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The Apple iPad | The Official Thread

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Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
kitchenmotors said:
What's the best iPad case? I'm most likely going to get a 32GB Wifi iPad next weekend and I want to get a book style case. I'm interested in the Incase Book Jacket and the Official Apple case, but open to other options. I love the Twelve South cases, but it's a bit too bulky.

What is everyone rockin' on their iPad?

The official apple case is really good. It's great for propping up the iPad for typing, it's low profile in design, it doesn't weigh much at all, it's not too hard to take the iPad out of but it'd never slide out accidentally, it's got great grip, and while the price is ridiculous, it's less ridiculous than most cases. Enthusiastic A++++ WOULD BUY AGAIN
 
Two things bother me with the official iPad case. It's got that outer seam around the edges that dig into your hand after awhile and the iPad cannot be placed in the keyboard dock with it on. I usually am without the case now because of the latter.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
VGChampion said:
Two things bother me with the official iPad case. It's got that outer seam around the edges that dig into your hand after awhile and the iPad cannot be placed in the keyboard dock with it on. I usually am without the case now because of the latter.
Standalone Bluetooth kb plus landscape stand >>>>> dock kb.
 

LCfiner

Member
I use the macally bookstand case. it’s the lightest and least “there” of all the folio style cases that provide typing and video stand support.

if you want more protection, get the apple case, but if you want something lighter that lets you feel the ipad’s standard bezel, get the macally one.
 

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
LCfiner said:
I use the macally bookstand case. it’s the lightest and least “there” of all the folio style cases that provide typing and video stand support.

if you want more protection, get the apple case, but if you want something lighter that lets you feel the ipad’s standard bezel, get the macally one.
I saw one at my local MicroCenter and I was kind of put off by the colors (I know they offer black on the website/online) and the build quality. The case kinda felt cheaply made...even though it looked very professional...if that makes any sense.

Still snug inside the Apple case proper at the moment till I get the itch for a switch.
 

mAcOdIn

Member
kitchenmotors said:
What's the best iPad case? I'm most likely going to get a 32GB Wifi iPad next weekend and I want to get a book style case. I'm interested in the Incase Book Jacket and the Official Apple case, but open to other options. I love the Twelve South cases, but it's a bit too bulky.

What is everyone rockin' on their iPad?
I have the Marware Eco-Vue since about a month after it launched and I have no problems with it. It's not as stylish as some of the other options but build wise it looks the same as the day I bought it. I never used any other case so I can't really compare it to anything to make a truly solid recommendation but that also means that it did it's purpose well enough that I stopped looking as well, so I guess that's something.

Yikes, their MSRP for it seems to have gone up, I don't think it's worth over 50 bucks.....
 

LCfiner

Member
RubxQub said:
I saw one at my local MicroCenter and I was kind of put off by the colors (I know they offer black on the website/online) and the build quality. The case kinda felt cheaply made...even though it looked very professional...if that makes any sense.

Still snug inside the Apple case proper at the moment till I get the itch for a switch.


Oh, I know exactly what you mean. it doesn’t feel solid at all. but since I want something light, I’m OK with that. it’s not a very protective case — just a functional one for the front cover and standing positions.

I have had mine for several months now and it hasn’t fallen apart or anything. it’s not so poorly made that it’s going to disintegrate but it gives that impression when you take it out of the box, sadly.

it’s a weird case to recommend.
 
Some great recommendations. Gonna be hard to decide on a case. I was watching this review on Youtube and now I'm tempted by the Grip Vue case.

Does anyone have one? My concern with a clear case is scratches and dust getting underneath. The iPhone 4 Grip Vue didn't have much of this problem, is the iPad version pretty much the same product?
 

//B1G

Banned
here's a big pack of wallpapers this dude threw together of photos he's taken.
some super good ones.

top.jpg

http://fiftyfootshadows.net/2010/08/03/iphone4-retina-wallpaper/
 
does anyone have a recommendation for a case - but not a sleeve? By this i mean i want to take my ipad out of it very frequently. I have the official case, and it bugs me to no end not to be able to take it out constantly. A bit OCD, I know...
Looking for something pretty but not too heavy :)
 

noah111

Still Alive
harriet the spy said:
does anyone have a recommendation for a case - but not a sleeve? By this i mean i want to take my ipad out of it very frequently. I have the official case, and it bugs me to no end not to be able to take it out constantly. A bit OCD, I know...
Looking for something pretty but not too heavy :)
For you I just recommend getting the NUDE case or the Belkin grip similar to it. Then just get a 'case' like a sleeve or something easy to zip/pull the ipad in/out of.. I think someone posted a vid earlier on a good combo.
 
