App of the week...Procreate by Savage Interactive

My iPad odyssey continues! Every day this thing sinks itself deeper into my psyche. It has ceased to be like an extra limb and is now more like an extra lung- I get short of breath when it's not near me...

..and the other connects directly to your iPad!

I've got a whole suite of apps on there right now, some of which I've discussed before, but I wanted to highlight an app that I am finding is just awesome. Procreate .

Procreate is one of many art apps that are available on the iPad, and one that hasn't been much talked about compared to Brushes, Inspire Pro or Autodesk Sketchbook. 

Colour picking and swatches are easy

However, I think that it easily knocks the other apps out of the park. Produced by Aussie outfit Savage Interactive, procreate has really cracked the balance of an intuitive and uncluttered GUI and remarkable performance. It offers a zero lag brush stroke interface, supports up to 16 layers with multiple blending modes, has a powerful and totally user editable brush engine, and 100 undo/redo states. That's on an iPad. With PSD layered output. Oh, and its canvas is larger than an HD blueray screen.

Photoshop layer effects, and more undo states than CS3 had as default?!?

What voodoo has been used to achieve this, I don't know. What I don't get is the lack of buzz I've seen around this app. It really is amazing what they have achieved. It's not even processor hungry, as I've had it runnning alongside music and games, plus browser and goodReader, no trouble. The brush engine supports paint loading and wetness sliders as well as the more common dynamics, and the company website has an excellent user guide, some free brush alphas and a burgeoning but enthusiastic community. The GUI handles portrait and landscape options and can be switched for left handed users to display on the opposite side of the screen.

When toying around with it, the responsiveness of the app was stunning- it felt like working with a marker pen on smooth paper. All of the tools felt really natural, and it "just works" to quote a famous wise man. The app is intended for drawing and painting; those wanting complex line guides, lasso tools etc. look elsewhere (Sketchbook Pro, most likely) but for those who just want to knock out art, it's damn near flawless. That configurable brush engine is probably the most exciting thing for power users, allowing the kind of brush dynamics Photoshop does so well. The app also supports any images you ant to bring in, so scanned sketches, photos or stock images as canvases are all options.

That responsiveness I mentioned extends to the dev team who have a "+1" system on their forums to gauge user interest in new options, and tracking through the posts, it is possible to see voted options that are now a part of the main app. 

Haibo Zhu finger painted this in Procreate.
You may now hate/admire, depending on mental state...

If you are at all interested in using the iPad as a digital sketchbook, this should be an auto include  app. Did I mention it's also one of the cheapest art apps available?

While at it, check out Will Terry's new site folio academy, as he has recorded an excellent tutorial series about painting and illustration, including one about iPad painting, and his artwork and dedication to teaching is lovely as well. And his tutorials are about 20 times cheaper than Bobby Chiu over on schoolism...as long as you can cope with Will's friendly, bearded face looming out of the screen like an avuncular moon, that is. Seriously, check out his vids for kids on YouTube. Terrifying genius.

Lovely lovely Will Terry- self portrait, face shown to scale.

I hope to be posting some iPad artwork in the near future, so keep 'em peeled for my half formed efforts!

~P~

Playing with the iPad 2

So, I've had my iPad 2 for about a week now.

I know a number of people who want to know if it can become their principle computing device, so I thought I'd share some thoughts so far.

First off, to get the obvious out of the way, it's absolutely beautiful and a complete joy to use. It's bright, responsive and the battery life is making my Android phone look very sad.

However, all these looks needs some depth... nothing going on upstairs is not good.

Not Good. 

Good. 

So, I've run through some common computing needs, and identified solutions to obvious issues in the way iPad works. And I'm going to tell you what they are because I am a generous type...

