EVO 4G Looks Great, Sprint Retailing Lags

On Friday afternoon, I met the CTO of Limelight networks for lunch in Palo Alto. Hanging out on university avenue in Palo Alto, about 15 minutes early for my meeting, I walked through the Apple store and then on to the Sprint store. At the Apple store, I did what I always do: swore I woulnd't buy anything and then bought something. In this case, a stand for my iPad. It set back $30. I then wondered over to the Sprint store. Balloons were out front and the place was surprising crowded for Sprint store (there were like 10 people in there!). I forgot that the HTC EVO 4G launched on Friday. I went over to have a look at it. Hard to do so when there were 10 people straining to get a look and only 2 on display. Killing a few minutes and waiting for the crowd to disperse so I could play with an EVO, I wandered over the Palm Pre display. I've never had a chance to play with the Palm (soon to be HP) pre. This was not my time either. Both Palm Pres on display in the store were dead, no battery and no power. And so the painful contrast with Apple was so very clear. At the Apple store, there are dozens of every new device on display. You never have to wait to get your hands on a device. And they all work. I did finally get my hands on an EVO. It's huge yet slim, it has a beatiful screen, and HTC has done a terrific job making Android look slick. Every thing on it is fast and powerful. Web surfing is amazing on the huge screen and Sprint's 3G network is respectably fast. Despite this, I'll be sticking with my T-Mobile blackberry for the moment. Early data shows that T-Mobile's 3.5G network (HSPA+) is running faster than Sprint's 4G network and with a $300 early termination fee for new users, I'm not in the mood to be chained to Sprint at the moment. Big & Beautiful, the EVO 4G. Flickr CC photo:

Amazing iPad Software Evolution

I suppose if I had owned an iphone for the last few years I would have seen this process in motion, but as a new iPad owner, I'm seeing first hand. I'm writing here about the amazing pace of software evolution and innovation in the Apple ecosystem. I have about 30 applications that I've downloaded and purchased for my iPad.

My favorite example of this: note-taking. The iPad uses a capacitative screen, something that's finger friendly, but not very useful for note taking. It doesn't work for note taking because one's natural inclination is rest your palm on the screen while you write. And as the screen detects all touches, that leads to lots of strange marks on each page. Historically, this problem has been solved by using an electromagnetic pen on a screen that is not touch sensitive. That's how note taking works on a Thinkpad, for example. Steve Jobs, however, is not fond of the stylus and doesn't think one is needed, so there's no provision for that on the iPad.

The Apple ecosystem quickly solved this problem, however. Companies like TenOne design developed specialized styluses that mimic the touch of a finger and software developers created a bunch of different ways to address the needs of inking. Many of these programs are already in their second or third generation, even though the iPad itself is only a two months old.

I think I've purchased about every one of hand-writing note taking programs out there, and so far, I've got three favorites, but no absolute winner yet.

FastFinga: a brilliant piece of software from down under, these guys wrote a version for the iPad without even having an iPad to test it out on. The program is designed for fingers - hence the name, but it works very well with the stylus. You write at the bottom of the screen, in large type, and it condenses your output. It outputs to printers, jpeg, and Evernote. Output looks smooth and polished.

NoteTaker HD: this program operates in a similar way to FastFinga, but is more tuned up for full pages of notes. Writing in the first edition looked bad, but it has since improved. NoteTaker lets you export in a variety of modes and also condenses your writing nicely, since it's not easy to write in small letters on the iPad screen.

Penultimate: this is overall favorite so far, and the only one of the three that didn't get it's start on the iPhone. Penultimate is a "one man" operation in San Francisco, but so far has the most ingenious solution to hand palm-on-pad issue. Penultimate simply ignores touches that don't look like a stylus writing. If you're right handed, it works brilliantly and the text looks smooth and polished. The only downside of penultimate is that it can't shrink big chunks of text down, so a hour our meeting can quickly stretch over 10-15 pages of notes.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about all three of these programs is that not one of them costs more than $5. The enormous size of the Apple market and the willingness of customers to drop $2-5 on a good program means that even at low prices, volumes are high enough to give very generous rewards to good developers. And competition is intense, too, so updates come quickly and developers respond quickly to user feedback, lest they negative feedback in their user ratings.

The Essential iPad Applications & Accessories List

After two months of having an iPad, I’ve taken stock of the apps on my iPad that I actually use.  I’ve got a lot more that don’t see much use, but these are the ones that I find myself using day in and day out.  This doesn’t include the Apple-installed basics - just the extras I’ve purchased or obtained for free from App Store.

1. Productivity

• Evernote: I’m a desktop PC evernote user for some of my notes.
• FastFinga: A great note-taking application, with geotagging and export to Evernote.
• Numbers (Excel): this does a very nice job of opening excel sheets and an even better one of creating new sheets in Apple’s proprietary format.
• Pages (Word): another great Apple application, but only if you have a Mac.   Doesn’t natively export and import Word files.
  
• Keynote (Powerpoint): as with the other Apple office suite apps, they’re terrific - by far the most polished on the iPad, but limited to Apple’s proprietary format for exporting.
• Documents To Go: when you need Microsoft Office compatibility, this is the one.
• Penultimate: A terrific note taking application, the only one that prevents accidental touches to the screen while you rest you hand on the device.
• NoteTake HD: Another elegant note taking solution. 
• Adobe Ideas: A great and free sketchbook for doodles and charts.
• iAnnotate PDF: There are lots of PDF readers, but this is the one allows you to annotate documents, sign them, and email them back out.  A great substitute for a fax machine.
• DropBox: I save personal files online with DropBox and this makes them available on the iPad.  It also provides for local storage of “favorite” documents.
• DragonDictation: Honestly, I don’t use this one much.  I can’t quite get used to dictation, but I keep hoping I can try it one day and make it work for me.  Word recognition is great, but I can’t speak in a way that reflects my writing.  Yet.
  

2. News & Media

• Instapaper Pro: Stores your web reading for later in a nicely formatted way.
  
• Kindle: My main bookstore now and as a good as Apple’s iBooks reader.
  
• Google Earth: More fun than the maps application.

3. Music & Video

• Pandora (US Only): the best music discovery service.
  
• ABC Player (US Only): online TV from ABC.
  
• Netflix (US Only): watch-now.  Netflix does a great job of showing how online movie watching should be, but selection of content still sucks.
  
• MusicOne: my favorite web radio station, now with it’s own app.
  
• Shazam: recognize the music you’re listening to.  Works in clubs where they pump up the volume, but you’re out of luck if you want it to recognize the Lawrence Welk tune they’re pumping into the elevator at low volume.
  

4. Accessories

• Pogo Stylus: essential for writing on the iPad.  I don’t care what Steve Jobs says, we don’t learn to write at school using our fingers.  We use pens.
  
• Apple iPad Case: durable, safe, and just right for typing or watching movies.  The best case I’ve seen so far.