Sentry said:
For you I just recommend getting the NUDE case or the Belkin grip similar to it. Then just get a 'case' like a sleeve or something easy to zip/pull the ipad in/out of.. I think someone posted a vid earlier on a good combo.
That is what I do. It was mainly due to what was in stock when I got my iPad months ago. I have the incase silicone grip on the iPad itself, and an incase neoprene sleeve to keep it in when not in use.
 

//B1G

Banned
Sentry said:
Err.. sorry but that's for iPhone 4 only, not iPad, right? But they do look pretty nice anyway. Still, post in the i4 wall thread.
Whoops, sorry.
He's got links for iPad versions of all his shots on the main page of his blog, though so if you like those, check out the rest.
 
i was bored so i just picked up a 16gb wi-fi. i figured i'll never need to put much music or videos on it anyway, seeing as i always have my 32gb iphone with me - it's only going to be for apps, PDFs and photos. plus i won't feel too invested in it if a newer shinier one comes out. makes sense i think!

some of the stuff i've put into ibooks has come out a little garbled, though - images are fine, text is squashed together. is this the sort of thing that'd be a problem across all apps, or just the specific rendering engine of ibooks?
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
So, the new update? Apparently, it removes the option to NOT back-up the iPad. Instead of there being an "X" in the corner of the iTunes progress bar, it opens a separate dialogue box that says "Backing up Name's iPad" that you can't with no exit button. It also freezes up iTunes so you can't use it for the duration.

Awesome.
 

LCfiner

Member
WanderingWind said:
So, the new update? Apparently, it removes the option to NOT back-up the iPad. Instead of there being an "X" in the corner of the iTunes progress bar, it opens a separate dialogue box that says "Backing up Name's iPad" that you can't with no exit button. It also freezes up iTunes so you can't use it for the duration.

Awesome.
Yeah, that was annoying when I applied the update. I hadn't backed up in weeks so it took forever. I let it update overnight. But now it's back to normal and I can cancel backups when I sync.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
LCfiner said:
Yeah, that was annoying when I applied the update. I hadn't backed up in weeks so it took forever. I let it update overnight. But now it's back to normal and I can cancel backups when I sync.

Holy Jeebus. I mangled the crap out of that post, didn't I? :lol Congrats on your excellent reading comprehension and thanks for the heads up. Much appreciated.
 
345triangle said:
i was bored so i just picked up a 16gb wi-fi. i figured i'll never need to put much music or videos on it anyway, seeing as i always have my 32gb iphone with me - it's only going to be for apps, PDFs and photos. plus i won't feel too invested in it if a newer shinier one comes out. makes sense i think!

some of the stuff i've put into ibooks has come out a little garbled, though - images are fine, text is squashed together. is this the sort of thing that'd be a problem across all apps, or just the specific rendering engine of ibooks?

okay so here's an example of what i mean. this is a pdf of a book that you can legally download for free here and that looks fine on my computer, and it comes out looking like this:

i3uf84.png


in both ibooks and cloudreader. anyone else come across similar problems, or have any idea what to do?
 
345triangle said:
or have any idea what to do?

Have you a link to the PDF? I cannot seem to find it although I know it originated in WIRED

I suggest you download Calibre, choose epub as an output type and let it work. It will put the file right into the front page of ibooks, as a epub, and may sort out all the layout problems

edit
- noticed you liked to the file already... silly me :/
 
PDF to ePub conversion isn't reliable. At all. The formatting and placement of the text, lines and paragraphs can often be ruined, and this is using Calibre. Not even converting the PDF to HTML then to ePub is likely to resolve this.
 

LCfiner

Member
345triangle said:
okay so here's an example of what i mean. this is a pdf of a book that you can legally download for free here and that looks fine on my computer, and it comes out looking like this:

http://i36.tinypic.com/i3uf84.png[IMG]

in both ibooks and cloudreader. anyone else come across similar problems, or have any idea what to do?[/QUOTE]

I just downloaded the files and I see the same thing. first pdf that’s given me problems on the iPad. I wish I knew what the problem could be. no idea if it’s an iPad or pdf error. it showed up borked in both goodreader and ibooks
 

Fusebox

Banned
LCfiner said:
I have had mine for several months now and it hasn’t fallen apart or anything. it’s not so poorly made that it’s going to disintegrate but it gives that impression when you take it out of the box, sadly.

True, but the lack of weight is what makes it great. I've got the SGP and the Macally and the SGP is just too heavy. Also I use movie and typing stand modes regularly and SGP fails at those positions.
 
Meus Renaissance said:
PDF to ePub conversion isn't reliable. At all. The formatting and placement of the text, lines and paragraphs can often be ruined, and this is using Calibre. Not even converting the PDF to HTML then to ePub is likely to resolve this.

yeah i've got enough experience of this converting PDFs for my sony reader. i wouldn't think that'd work at all.