• Calendar, Contacts, Mail- the first thing I did was set up my Outlook for work and Gmail for home. This was a breeze to do and works perfectly out of the box- with one massive exception. First, the good. Calendar via Exchange with my work outlook is flawless using the native iPad calendar, with options to push or time data sync. As I also use this calendar for my Android phone and don't use gCal or anything else any more, this is a really integrated system. Mail is perfect with both Outlook and Gmail through the native Mail app. I believe that there's a Gmail app, but I haven't bothered with it, as the native interface for Mail works just fine. I can choose to view either or both sets of mailboxes at once. Contacts has not been so smooth, but this is a Google/Android issue- whilst Outlook can see all my work contacts for emailing just fine, it has taken some considerable effort to get my Google contacts sorted. iPad can integrate them really easily via Google contacts using its Exchange sync process. They can also be imported via iTunes if you so choose. However, Google Contacts and my Android phonebook were not on speaking terms and even now are refusing to sync. I ended up having to export, backup, modify and import vCard files all over the place. Note that this has nothing to do with the iPad- trying to get the contacts into iPad just highlgihted that Google Contact Sync is shit. And I mean really shit- google "Contact Sync Android error" and see the pages of unresolved issues. Still. Never mind- I now have iPad talking to Google Contacts and most of my phone book is intact...
• Tasks- tasks won't easily come out of Outlook because of weird server license issues. But that's fine because Outlook task management is crap any way, so I'm using toodledo instead and the iPad app for this is fab, plus the Android app is also fab, and they all sync beautifully. Yay for them. 
• Office files- one of the main ways most people justify buying the iPad is "it'll be great for work". Only true if you can access Office files, however! Well, if you only need to view them, see below for file storage, sharing and viewing, because reading Office files is a pretty "out of the box" feature for the iPad, no expensive apps required. If you want to edit them, then of the plethora of options available, my picks would be:
• iWorks apps- Pages, Numbers and Keynote...and
• Quickoffice Pro HD
• The iWorks apps set you back £6.99 each, whilst Quickoffice is £13.99 and one of the most pricey apps you'll ever buy. On the other hand, that's Office for fourteen quid so I'm not moaning. iWorks offers an unbeatable user experience for creating documents, but it struggles with tricksy Office formatting such as combined table cells, and made a bunch of my leson plans look HORRIBLE. Quickoffice is the solution if you are editing existing Office documents, and looks almost as nice as iWorks, but the Apple apps are the most fun and intuitive for creating from scratch. 
• Easy file storage and sharing: Apple don't like files. At least, that'd be my first thought seeing as there's no easy way to get the damn things on to the iPad, even via iTunes. However, you can choose any or all of  SugarSync/Dropbox/Box.net- take your pick of your favourite, as they all have integrated apps available, and in the case of both Dropbox and Box.net, Pages, Numbers and Keynote can talk to them via webDAV and Quickoffice can talk to them all through witchcraft. They also add "file sharing" tabs to iTunes which makes getting files on board much easier all round. 
• Notes, organisation and more file storage: I must mention Evernote here. I could write a whole blog entry on the awesomeness of Evernote. It's a cloud based note system that supports text notes, audio notes, images, clipped webpages, pdfs,etc. with very powerful search features. You can embed any kind of files into notes and use it as a pretty efficient storage system, there's no storage limit and its text recognition makes even photos and handwritten scans searchable and indexable. Plus it has  a really nice iPad app for free  AND an app that lets you create quizzes out of notes. The motto is "remember everything" and it is my indispensable aide memoire, and is also web accessible, has a desktop app with more functions (such as powerful encryption) and there's an Androids app so I can have it on my phone. 
• Web browsing and file downloading: The native Safari browser is great, and the iOS5 update that adds tabbed browsing will make it even better. For 95% of your (non Flash) web browsing, it's perfect. But- and it's a big but- iPad doesn't like file downloading. Oh no siree! For this, I turned to GoodReader. Costing £2.99, it adds so much functionality, it's a must. It began life as a pdf reader, but the developer must be on crack, because the updated functions are astounding. It can read pretty much anything. ANYTHING. And that means it makes an awesome "view all" tool. But, most importantly, it has a robust file management system that integrates with all the above mentioned cloud services, anything on the iPad, any wifi accessible nearby computers and the internet itself. This means it makes for a very good file downloader, player and manager. It's like Windows explorer but less flaky. Awesome. 
• Printing: I admit, I've not tried this yet. But, in theory iPad can AirPrint to HP compatible printers. But nobody owns one, so there are a couple of options. Most printer manufacturers offer a free app for their printers that lets the iPad print to network enabled printers of the correct type, or PrintCentral is a brand-agnostic app that should make network printing easy. 

