Category: Expressions

End of another iPad experiment

I’m trying to remember when I started my latest experiment with the iPad.  My first experiment began in 2010, when the first iPad was released.  I wanted a real electric tablet!  That lasted a few years. 

Eventually I realized what it couldn’t do and lost interest in it.  I took an interest again when Tim Cook introduced the Pencil, but it was reserved for the high end users, and I waited.  Then the Pencil was broadened to all users.  I made my move.  I bought.

Immediately I came up against two hard facts.  The operating system was clumsy, and the Pencil wasn’t made for handwriting.  But, I didn’t give up.  I set my mind to give it a good effort.  Well, that effort is over now, and I’m relieved.

The operating system was nothing but a constant bother.  Every action took at least four steps.  The iPad didn’t know how to organize files.  It didn’t know how to move files to or from other devices.  And it didn’t know how to receive input from the user.  Using it was like trying to build cabinetry with mittens on.

Let me just point out that I am experienced in using the most mature and sophisticated operating system in the world: Mac OS.  It is the operating system that taught the world how to use computers.  

What do I mean?  For information organization and presentation, the Mac wisely drew on the file system that Western society had been developing for centuries:  the hierarchical file system. Looking at the Mac screen, any office worker would see a representation of the same files and folders they saw in cabinets against the wall.  They understood it.  I’d like to say more, but not now.

There was really only one viable way to get information into an iPad, and that was through a keyboard.  But the iPad didn’t have one, it only had a cartoon of one.  So, you have to add a keyboard, and then you were back to an imitation laptop computer with a clumsy operating system.  You want to copy some files from a hard drive?  The iPad was surprised by that.  Sure, the iPad would figure out a way, but you were going to have to help it.

What about the Pencil?  For years, Apple barely acknowledged the concept that pencils are used for handwriting.  Then, they began to admit, that yes, a pencil is not just for drawing.  Expectations rose.  They announced that the user could now use the Pencil to write in Pages, their word processor, and in many other places!  Amazing.

The problem was in the execution.  My handwriting on the iPad produced text more erratic than a seventh-grader’s typing.  It proceeded between frequent scratch-outs and rewrites.

Then the system errors began.   I had bought a refurbished iPad Pro.  The screen started dimming and brightening randomly.  I like my screen bright, so I kept going to the Settings and setting it to bright.  Apple has created an annoying ability for the operating system to decide when to change brightness, supposedly based on ambient light, and I turned that off.  But another version of that control was hidden in some collection of automatic controls that must have been designed by the marketing department.  So I went there and turned it off.  The random brightness changes continued.

Through all this troubleshooting, I was assisted by some great technicians at Apple Support.  In the late stages I took the iPad to the Apple Store Genius Bar a couple of times, leaving it overnight or for a few days.  Finally, the Support team decided I should send it to an Apple repair center.  They turned it around pretty fast, but the repair did not fix the problem.  Finally, they decided to replace the defective tablet with a brand new top-of-the-line iPad Pro.  They were going all out for me.

Unfortunately, iPad pros now use FaceID, which I spurn, so I sold the iPad Pro and bought a great iPad Air with TouchID.  I felt a little sheepish, because I was rejecting the Support team’s ultimate gift for something less, and in a way that implied criticism of the iPad Pro.  But, I got the Air, along with a new Apple Pencil 2, and it was great.  The handwriting recognition improved a little, but then regressed.

I’d been using the iPad Air for almost a year when the new problem began.  The iPad stopped opening pdfs.  I frequently used the iPad and pencil to sign documents for work, so this was a mission critical problem.

Back to Apple Support I went, and they began to work with me over a couple of weeks.  Finally, the engineers were stumped.  They said to wait until the next OS update to see if that happened to fix it.  While waiting, I decided to run some tests of my own.  I deleted a couple of apps, and the iPad began opening pdfs again!

What were the apps?  They were two handwriting recognition apps.  I had downloaded them in my never-ending quest to use the iPad as a real electronic tablet.  That was the last straw.

I decided to end my iPad struggles.  I got rid of the iPad.  I bought a 2017 MacBook 12” from Other World Computing.  I’ve given up on handwriting recognition again, and the iPad, for a long while to come.  But I have have a sleek little laptop for my mobile computing, and it uses the best operating system in the world.  I love it.

You know they blew it.

Did you know that Garry Trudeau is to blame for the lousy implementation of handwriting to text on the ipad?

When apple brought out the newton, which was the blackberry killer, doonesbury mercilessly lampooned the handwriting to text errors of the newton.  Nonsensical things.

Palm Pilot competitor. ..

Steve Jobs hated the newton.  He called it the scribble pad.  As soon has he retook control of apple, he killed the newton.

I think he developed an aversion to handwriting to text.

When they released the first ipad, there was no mention of it.  a lone developer released a separate app for it, but they were not promoted by  apple.