LCfiner said:
I just downloaded the files and I see the same thing. first pdf that’s given me problems on the iPad. I wish I knew what the problem could be. no idea if it’s an iPad or pdf error. it showed up bored in both goodreader and ibooks

well at least i know my ipad doesn't have a fried graphics chip or something, but it really is weird. these PDF programs all use different rendering engines, right? i guess it must be an obscure problem with the PDFs that somehow doesn't show up on a computer.

thanks for trying anyway.
 

Blackhead

Redarse
345triangle said:
well at least i know my ipad doesn't have a fried graphics chip or something, but it really is weird. these PDF programs all use different rendering engines, right? i guess it must be an obscure problem with the PDFs that somehow doesn't show up on a computer.

thanks for trying anyway.
It's the PDF. It was created with a really old version of Adobe. The easiest way to re-encode it (on a Mac) is to select the Print menu option and then use the 'Save as...' feature to get a new PDF encoded with Apple's inbuilt Quartz rendering engine. That should create a PDF that can be displayed properly by the iPad.

Some really great jailbreak apps recently got updates to work on the iPad:

Action Menu and Plus Pack v1.1 Now Out
TheBigBoss said:
Action Menu adds additional actions to the cut/copy/paste menu on iOS3.x and, with the 1.1 update, now on iOS4.0, iPad and iPhone 4’s Retina Display. New plus pack actions include Locate, Find and Send to Pastie.



Included in Action Menu (free):

  • Copy All sends the entire text in the current field, all the items in the selected table, or the entire text of the web view to the clipboard.
  • Dial sends the number present in the field, web view or active table cell to the Phone application.
  • Favorites presents a list of common phrases to paste into the current text field. List is customized via the Settings app.
  • Scroll provides quick scroll to top and scroll to bottom buttons to make navigating tables and web pages quicker.

Included in Plus Pack ($2.99 for all six):

  • History maintains a record of items that have been added to the clipboard for quick and easy pasting.
  • Lookup integrates with Google Search, Wikipedia, Dictionary and Google Translate to provide quick info on the selected text.
  • Tweet sends the selected text to your favourite Twitter client so you can get the word out.
  • Locate pastes a link to your current GPS location on Google Maps.
  • Find allows searching within a page in Safari, Twitter for iPhone and other standard web views.
  • Send to Pastie uploads the selected text to pastie.org for easy sharing.

Other @rpetrich packages updated recently:

  • HapticPro added support for iOS4.0 and iPhone4
  • DisplayRecorder added support for iOS4.0, iPhone4 and iPad
  • DisplayOut added support for all devices on iOS4.0 (and improved display quality on iPad)
  • Activator added full support for iOS4.0 and Retina Display images
One of the tweaks I consider most essential. The Plus Pack is well worth it; I would never attempt to write up long, multiple quote, replies on GAF without the Clipboard ('History') Action feature. Sure beats waiting for Apple to approve the Pastebot hack.


Multifl0w: Exposè-like Multitasking for iPhone and iPad
MacStories said:
Such a great release on Cydia tonight, one that will be remembered by jailbreakers for months. Multifl0w, one of the first apps that brought “visual multitasking” to iPhone OS 3.0, has been updated to include support for iOS 4, iPhone 4 and iPad.



The app is a single $4.99 purchase in Cydia: I bought it on my iPad using my Google account credentials, and downloaded it for free on my iPhone 4. Multifl0w is pretty similar to the-now-dead ProSwitcher: apps running in the background are visualized as “cards” or “windows” that you can tap on to open. The app requires Backgrounder to run correctly, and you can set up an activation method in Activator. Mine is “short hold” on home button, but you can also ovverride Apple’s double press (for task switcher) on any device running iOS 4. Like I said, the app works fine on iPad and iPhone, although the iPad version doesn’t support landscape mode.

Multifl0w is elegant, the animations are fast and beautiful and it doesn’t eat too much memory in the system. A highly recommended downloaded, especially for iPad jailbreakers who still don’t have multitasking. Great job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcIORhb8NfQ
Multifl0w used to be a joke. It isn't anymore. Glad my $5 finally payed off. While ProSwitcher won't be receving anymore updates from the main developer (it's open source if anyone cares to take over) there is an alpha release that works on the iPad.


Update:
chpwn said:
So I'm a complete hypocrite. @aaronash has brought back multifl0w, and insanely, I've brought back ProSwitcher. Expect a release this week.
about 4 hours ago via Tweetie for Mac
:lol good news
 

Flek

Banned
345triangle said:
okay so here's an example of what i mean. this is a pdf of a book that you can legally download for free here and that looks fine on my computer, and it comes out looking like this:

i3uf84.png


in both ibooks and cloudreader. anyone else come across similar problems, or have any idea what to do?

i had the same problem (even posted about it somewhere in this thread). Its a problem of ios 3.XX which is fixed in iOs 4.XX (!). You cant do mouch about it…what i did at the end whas builiding a automator (mac) action that turned every pdf page into a jpg. and then back into a pdf.
 

navanman

Crown Prince of Custom Firmware
I got my DODOcase today. Fantastic piece of design and beautiful case. The new corner rubber pads hold the iPad in place perfectly.
Only 5 days delivery from the US to Ireland, well done USPS!
 
