Anyone playing with the iPad and working with their fotos?

[gstark]

Ia,

You might also want to try Myer or JB or Hardly Normal.

Also will consider replacing the N95 with an iphone4 I reckon......

Also, wander in to a Tehstra store, and look at the HTC Desire. It will be very interesting to see how the iPhone 4 stacks up.

[ATJ]

I bought a 64GB 3G from the local DSE yesterday. I went for the 3G because I wanted GPS and I went for the 64GB because I figured the only regret I would have is how much I spent - i.e. if I'd gone with the 16GB or 32GB and ran out of space I'd be very annoyed.

First impressions are very good, although it was pretty much as I expected (and I had played with one at DSE the weekend after they became available). I did have a minor heart attack when I first turned it on. The photo used for the wallpaper has star trails which initially looked like scratches on the screen.

I'm very pleased with the GPS. Within moments of going into Maps and clicking on the button to show current location, it zeroed in and showed my location as the house across the street. This is amazing compared to my Holux logger which can't even get a signal inside the house - I was in the study which is on the ground floor of a 2 story house. Within a few minutes my location changed to my house.

[gstark]

I bought a 64GB 3G from the local DSE yesterday. I went for the 3G because I wanted GPS and I went for the 64GB because I figured the only regret I would have is how much I spent - i.e. if I'd gone with the 16GB or 32GB and ran out of space I'd be very annoyed.

Congratulations. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

A couple of apps I'm finding to be useful ... PrintBureau lets you print from the iPad, check email, keeps an archive of your Clipboard contents and a few other miscellaneous tasks ... it even lets me send email from my masked email address aliases, which is great.

Air Display lets you extend your Mac's display onto the iPad ....

RDP and VNC let you access other PCs' desktops, and iNet lets you scan your network and implement WOL facilities for your systems. In a similar vein, I have iSSH and Turobosh to let me log into our various linux boxes and do some work.

And NPR has to be one of the best apps ... ever! Great interface, good content (albeit US-centric for the news, but the arts content is great), and free!

I have the F1 app, which is expensive, but OMG!

And I'll be looking at Early Edition later today.

First impressions are very good, although it was pretty much as I expected (and I had played with one at DSE the weekend after they became available). I did have a minor heart attack when I first turned it on. The photo used for the wallpaper has star trails which initially looked like scratches on the screen.

I had pretty much the same reaction.

Settings, Brightness and Wallpaper, Wallpaper to change the images; you can set different images for your desktop and lock screens.

[ATJ]

PrintBureau lets you print from the iPad, check email, keeps an archive of your Clipboard contents and a few other miscellaneous tasks ... it even lets me send email from my masked email address aliases, which is great.

So I may be able to print from my iPad even though I can't print from Windows 7 64-bit.

RDP and VNC let you access other PCs' desktops, and iNet lets you scan your network and implement WOL facilities for your systems. In a similar vein, I have iSSH and Turobosh to let me log into our various linux boxes and do some work.

I have been running RDP Lite on the iPod and that works even better on the iPad - 1024x768 is just about right.

I have the F1 app, which is expensive, but OMG!

Yes. I played with that one at DSE between qualifying and the race in Turkey. I was able to "replay" qualifying which was incredible. I'll probably buy it before this weekend, although it is probably the worst weekend to try it live with P1, P2, P3, Q and the race all being in the middle of the night. Although... I'm thinking that maybe I can "replay" P1 and P2 on Saturday morning and P3 and Q on Sunday morning and just watch the race live with it in the early hours of Monday morning.

I am somewhat disappointed that Pages, Numbers and Keynote are all paid apps. The impression I had got from the iPad pages on www.apple.com soon after the launch was that these would be free apps, just like iBooks is.

I also can't seem to find iPhoto (well not one from Apple) or do you only get that "with" the camera connection kit?

Settings, Brightness and Wallpaper, Wallpaper to change the images; you can set different images for your desktop and lock screens.

