is installed on the iMac, MacBook Pro, iphone4, and the iPad. They all use the same file and are always in synch.

There are many applications that can take advantage of this concept. In fact, for $99 per year you can get 50 gigabytes of Dropbox storage. This has allowed me to put all of my data folders in the My Dropbox folder. This allows me to run any application on multiple computers and always have the same data. As a byproduct of this Dropbox becomes a backup repository for the data. The concept of desktop, portable, mobile, and handheld devices with synchronized data in the clouds is one that I expect to become pervasive.

Tags: 1password, cloud, dropbox, ipad, iPhone, quicken, sync

In The Clouds (Part 4)

The August issue of PC Magazine began the “magazine’s” 30th year and I have not missed an issue, although this is the first one I read on the iPad with Zinio. If someone had described the iPad to me back in 1981 it would have seemed like science fiction. Even the PC at that time seemed an amazing breakthrough. The first PC had a 5.25 inch diskette drive and no hard drive. Anybody have their archives on 5.25 inch diskettes?I hope not because it might be hard to find a drive to read them.

The First Word column by Lance Ulanoff over at PC Mag this month was called Storage Evolution in which Lance discusses how storage has evolved from one type of media to another. When a new size or type of storage is introduced it always seems that the new paradigm will last forever. In the grand scheme of things the evolution looks more like pings on a radar screen. They come and they go.  Sony has just made a decision to end production of the 3.5 inch disks. When the CD became popular for backing up our files it seemed to be the ultimate. Then came the DVD and then double sided and double depth. External drives, zip drives, USB keys, tape cartridges, and perhaps holographic storage soon. Getting the latest and greatest to backup your data is the easy part. What about five years from now when you want to restore some data from your archived storage? Will you have a PC or Mac that has a device that can read the storage medium you had chosen five years prior? Maybe and maybe not.

Why not let someone else worry about all this? There is something about clouds that brings the term into our daily lives. We say “it is a cloudy day”, or “there is not a cloud in the sky”, or if we feel especially elated or happy we might say “I feel like I am on cloud nine“.  More and more people are answering the question of where is there backed up data with “it’s in the cloud”. Some people worry about whether it will be safe and secure in the cloud but from my perspective it is important to compare the risk to that of keeping such data on your own computer. In fact I would say that the risk of your data getting compromised at a cloud backup service is less than the risk of your hard drive crashing or having your laptop stolen at Laguardia Airport, or at some point of being unable to read the data because the storage medium is incompatable with your computer.

Cloud services companies have a lot more at stake than we do when it comes to maintaining high integrity for their operations. They will keep your backup data backed up and they will use whatever the most cost-effective storage media is. As new kinds of media come along they will adopt it and migrate all your data to it. Their problem, not yours. The argument for using them is compelling from my point of view. There are many companies that offer backup services including Mozy, Carbonite, and SOS. See PC Magazine for a review. I have been using idrive.com for quite some time and have found it very reliable. The services can be setup to automaticaly make backups while you are sleeping. You can have the backups run daily, weekly, or even continuously so that whenever a file changes on your computer a backup is made in the cloud. The best part is that you don’t have to buy any devices and worry about how compatible they may be in the future.

Is cloud computing for businesses or for consumers? It is for people. Businesses do not buy from businesses. People in businesses buy from people in businesses. People work at businesses and people work at home. Some people are students and some are e-tired. Clouds are all about making people more productive and increasingly the clouds will be where we will keep all of our data that feel is important.

Other patrickWeb stories that refer to “clouds”

Tags: backup, backup service, cloud, cloud computing, cloud services, diskette, dvd, holographic, ipad, media, pc magazine, storage, storage medium, tape, usb

iPhone 4 – Part 1: The Order

The order process for the iPhone 4 put together by Apple and AT&T rates a 1 out of 10 at best. A lot of promotion went into the “pre-order” process to encourage us all to place our orders on June 15.  Like many, I started out at 6 AM with the best of loyal intentions. Thirteen hours later after many attempts I was finally able to get the order registered at the Apple Store and now look forward to the June 24th delivery.

When it comes to design, software integration, ease of use, and dominance of music and app distribution, Apple is king of the hill. When it comes to offering cloud services, such as MobileMe, and a scaleable server environment for huge onslaughts of order activity, Apple seems to fall down consistently.This is not a good sign moving forward. A poorly executed once a year first day order process may not harm the Apple market dominance but there are things on the horizon that will critical every day of every year for most every Apple customer. (See excellent story “Why Aren’t I the Center of the Apple Universe?” by Matt Buchanan).

