I’m happy to say that the pen works pretty well, though it’s by no means amazing or different from what’s out there. The pen is a decent size and weight, grips easy, and registers on the screen quickly. Lag is barely noticeable and the resolution of the input is good. You can write small if you’re careful, and dot your “i”s with some precision. There’s a bit of lag when “touching down” for the first time in an app or on the desktop, but generally it’s not bad. I’m more concerned about the feeling of writing with a plastic tip on a glossy surface. It feels unnatural and the clacky noise it makes when you’re writing isn’t heartening.
If you like to doodle, the HTC Flyer seems to be the only Android game in town. But to doodle you’ll need to pony up US$80 for the stylus. Way too expensive if you ask me.
To imagine a game like this with dynamic lighting on a tablet is impressive. On the other hand, the fact that dynamic lighting requires a quad-core CPU is not. Couldn’t there be a more efficient, simple, and elegant method for dynamic lighting that does not require so much CPU horsepower? And I wonder how long the batteries will last on a tablet with the NVIDIA Kal-El CPU. Probably not that long.
Fukata Mikio, Assistant Manager, Application Development Section, KDDI, translated:
Up until now there has only been the feeling that you are touching glass on a touch panel, making it hard to tell if you have selected a button, leaving a slight sense of unease, but this new touch smartphone recreates the clicking feeling when you press a button on the touch panel.
Your finger feels a response when you input letters, so that you really get a feeling of assurance when you use it.
This test model does not have a multi-touch touch panel, but when it is commercialized multi-touch is a pre-requisite, so it will be possible to use two hands to touch keys and type letters for example.
We can make products using the same lateral and vertical dimensions as current terminals. We can keep devices fairly thin if we make products presuming the haptic device is included on it. This test model is fairly thick, but we can make products that are the same thickness as current devices. Our goal is to get this done as soon as possible. We’ve had people say they want this quickly, and we will talk to manufacturers so as to create products soon.
The haptic touch panel is developed by Kyocera and makes use of a vibration sensor and a pressure sensor. Vibration levels are dependent on how hard you press. I’m not entirely convinced that vibrations can be localized this way. In other words, I don’t think a global vibration can make the user experience the sensation of pushing individual buttons. But, I’ll reserve my final opinion until I can take it for a spin.
Here are some interesting facts that were shared during today’s WWDC 2011 keynote for iOS 5.
Notification Center: Aggregates all notifications and swiped down from the top. Similar to Android but prettier. Also on the lock-screen with direct access (swipe across) to that event/app.
Newsstand: Newspapers, magazines, etc. when purchased are automatically downloaded and placed into Newsstand, which looks like a newspaper stand and similar to iBooks.
Twitter: Single sign-on, Twitter credentials can be shared with any app. Twitter-based automatic contact updates.
Safari: Has 64% of mobile web browser market. Not surprising since the iPhone and the iPad are both extremely popular and both use Mobile Safari. Android has 27%. Safari Reader comes to Mobile Safari. This will be hard for Readability or Instapaper. Reading List is another feature, like Read It Later. Tabbed browsing. Tweet Sheet, which is a common control for Twitter is integrated.
Reminders: You can assign location to the to-do-list. For example you can set it up so that when you leave a place you need to do something. Syncs across all devices and with iCal.
Camera Updates: There is a camera button on the lock screen. Tap it and you’re ready to snap a photo. The iPhone 4 will soon overtake the Nikon D90 to be the most popular camera on Flickr. This might not be all that important as I think Flickr is experiencing a decline, slow but certain. Use the volume-up button to take a picture! I love this. Tap-hold the photo and exposure settings are optimized for that spot. Similar to Camera+ but a little less elegant. Basic edits can be done right then and there.
Mail: Indentation control, rich text formatting, draggable addresses (from To:, Cc: From:, etc.), search entire message, flag messages, S/MIME, built-in dictionary (tap word, click “Define” and you get the definition).
Split-able keyboard: Typing on the iPad in portrait mode can be a bit of a stretch, so now you can grab the keyboard with your thumbs, go up, and it splits into two. Excellent.
PC Free: The cables are cut. Some folks that buy iPhones don’t have a computer (or might even get rid of it precisely because of the iPhone.) You can setup and activate the iPhone without tethering to a PC. OTA (Over The Air) software updates. Now this is going to take a lot of data and time to get if the updates are as big as the ones we’ve been getting. I hope Apple breaks it up into little chunks. Ah yes, the updates will be delta-updates, only the stuff that’s changed.
Game Center: More than 100,000 games and entertainment titles in the App Store. 50 million Game Center users in 9 months. Xbox Live has 30 million users, and has taken 8 years. Achievement points, friend discovery, friends of friends, game discovery, turn-based games.
iMessage: A new messaging service between iOS users. Supports iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and lets you send text messages, photos, videos, contacts, group messaging with delivery receipts, read receipts, real-time typing notification. I think I’m still going to stick with KaKaoTalk for free text messaging to anyone in the world.