Okay, so my essential apps to create a solid set of functions that make iPad "life-ready" and functional as a main computing tool are:

• QuickOffice
• Pages, Numbers and Keynote
• GoodReader
• Evernote
• Toodledo
• SugarSync (or your Cloud Alternative)
• PrintCentral

Of these, half are free, and only the Office apps are costly.

Here is my collection of "icing" apps that make things even funner:

• Movies and other video: sadly, Netflix does not exist in the UK, BlinkBox is a flash based service that has no app support and Lovefilm are a bunch of jokers where streaming is concerned, so outside the US you are pretty much restricted to putting your own movies onto iPad to watch, or renting/buying  them via iTunes. iPad likes mp4 format movies and has an optimum resolution that iTunes is ready to cater for. It's worth noting that iPad is higher resolution than standard DVD, so HD/Blueray conversions look best. You could fiddle with settings in various players, but the easiest, if not cheapest way of getting movies onto it is still via iTunes. But, let's assume you have *ahem* other sources for films. Like...y'know, all those totally legit DVD rips you spent hours on...or something...Air Video is easily the app to end all apps where video is concerned. I actually have been ripping my DVDs into avi files to free up shelf space. Plus, I have 3GP vid recorded on my phone, stuff from an actual DV camera and purchased online stuff like training vids. Air Video has me covered. Buy the app for £1.99, and download the free server software (Win/Mac) from their website to your desktop full of films. Then, when the app runs, Air Video sees your computer as a server and lets you explore what files you have on there. You can then either:
• Queue up the file for conversion and transfer to iTunes for easy iPad access, or
• "Live convert" and watch it immediately- the server converts it from whatever it is into iPad-ready and streams it live, without pause or stutter, to your iPad. Magic!

More magic even than this...

• Books: if it's a pdf, you'll already be able to read it with GoodReader as mentioned above. However, most eBooks are in EPUB or MOBI format. The big two, iBooks and Kindle apps, pretty much refuse to see any books not acquired via their respective stores. So, if you acquired your eBook collection through other sources, you'll have to be a bit clever. The best method I've found is to install Stanza, which is a powerful reading tool that accesses various bookstores itself, but also allows for drag and drop in iTunes, so can happily cope with your collection. It likes EPUB best, so if you're a kindle user you'll need to convert any files- but if you're a Kindle user you should already have Calibre on your desktop (if not, go get it. NOW!). This will allow you to convert your book files to whatever format is best. A note though- Calibre can recognise that you have iTunes and mount it as a device to pass files to. However, it cannot tell that you have an ePub reader, so will encode your books as pdf files. This is okay, but they are larger files than ePub, so you may wish to convert and move them manually if you are planning to put a lot of books on the iPad. Or, you could just read on your Kindle.
• Music: You have iTunes and the iPod app. Seriously. Don't fuck around with anything else for your own collection. If you are a free cloud music fan, you're shit out of luck in a lot of cases, as Grooveshark, We7 and Deezer all use Flash, and Grooveshark is banned from Apple devices after EMI won an injunction against them. If you don't mind paying, Spotify is available as an app, I think- I could find an iPhone one but the iPad ones were-odd. You can put your own music into SugarSync and stream it if you wish, and the iOS5 update in Sept/Oct promise streaming from iCloud, but that will again be linked to your personal collection. There are streaming radio apps such as lastfm, but I am not a fan of these so haven't explored them. 
• News and current affairs: Media consumption is the name of the game of iPad, and there are a couple of really nice ways to stay abreast of your interests. I'm not a huge rss feed aggregation fan- I'm too lazy to set all that shit up, so I like easy options. I went with:
• BBC News app- aggregates main stories in a lovely interface and has live News24 available over wifi too. 
• Pulse- a customisable app which feeds the news you choose into itself. It looks very like the BBC app in its tiles story approach- I suspect the same team worked on both apps. I chose the "preset" pages for Fun, Tech and Games plus News, and that does me fine. 
• News360- a really nice way to view the news as a moving tableaux of images which you can zoom into and read. Needs a little setting up unless you enjoy USA-centric news. 
• Guardian Eyewitness- an image that captures a day. It's a very cool way to look poncey about your current affairs. 
• Times Online- I'm trying out their online free trial. It's okay, but none of the iPad optimised newspapers have really grabbed my attention. 
• TV: There's not a whole lot of TV streaming options in the UK right now, but both iPlayer and 4OD offer great catch up services. And they are both free!
• Reference: I've added yell.com for a quick lookup of local numbers and businesses, and Discover for a truly awesome research tool, as it turns wikipedia into a magazine style experience. Really impressive, a must have free app.
• Social: get Skype and Friendly  for Facebook onto your iPad to keep in touch with folks.

