Tech

Hi my name is Jeff and I am an iPadaholic.

Having owned each generation of the iPad on release day one I think that qualifies me as an iPadaholic. Lord save me from the Apple Reality Distortion Field, but not yet to paraphrase St. Augustine.

Regardless this is my review of the new iPad which I now dub for myself the “Novus iPad” since referring to it as the “new iPad” or “iPad (3rd Generation” is annoying to me and coming up with various synonyms for new have some have attempted in iPad reviews is tiring.  I am sure somebody more knowledgeable than myself (pretty much anybody) will correct me if I am using the Latin incorrectly.

First off there are only a couple of important differences between the Novus iPad and the iPad 2, but they are much more important than the differences between the original iPad and the iPad 2.

1. The so called Retina Display. While some will nitpick with this technical definition the display has now double the resolution of the previous display –  2048-by-1536.  For every 1 pixies of the previous iPads the Novus iPad has 4 pixels.  This means over 3 million pixels packed into a  9.7 inch display.  But tech specifications can only say so much.  What does this mean in practical use?  When you first look at the new display you are not immediately going to notice the difference as the previous displays were quite good.  I started comparing the Novus iPad and the iPad 2 side-by-side and then the differences were quite apparent.  The text is finally at a level that is approximate to printed text.  There are no anti-aliasing artifacts or other distortions for the displayed text.  The previous iPads had noticeable antialiasing blurriness that while quite acceptable for reading it was not printed page quality.  Having spent the last couple of days reading on the Novus iPad I am now annoyed by my computer monitors where the text is not as crisped even on very good quality displays.  For a color display this absolutely makes this the best device for reading currently on the market.  At 264 pixels per inch this now surpasses the Kindle excellent eInk display.  But text is not the only improvement.  The color saturation and gamut is noticeably improved as has been confirmed.   This really shows in even casual use of viewing photos.  The annoying thing is that it is very hard to demonstrate how good the screen is since you would need a screen with an equally high resolution to tell the difference.The first apps I tried on on the Novus iPad was the Kindle app and then iBrievary.  The improved text should be taken advantage of by most apps without the app having to be updated.  Though the Kindle app did have to be updated to support the retina display.  iBrievary looked just fine without the app being upgraded.The downside of the new display is that it really shows how most web graphics are crap and very low resolution.

   I would say the new display lives up to the hype and is really that good.

2. LTE support: I did not get an iPad with a cellular modem and went Wi-Fi only this time.  Though from what I read in those areas that do support it the download speeds are similar to broadband internet speeds.    The term 4G hardly means anything these days has it has been so abused by the mobile carriers, but LTE is what people assume 4G to mean.
3. Improved Camera.  This time around instead of the total crap camera in the iPad 2 they used the same camera from the iPhone 4 with the camera optics from the iPhone 4GS.  While it certainly feels clunky to use an iPad as a camera, the large screen as viewfinder is quite nice and it now supports 1080P video.  Combine with the new iPhoto app this is a very nice combination.

There  are plenty of behind the scenes improvements, but most of them are to support the main three I listed.  One thing Apple is know for is not to be driven by specs.  For example they would not use a quad-core mobile processor just to have a tech speck checkoff.  Previous implementations of LTE have been battery killers and one of the remarkable achievements of the Novus iPad is the battery technology.  With only a slightly physically larger battery they manage to increase the battery capacity by 70%.  To be able to drive both the resolution of the new display and LTE they needed this increased capacity to be able to still have the same roughly ten hour battery life.  They waited for the technology to develop instead of sacrificing battery life.

The CPU used is quite similar to the one used in the iPhone and iPad except it now has a quad-core graphics processor (GPU) to drive the new display.  While Apple claimed the GPU was 4x faster than Nvidia’s Tegra 3.  Real world tests show this to be an exaggeration, but also that it is noticeably faster than the Nvidia’s Tegra 3.  There was a major speed improvement between the original iPad and the iPad 2 with apps loading faster and web pages rendering much quicker.  The differences between this on the iPad 2 and the Novus iPad are very minor and close to equivalent.  Not surprising considering they are using the same basic chip.  The new quad-core GPU is mostly there to drive the new display and to provide a quite excellent level of performance for gaming.  I’ve tried a couple of the games which take advantage of the Novus iPad such as Air Supremacy and this is gaming taken to the next level considering the display.

The Novus iPad also gets much warmer than its predecessors .  The first two iPads had little noticeable warming.  Considering the new processor and that they have doubled the amount of backlit led lighting this is to be expected. While certainly warmer, it is not uncomfortably so and certainly not how hot some laptops can get.

The iPad has certainly became a daily part of my life as I have integrated into both work and home.  Reading is the prime use from novels to news, Liturgy of the Hours, consuming various podcasts,  note taking, audiobooks, and some causal gaming.  One thing I found about ereaders in general is that I am actually reading the things I had previously put off.  I had downloaded lots of Church documents, but hardly read through many of them via my regular computer.  Long term reading on a computer monitor sitting at a desk is not that comfortable.  Since I got my first iPad I have created many ebooks from Church documents and have read through more and more of them highlighting as I go, especially in the last six months.

