Category Archives: Mobile

My friend Antoine is into mobile technology – REALLY into mobile technology. His passion is rather infectious, and now he’s got me writing about it too!

Nexus 7 – Being Productive

Posted on January 20, 2013 | Leave a comment

Last week, I found a decent markdown app for android. Because of this, I decided to connect my Bluetooth keyboard to my Nexus 7 this week and write my sermon on it. While I’m still not happy with with the workflow I need to use, the experience wasn’t at all painful.

Fun With Keyboards

First, the keyboard support in Android is  outstanding.  This is one place I’ve always felt iOS was lacking, and my Nexus 7 experience has confirmed it.  Typical character formatting shortcuts work. Control-b sets the bold toggle, control-i sets italic, and so on.  Finding the control key on my Mac keyboard was a bit finger-tying, but I acclimated quickly. I did find it odd, however, that Mac-style shortcuts worked in other parts of the system. For example, Command-tab activates the application switcher. The command key is also used to activate default Google apps. My favorite is command-t, which opens Google Talk’s main screen. This makes switching between chats easy – command-t opens the chat main screen and arrow keys can be used to select another chat, which is then activated by hitting return. This, combined with Android’s stellar notifications, made using Google Talk on my Nexus 7 a wonderful experience.

Writing

Writing my sermon on Nexus was, acceptable. While the markdown editor I’m using is decent, it’s no where near the standard I’m accustomed to on iOS in WriteUp and ByWord. Write does have persistent word count, which is an essential feature for me, but it’s lacks extra formatting buttons for quickly adding markdown to text. It also relies on Android’s sharing feature to save to dropbox, which works but can be horribly frustrating as I end up being to do something I have no desire to do – keep a “local” and “cloud” version of my document in sync. My iOS editors, on the other hand keep my documents automatically in sync. I much prefer the iOS behavior. I could * write in a word processor app which saves directly to dropbox or Google Drive, but I write in markdown because the files are plain text. In a normal word processor I need to worry about which file format in which I’m saving, *and which application will read it on my devices. Plain text, on the other hand, works anywhere. My workflow is specialized, however, most users would be quite happy using one of Android’s word processing apps.

Conclusion

I was quite happy using my Nexus 7 for my writing this week. The keyboard controls are amazing and the apps are capable. My workflow currently doesn’t seem to match the design philosophy of Android, however, and this made my writing more scattered than I like. If you typically write in a traditional word processor, though, you could be well-served with this device.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Mobile, Reviews

Tagged , , ,

Continuing with the Nexus 7

Posted on January 12, 2013 | 1 Comment

image

I’ve been using the Nexus 7 for a couple of weeks so I  want to share some thoughts on how its been going. Over all, I continue to really like the tablet. My only nag on the hardware is the layout of the volume rocker and sleep/wake button. They are placed so close together I often find myself putting the device to sleep when I want to change the volume. Read on for my other thoughts.

Media Consumer

I’ve been using the Nexus almost exclusively for media consumption the last couple of weeks and its been great. One of the issues I have with my iPad is the need to go through iTunes to add media to the device. On the Nexus the file system adding media can be done several ways.

First, the Android File Transfer App allows the Nexus to be connected to a Mac via USB. Adding files is a matter of dragging and dropping.  Second, the open filesystem on Android allows me to save any file on dropbox to the device. iOS places limits on what can or cannot be easily added to an “iDevice.” Third, using a USB to go cable allows the Nexus to act as a USB host. This allows thumb drives, and even some portable hard drives, to be connected directly to the device. The camera connection kit ads similar functionality to iOS devices, but the closed filesystem limits what types of files can be added.

The ease of adding media to the Nexus makes it an ideal consumption device.

Gaming

Android does have good games, and I’ve been enjoying some for about a week. The ability to connect a game controller only adds to the experience. Even with on-screen controls games are responsive and animations are smooth. It would be even better if I could mirror the Nexus screen to a TV.

Productivity

When I first got the Nexus I was disappointed at the productivity tools for Android. My preferred work flow is to write in markdown and have my work automatically synced to a dropbox folder. When I first got on the Google Play store the crop of markdown editors was rather slim. Most didn’t recognize the .md extension common to markdown files, had limited dropbox support, and couldn’t export HTML from the app.

I finally found a passable editor called Write. The dropbox support is clunky, files have to be imported from the dropbox app and then shared back, but it exports clean HTML and has a persistent word count.

The mobile office suites on Android are a mixed bag. I’m a Documents to Go user on iOS, but the Android version was so awful I asked for a refund. Quick Office has better file management setup, but the editor only has a page layout view. On the 7 inch Nexus screen, this makes text look far too small to be a comfortable editing environment. On spreadsheets this isn’t as much of a issue, but the word processor is really difficult to use. Quick Office also, for some inexplicable reason, doesn’t have a way to select all text. This boggles my mind.