An that's it so far. I've avoided too many paid for apps right now, while I get into the iPad experience, but I have a bunch of apps listed in Evernote ready to go once I feel a little more flush. I can say without a doubt that the iPad can do all I need on a daily basis, and with occasional access to a desktop, it has me covered.

Plus, everything is just more awesome. AWESOME I TELL YOU!


Update: 

A weekend of work and the following issues came up- and were resolved...kind of...

• Sending and receiving attachments on email. GoodReader and Quickoffice had this pretty solidly covered and SugarSync/Dropbox don't seem to mind either.
• Downloading files- I mentioned that GoodReader can handle this end of things. Perhaps even better is iCab, a really nice browser that adds a bunch of functionality. Three main things drew me to it-
• it has very well implemented tabbed browsing
• it has a set of "module" buttons which add all sorts of functions including my essential "clip to Evernote" feature that I have been missing.
• it has proper downloading! 
• General file management- I have already mentioned that file management can be handled via GoodReader very easily. Indeed, with this and sugarasync, you're covered. However, you can make a case for having something like FileApp, which allows you to have a windows-like file structure that it can manage for you. It talks with all the other apps I am using and there's a somewhat clunky wifi drag and drop file transfer feature. I does allow you to get all the disparate files your apps are storing into one place, but with caveats. Firstly, there seems to be no way to *move* a file- instead you get a copy, which then means deletions of existing files. I may be doing this wrong but it seems weird. Secondly, with a pdf file I used as a test to see how it coped with GoodReader, it lost all of the bookmarks I'd put in place. Poor. I also cannot see how to create folders within it, which seems like a key feature, so I think I'm not getting it right, but the documentation is almost non existent. On the plus, it opens zip folders. And it's free. 

To the Cloud!

I am very keen to not lose my stuff. And I am terrible for losing my stuff. I gave up on memory sticks a long time ago, after laundering a few and losing the rest. I never remember to save the right files from home to need at work and vice versa. Plus, I seem to have the same effect on Hard Drive stability that a Dementor has on feeling good about the world.

Let me at your data....

And my HDD seems to fill up depressingly quickly.

So, cloud based storage seems to be a great solution. I figure, if I can access my files anywhere, I don't need to worry about losing them. Also, my Hard Drive plague-touch will no longer be an issue; not even my power extends to destroying remote servers. Plus, cloud computing is the future and therefore more cool than archaic deskbound solutions, such as owning a massive hard drive.

With this is mind, I decided to look into a cloud solution that would work for my wife and I in our daily lives. Our requirements are probably not unique, and they are these:

• We need frequent access to documents and files such as the Office standards
• We have a lot of photos that we want stowed away
• We have a lot of music  that would be nice online
• We have a bunch of stuff that doesn't really need to be cloud based as it's only relevant at home
• We want separate accounts but easy sharing options
• We want this to be cheap. Like REALLY cheap; at least, until we see it's working really well.
• We want this to be OS agnostic, and preferably have mobile support for day to day stuff

I looked over the files I am storing on my computer, ably abetted by SpaceSniffer to tell me what was using up space where (I love that tool- go try it).  I found a probably average pile of documents, mp3 files, photos, avi files taking up a lot of room. I also found I had things that were more specific to me, e.g. Photoshop files, .blend 3D files, movie project files. And a whole bunch of video training that I've bought over the years for 2D and 3D work. Most people will have an equivalent- just replace "Photoshop" with "the memory hungry creative tool of your choosing". 

It seemed pretty clear that I could firstly split this stuff into "need online" and "only at home". I will rarely, if ever, need a movie project file out of the house because all my movie editing software is on my desktop. My many Gigs of training videos are only useful when sitting with my two screens and working through a lesson, so they can stay offline. This stuff I can back up onto a USB connected drive and internally.