Charred Greyface said:
It's the PDF. It was created with a really old version of Adobe. The easiest way to re-encode it (on a Mac) is to select the Print menu option and then use the 'Save as...' feature to get a new PDF encoded with Apple's inbuilt Quartz rendering engine. That should create a PDF that can be displayed properly by the iPad.

hey, that worked, thanks a lot!
 

Tieno

Member
I'm really linking my iPad so far. It's been similar to when i first got my iPod and iPod touch. It's all so effortlessly I've been mainly using it as a leisure internet device. Great for reading longer articles, fantastic as an rss reader (love Reeder).
The other day I went to my grandma to show her some pictures of the day out we had with her the week before. She is 87 years old and she was amazed by the device, first time I've seen her do that regarding technology. The iPad removes a layer of abstraction that makes it very easy to do some basic stuff that can make up the lion share of your leisure Internet activity.

Shame the Flemish newspaper I have digital subscription for, has made a crappy iPad app (De Standaard)
 
I thought I would hate it, but I'm actually pretty decent at typing on the iPad keyboard. What are some decent writing apps? I'm mostly looking for something I can transfer text-based files back to the PC fairly easily, without having to connect to an outside web service.

Y'know, I found out later that you can download cbr/cbz files through Safari and open them with ComicZeal. They were just downloading in the background without a progress bar and didn't pop in the window until the download was finished. Oh well, iCab is still an excellent browser.
 
OMG.

how did nobody tell me about the updates they've made to Categories????

it's better than iOS4 folders. jesus christ. if you have a jailbroken iPad you should have Categories installed on it to manage folders. it's exceptional.
 

Chorazin

Member
WanderingWind said:
Well, I've been backing up the iPad since 10am. I am now at 1/6th of the way done.

Oh man, I haven't plugged my iPad into my Mac in over a month. I'm gonna have to plug it in before I leave for work one day and hope it's done by the time I get home.
 

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
Freedom = $1.05 said:
I spent over 10 hours the other day backing the stupid thing up. It's fucking ridiculous. It shouldn't take more than it does to back up an iphone, dammit.
Wonder why everyone's taking forever to backup the device. Longest I can remember is 30 minutes.

What's everyone got on the thing that it's taking forever? I mean, I admit it seems to take quite a bit of time in comparison to the iPhone...but 10 hours?! I haven't seen anything close to that.
 

LCfiner

Member
RubxQub said:
Wonder why everyone's taking forever to backup the device. Longest I can remember is 30 minutes.

What's everyone got on the thing that it's taking forever? I mean, I admit it seems to take quite a bit of time in comparison to the iPhone...but 10 hours?! I haven't seen anything close to that.

whenever i change a single comic in my comicbookzeal collection, it tends to want to back up the entire thing from scratch.

and that takes hours!
 

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
Freedom = $1.05 said:
I spent over 10 hours the other day backing the stupid thing up. It's fucking ridiculous. It shouldn't take more than it does to back up an iphone, dammit.
Wow.

Mine never took more than 10 minutes to back up.
 

Prez

Member
So...when is Apple likely to announce the next iPad with USB ports? I'm certainly not buying an adapter just to have USB 1.0.
 

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
LCfiner said:
whenever i change a single comic in my comicbookzeal collection, it tends to want to back up the entire thing from scratch.

and that takes hours!
Literally hours? It doesn't compute!
Stabbie said:
So...when is Apple likely to announce the next iPad with USB ports? I'm certainly not buying an adapter just to have USB 1.0.
What do you even plan to do with that USB port if it had one?
 

LCfiner

Member
RubxQub said:
Literally hours? It doesn't compute!


yes. literally. hours.


It's fairly quick when I sync after a small change like, say, deleting an app. But whenever a large file like my comic library gets modified (even if it's only a small change), BOOM. backup takes forever (<-- not literally).
 

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
LCfiner said:
yes. literally. hours.


It's fairly quick when I sync after a small change like, say, deleting an app. But whenever a large file like my comic library gets modified (even if it's only a small change), BOOM. backup takes forever (<-- not literally).
Hmph...I got nothing. :(

Sucks to be you guys I guess? I don't know! :lol
Stabbie said:
Connect an audio interface for better sound.
You mean like hook a pair of speakers into the auxiliary jack?
 
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