First thing I changed was the Wallpaper behind the apps to something plain. And then the lock screen to my name and postal address in case I lose it somewhere (and an honest person finds it).

[ATJ]

ARGH!

Upsides of having the 3G model: GPS and being able to connect when you don't have wireless available.

Downside: Having to get the micro-SIM activated.

I bought a Telstra one (only because I've heard Optus is not great in my area). $30 which includes a bonus 1GB plus a bonus 2GB (two bonuses, woo hoo).

To activate, I have to call 125 8880 (no idea how much that costs) and follow the prompts. (I think, why can't you just do it over the web? Well, I was soon to find out.) So I call, put in 1 and then 3 for iPad, I'm asked for my service number which I enter, the number is read back and I confirm, and I'm told I'll be connected to a consultant (but no indication as to why).

I'm on hold for what seems like 10 minutes and I end up back at the initial prompts, so I go through it all again, and again get told I'll be put through to a consultant. Another 5 minutes, and I end up speaking to someone in the Philippines. The first thing they ask is "How can I help you?", my response: "You tell me. I'm just trying to activate my micro-SIM for my iPad." Now, she already knew all that and even the service number, so why did she ask?

I'm then asked if I have a home or mobile phone with Telstra (I happen to have both, but what would happen if I didn't have anything with them?). I then have to give my name, DOB, address, driver licence number (which I already had to give at DSE to buy the thing in the first place) and finally she says she'll activate - oh, I could add someone else to operate the account and fortunately all I needed to give was their name and DOB. After all that she says, it might get activated straight away, or in 2 hours or in 24 hours.

What a pain in the butt!

[gstark]

PrintBureau lets you print from the iPad, check email, keeps an archive of your Clipboard contents and a few other miscellaneous tasks ... it even lets me send email from my masked email address aliases, which is great.

So I may be able to print from my iPad even though I can't print from Windows 7 64-bit.

It's a definite possibility.

RDP and VNC let you access other PCs' desktops, and iNet lets you scan your network and implement WOL facilities for your systems. In a similar vein, I have iSSH and Turobosh to let me log into our various linux boxes and do some work.

I have been running RDP Lite on the iPod and that works even better on the iPad - 1024x768 is just about right.

Yes. What I've found is that hiding the taskbar on the Windoze desktop does not help matters here, and I can't seem to be able to find a way to activate it from the iPad.

I also can't seem to find iPhoto (well not one from Apple) or do you only get that "with" the camera connection kit?

The camera kit is hardware only, so no.

[Ant]

Now, she already knew all that and even the service number, so why did she ask?

That's a brave assumption... I wouldn't assume Telstra has it's systems sorted that well

[ATJ]

Now, she already knew all that and even the service number, so why did she ask?

That's a brave assumption... I wouldn't assume Telstra has it's systems sorted that well

I agree it would have been a brave assumption (Telstra SUCK), only it wasn't an assumption. SHE TOLD ME my service number.

I should add that it got worse. Two hours later it still wasn't working, so I called the technical help desk number they have me (125111) and got one of those inane voice response units (you know the ones that don't under stand "Oh go and get f***ed"). Which asked me to put in words what I wanted and ended up sending me back to the activation team. They then told me I had come to the wrong place and wanted technical support - I couldn't be bothered explaining that they were the ones that misdirected me.

I finally get to technical support (Philippines again) and she gets me to do varies things, none of which worked and finally gets me to put in the APN which was blank. Now, why doesn't the documentation that came with the micro-SIM tell me that? Why didn't the extra Telstra documentation that DSE printed out because Telstra told them to provide it (even though it was no different to what was already packaged with the micro-SIM) tell me that?

I can finally connect over 3G but the speed was atrocious. I asked why it was so bad and her explanation was that the iPad was new and it would take a while to get faster. I gave up at that point.

[gstark]

I can finally connect over 3G but the speed was atrocious. I asked why it was so bad and her explanation was that the iPad was new and it would take a while to get faster. I gave up at that point.

Really??

Sorry, but ROTFLMAO at that, but not your experiences.