So, I now had a listing of the files I wanted to get online. Some of this stuff, like the Photoshop and 3D work, I won't need daily, or possibly even weekly; I just need them as and when. Music, videos, docs and photos- these I want more often. 

After a couple of hours of reading up on different services- and there are many- I came up with the following architecture to maximise my online space, without it costing much.

• Every day work and shared files- Dropbox. Or...SugarSync...maybe...
• Music, movies and large files- Amazon Cloud Drive
• Photos- thinking probably Picasa, now that Google + links to it and G+ uploading doesn't count as a limit...

Done. 

Why these? 

Dropbox wins out for daily use because it is sooo very easy to use and (recent log in woes aside) nice and reliable. I am very cautious about losing data so I am sticking with tried and true companies rather than start-ups. Dropbox handles the sharing side of our data super easily, has interfaces for Android (phone), Windows (home), Web (work ) and iOS (I can dream). Those mobile interfaces act as a file explorer and viewer, so no worries about filling up precious micro SD space. At GB basic account, it's a bit tight on the space it gives you, but how much room do I really need for documents? Plus, with enough people referrals I can get 8 GB for free. I certainly wouldn't advocate creating spoof email accounts to do this- I don't even think it'd work, but we all have friends who can benefit from a free online storage space, right? The main reason for using Dropbox right now for me is simply that I am using it already. But all this may change due to...SugarSync

SugarSync came late to this party. Literally, as I was typing up this blog entry, I decided to take a second look, having decided previously that I wasn't happy with how it synced devices (no viewer- it syncs to them, so you'll fill them there tiny SD cards up fast). However, its web interface gets round this, it syncs a lot more folder options than Dropbox and seems to have a very flexible sharing function. Its 5GB free account is a step up from Dropbox. I haven't tested this service in the "wild" yet but it looks promising and feature rich.

Best of all, I got a free 10GB account...currently SugarSync is running a TrialPay scheme, and one of the UK based qualifying services was a Tesco DVD offer that doesn't actually require you to spend any money or order any DVDs, just register with them. You can them cancel straight away- or enjoy 14 days of LOVEFILM DVDs for free. 

So, that's a $24.99 annual fee paid by Tesco for no outlay or commitment on my part. Every little helps!

Amazon Cloud Drive is a goer for large files and music the very simple reason that it offers 20GB of storage for 20$ a year- but unlimited music storage! It doesn't even have to be purchased at Amazon. I bet it can't cope with iTunes DRM and the music cloud player doesn't work in the UK yet, but it's still a sweet deal for keeping music safe and available.. The downside is that there's a pretty barebones feature set. No streaming outisde the US, no sharing...It really is best just for storage. I do wonder what will happen once it is UK-localised...time will tell.

Now, three services may prove excessive- and indeed, if my workplace goes the Box route, that'd be four. I think this is likely to slim down. I have no doubt that as I go forward, there's redundancy I can streamline out- most likely between Dropbox and SugarSync. They'll just have to duke it out for my continued patronage (although, as SugarSync can sync the Dropbox folder, the additional backup doesn't hurt). I can see choosing two services, one instant access and one for longer term archiving, being the way forward. I have been a Dropbox devotee for many years now, but SugarSync may steal me away. I may even recommend it  for work if it proves effective, though I see little benefit over Box, as we cannot have the Sugar Sync desktop client at work. 

One thing is clear though -I have potentially 38GB of storage online plus all my music and photos, for less than $2 a month. If this works out, that'll be pretty damn sweet. I'll report back in a week or so as I run the setup. 

Update 30/07/11


I've been running sugar sync for a few days now and can recommend it highly. My initial concern about the app auto-syncing rather than being a viewer for mobile and iOS devices tuns out not to be the case. It was just out of date info on their website. Sugar Sync has a fully functional viewer and the option to download and stream content- it works as a music streamer, like a personal Pandora, if you so wish. The interface, desktop client and Android client are all really clean and simple. Best of all, its ability to let you select folders to sync makes collecting and storing data a breeze, and there are a host of powerful sharing features, including sharing password protected folders with non Sugar Sync users.