Of all the suites I’ve used on Android so far, SoftMaker is the most powerful, but it’s Google Drive integration is currently broken. In all, I hope SoftMaker fixes it’s GoogleDrive integration – it’s a solid app.

In another productivity realm, I’m still looking for an app comparable to Notability or Notes + on Android. Nothing I’ve found even comes close. Papyrus is capable, but it’s not as easy to use add its iOS cousins.

For productivity, I continue to see the open filesystem as a mixed blessing. While I appreciate the ease through which I can add media to my Nexus, I have to say I like the sand boxing of iOS better for productivity work. Cloud integration on iOS  “just works” – in Android every app tends to use the cloud differently and the integration is usually only partially implemented.

Conclusion

The Nexus made a good first impression and continues to grow on me. The immaturity of the productivity apps show when I’m trying to get work done, but the ecosystem shows signs of maturing. I still like 4:3 better for a productivity device, but the Nexus could be the sign off things to come.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Geek, Mobile, Reviews, Thoughts

Tagged , , ,

The great migration

Posted on December 18, 2012 | Leave a comment
WriteUp iPad

WriteUp, my favorite Markdown editor, running on my iPad.

Over the past several years I’ve been on an interesting word processing journey. First, I decided to migrate from a traditional desktop suite to the online offering Google Docs (which is now part of Google Drive). I hadn’t originally expected to stick with Google Docs for my regular word processor, but I quickly became hooked on both it’s speed and the way I could integrate Google Docs with the mobile office suites on my iPhone. Suddenly, the idea of “syncing” was gone. With Google Docs my documents lived in the cloud — and my edits followed me on wherever I was.

My shift to Google Docs was significant, but even after migrating to it I was using my MacBook for my writing. Then, on a cold day in March of 2011, I picked up a device which would take me on the next step of the journey — I got an iPad 2. We had purchased a first generation iPad for my son, who is visually impaired, shortly after they came out — I was shocked by how much I enjoyed using the tablet. I borrowed his iPad several times for meetings, and was amazed by its portability, ease of use, and invisibility. I had always used my laptop when meeting with people to make plans for special services, weddings, and funerals. While the laptop was functional, it was far from elegant — I always felt like there was a wall between me and the people with whom I was meeting. When I was using my son’s iPad I kept the functionality of planning services electronically, but the wall of separation caused by a laptop vanished. The iPad had a similar form-factor to a pad of paper, and people interacted with me as though that’s what I was using. I resolved to get the next iteration for myself when it came out.

I acquired a bluetooth keyboard soon after I purchased my iPad, and decided to try my hand at writing a sermon on the device. At first, I didn’t much care for the process of writing on my iPad. The interface in my mobile office suite was clean, but it took too much effort to change formatting. It also didn’t have support for paragraph styles to create structured documents. In the end, however, the extreme portability of my iPad won me over. The iPad was lighter, less obtrusive, and lended itself to distraction-less writing. It got to the point where I actually felt annoyed when I had to use my MacBook whenever I sat down to write my sermon.

For over a year I wrote my sermons on my iPad using a mobile office suite. It worked. The suite had some good outline support, and synced with Google Docs very well. I still wanted a decent setup for paragraph styles and was irked by how hard it was to format text — but the pros of writing on my iPad outweighed these frustrations. Then two occurrences converged and changed my sermon writing work-flow one more time.

The first of these was the shift from Google Docs to Google Drive. Suddenly mobile suite, which had played well with Google Drive so well, became unstable. This was not an acceptable state of affairs, and I began to wonder if there was be a better workflow for me.

The answer came to me when I became aware of a plain-text markup system called “markdown.” The simple style-codes in Markdown keeps documents human-readable while allowing for the creation of highly structured documents, and quick exporting to PDF, HTML, and other formats. The flexibility, ease of use, and incredible portability won me over. I traded the ability to outline as I’d been used to, but gained the ability to write documents with good structure and clean formatting without having to ever take my keys off the keyboard. Now my documents live in dropbox, are synced in real-time, and have no dependency on a specific file format or service to continue being useful for years to come. Even if dropbox goes away, for example, I’ll still have my local copies and be able to read my files with any text-editor. It’s been quite a journey over these last couple of years from a desktop office suite, to cloud-based office suite, to dropbox linked plain text markup which is truly mobile.  In fact, this post was written in markdown, I just copied it’s HTML output to the WordPress editor.

While I’m not using Markdown for all my writing, I’m currently writing a novel in Scrivener, I am no longer worrying about manually formatting my text as I write.  It’s been quite freeing.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Geek, Mobile

Tagged , , ,

Dear Barnes & Noble

Posted on August 2, 2012 | Leave a comment
High-End Nook Case

Sixty Dollars is a bit much for a case.