[dawesy]

Really??

Sorry, but ROTFLMAO at that, but not your experiences.

No it's true, the iPad is like a car of 20 years ago. You have to run it in before you get full performance.
Much like when a network printer doesn't print, if you keep printing more and more jobs, the pressure will force out your first print job.


More seriously, ATJ I feel your pain. Telstra really are nightmarish to deal with. It's a shame they have such a good network or it'd be easy to go elsewhere.

[ATJ]

More seriously, ATJ I feel your pain. Telstra really are nightmarish to deal with. It's a shame they have such a good network or it'd be easy to go elsewhere.

I have to wonder why they pay incompetent people in the Philippines to do support when I'm sure they could find just as incompetent people in Oz that would work for the same pay.

[Ant]

(you know the ones that don't under stand "Oh go and get f***ed")

Next time one of our guys is working on the grammar for this I will have to see if I can get it remedied...

[dawesy]

I have to wonder why they pay incompetent people in the Philippines to do support when I'm sure they could find just as incompetent people in Oz that would work for the same pay.

I suspect incompetent people over here expect more pay actually. No doubt their union would put quite a bit of effort into it as well!

[ATJ]

Next time one of our guys is working on the grammar for this I will have to see if I can get it remedied...

Please do.

Caller: "Oh go and get f***ed"
VRU: "I think you said you wanted "billing", is this correct?"
Caller: "F*** you"
VRU: "I think you said "Yes", is this correct?"
Caller: "How the f*** can I just speak to a person?"
VRU: "Let's start from the beginning again. Please describe in a few words what you would like."
<click>

[Ant]

Next time one of our guys is working on the grammar for this I will have to see if I can get it remedied...

Please do.

Caller: "Oh go and get f***ed"
VRU: "I think you said you wanted "billing", is this correct?"
Caller: "F*** you"
VRU: "I think you said "Yes", is this correct?"
Caller: "How the f*** can I just speak to a person?"
VRU: "Let's start from the beginning again. Please describe in a few words what you would like."
<click>

Yes but the client has gotten what they wanted: more calls terminated in the IVR and less transfers to agents! It is fun listening to the recordings of some of these calls, especially the ones where the person believes they are having a conversation.

[gstark]

Next time one of our guys is working on the grammar for this I will have to see if I can get it remedied...

Please do.

Caller: "Oh go and get f***ed"
VRU: "I think you said you wanted "billing", is this correct?"
Caller: "F*** you"
VRU: "I think you said "Yes", is this correct?"
Caller: "How the f*** can I just speak to a person?"
VRU: "Let's start from the beginning again. Please describe in a few words what you would like."
<click>

Yes but the client has gotten what they wanted: more calls terminated in the IVR and less transfers to agents! It is fun listening to the recordings of some of these calls, especially the ones where the person believes they are having a conversation.

Maybe I should write a predictive dialer app for the iPad, and it can call up call centres and abuse them for us.

[who]

Ia,

You might also want to try Myer or JB or Hardly Normal.

Thanks for the tips, but I really do live in the boonies........... Apple tell me 25 June delivery, so I'll just wait it out.

Hmmm.... Myer - there is one in Launceston, a mere 75 minutes away. JB - try Hobart 3.5 hours away. And don't start me on the local Hardley Normal franchisee........ who we have been trying to get a functioning coffee machine out of, for my office, for 11 months now.

They have finally "sponsored" us into an upgrade to a Jura, which so far, seems to actually make a hot coffee with frothy milk..... something the fully auto machine(s) previously from another company could not do.

And they recommended/sold that to us after a desciption of what we wanted...... and then needed some very strong reminders of what consumer law says.

So I have no interest in buying from them again, knowing what we were promising in terms of bad exposure when July ticked over (lets just say, our front door opens 3,000 times that month, and a nice sign and invitation to try and use said machine would have been posted).

Also will consider replacing the N95 with an iphone4 I reckon......

Also, wander in to a Tehstra store, and look at the HTC Desire. It will be very interesting to see how the iPhone 4 stacks up.