Thanks to my additional storage space, I've taken the opportunity to nest my Dropbox folder within my Sugar Sync folders, so that anyone currently sharing with me can continue to do so, but I can interact entirely through SugarSync. Its tool set has impressed me so much that I would recommend it for work- but it appears to have no online only option- you must have a starting folder set. Due to how the security at work functions, the desktop client for SS can't be installed and the ftp is tricky, so Box is still a better bet there due to a simple web hosted toolset. For any other purpose though, I can see myself migrating all my needs to SugarSync for files, Amazon for music and Picasa for photos.

On this note- uploading to Picasa via Google + is easy  and the way galleries are displayed are very pretty. I am very taken with this solution and now plan to explore photo print solutions that integrate with this hosting service. 

So Very Pretty...

As Apple continues its rise to become the dominant global economic power, I’ve been thinking about the hows, whys and wherefores of this- and how it relates to consumer choice and their nearest competitor- Android (sorry Microsoft, RIM, Nokia, Palm, etc. You suck).

In conversation with several friends, the questions is just what IS it that Apple have? We know that they appeal to a non-tech savvy mass. We also know that they control their product tightly at market. And that most companies say "We know what we are. Make it so." to their dev teams and Steve Jobs says "I know what we stand for. Surprise me."  But why is this successful for them and not others? 

Because Apple is the ultimate Benevolent Dictatorship. The perfect Controlled Utopia. In fact- they are these guys.

The Alliance in the universe of Firefly and Serenity offers stability, progress, empowerment and prosperity, wrapped up in a sleek and beautiful shell. Those who choose to be members of the Alliance can expect their lives to enhanced and enriched. 

Look at it. the iCity.

Of course, there is a cost- loyalty is expected, and the Utopia provides whatever you want, as long as all you want is what it is willing to give. But that's okay- the Alliance has an education system to make sure citizens know that the Alliance is the only viable path to the future. Most citizens have only heard rumours of what lies outside the Alliance's borders. 

Education, the Alliance way.
Best not to think about how seamlessly she would fit into the iPad ads.

Of course, the Alliance has to protect itself- and this may mean some questionable actions on the part of its operatives. And an impressive security force. But, as writer-director Joss Whedon asserts on his commentary, the Alliance "is not the evil empire". It is just really serious about making people's lives- better. It's not perfect, but it's trying to be. 

Shiny and powerful. 

And then there's the other side. The Independents. And this is who Android is, out there on the raggedy edge. With the Alliance at the core, defining the environment, the Independents are numerous but disorganised. 

We are cool. And broke. And about to crash.
 But, y'know- in a  cool way. 

There are stronger and weaker elements, and as a unified whole, they could topple the incumbent giant. But that level of coordination eludes them. Here and there, they still fight the Alliance, maybe one day gaining more ground, but the War is lost. People chose Unification and prosperity over Independence and freedom. 

The attraction of the Independents is freedom. Out on the edge, it's not about the rules imposed but the rules you choose for yourself. Here, you shape your own destiny. It's a place for the individual.

 Fast, uniquely featured and unstable as all hell.
 A great example of what running unsigned apps can do to an OS. 

 But here, far from the protection of the Alliance, there are dangers. Criminality is common place, deals are welched on and the Reavers lurk, ready to take everything that makes you who you are. Out here, you are responsible for protecting yourself. But still- being Independent is just cool

Reavers. In ur fone, stealin ur shit.

I look at this, knowing- just KNOWING- that I should fight for the Independents. I have an Android phone. I love the notion of freedom that Android brings. My only Apple purchase to date was a G2 iPod. And yet...I'm not a "power user". I read tech specs, but really it's end-user experience I actually need. I don't want to jailbreak and root and fly the deepest parts of the Black. I want everything to just work. And be beautiful. And be safe.

And that's why I know my next phone will be an iPhone, and I'll buy an iPad and  then I'll turn the key myself on my luxury prison cell and lock myself in with a sigh of relief that now I'm committed, it'll all just be...magical. After worrying about MitMo and DroidDream and watching my friend's Dell Streak die in a lonely corner, bereft of love and support, I'll choose the Alliance's dictatorial utopia over the chaotic freedom of the Independents. And that's why Apple are winning- because most people don't realise there's a choice. And the ones who do...people want the ease and beauty Apple promise to deliver, and if history has taught use anything, it is that people don't want ultimate freedom. As a whole, we just want enough freedom to get by on, and as much beauty and convenience as we can grab.