The central role of iTunes has to evolve to the Cloud. To require a new iPad or iPhone 4 user to have to plug in cables and connect their new Apple device to a PC or Mac in order to get music and apps onto the device is starting to look and feel a bit old-fashioned. Why can’t the music and apps synchronize “over the air” like the Google contacts, calendar, and gmail emails do? It is clear that this is where things are headed and the question is whether Apple is ready.

There are several challenges to make a Cloud services vision possible. First is an iTunes redesign that permits Cloud services for iPads, iPod Touches, and iPhones but which also permits the local attachment of devices such as iPod Nanos and Shuffles which do not have their own communications capabilities. Secondly is whether there is sufficient bandwidth at the user end, at AT&T (and other carriers) and at Apple to enable all the music and apps to traverse over the air. Finally is the question of whether Apple can create a Cloud services infrastructure that is sufficiently robust to provide the services that will be needed. Their capabilities to handle the order inflow of the new iPhone 4 suggests that Apple has a long way to go in this last dimension.

Could be that AT&T is part of the order entry problem. The failures in the process did seem to me to occur when I got to the step where eligibility had to be checked with the carrier. AT&T has a particularly bad web site. Talk about confusing. You can’t tell if you are at att.com, att.net, att.uverse.com, uverse.com, at a section for consumer, small business, enterprise, or whitepages.com. The big picture is clear that the mobile Internet is evolving rapidly. No longer is the Internet where our PC is — the Internet is where we are. Apple is pushing the envelope into this new space. AT&T is dragging along their legacy. As consumers and employees of businesses we will gain trememdously from this new found mobility afforded by the Internet.

Tags: apple, at&t, carrier, cloud, ipad, iPhone, iphone4, ipod, itunes

iPad – Part 6: File sharing and printing

The iPad became much more useful to me yesterday after attending a board meeting in Manhattan. A board colleague showed and I shared our experiences with our iPads and I learned about some new productivity tools. The iPad is great for reading documents of all kinds and when it comes to games, video, pictures, music and other media applications it offers most of what people need. When it comes to sharing, manipulating, moving, storing, and printing various documents, however, the iPad is not quite as easy. Apple makes things simple by making things closed. They don’t let you get yourself in trouble with technical tricks but sometimes that also limits what you can do. (See IPad – Part 4: What You Can’t Do). There are four tools (iPad apps) that I find essential to gain the control I want over documents. I use and recommend the following.

GoodReader is my primary repository for PDF documents. Serving on seven boards, I see a lot of documents. Browsing them as PDF’s on the iPad in preparation for meetings and having them at my fingertips during the meetings is essential. GoodReader allows you to create folders on the iPad for organizing your documents. When board materials are sent as attachments to emails, they can be opened in GoodReader and then moved to the appropriate folder. Documents can also be moved from your Mac or PC into GoodReader over your wireless network at home.

Dropbox allows you to sync your files online and across your computers. You install Dropbox on both your iPad and your Mac or PC. If you drag a file from your desktop and drop in the dropbox it then automatically shows up in your dropbox on the iPad. You can also go to any Mac or PC, go to dropbox.com and you will find the same file there. You can click on a dropbox file and send a link to the file to a colleague which then gives them access to the file. Very handy for sharing and there are no file attachments involved. Attachments are a bad thing of the past. Dropbox is a modern day answer that I highly recommend.

LogMeIn enables you to connect to your PC from your iPad. It actually gives you full control over your PC from the iPad. This is a nice thing to have. You can do most things on the iPad but not everything. Example: Quicken. More than ten million people use Quicken to keep track of financial transactions and investments. At some point it will surely be a cloud based application but so far the complexity and legacy nature of it have chained it to the desktop. With LogMeIn you can curl up on the sofa and log in to your Mac or PC from your iPad and use Quicken just like you were at the desktop. There are other less expensive solutions than LogMeIn but I have found that this is one worth paying extra for ($29.99).

Last but not least is PrintBureau. Also known as PrintCentral, PrintBureau allows you to print directly over your home WiFi netowrk. You can print any kind of document on any kind of printer. If you can print it from your Mac or PC then you can print it from your iPad. You do have to install a small program on one of your home desktops. I find less and less need to print things but from time to time the need arises.

