unpredictable thoughts » iPad http://unpredictablethoughts.com the intersection of work and play Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:56:59 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 letterpress, yep. there’s an app for that. http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2011/02/20/letterpress-yep-theres-an-app-for-that/ http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2011/02/20/letterpress-yep-theres-an-app-for-that/#comments Mon, 21 Feb 2011 03:18:43 +0000 ste!!a http://unpredictablethoughts.com/?p=1252 ]]> Was wandering around Kickstarter discovering projects and came across this one. It’s a strange thing… an app for doing letterpress on the iPad. An intersection of two technologies one simulating the highly tactile and mechanical act of setting type for letterpress.

Strange.

I’m not sure what to think.

]]> http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2011/02/20/letterpress-yep-theres-an-app-for-that/feed/ 0 letterpress, yep. there’s an app for that. http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2011/02/20/letterpress-yep-there%e2%80%99s-an-app-for-that/ http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2011/02/20/letterpress-yep-there%e2%80%99s-an-app-for-that/#comments Sun, 20 Feb 2011 17:40:40 +0000 ste!!a http://unpredictablethoughts.culturedriventools.com/?p=1597 ]]> Was wandering around Kickstarter discovering projects and came across this one. It’s a strange thing… an app for doing letterpress on the iPad. An intersection of two technologies one simulating the highly tactile and mechanical act of setting type for letterpress.

Strange.

I’m not sure what to think.

]]> http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2011/02/20/letterpress-yep-there%e2%80%99s-an-app-for-that/feed/ 0 flipboard rocks! http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2010/08/19/flipboard-rocks/ http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2010/08/19/flipboard-rocks/#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:53:20 +0000 ste!!a http://unpredictablethoughts.com/?p=985 ]]> Well, I downloaded the Flipboard app for our brandy new iPad. Both the iPad and Flipboard are pretty sweet. Both are first generation so they’ll only get better.

First time you launch Flipboard you load your content zones; each with a particular category. Taxonomy is a real driver in this magazine. The second big driver is your social network. Unfortunately the interest in this app was underestimated by it’s team and they can’t activate the new users fast enough. We’re getting impatient and it hasn’t been 72 hours.

Why are we impatient? Because we want to share with people we know. This augments our use of twitter in a very intuitive way. We manage pages at Facebook and would love to share in my more open ways — as in without Facebook. Sharing means stepping outside of a network – that’s what makes twitter so open and what makes Facebook so closed.

We’re looking forward to using Flipboard full-tilt when our twitter and if necessary Facebook accounts can be tied in.

So until then we are thrilled to read their well designed feeds that feel exactly like a magazine that we would have built. It’s one with culture, science, and tech with words, amazing images, and video too. It’s wicked fast and the origami flip feels really good.

It’s a beautiful and easy to to use interface but can be a bit confusing when you step in and out of reading on the web. Most disconcerting things disappear, well reposition themselves if you have looked at them once. This is the most difficult aspect of fluid magazines. How do I find that again? Maybe it will be easier when your social network creates a level of importance and conversations begin. We’ll see.

First experience with Flipboard? It alone makes the iPad worthwhile.

About Flipboard:

Founded by Mike McCue, former CEO of Tellme, and Evan Doll, former senior iPhone engineer at Apple®, FlipboardTM began a quest today to transform how people discover and share content by combining the beauty and ease of print with the power of social media. Flipboard also announced the immediate availability of itʼs Flipboard App for iPadTM, a social magazine that brings to life the stories, photos, news and updates being shared across Twitter and Facebook. Flipboardʼs first public demo will happen at the FORTUNE Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colorado at 4:40pm MDT tomorrow.

]]> http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2010/08/19/flipboard-rocks/feed/ 0 iPad some people get it http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2010/04/19/ipad-some-people-get-it/ http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2010/04/19/ipad-some-people-get-it/#comments Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:41:29 +0000 ste!!a http://unpredictablethoughts.com/?p=783 ]]> Here’s a bit of advertising for the new Alice book for the iPad. It’s pretty darn cool. A whole layer of activity on top of the text. It’s heading in the right direction.

Still more meaningful interaction would be so much better. Interaction that really illuminates to content not just bells and whistles. I have high expectations in this new space. We need someone like Cyan who originally created Myst to step up and shift the expectations in this reading environment.

If Alice in Wonderland was the text and an interactive experience like Myst imagine the experience!

You can download Myst for your iPhone and you can now play the next level of Myst online here.

]]> http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2010/04/19/ipad-some-people-get-it/feed/ 0 interfaces work for everyone http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2010/04/18/interfaces-work-for-everyone/ http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2010/04/18/interfaces-work-for-everyone/#comments Sun, 18 Apr 2010 19:38:46 +0000 ste!!a http://unpredictablethoughts.com/?p=786 ]]> This vid is bouncing around on tumblr. It’s a look at how interaction can be so intuitive, and feel so real that other beings interact and experience something very real. Watching this “smart cat” play with an iPad just like it would with a string or a keyboard tells us how far our interfaces have come. How rich a good touch interface can be is very exciting.

Enjoy.

]]> http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2010/04/18/interfaces-work-for-everyone/feed/ 0 iPad platform ready for tablet publications http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2010/02/16/ipad-platform-ready-for-tablet-publications/ http://unpredictablethoughts.com/2010/02/16/ipad-platform-ready-for-tablet-publications/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 04:00:11 +0000 ste!!a http://unpredictablethoughts.com/?p=705 ]]> This video is being shared all over the place as the next coming. Not all that imaginative. These are all pretty simplistic ways of adding interactivity once you have a touch screen. So, will you care after the first three times you use it? Will you want to interact with content this way on a regular basis?

How will a reader be able to avoid the advertising is the question that comes to mind. Will advertisers want to invest the resources needed to make advertising for these kind of publications? Advertisers a consistent model to build ads. For pricing and production. Seems like a big barrier.

With each publication designing it’s own interactivity where is the common interface?

Just not convinced that this particular model is sustainable.

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