Apple

Bluetooth Keyboard and iOS

I have written many times about how traveling has become a much lighter affair since I acquired an iPad a year ago. Now I travel with the 1.33lb device and Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard, for a total weight of something less than 2lbs. Most of the time I simply use the on screen iOS keyboard on the iPad, but when I have time in the hotel room to do some more serious typing I break out the keyboard and it works like a dream. Well, like a dream in the sense that some things work very well and others aren’t quite like you might expect them to be.

Some of the things that work so well are the special keys: brightness, volume, iPod player control (play/pause, forward, back), and the eject button reveals/hides the onscreen keyboard. Basic key commands work, like copy and paste and the tab key takes you between input fields. But there is definitely room for improvement. There are a number of things that I think should “just work” but are AWOL.¹

• CMD-Tab – This should switch between apps, just as in the MacOS.
• Arrow keys to select menu items – Once you starting typing into, say, the Google search field or an email address field you have to touch the screen to select the option you want. I should be able to use the arrow keys to select it.
• Mail – The basic Mail key commands should be supported: Reply, Reply All, Delete, etc.

I am sure I will think of some more, especially app specific commands (the Photos app could benefit from delete, for example). Do you have any to add?

BTW these are also reasons why a touch screen iMac, for example, wouldn’t work yet. Too often you would have to go up to the screen to perform an action. [↩]

Sente Review: Bibliographic software for the Mac & iPad

Jan 14th, 2011

by Christian Brady.

22 comments

I am getting (finally) deeper into my research project on Targum Ruth and needing to organize my bibliography and research PDFs. Now while you all know that I am no luddite I will tell you that database software and bibliographic software in particular is my kryptonite. My brain simply locks up when I try and understand how they work and what is going on. Fortunately I have a very patient and hard-working grad assistant who has helped me through this process.

My PSU colleague Chris Long has written about his “Evolving Digital Research Ecosystem” and has long encourage me to consider Zotero and Mendeley. However, see above. Mendeley in particular strikes me as overwrought. Both, however have the benefit of being free. Clearly what I needed to do was to prioritize my needs and consider the options. Like Chris I wanted to close the circle on my digital research process (see my earlier post regarding using the iPad for research) and I think I have found the solution, albeit not a free one.

Criteria for a solution:

Available on both Mac and iPad
Store both bibliographic information and associated files (images, PDFs, etc.)
Allow annotation of PDFs
Synchronize between Mac and iPad
Integrate with Nisus Writer Pro, my word processor of choice

(more…)

Accordance for iOS is out NOW

Dec 31st, 2010

by Christian Brady.

3 comments

In yesterday’s post I commented that it was coming soon, well by evening it was released and available in the App store. Accordance for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad is now available for FREE. I only saw it at 11:30 pm so I have had little time to play with it but I have very good first impressions. Best of all, if you log in with your account you can use their “Easy Install” feature to directly download all the modules that you have already purchased. It also comes with a nice set of preinstalled texts (including a demo version of BHS which unfortunately you cannot delete once you have installed a purchased copy) so you can get up and running right away. There are more details on their site.

So far just a few niggles. When you go to easy install it took me a few tries for it to load the complete listing of my available modules. Unfortunately that included Atlas files which cannot be installed on the iOS device. Every text has the book and verse reference on every line. You can turn that off in the desktop app but I cannot find the option to do that in the iOS app. You can only open two texts at once, not really a complaint, even on the iPad you cannot really see more than that usefully, but I could not close the Bible text pane in order to open just the Hebrew and English Mishnah texts.

And all of those comments should be seen as minor. This is an incredibly welcome app to the iOS and further moves it to my only device on the road. I will post a more complete review next week, in the meantime, it is FREE so download it now!

Apps for your new iPad (or iOS device)

Dec 30th, 2010

by Christian Brady.

1 comment

UPDATE: In case you are coming directly to this link be sure to also see my post on Sente bibliographic software for Mac and iPad and further updates on using the iPad for research.

If you are like several of my friends you may have just gotten an iPad or other iOS device for Christmas. One of the failings of Apple’s app store is that it can be very difficult to find good apps, there are just so many and it is not terribly well organized. So in a sort of “best of” post that is always the rage at the end of a year, I thought I would remind folks of some of my posts on using the iPad and the apps that I have found most useful and fun. In another post I will point out a few accessories that I have found most useful in my portable life.

In October I wrote about Using the iPad – Research, meetings, and fun. I still stand by all those apps, Dropbox, Evernote, and Office² HD. The only caveat is that while the office app is getting better, I would like to find something not quite so quirky for opening/editing/saving Word docs to/from my Dropbox account. So please let me know if you have better solutions (I am loathe to spend $17 for Documents to Go just to try it out, another failing of the App Store, even the Droid store 15 minute demo would help). For reading and annotating PDFs I still love iAnnotatePDF. It has a slightly busy interface but it now allows you to download and upload from and to your DropBox account. Links to all those apps and more can be found in the previous post.

In terms of Bible apps, OliveTree’s BibleReader is still excellent and improving. The big news at SBL was Accordance’s announcement of their iOS app. It was due before Christmas but still has not arrived. I am sure it is coming soon and what makes it so powerful is that you will be able to take all of your Accordance modules with you on your iOS device. Holy pig! That is massive.
UPDATE: How is that for timing? AccordanceBible for iOS devices has just been released! Search the app store for the free download.

Games! One of the categories I don’t believe I have ever blogged about is games because I had not played many. Well lately I have acquired a few that are well worth playing. Do note that often times the iPad version is several dollars more than the iPhone version yet the iPhone version of many (such as Plants v. Zombies and Angry Birds) scale up beautifully and work on both devices. A few I recommend in addition to the two just mentioned: Pictureka HD (great for the kids too), Cut the Rope, Trivial Pursuit, Risk, Scrabble, and Need For Speed Shift.

I don’t want to leave you with the wrong impression, however. The iPad has been a tremendous boon for my work. There are those who predicted that the iPad would only be for content consumption and not creation. While it is true that being able to “consume” all those academic articles (and annotate them) on my iPad has increased my productivity, it has been the greatest use to me as a portable note taking device. Between Office² HD and Evernote I have been able to not only record my thoughts of speakers and meetings, but also write articles, reports, and create presentations. True, if I have some heavy writing to do I prefer having a bluetooth keyboard and a larger screen for really significant work, still the iPad has replaced my 15″ MacBook Pro.