There is some overlap with all four of these programs. They all provide a degree of file sharing. The way I think of it, GoodReader is the main repository for important reference documents. Dropbox is for ad hoc transisent files of any kind. LogMeIn is primarily for Quicken from the iPad and PrintBureau enables the paper.

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Tags: apple, blog, cloud, Gadgets, ipad, magazine, newspaper, publishing

iPad – Part 5: Printing

The iPad is a window through which you can enjoy content. The clarity and interaction are really great. Why would anyone ever want to print this beautiful content? There are reasons. A boarding pass for your airline — at least until they all let you use your cell phone to authenticate and board. An email that you want to put on the kitchen table. A checklist of things to do in the garage that is going to end up with grease on it. Etc. The iPad has a few apps available for printing but they are not for the casual user. They require installing some software on your home or business LAN and that software has to be running in order to print from the iPad. Looks like Google has a better way. I just learned about this and am quite enthused about the solution.

Google Cloud Print has a simple but profound vision — enable any application (web, desktop, mobile) on any device to print to any printer. The concept is simple. An application — GMail, Safari, GoodReader, or any iPad app that has something printable — submits the print task to the Google print service.  Google Cloud Print then sends the print job to the selected printer of your choice as long as that printer is connected to the Internet via a built in network adapter and which the user has previously registered with the service.  The only catch is that the vision requires a new class of cloud-aware printers which to my knowledge are not yet available. No reason that they can’t be though and assuming Google does this in an open way, as they usually do, there would be no exclusivity and therefore other cloud services and all the printer manufacturers can participate. I suspect we will see cloud printing sooner than later. It just makes sense, just like the iPad.

Apple will no doubt have a solution also, probably with MobileMe. I was an early user of MobileMe, hoping to cut the cord with Microsoft Outlook with it,  but became quite disappointed with it. Steve Jobs made a public apology about MobileMe but it did not salvage thins for me. I moved to the Google cloud for contacts and calendar and began syncing to the iPhone over the air. It was flawless from the beginning and provided a blessing compared to Outlook. Cloud computing is clearly here to stay and it will be greatly enhanced with cloud printing. In combination with the iPad it moves the PC yet another step away from relevance. One of the final steps will be the move of iTunes to the cloud so new apps and updates can be accomplished without having to plug in to the PC or Mac.

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iPad – Part 4: What You Can’t Do

There are many things you can do with the iPad and we are only at the beginning — but there are some things you can’t do. Although I have been accused in jest that my enthusiasm for the iPad makes some wonder if I am on the Apple payroll. I am indeed very bullish about the iPad but this story is to highlight some of the things that — at this stage — you can do or not do very well with the iPad. Will the iPad replace the laptop? At some point, yes, but at this point I am writing this post on my ThinkPad (running Ubuntu Linux with the Google Chrome browser and WordPress). There is a reason why I am unable to write the story on the iPad. Inhiibitor #1 for the iPad is the browser. Steve Jobs has said that Safari is the world’s best browser and the iPad was introduced with no other choice. Many people think that Internet Explorer is the #1 browser — some think it is the only browser. Let’s start with some facts. In 2005 IE had 65% market share — even though many people, myself included, think it is the worst of all browsers. Fast forward to March 2010. IE8 had 15% share, IE7 had 11%, and IE6 was at 9%. The total for IE was 35%. Firefox was 46%. Google Chrome (my primary browser) has gained every month since it was introduced in 2008 and now stands with a 12% share. Apple Safari is at 4% and Opera Software at 2%. I think Safari is a good browser but not a great browser. Perhaps it will become great if Apple continues to invest in it but based on the numbers they have a long way to go. When it comes to the iPhone and iPad the Safari share is 100% since that is all that is offered. One exception is that Opera Mini is now available on the iPhone. If they can get an iPad specific version approved that would be nice. So one thing you can’t do with the iPad is surf all the sites you can surf on the desktop. I have found a number of sites that do not work properly with Safari. That is what forced me to be writing this story on the ThinkPad.

Even if Safari worked flawlessly with WordPress and MovableType, writing any significant blog post (or other document) is not as productive as using a PC or laptop with a large flat screen. I typically have a dozen tabs open on my flat panel — gmail, iGoogle, calendar, a few spreadsheet projects, WordPress, wikiPedia, etc. It is easy to copy paste links and info from other pages into the blog post. You could do it on iPad but it is a lot more tedius.