When apple released the first ipad, I bought one.  I wanted a tablet that I could write on with a stylus and  have display text.  There had to be a way.  Yes, by going to great lengths you could do it, but it was not part of the operating system.  It was an extra application.  I didn’t buy another ipad for a long time.

It was after Tim Cook made the pencil work with the low end ipad, I  bought again.  Handwriting to text was mentioned parenthetically.  It was a little easier.

And this is why the ipad is a failure.  The most natural way to write is to sit with a pen in one hand and a paper in the other.  This is really the only reason for an ipad to exist.

Steve said, so I’ve heard, that when you see a new company bring out their handheld device, ‘if you see a stylus, you know they blew it.’

Once again, the very idea of writing is scorned.

Instead, they have turned the ipad into an always trailing camp follower to the mac.  The operating system is clumsy, but it will nearly do what a mac can do.  It’s sort of a lightweight production machine.  Wow!  

I say, if you see a keyboard, you know they blew it.

Good tools are a joy to use

I’ve been accumulating new tools.  About a week ago I bought some new inks.  This past week I bought a lightpad to use in laying out pages or tracing.  Today I bought and downloaded a page layout app.  I’m ready to go.

My new inks are my old inks.  Higgins makes excellent bottled indelible inks.  I use them with my dip pens.  Their inks were among my favorites for a long time.

My other new old ink is Quink, by Parker.  As a schoolboy, I learned to love fountain pens with a Scheaffer.  But, when I became a man, I discovered Parker and a refined writing tool.

Quink is a good all-purpose ink Parker makes to fill it’s fountain pens.  It flows freely, dries quickly, has good density.  But Parker is stingy with details about its manufacture or properties.  This bothered me.

At some point I discovered Noodler’s.  It seemed perfect for both dip pen and fountain pen.  It was indelible (or nearly), had good density, yet flowed freely enough to be used in a fountain pen.  This was all true, though the free flowing fountain required attention.  But the ink dried slowly.  What I mean is that it took a long time to dry.  In the time that it took to read this essay, the first line of ink would not be dry. 

So now, I have my new old inks back.  It’s good.

I’m excited about the lightpad.  It’s an Artograph, 12 x 17.  I’ll use it for a lot of page layout tasks, as well as giving invisible bases to lines of handwriting.

I think my first experience with a light table was working on some high school rag.  It was a lot of fun.  Later, working on various publications and as a shoestring publisher, I used light tables that, if I recall, may have been 36 x 36.  That’s a lot of light, and a lot of work area.  Most were smaller.  

In my own endeavors, I had a light box about the size of a small suitcase or a large briefcase.  This new lightpad has about the same area, but is less than half an inch thick.

For page layout software, I chose Affinity Publisher.  It’s been reviewed well and rated favorably.  I haven’t tried to use it yet.

I rode into the world of desktop publishing in 1985 with a piece of software by Aldus called Pagemaker.  I think I started with version 1.4.  For someone at home with newspaper layout on real layout boards, Pagemaker made perfect sense.  I loved it.

Eventually, Adobe captured Pagemaker, and then slowly let it die.  I’ve really been at a loss for a layout application since then.  I’ve tried a few.  We’ll see how it goes with Affinity.

With these new tools, I’m fully equipped to finish my project.  It’s a collection of illustrated broadsides of poetry.  I’ve been working on it for over a year, I’m embarrassed to say, and now I’m at the final step.

You may suspect that there will be another step after the final step, and you would be right.  I’ve thought about that.

Shutterbug makes a break…

I finally created a Shutterstock portfolio.  And I uploaded some pictures from my trip to Garner State Park.  Soon I’ll be rich.

I don’t know what took me so long.  I love taking pictures, and people like them.  It’s only natural that I should publish them.

I first started taking pictures seriously (seriously?) as a young newspaper editor.  I had a really good black-and-white camera and a tiny darkroom.  Yes, I did my own darkroom work.  I published those pictures in the newspaper.

The pictures went with words, of course.  But sometimes, the words can go with pictures.  You call those captions.

I’m a word man.  Usually, when I take pictures, they go with my words.  And I use my words to paint pictures.

Every year at the winter solstice I shoot the sunrise to go with a poem.  I send those out in a card to a few thousand friends and acquaintances.  (Ask me.)  And I take pictures to go with other poems.

I guess I’m a picture man, too.  Some people call me a photographer, but I feel more like a shutterbug.  Either way, I love the visual world.  I love color and form and motion.  I look at a scene, and I’m compelled to take pictures of all that. 

I went to Garner last fall when I was trying to figure out where I am in my life.  It was a moving trip.  You can read about that (and see some pictures) here.

A big part of where I am in my life now is getting my work out there.  So, hello, Shutterstock.  I have a lot of what they sell.  And they’re willing to market it for me.  (I’m going to read their terms of service real soon.)  Look me up.