Stuff you can do with your iPad

Increasingly, people are using iPads for creating content, as well as reading and viewing content. While the iPad digital keyboard is nifty (especially if you know these clever typing shortcuts) a stylus, or keyboard, or keyboard-and-stand combination can all make writing, editing, and creating on the iPad much easier. Dan Frakes has a thorough review of iPad keyboards in his Macworld Buying Guide: iPad keyboards. Frakes also favors Adonit’s Writer folio case and Bluetooth keyboard, the one I wrote about here and have been using quite happily (though I’m still planning to pick up Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard to use with my iPad and with an iMac).

For non-keyboard cases, this Macworld Buying Guide: iPad Cases seems to be the most thorough and helpful collection of reviews. I might as well confess that Apple’s red leather smart case for the iPad 2 (or possibly the navy blue leather one) are awfully tempting—though not quite enough to tempt me into buying an actual iPad 2. Instead, I bought a padded neoprene slip cover case that neatly fits in the padded laptop compartment of my backpack. That said, I’ve been eyeing the design-your-own cases and protective hard shell covers from Zazzle and Cafe Press.

My current obsession, personally, is with the utility of using a stylus to write and draw on the iPad. I’m about to post a review of the Griffin GC16040 Stylus for iPad/iPhone and Other Touchscreens. I’ve been fascinated to see how well it works, and yes, the Griffin Stylus really is an asset. I note that once again the Macworld Buying Guide: iPad Styluses seems to provide the best coverage.
At the high end, they like the Wacom Bamboo (and it’s available in multiple colors) at around $25.00. I’ve heard good things about Wacom’s Bamboo Stylus from others too. I note that a lot of my friends are buying the BoxWave Capacitive Stylus; like the Griffin Stylus, it’s about ten dollars, but the Boxwave comes in colors, and people seem to be buying two or three at a time.

Michael Cohen has written a helpful review of Snapseed at TidBITS complete with simple explanations about using Snapseed on an iPad to edit and digitally enhance or modify photos. Snapseed from Nik Software is a $4.99 app for iOS. It’s one of Apple’s iPad Apps of the year, and well worth checking out.

Stanza, the free ereader for iOS was broken, quite badly, by the iOS 5 update. Since Lexicycle was purchased by Amazon, Stanza had remained moribound (the previous update to Stanza for iOS was nine months ago). But today Amazon released an update for iOS 5, and it does seem to be working.

You can read about the likely EOL of Stanza for iOS via Macworld.

It’s a shame; Stanza is really quite an elegant reader.

Via Librarian by Day Bobbi Newman (who tweets as @librarianbyday):

It is pretty easy to “extend” the due date of the library ebook you check out to your kindle, just turn your wireless connection off until you’re done with it. This will allow you to keep reading the book until you’re done. The title won’t expire until you reactivate your wireless connection.

Ms Newman notes that the “buy this book” note from Amazon that arrives three days before the book is due is a useful reminder to shut off your connection until you’ve read the book.

This is more practical for readers using the Kindle reader, or using the Kindle app on an iPad or iPhone to read a library book, of course, but still awfully useful.

I like Apple’s $29.99 iPad Camera Connection Kit. It turns your iPad into a convenient place to sort and store photos from a digital camera. For example, suppose you are on vacation. You can offload each day’s “keepers” from your camera to your iPad and clear up room on the camera’s memory card for the next day. Later, when you get home, you can connect your iPad to your computer and import the keepers that you saved into your preferred photo app, such as iPhoto.

It’s three simple steps:

1. Take pictures with your digital camera.
2. Transfer keepers to iPad.
3. Copy pictures from iPad to computer.

Now, though, iCloud’s Photo Stream makes the Camera Kit even more convenient. With iCloud, as soon as you transfer your photos to your iPad, they go right into your Photo Stream. From there they are sent automatically to iCloud’s servers when your iPad has an Internet connection and, from there, they automatically download to your computer.