I also have discovered that a number of iPad apps that have come from the PC or Mac world are not inclusive. For example eBay on the iPad is very nice but there are things like adding a reputation or preparing an invoice for the buyer, etc. that are not there. The Apple calendar, contacts, and mail applications are very nice and freshly updated from the iPhone versions. They are a joy to use but they do not have the full functionality of the PC versions — can’t send to groups in gmail, can’t add group designations in contacts, can’t add text message reminders in calendar. I use usps.com to do a mailing and stamps.com to mail packages. They both require printing. The iPad can’t print. Although it can handle pdf files in emails, it doesn’t support creation of pdf’s which is what both the mailing apps do. I did find one iPad app called PrintCentral that boasted that it enables the iPad to print without installing any printer software on the iPad. I bought the app ($9.99) and then found out that it does require software to be installed on your PC and then that enables the iPad to print to any printer on your LAN. Not even as easy as it sounds however, and to use it your PC or laptop has to be on and connected to the LAN. Handling of files, generally, is not a strong suit for the iPad. The file system is closed so you have no visible directories, you can not detach attachments and put them somewhere (except for pictures). Everything is handled through iTunes which is clearly not optimized for file sharing. I expect this to get easier as clever app developers find ways to get around the various impediments. GoodReader for example is a great tool for managing PDFs. You can access the GoodReader app from a PC, create folders on the iPad from your PC, and upload PDF files into the folders. This gives you a repository for documents to read offline on the iPad. I use it mostly for board papers and find it extremely valuable. Others at the conference tables are attracted to the idea — I should get an Apple commission!

Meanwhile I finished reading The Great Bridge by David McCullough using the iPad iBook reader. What a great book. After reading a few books on the iPad I can confidently repeat my enthusiasm for the Kindle. The light weight really makes a difference. It is also superior when reading out in the sunny weather we have been having lately. For now at least the optimum reading for me is to use the Kindle app on the iPad while on the treadmill and x-trainer or at the reading stand in front of my easy chair,  to use the  Kindle on iPhone while in a supermarket line or killing a few minutes at the train station, and the Kindle while curled up in bed. Once the iPad iBook novelty and fascination of the curling page flips with text on the back of the pages wears off, one thinks about the reason you read books — the content, not the page flips. the Kindle wins hands down — for now. On Wings Of Eagles was recently released on Kindle and that has been my read this week. Ken Follett doesn’t write much non-fiction and he did a spectacular job of taking a factual story of the EDS rescue in Iran in 1979 sound like a legitimate novel. One can’t wonder how the mission would have gone differently if iPhones had existed back then.

Bottom line, the iPad is a great device and I love it. It can’t do everything — no camera, no phone, no usb keys, weak printing and file handling — but it can do almost everything. And, it is very personal. You show it to friends and family but you don’t  let it out of your site. You let them play with it, but not much. It contains your personal information of all kinds. It knows where you are. In time, it will be watching you and you will be watching others with it.

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iPad – Part 3: Other Reading

Many of us have weighed in on the various aspects of e-books and e-readers. The jury will be out for quite awhile as the publishers, Apple, Sony, Google, Lenovo, Dell, and numerous others refine their strategy for what goes into a book, how it is displayed, and how it is priced. While the book war heats up, there are other dimensions of the e-readers to consider.

Reading magazines and newspapers on the Kindle can be quite convenient  – especially if you travel a lot — but I can’t say it is enjoyable or even natural. On the iPad reading magazines and newspapers is enjoyable and increasingly will seem the natural way to read them. The New York Times got good press at the launch of the iPad but I find it weak. The WSJ, however, is quite good. Easy to navigate and you get the full “paper” as it was published in the morning plus updates during the day. The ads are annoying and it doesn’t take long to realize that it takes two swipes to go to the next page if the page you are leaving is an ad. I would rather not have the ads but having them is the publishers only hope of making money which they need if we want good journalists. The NPR and BBC news apps are pretty good also. The Zinio ipad app is home to a large number of magazines. A few are free. Pricing is reasonable — Popular Mechanics, for example, is $7.99 for tweleve issues. Flipping Zinio pages is smooth and natural. Bottom line is that reading newspapers and magazines on the iPad is a pleasing and natural experience. My friend Jim Kollegger at Genesys Partners says “the iPad will do for publishing what the ATM did for cash”.