For Father’s Day my family got me a Nook SimpleTouch with GlowLight, I love it. I love that I can carry around all of Tolkien and Harry Potter in my pocket.  I love that I can pick up reading material for my sermon research in seconds.  I love that my annotations and highlights are available to me on my other devices should I ever be without my Nook.  I love the user interface. I love the eInk display.  Actually, that’s not true, I’m absolutely stunned by the eInk display – my brain keeps telling me it’s ink on a page, but I know that it’s not.  It’s that good.

Tonight, however, I figured out what I didn’t love about the Nook – the covers.

The covers for Barnes & Noble aren’t meant to be utilitarian add-ons to make their device indistinguishable from any other consumer electronic.  Instead, they’re meant to be fashion statements, created by fashion designers and set up to make the world know, “Hey, I have a Nook.”  They have clasps. They have intricate designs.  They have impressed quotations.  They come disguised as high-quality hardback books from olden times.  They are, from an artistic standpoint, pretty impressive.  I also want nothing to do with them.

Why?  For two reasons, really.

First, the high-quality design comes at a price.  The high-end covers (and, really, the only ones I can see myself carrying) cost $60.  That’s $19 cheaper than the low end Kindle.  I can’t see myself paying that much to wrap my eReader in a fashion accessory.  Even the mid-range covers cost around $30, and the protective sleeve I picked up tonight originally cost $20.  If it hadn’t been on sale, I would have walked out of the store tonight without making a purchase.

Second, even a piece of art needs to be functional.  This is something Apple understands, and even Microsoft seems to be finally getting with the Surface Tablet (too bad Mr. Ballmer tossed it under the bus to appease his OEMs, but that’s another rant).  Consumer electronics are meant to be used – and anything you plan on putting around such a device can’t get in the way with the experience of using it.  This is what makes the Apple Smart Cover so cool.  it’s slim, rather cute, gets out of the way, and adds functionality to the device.  The Nook covers don’t succeed on any of these fronts.  The outsides are well-designed and feel like they can put up with some punishment (Barnes & Noble does understand the need for people to feel the cases, the packaging is set up to allow for it).  The insides are another story.  Most of the cases hold the nook in place with two plastic hooks which stick into the small holes located on the top and bottom edges of the reader.  I can’t see these lasting through a drop or two.  Also wrapping device in the case changes how it’s used.  Suddenly readers have to be aware of what do with the cover while they read, and switching hands suddenly means making sure a loose page doesn’t keep flapping around.  In fact, the covers make the device regress – it feels more like reading a book not because of the tactile feel as the pages flip, but because you’re again forced to deal with portions of your reading material for which you currently have no use.

Barnes & Noble wants to show they understand how important design it to their devices.  I can appreciate that.  The problem is, they haven’t managed to heed Jonathan Ive’s warning that that design is more than just aesthetics.

So, dear Barnes & Noble, I applaud your desire to make the accessories for your excellent devices beautiful, I really do. Even though most of your covers aren’t my style, I appreciate what you’ve managed to create.  Still, at the prices you want to charge for these covers, they can’t feel like an inelegantly hacked-in solution.  The cover has to be more svelte, and designed to get out of the way when not in use.  If you want to charge, for a cover, a price approaching the cost of a rival device – beauty has to be more than skin deep.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Geek, Mobile, Thoughts

Mobile Suite Showdown – Importing and Exporting

Posted on February 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

Productivity apps on the iPad continue to be one of the top selling points for the device. It’s no surprise, then, that there are several office suites available in the App Store. This post is going to explore the three main “all in one” suites which are available on the iPad – Documents to Go, Quick Office, and Office2 HD. Apple’s iWork is also available in the App store, but the “separate app” nature of the suite sets it outside the scope of this comparison.

Today we’ll be looking at the fourth, and final, comparison – importing and exporting. Each suite will be reviewed on both how they deal with data both on a local network and to the cloud.

Quick Office HD

One of the selling points for Quick Office is the ease of which documents can be uploaded to, and retrieved from, computers on the local network via a built-in file transfer interface. This setting can be toggled by tapping the gear button in the file screen and toggling the “file transfer” option. Turning the option on will reveal an ip address which can be used to acces files which are locally stored inside Quick Office. For additional (or, really, any) security an added authentication option can be toggled which will require users to input a user and password combination before connecting. It’s a good idea to make sure this is on. Once file transfers are enabled, users can access Quick Office’s files (for locally stored files only) though a simple web-interface, or by connecting to the server through the finder or windows explorer. In my experiments with Quick Office I found that the file transfer server will disconnect a finder connection when switching to another app on the iPad – this is probably a limitation of iOS.

Quick Office HD also has an impressive number of options available for storing documents in the cloud. Aside from the “big three” of Dropbox, Google Docs, and Box – Quick Office also allows to connections to Sugar Sync, Evernote, and several more. Connections to these services benefit from Quick Office’s excellent file managment tools, however features which are unique to each service are not implemented. This is especially true for the lack of “starred documents” in Google Docs.

