Image Gallery: Apple iPad Experience Series
See Matthew Miller's Mobile Gadgeteer blog for more on his Apple iPad Experience
There are a few settings in Bible HD as you can see in this pop-up.
Toggle on the low light view when you are reading in bed and want to reduce the backlight glare.
You can email the verse to a buddy or bookmark it for later access.
A quick tap on the upper left icon opens up your bookmarks.
There are several different translations in many different languages.
Some translations are available for offline viewing so you do not need a wireless connection to read the Bible.
When you first launch the Logos application you will be prompted to sign in or register for a free account.
Tapping Home takes you back to this screen.
This screenshot shows you the full top and bottom menus available when you tap while reading.
There are only a few settings available in the Logos Bible software, but the font selector is quite slick for finding just the size you like.
While reading you can have the full page taken up with text. Tapping while reading slides out the top and bottom menu options.
It is easy to jump to a book you wish to read.
Tapping the "i" in the upper right gives you information on that particular translation.
There are a number of available titles in Logos, shown with their cover art.
This is what the passage guide screen looks like.
With this tool you can compare different translations for the same verse and conduct Bible study.
Some translations support cross references and other hyperlinking within the book.
Here is another example of data in the translation.
Tapping and holding on a word launches a search with the option to jump to Bible word study.
Here is a sample of what a Bible word study will look like once you find a word to evaluate.
When you slide your finger up the display this is the pop-up that will appear. You have several options available to you now.
You can share the verse via email, Twitter, or Facebook.
Gallery thumbnail 1
Gallery thumbnail 2
The nook and Sony Reader are much smaller and more focused than the iPad, but the multiple client support and backlighting may make the iPad a perfectly capable ebook reader.
Apple has a UI in their ebook reader that most closely models physical books, starting with modeling a bookshelf.
There is a store modeled after the App Store for you to purchase ebook titles directly. You can also find many free public domain books so there is no cost to give it a go.
Here is a shot of shopping in the iBooks store from your iPad.
Download a free title to test out the software.
Apple includes Winnie the Pooh in the iBooks application so iPad owners can get a full feel of the ebook reading experience.
There is a simple slider bar for adjusting the brightness. Lowering the brightness is helpful for reading in bed.
You can choose from ten font sizes and five different font types in iBooks.
One slick thing I found was that non-DRM EPUB file formats are supported. You can find hundreds of free EPUB books to load up on your iPad.
As you can see, the same reading interface and appearance as you can find in books purchased through the store is available in these books.
You can view books in different ways as well.
The background of the Kindle application changes dynamically with the time of day.
Tapping the small "i" opens up this menu where some information can be viewed.
Tapping on the center of the text makes a few menu option icons appear on the display.
Five font size choices are available, along with three background colors. A brightness slider is also present for controlling display backlighting. There do not appear to be any settings for font type.
Tapping the center icon gives you a few options for navigating quickly within the book.
You can set a bookmark by tapping the upper right corner or +/- icon on the left of center.
There is no Kindle ebook store within the application so the app launches the Kindle site in the web browser where you can make purchases.
After signing into your Kobo account you will see your library appear in the center Library tab.
Tapping the I'm Reading tab forces a black page to appear with book covers for those you have open to choose from and start reading.
Unlike the Amazon client, Kobo has their ebook store integrated into the iPad client.
You can select from seven different bookshelf forms to use with Kobo on your iPad.
The bookshelf type switches automatically and they are easy to change.
You can switch from bookshelf mode to a thumbnail and detail mode.
Kobo books appear in almost full screen with just the very small black time and signal status bar appearing. I like seeing the time so find this a nice solution.
Tapping on the center of the text opens up several options for managing your reading experience.
Four different font sizes are available in Kobo.
You can toggle quickly between day and night modes while also adjusting the brightness through several different levels.
You can tap the upper right corner or bookmark icon to toggle bookmarks.
You can toggle animations and then select which type you want to see appear on the iPad.
This is a view of the landscape mode of the Kobo library.