Aside from books, magazines, and newspapers there is an infinite amount of material to read on the iPad. Even the uninitiated organizations of the world are distributing their documents in PDF format. Not my long term favorite format but it is far better than receiving a doc file that wants to open some “bloatware” to be read. In cases where I must receive a fax I have it sent to my efax number and it shows up in the gmail inbox as a PDF. When checking out of a hotel I ask the desk to fax a copy of my room bill “to my office, no cover sheet required”. The PDF in my inbox can then be archived or used for reimbursement purposes. For more significant PDF’s that are important for future reference or even a board packet for a meeting I use the GoodReader iPad app to store and read the files. I would prefer that things were synced in the cloud rather than iTunes but the process of moving PDF’s from my ThinkPad to the iPad over the home LAN is easy now that I have done it quite a few times. The storage of the iPad allows nearly unlimited documents for most of us and having the documents “local” is nice for travel plus partaking of the great zoom and pinch features lets you have whatever the optimum view for you may be. This is especially important for charts and graphs.

In preparation for a board meeting this past week, I received the normal FedEx package containing the agenda and board papers. It was 38 pages, and including the binder clip, weighed a half-pound. I emailed the person organizing the meeting and asked for a PDF. After saving the attachment on the ThinkPad and uploading it over the LAN to the GoodReader app on the iPad I was good to go. Both reading the papers in a comfy chair the day before the meeting and following as needed at the conference room table were a welcome approach compared to fumbling with the paper. I reminded some people about the time, cost, and environmental impact of the old approach. In theory the same thing could be done with the iPhone but I have to admit that it is difficult with tabular information and graphs. It has certainly been feasible with the laptop but then you have to worry about battery life and the bulk of the device on the table. The iPad fills the bill really well. Another handy document reading tool on the iPad is the Memeo Connect Reader which syncs your Google Docs folders to the iPad app. This is really nice when you are on an airplane or somewhere that doesn’t have a WiFi signal.

And then there is reading what bloggers have to say and the thousands of news feeds. I am using both NewsRack and Early Edition on the iPad. Both are evolving, listening to feedback and continuously improving their products. You can read patrickWeb, BusinessWeek, The Economist, Engadget or any of the millions of feeds that are out there. You can add new feeds on the iPad or use Google Reader on the desktop and have the feeds automatically sync to your iPad reader. The size and clarity of the iPad makes it quite enjoyable to scan through the feeds and read stories of interest. Another nice iPad app is the Wiki (squared). You enter a word of interest, read the article about it just like an encyclopedia but then follow the links and read to your heart’s content. A real bargain for 99 cents.

How about creating documents? There are more tools to read than there are to write but there are some incredibly sophisticated writing tools available on the iPad. Apple itself features Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. I was skeptical about creating and manipulating a spreadsheet on the iPad but with Apple Numbers and no training I have learned how to do it. It is mostly intuitive. What surprised me is the breadth and depth of the functionality. I have a couple of other favorite iPad tools for writing. First is the CarbonFin Outliner. I have always liked outliners as a way to organize thoughts for a meeting or discussion agenda. You can add bullets and sub-bullets and then move them up or down or promote or demote them in the outline. The Outliner is available on a web site and you can sync your outlines. That enables you to make a change on any computer or on the iPad and everything is synced. This is the beauty of the Cloud and the way all applications should be (and will be). I have been using the Outliner for more than a year with the iPhone and I can highly recommend it. Another nice app is Things. Aside from being way overpriced ($19.99), Things provides a well organized way to capture your to do’s in buckets — Today, Next, Scheduled for a specific date, Someday, and Projects. As things get completed or moved around they show up in the Logbook. I have tried dozens of task list managers over the years and end up using scraps of paper and email as the dominant tools. Maybe Things, with the personal relationship people will have with their  iPad, will make it a winner. I especially like the “Someday” category as a way to capture those things you think of that you want to do but you know you are not going to do anytime soon.

Meanwhile I am still reading The Great Bridge by David McCullough. Among my friends and recent acquaintances it seems I am the only one who has not read this great epic book. Both the political and engineering complexities encountered in the project are mind boggling. Even though I can’t seem to find the time to finish this great book in a timely manner, I am getting used to reading on the iPad.

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Tags: apple, blog, cloud, Gadgets, ipad, magazine, newspaper, publishing