Documents imported into Quick Office are handled well – even supporting elements such as outlines, which cannot be generated by the suite itself. Quick Office will also display unrecognized fonts in a default sans serif face without stripping the font information from the actual document. The suite handles spreadsheets well, but my two test presentations suffered from lost formatting and stripped animations.

Office2 HD

As with Quick Office, HD Office2 HD has a built-in file transfer option. This can be access by tapping the gear button in the lower left of the file management screen and toggling “Enable File Sharing.” Similarly, security can also be enabled for this feature. While Quick Office has a colorful and well-thought out web interface, Office2 HD brings up a plain list hyper-links with an upload button at the bottom of the page (which you will probably need to scroll down to reveal). It gets the job done, but it’s not fun to look at. If you are using the file transfer option for this suite connecting via the finder or windows explorer is a better option.

The available options for cloud storage are not as great as in Quick Office. The “big three” are present, as are some other players, but that’s it. The suite, however, adds the ability to connect to a service via webDav – so “roll your own” cloud storage is an option.

Importing files into Office2 HD doesn’t render quite as good results as Quick Office. Unrecognized fonts are displayed in a sans serif font (and retained when opened elsewhere). Outline lists, however, are not displayed correctly though, again, the formatting is retained when opened elsewhere. The application handles spreadsheets well, however, and has in previous months been able to handle files which caused the other two suites to crash. It retains most cell formatting, but cannot hide cells. My first test presentation displayed with moderate success. My second test presentation removed the gradient background and didn’t handle a bullet list very well. Neither presentation retained animations.

Documents to Go

Unlike the other suites in this comparison, Documents to Go makes use of a desktop application to handle local transfers. In one sense, this can be seen as a hassle, because it requires the downloading an application to transfer documents over a local network. On the other hand, Documents to Go removes the need to manually move documents between devices (as in the other two suites). Once installed, Documents to Go’s desktop application creates a folder which will automatically sync files across devices. For uses who want to sync only on their local network, this is a good option.

Documents to Go has the least available options for cloud storage out of the three suites in this comparison. It has the big three, and adds only Sugar Sync as an alternative (each suite also offers iDisk, but this product will soon be discontinued so it can hardly be counted). It does, however, offer some special hooks for GoogleDocs users (the previously mentioned “stared documents”) – this is a nice touch.

Files imported into Documents to Go are displayed nicely. Text is re-flowed for the screen and font information is retained. I sometimes noticed a glitch in the font for outlines when a document is created in the Suite and then uploaded to GoogleDocs, which is an error which should be addressed. Also, Documents to Go has a tendency to strip out paragraph spacing when information is moved through the suite. Again, this is a glitch which I’d like to see fixed. Spreadsheets imported well, retaining cell formatting and even hiding cells which had been hidden in GoogleDocs. One of my test presentations, however, caused the application to crash.

Conclusion

Each of these suites handles importing and exporting in slightly different ways. Documents to Go allows for local syncing, which is a plus, but the added step of installing a desktop application to do so is a non-starter for many. The local file transfer feature for the other two suites is a nice touch (though the web interface is prettier in Quick Office) but requires a manual transfer of data. Again, this is a non-starter for many users.

Each suite has the “big three” cloud storage services available, but Quick Office offers the most options of all the suites. To it’s credit Office2 HD has built-in webDav support, allowing users or organizations to set up their own cloud storage services. Documents to Go has the fewest cloud storage options available, but has some key features GoogleDocs users will appreciate.

The suites each do a credible job importing word processing documents and spreadsheets, but are dismal when importing even the simplest of presentations (really, don’t even bother). The parity of features for each suite makes it difficult to declare a “winner” in this category. As a GoogleDocs user I tend to lean towards Documents to Go, but users of other cloud solutions will be happy with any of the three suites in this comparison.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Mobile, Reviews

Tagged , , ,

Mobile Suite Showdown – Editor Features

Posted on February 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

Productivity apps on the iPad continue to be one of the top selling points for the device. It’s no surprise, then, that there are several office suites available in the App Store. This post is going to explore the three main “all in one” suites which are available on the iPad – Documents to Go, Quick Office, and Office2 HD. Apple’s iWork is also available in the App store, but the “separate app” nature of the suite sets it outside the scope of this comparison.

Each suite will be explored for file management, editor layout, editing features, and importing/exporting. We’ll primarily look at the word-processing features of each suite, but will also compare the spreadsheet and presentations modules for each app. Today we’ll be looking at the third comparison – editor features.

This installment of the series is going to be handled a bit differently. The same three suites will be reviewed, but we’ll break down the review for each module in the package – Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Presentation.

Word Processor

This is the module I use most in any of these suites. Given that I have to write what amounts to a short reflection paper every week, this makes sense.