It’s two simple steps:

1. Take pictures with your digital camera.
2. Transfer keepers to Photo Stream via iPad.

There is no Step 3.

I’ve written a short article on Peachpit’s site on “iPad Tips for the College Student.”

I suggest several useful and time-saving iPad apps for students. None of the iPad apps I’m discussing cost more than $10.00; most are under $5.00 and quite a few are free.

Read the rest of “iPad Tips for the College Student.”

Amazon and OverDrive have begun rolling out a joint service that provides Kindle books to public library patrons. The service is integrated into the OverDrive-managed interface that over 11,000 community libraries already use to present a library’s ebook, PDF, and audiobook holdings to their patrons; when patrons browse a library’s digital collection, Kindle books now appear as one of the available download options. (This is not to say that every book has a Kindle version, of course: which books are available in which formats depends on the library’s contract with OverDrive.)

To check out Kindle library books, library users need an account at a public library that provides the OverDrive ebook service. On an iPad, a user goes to the library’s ebook Web site in Safari (in my case, for example, I go to the Santa Monica Public Library’s page at ebook.smpl.org). The browsing and checkout process is similar to that described in our 99¢ ebook, Borrow library ebooks on your iPad, until the user actually gets to the book download page. Then, instead of clicking the Download button that appears for EPUB books, one clicks a Get for Kindle button. This opens the Amazon site in Safari, and, once the user signs in, the site presents the same interface shown when a Kindle book is purchased: the user chooses the Kindle, or other Kindle-compatible device, to which the book is sent.

To return a book to the library, or to download it to additional Kindle devices or apps, one uses the Manage My Kindle page on Amazon’s site. The available management options for public library books includes a return option in addition to the other options.

Given the well-known drawbacks of the OverDrive Media Console EPUB reader, the addition of Kindle books to a public library’s ebook holdings means that iPad users can now use the much friendlier free iPad Kindle app instead.

It’s my turn to be a guest blogger at Peachpit. I’m doing “5 Tips in 5 Days,” about the iPad.

Five iPad 2 Tips in Five Days: Tip 1 – Consolidate Your Apps into Folders

Five iPad 2 Tips in Five Days: Tip 2 – Stream Your Music and Other Audio with AirPlay

Five iPad 2 Tips in Five Days: Tip 3 – Set up an iPad without a Credit Card

Five iPad 2 Tips in Five Days: Tip 4 – Get ePub Books on Your iPad without Using iTunes

Five iPad 2 Tips in Five Days: Tip 5 – iPad Keyboard Tips Your Mother Never Taught You

Screen shot from iTunes taken at 2:23 pm today; three of the books my colleagues Michael E. Cohen and Dennis Cohen wrote are in the iBooks Top Computers and Internet Paid Books.

Thanks people who bought our books; thanks Peachpit for being a great publisher. I’ll be sending out review copies this week; thanks to Peachpit for those, too.

I finally received my Adonit Writer I. The Adonit Writer I is a Bluetooth keyboard and cover combination. So far, I quite like it. I note that the keyboard, while it has a nice response, is very small and won’t work well for some users without a lot of practice. I’m accustomed to using laptop keyboards, and was fairly comfortable after about ten minutes.

I do notice that I need to be very careful about bumping the screen lock key when reaching for the Delete key. Oddly, some of the iPad’s keyboard shortcuts, like pressing the spacebar twice for a period and trailing space don’t work.

But The Adonit Writer makes things like blogging much easier than using the digital on-screen iPad keyboard. I’ll likely keep trying other keyboards as well, but I was primarily looking for something to use while away from home, and the Adonit Writer I does look like it will serve that purpose quite well. I’m still thinking about an Apple Bluetooth keyboard for home use as an alternative to my laptop, in case of emergency.

Adonit makes the Adonit Writer for iPad 1 for first generation iPads, and Adonit the Adonit Writer 2 for iPad 2 for second generation iPads. Both are available from Amazon.

Adonit Writer for iPad 1

Writer 2 for iPad 2