This time around I went with the basic 16GB version.  First time I had the 64GB, then the 32GB.  A couple of things have changed for me in the way I use my iPad.  I use to want to be able to have all my music on my iPad.  Now with iTunes sharing I can just play from my iTunes library on my main computer when at home or if I needed to I could download and play any track when away via iCloud.  Plus I also use Spotify and that is just one more reason I did not have to load any music on my iPad now.  Apps can certain take up space and this is true of some of the more heavy duty games.  Though I also don’t keep all my apps on the iPad now.  I just keep the ones I most use and once a game has been played through I just archive it.  Right now I have 1.3 GB of books on my iPad which is roughly some 500+ titles.  I really don’t need to have more than my current reads on there – but I do so love having my whole ebook library with me. Though I need to ween myself off this attachment and will probably move to just books currently being read – at least for books with no highlighting.

I am very happy with the Novus iPad and I plan to skip the next generation regardless of the geek enticements.

My thoughts on the Kindle 2 over at my tech blog.

Have have started a new tech blog on the temptation of tech called Techtemptions. The name is a play on how technology is often a temptation. The temptation to always have the latest cool tool, the fastest computer, video card, etc. Oh Lord take away my tech temptations, but not yet.

Frankly being a geek and user of technology I wanted a place to write about tech that normally wouldn’t go with the Curt Jester blog. Besides the internet needs more opinions on stuff and I am doing my part. Besides the plethora of Catholic podcasts I listen to I also listen to a number of tech podcasts and the blog is the perfect place to weigh in.

Plus I wanted to play around with WordPress. For more than six years I have been using Movable Type as the publishing platform for this blog. So far I am pretty impressed with WordPress.

I have finished updating the format of The Curt Jester

It had been over three years since I last updated the version of Movable Type which is the publishing system I use to maintain this blog. In the meantime since my last update Movable Type has gone open source and through many changes and real improvements.

I started fresh with the blog templates and did a lot of modifications to give me both a feel for my old layout and updating the style of it at the same time. I don’t know how non-geeks update blog templates because it can be challenging for someone such as myself who makes his living coding. Though I certainly appreciate the power of Movable Types layout and I have really separated parts of the blog into separate widgets to make it much easier to maintain, such as my blogroll for example.

Since I had been using Movable Type for over five years there were aspects of it that were rather dated. For example the main feed use to be in the older RDF format. I know have Atom and RSS feeds that show the whole post, those with the older one will need to subscribe to the new ones. Another change is that the blog is now published dynamically instead of creating static web pages. After close to six years of blogging I was eating a lot of server space with various archives. My blog host was kind enough to up the limit each time I ran out of room, but it is better just to serve web pages dynamically. The links to blog posts have changed also. Before they were just a number like 9687.html. Now they use the post title in the url. So old links to individual posts no longer work. Annoying, but an needed change I should have done a long time ago.

One thing that is really annoying is those of you reading my blog through just a blog aggregator. I spent countless hours in the dungeons of CSS code programming only for you to view my blog in an aggregator with no formatting. But then again I read blogs through just an aggregator so hardly see the efforts of people when they have redesigned their blog, unless I go to their site to comment. In fact I have become an RSS bigot. If some internet blog or news site doesn’t have a feed I pretty much never visit it again.

Anyway I hope you like the new format and if you are reading this via an aggregator, never mind.

I am in the middle of updating my blog as you can tell by the default design now displayed. It has been a long time since I updated Movable Type and decided to just start over instead of modifying old templates to incorporate new code. So the layout of this blog will be a work in progress over the next week.

I will also be implementing a new commenting system that has digg like features in allowing you to vote for comments and have much more control of your comments along with being able to view all comments made. I will be using Disqus just as soon as they allow me to import the 35,000 plus comments made on this blog which will be sometime next month.

I am going to revise some of my snarky
Amazon Kindle review since part of it
is in error.

It turns out that you can put your own content on it for free. You can either
email a document and have the converted documented emailed back to you or you
can download Mobi Converter (which might be Windows only) to do this yourself.
After converted you can use a USB cable to put it on the device. If you want
content
wirelessly
to
the
Kindle
than a $.10 fee is charged.

Also it turns out that the Kindle does have a web browser on it so that you
could use an aggregator such as Google Reader or Bloglines to read any content
that you want without being charged a blog or newspaper description fee. This
feature is actually quite interesting since the Kindle uses the Sprint EVDO
network and this service is free with the Kindle. So this is quite interesting
and maybe its best feature and one which Amazon is not advertising – probably
since it costs them money instead of generating it for them. So the price of
the Kindle could be more than compensated by those who would use it primarily
as a internet text reader with free internet access. One caveat though is that
this web browser is on the Experimental menu and so there is question as to
whether Amazon could simply yank this feature at a latter date.