Quick Office

As was pointed out in the previous segment of this comparison, Quick Office HD attempted to create a simple interface which was pleasant to look at and easy to navigate. Unfortunately, the shortcomings of their interface choices also impacted the feature set they included in the suite. The word processing module can do basic character formatting, color and font changes, and simple paragraph formatting like indents and lists. It handles these tasks, decently and can interpret more complex formatting well when it’s imported into the suite, but there is no way to handle more complex formatting directly in Quick Office HD. There is no way to customize lists or add spacing between paragraphs. These are two features I use constantly, so their absense is something I feel.

Quick Office HD feels like a mobile editor, which is odd given their decision to present content in a page-layout view. It’s useful for editing existing documents, or creating documents with basic formatting, but it doesn’t seem to be designed for complex projects.

Office2 HD

For an inexpensive package, Office2 brings a lot of punch to the features debate. This suite handles all the basic formatting covered by Quick Office HD. It also, however, has an excellent slate of advanced formatting features. Paragraph spacing, line spacing, columns, manual breaks and tab stops, and full-fledged styles. While I gave Office2 HD poor marks for it’s cluttered interface, it seems the developers were busy adding an insane amount of features to their product. In addition the already listed features, this suite also allows the insertion of images and footnotes into a document. Something no other application in this comparison is able to do.

The desire to have desktop-level features in their application is admirable, and it is rather amazing to have so many options available on a mobile editor. Unfortunately, some of the features feel half-baked. When version 5 first came out, the suite was sluggish – leaving many of the advanced features buried behind a frustrated waiting game. Two iterations have passed since 5.0 was released, however, and the speed has gotten better each time. In fact, Office2 is actually faster on my iPad than Quick Office HD. Other features, however, still need some work. Hanging indents on lists have a tendency to disappear once a document is closed and re-opened.

This is a suite which shows much promise – but it still needs to work out some kinks.

Documents to Go

As with layout, this suite splits the difference between the other two in this comparison. It has many of the features included in Office2 except paragraph styles, images, and footnotes. In place of these omissions, however, Documents to Go adds an extensive array of list options. This includes a good range of multi-level lists for the creation of outlines. As this is a feature I use every week, it’s something I appreciate.

Unlike Office2, the advanced formatting features in Documents to Go “just work.” The only glitch I’ve discovered so far is the omission of paragraph spacing when a document is synced and retrieved from Google Docs. This is an inconvenience, and one which I wish would be rectified, but it’s not a show-stopper.

Spreadsheet

I use spreadsheets infrequently, but when I do they are an indispensable tool for my work.

Quick Office

The Spreadsheet module in Quick Office HD is slick, fast, and intuitive. Functions are easily accessed next to the editor bar, and some basic formatting is found in the main editor window – including the option to format cell data into a pre-arranged type. Other editing includes the ability to do simple borders, change cell color, and align cells both vertically and horizontally. In fact, the same “drag to align” interface which seems unnecessarily graphic in the word processor feels elegant in the spreadsheet. Merging cells and wrapping data in a cell is also easily accomplished.

Selecting multiple cells in Quick Office HD is also easily done. When a cell is selected, a handle appears on each side which can be used to drag a selection across multiple rows, columns, or both.

Office2 HD

The spreadsheet (called “workbooks” when you create a new one) in this suite has a great many features, all accessed through the buttons on the editor toolbar. Included among these buttons are quick borders, and button which will sum all the data in a column (I love this). Data types are found under a dollar sign icon, but advanced formatting is found under an unattractive “…” icon (again, the interface needs a little work). As with the word processor, the formatting buttons span between two pages.

Selecting multiple cells isn’t initially as elegant in Office2 HD as it is in Quick Office. A basic selection requires double tapping a cell and then dragging through the cells you want – a handle appears which can be used to adjust the selection. Alternatively, however, if you tap a single cell and then long-tap another cell a range can will selected (row, column, or box depending on where you long-tap). This would be helpful when trying to select a very specific data-set in a large spreadsheet.

Documents to Go

Documents to Go has an impressive array of functions which can be done with it’s spreadsheet, and can handle basic formatting to display it’s data. Borders, however, are missing from it’s tool-set – which I find an odd omission. The spreadsheet module of this suite, however, does add the ability to hide and unhide rows and columns. This is helpful, for example, when a spreadsheet is used to create a schedule – past weeks can be hidden from view to allow the quick browsing of data.

Selecting multiple cells in Documents to Go, however, is an exercise in frustration. The feature is accessed by double-tapping a cell and then dragging. There is, however, no handle present which can later alter a selection. On large spreadsheets, this creates headaches when attempting to select data.

Presentation

My initial response to anyone wanting to use the presentation modules in these suites is, “Just use Keynote.” As they are a bundled part of the suite, however, I include them in this comparison. I won’t bother with the screenshots, though, it’s just too depressing.

