While I'm figuring out the home wifi connection issue, I'm downloading (uploading?) apps when I'm on a strong WiFi network. Interacting with the iPad's the way to move forward. iPhone apps will work on the iPad, but it's goofy -- just a little iPhone app in the middle of the larger iPad screen.
Step 1: Delete the iPhone apps that got loaded on to the iPad when I synched through iTunes. Resolve to (try to) not synch through desktop-iTunes anymore.
Result : (a) I've got about one screen full of iPhone apps that I'm going to keep around to see if I use them on the iPad. (b) I've got a screen (not full) of what I'm considering either reference or 'reserve' iPad apps: these are things like Settings, Contacts, iTunes, App Store, Maps, as well as Epicurious and Adobe Ideas and Connect (apps I haven't used yet so don't know if I'll keep them or if they'll be useful enough to move to page one). and (c) Padma's Home Screen (first one) has 20 apps that I think I'll tend to use most frequently: calendar, notes, NYT Editor's Choice, This Day, BBC News, Weather Channel, NPR, YouTube, MaxJournal, Words HD, Virtuouso, Bible, Dictionary, USA Today, Netflix, ABC Player, iMajJohng, IBooks, TweetDeck, and Brushes.
The bottom row of the screens all hold Safari, Mail, Photos, and iPod.
Step 2: Add apps. (See list above for the first round.) Reaction/quick review of apps will be posted in the comments on this post.
BIG FAIL: OK, to my mind, there's a big obvious gap here. Did you notice it? No Facebook app for iPad. I can get TweetDeck and access Twitter, but not Facebook. WTF? Colleges are making iPads the default technology for their students and Apple doesn't have a Facebook app? Is that an Apple fail or a Facebook fail?
Step 3: Add books. (See comments on this post for more on that.)
Step 4: Play.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Adding books: I downloaded the Kindle app, so can get books via iBooks and Kindle.
ReplyDelete1. iBooks' very inviting shelves come with a free Winnie the Pooh book. I've added Middlemarch (Eliot) and a sample of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (Hertzberg & Francois). Visually, Pooh is the winner: no surprise. The recipe book is also visually attractive and easy to read. Middlemarch is what it is: just as with a standard hardcopy version, it's a lot of words per page with no attention to white space as a design feature. That's fine. I want to get lost in a novel, not in design.
2. Kindle lets you shop at Amazon, where I have an account. So getting a free book there was easy. I haven't read it yet -- looks like a mystery/thriller that will be fun.
The process -- as with iBooks -- was easy/intuitive. You have to know your Amazon login/password -- not a big deal.
So then I wanted to subscribe to the New Yorker via Kindle/Amazon. I hit the 'one click' shopping button, and while nothing happened, I assumed the 'nothing' was the same as the 'nothing' that happened when I bought the mystery. But The New Yorker doesn't show up. Hmm.
So I check the Amazon Kindle settings (in Amazon), and it looks as though there's a maximum personal document charge automatically put in there ($2.50) and the subscription is $2.99. So maybe that's it. I increase the maximum allowable automatic charge and try again.
Still nothing. Is that because this is an iPad and not a Kindle?
How do you know what you can buy through Amazon Kindle that will work on the iPad? Trial and error? Am I missing something?
Favorite iPad apps so far:
ReplyDelete1. Virtuouso HD. This is a piano keyboard. I haven't spent enough time to be able to play it, but I'm entranced by the capability and keep turning it on and randomly tapping keys.
2. Brushes. This is a 'painting' app that I use on the iPhone. Here there's more space to paint and the images are very pretty on the iPad's lit-from-within screen.
3. iMahjong. Actually, this is the iPad app I've used the most so far. It's just a mahjong game. I turn on music from the iPad's iPod and play mahjong and it's very calming! (Not #1 on my list here because there is a truly annoying ad thing that pops up when you first start the game -- ugh.)
When/if I get the iPad working on the wifi from home, I might have new favorite apps. But for right now, several of the apps that I am most intrigued by require a connection, and I don't have it.