Tag Archives: ipad

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Last night I couldn’t sleep very well and I had this idea about a series of pages/articles I want to write. But I was already in bed… So I pulled out my iPad keyboard and thought I’d start making some things on the iPad until I fell asleep.

A bunch of people I know or read stuff from have said that the iPad has replaced their laptop for keeping their blog up to date and do everything related on there, too.

I was less successful, the Endless bickering to get WordPress text editing to work properly on Mobile safari was off-putting to say the least. The experience is far far far from optimal and fun. As it just doesn’t work right. Half the time my cursor would get stuck in tinyMCE (The text editor WordPress uses). The other half of the time the keyboard I use had me mistype words because the keys are slightly smaller than on a regular keyboard. And then I wanted to insert an image…

I needed a screenshot. Easy enough. Made one. Then set out to crop a selection of that image and draw a circle on it. I’ve tried iPhoto, Photoshop Express, I bought Photoshop Touch, Penultimate and some other tools. None did it right, eventually I managed to draw a wobbly circle with Photoshop Touch. But that image wasn’t saved to my Photoroll or something. The final image which showed the preview of the edited image uploaded the original. Fail!

So after about an hour of that, I gave up. It’s not for me.

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Currently, as many of you know, I develop a bunch of plugins. Among which is the popular AdRotate plugin. A thing I’ve always found hard was to keep a list of things I wanted to do with my products.

The situation -

I’d have a list of items, somewhere. Or two. A somewhat vague list of requests (feature request forum). Some stuff floating around in my head. And overall it is a bit clumsy and messy. Often I’d have this great idea or improvement only to find out I already coded it weeks before. Or I would forget about things completely.

Hmm, not very professional.

What to do? 

I’ve been searching for a task planning app, task managing app, considered creating my own. Being more strict with things and make a elaborate excel sheet. But…

All apps suck. Cost way too much money. Are otherwise not cool. Excel is too slow and unwieldy. And writing my own thing just takes too much time.

What I need…

It’s as simple as it is smart – What I need is a nifty small, point and click, idiot proof app. Sort of like a shopping list manager. I add something to a list. Perhaps assign it to a milestone and it should have a small description field and a checkbox so I can check off items that are finished. But finished items shouldn’t be moved to a obscure archive. They must remain in the list or a easily accessible category of sorts. Not vanish! Ideally it would come with companion app that syncs things over to my iPhone/iPad over wifi. Not via iCloud or any other “useful” sync service, just Wifi.

Sounds simple yea? Well it is. And it’s so blindingly obvious (To me at least  that this is what a great task manager should be that I’m astounded that such an app simply doesn’t seem to exist.

Yes there are hundreds of apps, services, and other stuff that can do all this. But they either come with a annual fee. Demand that I store my ideas and concepts on their servers. Or they require some dumb Dropbox integration or they simply do not work as advertised. A lot of these apps are focused on buying groceries or push me in a direction I don’t wanna go into. Forcing me to tag items or categorise them or set a target date with alerts and all that bullshit.

I don’t want any of that.

Tips/ideas welcome ;) Thanks!

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Do I still like it? Sure! Still useful? Not so much. But then, it never really was. I have an iPad after all.

What I use the Nexus 7 for

This is very much a matter of opinion. I’ve made it my new media player. Simple as that. The iPad, as I’ve always thought. Is a bit unwieldy. It’s rather large. Heavy even. And in comparison. The edges are rather sharp.

The Nexus is small and feels lighter. Perfect for bed-side movies and a few extra things on the side. I bought the Plex app and hooked it up to my Plex Server. And thats 90% of where I use the Nexus for. The other 10% are divided between the endless slur of Youtube and some browsing from time to time.

But what else?

Of course the Nexus is capable of so much more. But I’ve discovered that most apps I would want on the Nexus either I already have for the iPad or they’re cheap clones of things better bought on iOS.

I’ve tried some games. But somehow when I think of a mobile game I always reach out for the iPad or even iPhone. Not that I’m much of a gamer anyway. Same for more serious stuff. I have a slew of tools and diagnostic apps I sometimes use to manage servers. Or figure out networking setups. But I have them all on the iPad already. I did look for some to get on Android. But either they suck, look ugly or simply don’t suffice. So I’ll stick to the iPad for that.

I did get a Wifi scanner/widget thingy though. To more easy find and connect wifi networks. But that’s more a convenience thing.

Aside from the almost “default” social apps such as Yahoo Messenger, Linkedin and Facebook. I have nothing on the Nexus. Some bookmarks to sites I have or need easy access to. But also this is a convenience thing I rarely use, and only if I’m too lazy to grab my iPad.

Syncing your data?

If it’s not on a Google service, it’s a hassle. There is no decent Email app. Caldav support is wonky and only possible with weird plugins that do not work well. It’s just not great. And after a while I just gave up and demoted the Nexus to media only.

Since Google doesn’t believe in a proper tool to sync data and files I’m almost forced to use the Nexus autonomously. I have Android File Sync… But that’s so primitive and cumbersome. A slew of non-descript folders to put stuff in. Bleh.

I threw on some music. But since it didn’t sync with iTunes that took me a while to select songs, export from iTunes and then copy them to the Nexus.

I sometimes want new backgrounds. Downloading them on the device is not always forthcoming due to the website using Javascript or silly gimmicks. But syncing them via a wire is tedious, too.

User friendliness was clearly not on the developers agenda here. Or perhaps I’m just spoiled with things like iTunes.

Movies, movies, movies.

Since the screen is 1280×800 or something it plays 720p movies quite nicely. Combined with a proper set of headphones (I have some Sony in-ear set that works very well) it’s quite the media beast.

As I’ve mentioned before, I bought Plex. I also have Plex on the iPad and iPhone. So I can watch whatever, whenever. But I prefer to do this on the Nexus. Because it’s small and easily handled.

Movies on the toilet, in bed, in the kitchen. Where I have wifi I can watch movies on a lightweight small device. The iPad (and even the iPhone) is less comfortable for this I think.

And lastly

People seem to think that if an Android is not rooted it’s not a real device. I don’t care. I don’t want to root my Nexus. I don’t need root access to customize every pixel and icon and every mechanic of Android. AlsoI don’t want it more awesome by overclocking the CPU or whatever. And I certainly do not need wonky cracked software. If I like an app, I’ll buy it.

I did, however, install NovaLauncher. This replaces the default springboard and app launcher with one that offers some customization. And it’s mostly, or solely, visual effects. Rotating icon pages instead of a slider. Gestures. And a bunch of other things to make it a bit more pretty and add some ease of use into app management. Also NovaLauncher allows you to hide apps. So I’ve hidden almost all of the stock apps since I don’t use them anyway.

If you have a Nexus 7 – What do you use your Nexus for?