Quick Office

When thinking of the presentation module for Quick Office HD the word, “rudimentary” comes to mind. It has support for the formatting of basic shapes and text boxes – and that’s it. No builds, no backgrounds, no transitions. Just the text and shapes. The purpose of this app seems to be to display, and edit, imported slides rather than build new presentations from scratch.

Office2 HD

This presentation module includes a few more features than Quick Office, including the ability to set a background image. In addition, there are some included slide templates and to import images into slides. Builds, transitions, and compositing features (such as borders and drop shadows) are not included. I also find the presentation module to be a bit unstable, as it tends to crash when inserting images.

Documents to Go

If Quick Office was “rudimentary,” the presentation module in Documents to Go is “bare bones.” There are several simple templates offered when creating a new presentation, but once created the content of the slides can only be altered via an outline view! Speaker notes can be added to slides, in the slide-view mode – but I’m not sure why anyone would bother.

If you’re not importing slides into Documents to Go, it’s best to forget this module even exists.

Conclusion

In terms of sheer features, Office2 HD dominates. It’s advanced formatting for word processing documents, and several nice touches to it’s spreadsheet module, make it come out on top. Some of the features aren’t quite stable, however, so it might be best to save often when using this suite for content generation. Over all, Documents to Go comes in second due to a stellar word processing feature-set – but Quick Office’s spreadsheet module is also a tempting offer.

 

 

 

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Mobile, Reviews

Tagged , ,

Pleasantly Disrupted

Posted on December 19, 2011 | Leave a comment
I remember watching the initial iPad announcement and thinking, “Well, it’s kinda cool, but underwhelming.” It didn’t have a camera, and it really looked like nothing more than a big iPod Touch. As I already had an iPhone, I saw no need for “another device.” Then my neighbor got one to be his “take along computer” for his handyman business and let me play with it. I was shocked at how much I enjoyed using it. Manipulating the screen through touch was an emotional experience, and the experience of using the iPad felt nothing like using my iPhone. I was hooked.

Several months later, as we were wrestling with getting a device for my son so he could read the Bible and his books for school, we knew the iPad was what he needed (he’s significantly visually impaired). I generally kept my hands off, but I borrowed it from time to time to see how I would use an iPad in my pastoral work. Before the year was up, I knew this was a device I wanted to have. I saved up my Christmas and Birthday money, added some from my ministry reimbursements, and stood out in line last March to be among the first to get an iPad 2. It’s changed the way I do computing.

Initially I categorized my iPad as “another device.” It was useful, but for the majority of my takes I still opened up my MacBook and did my “serious” work. I continued to write my sermons in GoogleDocs, my video editing in Final Cut Express and iMovie, my blogging from the web-interface, and my presentations in Keynote’s desktop incarnation. I used my iPad for editing existing documents, quick references, and e-mail – “light” tasks that I could do quickly and the move on to other things.

Over the months, however, I noticed a change my my mental categories. More and more I found myself packing up my iPad when I went “out and about” to work, even when I was doing “serious” tasks. This shift was aided, no doubt, by my acquisition of an inexpensive keyboard and apps like Blogsy (the best blogging tool I have ever used). The real motivation for this shift, however, was the emotional attachment I have to the iPad. When I am using it, even with the keyboard, I have a sense of being more connected to the task on which I’m working. I used to say I loved the iPad because when I used it the wall between myself, and anyone with whom I happened to be collaborating, was removed. Three quarters of a year into my life as an iPad user, however, has revealed to me how using the iPad also removes the wall of separation between me and the content I create. I now see my iPad as my computer, and my MacBook as “another device.” The MacBook is a necessary device for storage, and for large projects and presentations, but it’s what I go to when I simply can’t use my iPad.

It was an unexpected transition, and this disruptive tool isn’t even two years old. I’m almost giddy as the thought of what’s coming next.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Geek, Mobile, Thoughts

Tagged

The five year lag

Posted on August 19, 2011 | 2 Comments

The other day I had a brief twitter conversation with @johndyer (whom all my readers should follow) about technology in the Church. John often hears complaints that churches are “five years behind the rest of the world” technology-wise and, being a thoughtful technologist remind the complainers, “Look, its 2011 and George Lucas has JUST gotten Star Was on Blue Ray.” It’s a good point, the rest of the world is sometimes not as far ahead as we think.In our exchange however, I pointed out that the irony was that Blue Ray was a DOA medium anyway, so John may have picked a better example. His response was, “Doesn’t that make it a better point?” Again, he has a good thought, people are so keen on “catching up” that we end up running blindly into dead ends. I agree, which is why I think that John wasn’t really talking about the “five year lag” at all. Our conversation ended with me asserting that the real problem facing churches is not a five year lag in technology, but rather the continued assumption that technology is just another gimmick “to get young people in.” Full disclosure, the quoted segment made no appearance in our twitter exchange – I was thinking it, but didn’t write it.