AirPlay Mirroring: You can mirror your iPad to a TV, wirelessly.
A new multi-tasking gesture to flick between apps.
Supports iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPad 2, 3rd/4th Gen iPod touch. And will be available in the fall. That feels such a long time from now.
Here are some interesting facts that were shared during today’s WWDC 2011 keynote for iCloud:
Some choice quotes: “… you want all your content everywhere all the time.” “Keeping these devices in sync is driving us crazy.” “We’re going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device.” “We’re going to move the digital hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud.”
“iCloud stores your content in the cloud and wirelessly pushes it all to your devices. It automatically uploads it, stores it, and pushes it to all your devices. Everything happens automatically and there’s nothing new to learn. It just all works.”
Calendar Sharing
@me.com emails will be synced and pushed across all devices.
There will be no ads and the service is free. I’m guessing just for email, calendar and contacts.
AppStore: See all of your app purchases even if they are not on your device. Tap iCloud button to pull down to your device.
Backup: Automatic daily backups to iCloud over WiFi that includes purchased music, apps, books, camera roll, device settings, and app data.
Documents in the Cloud: Automatic iCloud storing of documents created in iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote). “Documents in the Cloud really completes our iOS document storage story. A lot of us have been working for 10 years to get rid of the file system so the user doesn’t have to learn about it. The piece that we weren’t finished with was how do we move those documents around to multiple devices, and Documents in the Cloud solves that problem for us.”
iCloud Storage APIs: For documents, key value data, all iOS devices, Macs and PCs, too.
Photo Stream: “I’m going to bring the cloud to photos.” Take a photo on any device and that photo will be pushed up to iCloud and pulled back down to all other devices. Photo Stream is an album right in the Photos app. Photo Stream will be available on Apple TV too. The last 1000 photos will be stored on iCloud. Photos are kept for 30 days. iCloud stores each photo for 30 days. Devices store last 1000 photos. Macs and PCs store all photos.
iTunes in the Cloud: “It’s the same old story. I buy something on my iPhone and it’s not on my other devices. I grab my iPod and I go to listen to that song and it’s ain’t there! Anything I’ve bought I can now download to any of my devices at no additional charge. This is the first time we’ve seen this in the music industry. No charge for multiple downloads to different devices.” You can automatically download new purchases (including free ones) made on other devices. Limited to music purchased from iTunes, high quality 256 kbps AAC, up to 10 devices.
Free: “These nine apps constitute iCloud, and they are all free.” I can’t believe it. All of this free. “We’re making it free, and we’re very excited about it. So that’s iCloud. It stores your content and pushes it to all of your devices, and it’s integrated with all your apps.” iCloud will be default on new iOS 5 devices and you get 5GB of storage for email, not counting purchased music, apps, books, or Photo Stream.
Ripped songs: iTunes Match matches your ripped songs to those on iTunes. “We give that music the same benefits as music purchased in iTunes.” Now this is interesting. If any songs don’t match the songs will be uploaded. Songs that match will be upgraded to 256kbps AAC without DRM. iTunes Match will cost $24.99 per year. The Scan & Match method will take minutes to go over your library whereas Amazon and Google will most likely take considerably longer, maybe even weeks, to upload all of your music content.
Do I think Steve Jobs would want to wear 3D glasses to watch 3D stuff on the iPad? I don’t think so. What I do think is that CPT, Chunghwa Picture Tubes, wanted to showcase it’s 9.7-inch 4:3 3D LCD at Display Taiwan 2011. And what better way to do that than to stick it inside the most popular tablet? CPT seems to have chosen passive 3D technology.
Don Wambolt, Creative Ministries Director at Worship Center in Lancaster, PA:
I had seen BrightSign at an InfoComm tradeshow. They caught my eye because the media players are solid-state and very inexpensive compared to PC-based players. Plus, BrightAuthor, the content manager software, was included free and was a visual-based application.
The Worship Center has 18 displays that are connected to seven network-enabled BrightSign HD1010 media players. BrightAuthor’s WYSIWYG design interface allows for straightforward creation, publishing, management and monitoring of all 18 digital signage displays.
Wambolt:
The features of the BrightSign Network and its interface make it easy for me to group the displays by location and by the content they each need. With just a few clicks, I can update all of the information displayed in the student ministries area as well as the speaking schedule in the meeting rooms without leaving my desk. If I need a group of signs to change at 2:00 P.M., but I know I will be in a meeting during that time, I can schedule the change in advance.
The BrightSign controllers consume 3 to 5 watts of power, which is considerably less than a typical PC system that requires about 20x. And because they are solid state not only are they reliable but generate less heat requiring less cooling costs.
This is the Worship Center’s main display in the sanctuary. Beautiful.
E-Ink-Info.com: E Ink with video is what this looks like. AU Optronics’ Sipix e-paper technology is good enough for video at 6 fps. By loading the images into buffer memory video performance can be improved to 10 fps according to IRX Innovation. The video pixel format is 640×480 with four levels of gray moving up to 16 in the near future.
