Archive for the ‘Mobile Computing’ Category

In April 2010 Apple launched the iPad: the first tablet computer that was embraced by a large audience around the world. The moment I saw the keynote video where Steve Jobs introduced the iPad, I knew this device was going to be a big hit. I knew I wanted one. And I would have to wait until July before I could get my hands on one myself.

A few weeks after that keynote I also knew something else: that I would love to be able to develop apps for the iPad. After doing some research and visiting a seminar on mobile application development I realized that there was an awful lot to learn. First I would have to learn a programming language that was totally new to me: Objective-C. Then I would have to dive into the iPhone SDK and learn how to work with Xcode, Apple’s development tool.

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Until recently, my favorite Twitter client for the iPad was Tweetings for iPad. It’s a great app with many features and lots of hidden options under the surface which you learn know and appreciate as you are working with the app for a longer period of time.

But! A new Twitter app for iPad saw the light of day yesterday: HootSuite for iPad. And it rocks! It looks and feels great. And best of all: it’s free!

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A couple of weeks ago I became the happy owner of an iPad. One of the many ways to use an iPad is for reading. Electronic books, web pages, PDF files, Word documents, you name it. It is all possible with the help of a couple of apps. In this blog post I will discuss my experiences I had with reading on an iPad. I will focus on reading bigger documents like e-books and PDF files.

The apps I have been using the last few weeks for reading are iBooks (which is installed on your iPad as a default app), Kindle for iPad and GoodReader for iPad. I’ve been using the first two for reading e-books and GoodReader for reading PDF documents and Word documents.

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Today Apple launched the iPad in seven countries including the Netherlands, the country where I live. As a person who likes gadgets I was looking forward to getting an iPad myself. But I would never have thought that I would hold one in my hands on launch day.

In the morning various news sites on the Internet talked about long lines at the doors of the Apple stores and other official Apple resellers like MediaMarkt. But around noon, Dutch site Bright mentioned that numerous stores still had a lot of iPads in stock. So I decided to drive to Amsterdam to try and get one. It turned out that Bright was right: the store where I bought my iPad had dozens in stock. iPads of every type were still available. And I didn’t even have to get in line to get one! Lucky me!

Now if you will please excuse me. I have some apps to check out…! 😉