Thumbnail 1
Thumbnail 2
Here is a typical Day view in the Calendar.
A typical week view with appointments sprinkled throughout.
Typical Calendar month view.
The List view shows you your upcoming appointments as a list of items.
Here you can see what happens when you tap to add an event in landscape orientation in List view mode.
As you can see portrait orientation gives you a slightly different view of your data.
By tapping the option in the upper left, you can respond to meeting invitations.
This view of the calendar in portrait mode shows you what editing an event looks like.
I personally like the way that tapping on an appointment in Week or Month views opens up the details for you to see.
Search is quite slick and as you enter letters your data is sorted automatically.
As you can see Contacts in portrait orientation is not very well done or optimized.
In landscape orientation your contacts appear similar to a basic address book.
You can open up and edit a contact on the iPad.
You can also create a new contact with a few selected fields available for data entry.
Apple gives Notes a cool look in landscape orientation, but the functionality is the same as on the iPhone.
As you can see Notes looks the same as on the iPhone, only bigger.
When you first launch Evernote you are taken to a view that shows all your notes. They are arranged with the most recent at the top and you will find a slider timeline bar on the right, much like the desktop version of Evernote.
If you tap the bottom right icon then the menu shown here appears. This is the Synchronization menu that lets you manage sync settings for your account.
With Evernote on the iPhone and iPad you can select notebooks to have downloaded right to your device so that your notes are fully accessible without a wireless data connection.
Handwritten notes are not supported in Evernote, but you can enter text based notes using the iPad keyboard.
In addition to text notes you can add voice memos to a note as well. Evernote on the iPad actually supports multiple types of data in a single note.
You can easily add photos to your notes too, but unfortunately there is no camera to capture images with the iPad.
You can tap and select the notebook you wish to save your note in while creating a new note.
Photos appear and look great in your notes.
If you have a note with a photo in it then you can use the multi-touch capabilities of the iPad to zoom in and pan around.
You can see all of your notebooks in this enhanced iPad view. You can sort them by name or note count.
You can also tap the top button and choose to view your notes by tags. Tags can be sorted by name and note count as well.
Sample text note in portrait orientation shows you several options/buttons at the bottom for sending or editing notes.
Evernote added geo-location tagging several months ago and with this cool view you can view your notes by location.
As you can see you can view location-based notes in satellite, map, and hybrid view modes. There is a button to also have Evernote determine your location.
One of the most powerful things about Evernote is the search functionality. As you browse through search results you will find your search word highlighted in yellow if the text is in the note body.
Search results appear as thumbnails that you can then simply tap and view in detail.
I am finding that landscape orientation is a better way to use Evernote than in portrait mode.
This screenshot shows you how browsing a photo note appears in landscape orientation.
Here is a short of your notebooks in landscape.
You can sync your Safari bookmarks and get the web clipper capability on your iPad.
Tapping the web clipper bookmark makes the Evernote pop-up appear where you can select to clip the website URL or the entire page.
You can even select a notebook to save your clipped page into right from the bookmark utility.
The iPhone 3GS does a good job of showing the full web.
The full website appears on the iPhone.
When I visit my bank I am taken to the mobile version of the website. This is fine with me since they do have an iPhone-optimized site and even an application that lets me deposit with a photo.
The full version of the New York Times does appear on the iPhone 3GS.
Why pay for the subscription when you can view the Wall Street Journal through the web browser?
When you go to CNN you are taken to the mobile iPhone-optimized version of the site.
When you visit the USA Today site you are also taken to the mobile version of the site.
As you can see, more information is present on the large display of the iPad compared to the iPhone.
Again, the full site is supported and a joy to visit on the iPad.
The full USAA bank site is accessible on the Apple iPad.
Again, there are no real limits on the iPad.
The Wall Street Journal looks very good on the iPad.
No mobile version here again.
The one limit you will find on the iPad is the inability to play Flash. I have only found the N900 native browser to support Flash on the go.
USA Today looks good, but I still find the dedicated iPad application to be the preferred method for reading it.