As churches, we need to stop looking for “the next big thing.” It is a dead end which leaves us looking like the outcast in the corner who has no confidence in their social skills but keeps on shouting, “Look at me, look at me, I can be cool too!” We owe our Savior, and the world, something better than that. What we’re seeing now is not a fad to be latched on to until something better comes along. We are seeing a significant social shift in the ways people connect with each other that is literally re-mapping our brains. It is powerful, pervasive, and has been going on longer than we sometimes think (I’d argue the telephone started the transition in earnest when it started entering people’s homes).

There is much in this shift to be heralded. For example, the speed and accuracy which which information can be passed and acted upon is something to be marveled at. Yet there is also much to be cautious about. Our communications shift is having an effect on our ability to memorize information (accelerating a process which began with the Gutenberg Press). It also further blurs the line between “urgent” and “important” because all of our data seems to demand immediate attention. This blurring creates an inability to be “present” in any given situation, which creates problems for spiritual activities like worship and prayer.

If churches drop their tendency to see technology as just another gimmick, then we can deal with both the positive and negative aspects of our communications with much needed wisdom. For example, we can accept people’s packed schedules by moving our “meetings” into an online space like a private email list or forum. This would give people an opportunity to interact with ideas over time, and become part of their daily rhythm. On the other hand, we can make deliberate moves to slow worship and prayer down. Instead of succumbing to the “more more more!” ethos of our culture, we can teach people the beauty of the contemplative prayer traditions and the freedom they bring to our communion with the Triune God. As we engage the positive and negative aspects of our cultural shift perhaps we’ll stop complaining about a five year lag in the tools we use and start contemplating on how we can communicate the Gospel well in this world.

Thanks, John, for spurring my thoughts!

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Geek, Mobile, Thoughts

Tagged , ,

The fall of a cultural icon

Posted on July 28, 2011 | 2 Comments

Monday night I went to a Borders for the last time. Well, the store signage said “Borders,” but it wasn’t like I remembered it at all. The cafe was closed, the friendly Borders staff was gone, and there were signs indicating the mark-downs available for any given shelf. In fact, there were no employees of Borders anywhere to be found, it seems that they’d all been replaced by the liquidation company. I don’t hesitate to say that the the experience was depressing – Borders has always been my preferred bookstore, and their cafe’s were always more cozy than Barnes and Noble.

A lot of pixels have been used to blame Borders’ demise on the rise of eBooks. I suppose there is some truth to that, the timing of the decision to close comes very shortly after the lackluster reviews of the Kobo Touch eReader came to light. It seems like that device was their last throw of the dice, and it failed. In reality, however, Borders’ demise strings back over a decade of completely mis-reading the writing on the wall when it came to cultural change. Borders just never “got” the Internet Age, and so they are relegated to a cultural footnote.

Borders first mis-judged people’s willingness to buy books online and have them shipped to their homes. After all, the purchase of a book has always been a strangely personal endeavor. Borders reasoned that people would much rather prefer to purchase books in a store, where they can page through them in person, than to get an unknown quantity of the net. This attitude led Borders to license out their on-line shopping to Amazon. They got a cut of the sales referred to from Borders, and didn’t have to worry about the hassle of managing a distribution network for on-line sales. At the time, they were correct. More people did prefer to buy their books in the store than pay Amazon to ship a book they’d never seen to their homes. The speed at which the culture shifted to feeling comfortable with shopping on-line, however, shocked everyone – especially companies like Borders. Amazon rather quickly started making a profit, offered an incredible buying experience, added reviews and book previews, and gained a reputation for having some of the best customer service anywhere. When the time came to renew the licensing agreement with Amazon for on-line sales, Amazon found they no longer needed Borders’ reputation to sell books. Borders eventually got into the game, but far too late – people didn’t associate “Borders” with “on-line shopping,” and their store gained little traction. Borders’ biggest brick and mortar competition, however, took an entirely different approach. Barnes and Noble merged the experience between their brick and mortar and internet stores. This approach, combined with many of the same features Amazon offered, allowed Barnes and Noble to thrive in the new reality – something Borders never managed to do.

When eBooks became a viable tool Borders repeated many of their same mistakes. Amazon and Barnes and Noble created their own devices and offered significant value to using them. Amazon’s Kindle had “whisper sync” and free 3g access to their store. Barnes and Noble’s Nook offered the ability to browse through books (or even read them) in their entirety when used inside their Brick and Mortar stores. Borders, meanwhile, failed to understand the need to control an eco-system in order to provide a value-added experience for their brand. They made their books available on a plethora of different readers (notably Sony), and lost the ability link their brand with eBooks. By the time they established Kobo as their “go to” eReader for the Borders brand (Borders owned a minority share in Kobo Books) they had, again, become an also ran. It was simply too late to save them.