Yes I was going to have a look at this - sounds interesting.
Or I might just see how many years life I can get out of the N95, it does make calls very nicely (good signal in the aforementioned boonies), and is alright for limited web browsing.

[Mr Darcy]

but I really do live in the boonies

Hah. That's not the boonies. My sister lives in Penguin & she reckons Hobart is just a short drive away.
Of course she spends time on the Diamantina each year (Hubbie's family farm) so her opinion of "close" may be just a tad warped!

[who]

but I really do live in the boonies

Hah. That's not the boonies. My sister lives in Penguin & she reckons Hobart is just a short drive away.

And Penguin is right next door to me, in terms of towns.

And I used to agree - but 1 year olds don't like 3 hour stretches in the car with a 5 min stretch somewheer in the middle.... especially with the return trip in the same day.

Of course she spends time on the Diamantina each year (Hubbie's family farm) so her opinion of "close" may be just a tad warped!

And Tasmanians have no sense of distance. I'm a Qlder, and they just don't grasp being able to drive for 24 hours in a straight line on a rough compass bearing and not leaving the state or even making the border..... I've done that West-East and Norh - South.

[gstark]

Ian,

And Tasmanians have no sense of distance. I'm a Qlder, and they just don't grasp being able to drive for 24 hours in a straight line on a rough compass bearing and not leaving the state or even making the border..... I've done that West-East and Norh - South.

Regardless of the direction of travel, anyone attempting that sort of a journey in Tassie would be probably be well advised to do so in an amphibious vehicle.

[Mr Darcy]

Nah Gary. You just need a VERY rough compass. Or maybe just the sort that goes round in circles

Mind you it reminds me of the time I took a Kiwi visitor up to the Blue Mountains. Once we got past the "Blue Foothills" jokes, he was absolutely flabbergasted at an east facing lookout. He had never seen such an expansive view without being able to see the sea before. I didn't have the heart to tell him that if he looked the other way, the nearest sea was several thousand kilometres away. And if he chose is spot carefully, He would be on the highest spot until he reached Africa.

[ozimax]

Mind you it reminds me of the time I took a Kiwi visitor up to the Blue Mountains.

I kid you not. The average Kiwi will take two days to drive from Windy Willington to Auckland. They will schedule a stop over in Taupo or Rotorua to break things up. Many, many residents of Wellington have never been to the south island, which is a 15 minute flight away, or 3 hours by ferry!!!

Getting back on topic, I called in and saw a wedding photog friend of mind in Brisbane last week. He has started using the ipad in his studio for his wedding clients to peruse their images before purchase. The (iphoto or whatever it is) interface is dead simple. The customer takes the ipad home for a few days and returns it with their order.

[devilla101]

I've been using the iPad for a good couple of weeks now (32gb wifi). In all honesty there was no work reason or urgent need to get one except solely as an experiment to see what I can do on it.
So far in regards to photo work, beyond using it as a glorified portfolio, I really haven't found much use of it. Yes there are editing apps out there however I think we can all agree that they are just novelty apps with no merit to do anything above pro work. I wasn't expecting it to obviously, but who knows what will happen down the track. For business use I've really only taken it to one meeting. I've loaded my portfolio on it, PDFs and spreadsheets however it didn't provide any sort of convenience say over bringing sheets of info or since the client took it off my hand and started playing with it . So I cant't really say if it's fitted for this role.

What I do enjoy doing on this thing is reading my RSS feeds. I just love the fact that when I wake up in the morning I pick up the iPad, press the Reeder app and voilà. I did enjoy this on my iPhone so it was great I can read it on a bigger screen and is nearly akin to reading newspapers/magazines in bed.

So was it worth purchasing it? To tell you the truth, how I've use the iPad and it's role in my business and personal life, I'm indifferrent about it. It's not a world changer for me and the only saving grace is the fact it's got big screen to read.

Hope this helps anyone who may read this. However I do stress its based on my experience. YMMV

- Sent from my iPad