Though they do have some things still to fix in regards to Kindle books they
sell such as the fact some of them cost more than the Hardcover version of
the same book.

For some the Kindle even as a first generation device might
be worthwhile just as an internet device (though the e-ink technology is
not color). For
me though I can buy a lot of books for the price of a Kindle and am still waiting
for a text reading device that would entice me.

As someone who loves music and who
listens to a lot of secular music besides some Classical and Gregorian
Chant I have watched closely over the years music available over the
Internet.  My pirating days of music are long gone and the
initial arrival of Napster occurred after my initial conversion so I
have never illegally downloaded any music – though I use to have a
large collection of cassettes that I duplicated from other people while
on cruises.  I threw out all of my duplicated tapes after my
conversion and my current music collection contains music either in the
form of CD’s I have bought or music I have bough on line.  I
mention this just to say that in theory and in practice I am against
stealing music.

That being said I really hate DRM
(Digital Rights Management) in music where the main purpose seems to be
to punish the user who has bought the music or other media. For example
I have bought a good amount of music from iTunes that I can’t play at
work.  Where I work the IS department blocks iTunes so any
music I place on my work computer that has DRM can’t play.  
If I plug my iPod into my work computer and try to play songs purchased
from iTunes it won’t play if it has DRM.

Now I know I can buy the CDs myself and
then rip them and have it totally DRM free and bypass this, but I
really like both the pricing and instant availability of online music
stores.   Though I got burned by Sony when they installed a
root kit on my PC when I listened to a Our Lady Peace CD, so even some
CDs have some insidious forms of DRM.

 I ended up using the analog
hole where you rip music you bought to CD and then rip that CD back to
iTunes without and  DRM.  The problem is of course
that you loose some music fidelity in this conversion.  Though
I am old enough and lived too long on an Aircraft Carriers for my ears
to know the difference.

A lot of music I listen to is just not
available at local stores and I would prefer not to have to
buy the CDs online first.  I use to be a subscriber to emusic
back when they let you download all you want of MP3s with no DRM.
 The main problem with emusic was is that there were limited
record labels that would allow their music to be provided in non-DRM
format so this limited their catalog.  So I was pretty happy
to hear that iTunes would start to sell DRM-free music at double the
bit rate of normal iTunes purchases, though they increased the price on
these offerings.  I subsequently downloaded several albums
from what Apple calls iTunes plus and found that the music encoded at
256 kbps was significantly better and even I could tell the difference.
 After that I determined that I would no longer buy any music
with DRM or was encoded at only 128 kbps.

Luckily this pledge is going to be
easier to keep than in years past.  Both Amazon and Walmart
have entered the marketplace with DRM-free MP3s encoded at 256 kbps at
a price point around $.89 cents a song and around $8.99 an album.
 I am pretty album-centric so hardly ever buy individual songs
in the first place.  This has prompted iTunes to lower their
prices on their DRM-free music from $1.29 per song to $.99 per song.
 As a platform I prefer iTunes for ease of use.
 Bought I have now bought songs from both Walmart and Amazon.
 Walmart has a long way to go in the ease of use category, but
Amazon while not being as good as iTunes is good enough and I have
found music on Amazon/Walmart that is DRM-free while the same album on
iTunes has DRM.

When iTunes first started their iTunes
Plus they offered to allow you to re-download music you had bought in
the past that is now DRM-free.  Though of course they were
charging the difference between the price you paid and the price of the
music now which was usually under $3.00.  What annoys me now
is that after Apple reduced their individual iTunes Plus song prices to
be competitive with Amazon they didn’t decrease their price if you
bought the whole album.  I can’t think of any good reason to
do this from a competitive structure other than to prevent being
allowed to get the DRM free music you had bought previously without any
charge.  When the iPhone price dropped so dramatically within
two months of it’s release they offered a $100 dollar rebate. I just
wish they would do something similar for those who paid a premium price
before the dropped their price and that they drop the price of the
whole albums in iTunes plus to be competitive with Amazon/Walmart.
 Though maybe that is just me whining since as a company they
can set prices as they please – I just find their new pricing structure
to be inconsistent.

On the whole I would rather buy
DRM-free songs from iTunes than from other outlets because of both ease
of use and the fact that the AAC format is superior to the MP3 format.
 But when it comes to an album that has not DRM at amazon and
the same one having DRM on iTunes then Amazon will win out every time
for me.  The good news is that more and more music is being
offered DRM free and in the long run I think will only help their sales.

People who steal and then share music
will continue to do so DRM or not.  There are already hacks
out there to remove the DRM from both protected WMAs and protected
AACs.  Like with all DRM schemes it only hurts the customer
and not who they are directed at. Maybe one day they will learn this.