The fall of Borders as a cultural icon should serve as a warning to other organization who are dealing the the current reality with their heads in the sand. The shifts were are seeing to online, mobile, and social content are not minor fads. They are significant cultural shifts which are altering the very fabric of human interaction and must be dealt with. Nor, as Barnes and Noble has shown, does this online reality mean we need to instantly abandon “traditional” methods. Barnes and Noble has fused their on-line and brick and mortal realities into a hybrid other brands are envious of – and rightfully so.

Will other organizations on the bubble pay attention to the fall of Borders and change their tunes? In particular, will churches and denominations pay attention to how rapidly Borders disappeared and develop a desire to engage our changing culture with a missionary zeal? I hope so but, if the last 40 years is an example of what we have to look forward to, most will never take the plunge.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Geek, Mobile, Thoughts

Tagged ,

Vacations and Behavioral Change

Posted on July 14, 2011 | Leave a comment
in the 1790's "breaking news" was 2 weeks old

My how culture has shifted.

I love going on vacations for many reasons, but my favorite might be the chance to track the changing behavior-patterns of vacationers over time.  Yes, I’m a geek (and probably a nerd) – I can’t help it.

The first “vacation” I ever took with my wife was our honeymoon to Williamsburg, VA.  As we prepared for the trip we made sure that we had a camera to take pictures of our first trip there.  Being 1997, we got a simple point and shoot film camera.  During our meandering through the Historic Area, that’s what I saw everyone using.

We’ve been back many times over the years, and it’s been fun to see how cameras have shifted over the years.  In the early 2000′s I began to see a 50/50 split between digital and film point and shoot cameras.  By 2008 nearly everyone was using a digital point and shoot camera, with a smattering of people using their camera phones.  Last summer I still saw some digital point and shoot cameras being used, but I noticed more camera phones in use than in 2008.  This summer, the number of digital point and shoot cameras I observed being used was non-existant.  Most people were using either camera phones or pocket camcorders to capture their memories.  Also, for the first time, I noticed quite a few people using DSLR’s as their cameras.  There had always been some “serious” photographers out with their impressive cameras in Williamsburg, but they were always few and far between.  It seems that, as devices have converged into “the camera on hand” (usually our phones) photography as a hobby may be making a bit of a come back.  It doesn’t hurt that DSLR prices are dropping into consumer ranges, either.

Another trend I noticed over time was the use of computers in Williamsburg.  In 1997 you didn’t see a computer anywhere except the at the check-in counter.  As the years passed, and digital cameras came to the fore, laptops became commonplace.  As non-business types began to bring laptops, the Williamsburg hotels offered free internet (first wired, and then wireless).  This was the norm from the early 2000′s right up until last summer.  It was normal to see people in the lobbies, dining areas, and the pool tapping away on their laptop keyboards.  Between this summer and last, however, there seems to have been a radical shift in vacation computing, and one which happened a lot faster than the shift from film to digital cameras.  Seeing someone one a laptop suddenly became a rare occurrence – instead, tablets (specifically iPads) were everywhere. I saw them at the pool, in the lobbies, and in the dining rooms.  I even saw someone using a Xoom as his camera in the Historic Area.

Finally, this was also the first time I saw QR Codes in use (though this was at Jamestown Island, not Williamsburg).  The codes went to web-links which had more details on the different archaeological sites being presented on the island (and correctly formatted for mobile, well-done!).

What I saw in these shifts in vacation technology is a shift in our culture in general.  We went from analog to digital, wired to wireless, and local syncing to mobile sharing in the span of 14 years.  The way people record, store, and share their memories has completely shifted to lighter, faster, and more compact - foregoing physical media altogether.  From a geek’s perspective, it’s been fun to watch.  From a communicator’s perspective, it’s exciting to explore how to use this behavioral shift to reach out and interact with people.  From a pastoral perspective, it’s daunting.  Churches need to wake up to this massive shift in behavior and adapt to it.  After all, if people are now changing (or have changed) the way they store their important family memories – it means that they are most likely changing the way they “remember” data in general.  Here are some examples:

  • If people eschew physical media on vacation as an unnecessary encumbrance why do we insist on relying on overflowing bulletins to pass information to people?
  • If people are used to being able to share memories instantly while on vacation – why do churches tend to wait until “next month’s meeting” to share thoughts?
  • If presentations are being augmented through mobile technology – why aren’t churches using similar technology to illuminate our peculiar culture?  We could explain liturgy, the movement of the Church calendar, explain the current sermon series, explain the images found in stained-glass, and even explain the history of the building (if it has a history worth-telling).
These are just some of the thought I take from my vacation observations (many of which I shared before).  The use of QR Codes, however, might be a project that I experiment with this summer.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Geek, Mobile, Thoughts

Tagged , ,