Text Expander Touch hits the iPad

I’ve been playing with the new release of TextExpander Touch that now has a native iPad version. It is a universal app (no additional purchase) and takes full advantage of that big iPad screen. Great work SmileOnMyMac.

iPhone 4 Speeds

Gruber gets all scientifical about it but my experience generally reflects his results. Uploads and downloads on my iPhone 4 are noticeably faster than the 3GS.

Mac Roundtable Appearance

Over the weekend I was fortunate to join in the Mac Roundtable podcast primarily about iOS 4 and the new iPhone. Check it out.

Mac Power Users with Jason Snell

Mac Power Users Episode 29 is up. It features our workflows interview with Macworld editor Jason Snell. Jason is a long time Mac user and it was great fun talking to him about how he gets work done on his Mac. You can get it in your browser here or on your iPod/iPhone/iPad here.

Steve Jobs at D8

The full Steve Jobs D8 interview is now available for iTunes download. This is well worth watching. I particularly liked it when someone questioned Steve about getting a full wireless sync for the iPad and Steve responded, “We need to work harder on that.” You said it brother.

Mac Power Users 28: Using a Mac in a Windows World

Mac Power Users Episode 28 is up. Learn all about how to play nicely with a Windows network. You can get it in your browser here or on your iPod/iPhone/iPad here.

Safari Extensions

Now that we have them, you might as well get them.

Reeder Releases on the iPad

I went through about six different Google Reader clients on the iPhone before I discovered Reeder. It was love at first site. The interface is understated, the synchronization is fast, and it includes tools to e-mail, Instapaper, ReadLater, and just about any other service you could ever want from an RSS Feed.

Good news. Reeder is now on the iPad. I’ve been running the beta as my only RSS App on the iPad for several weeks. It is rock solid and just as beaultiful as the iPhone version. A perfect match for Instapaper.

Home Screens - Victor Cajiao

This home screen post features my friend and podcasting colleague, Victor Cajiao. Victor (twitter) produces the Typical Mac User and Typical Shutter Bug podcasts. In addition to being a huge Apple geek, Victor is a great human. So Victor, what is on your home screen?

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

To me I live and use the Flickr app all the time. I check out other peoples pictures, I look to see if people comment on my pictures and I discover new photographers. I look at this app at least twice per day.

What is your favorite app?

News Rack: I was a Net Newswire user but after finding NewsRack (because of the iPad), I really love the implementation of this app. It’s clean, does what it needs to and gets out of the way. I have about 55 feeds that I read religiously and this application organizes all of those well. It also provides syncing with my feeds on Google. What can I say it just works and after all that is how I measure all good things these days.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Twitter for sure on my home screen. A few screens over I have Plants Vs Zombies and I play that while I’m in line or just wasting time.

How many screens have you filled?

I have eight screens worth of apps. I use about two screens worth. Also my iPhone usage has gone down by 80% or more after I got the iPad.

What is the app you are still missing?

Screen recording for iPhone. Would love to do some back screencasts of my iPhone apps. Specifically my photo apps which I use a lot and would love to show my Typical Shutterbug Audience how I exploit these when using the iPhone’s camera.

How many times a day do you use your device?

Forty eight? Lets just say , I use my phone a lot.

What is your favorite feature?

I love the camera. Love to shoot random shots and then use applications like Photogene, AutoStich and Best Camera to manipulate them and then use Twitter to show them off.

If you were Steve Jobs, what would you add?

I’d make sure that the use experience of the devices no matter what carrier was the same and more “Apple like”

Anything else you’d like to share?

Bazinga (you get it, if you get it)

Thanks Victor. What a boring interview … Bazinga!

The Next Big Thing

We’ve now had the iPad a few months and people are already asking, “What’s next?” While the rumors of a touchscreen iMac make me giggle, I don’t give them much stock. Apple is not in the habit of releasing products simply because they can. Everything is part of the big story. I was reminded of this when Steve introduced the iPad and spent so much time talking about exactly where it fits in the product line.

After the iPhone was released, we knew in our guts a tablet was coming and had our fun speculating when it would arrive and how it would work. There is no obvious next big thing now. Some may argue the next big thing is a fresh crack at the AppleTV. While that may be in the works, I don’t see it as the next big thing.

Indeed, I don’t think the next big thing is hardware related at all. Apple’s next big move needs to be the cloud. They have now loaded our bags and homes with Apple devices. They need to come up with a way to glue them together. That glue is cloud-based content.

While Apple has toyed with cloud storage and synchronization, they haven’t really taken the problem on. Times are changing though. Storage and bandwidth are increasingly available and inexpensive. The general population is becoming more comfortable with cloud based data storage. The corker is that Apple is now less willing to sit back and let Google control online data storage and synchronization.

Granted Google is ahead of Apple, it not as far ahead as some may think. The Google lifestyle is, currently, the domain of geeks. The Google online interfaces feel clunky and cryptic to mere mortals. Google has no experience delivering products to consumers and it shows.

In short, the time is right for Apple to step in. Apple’s genius is its ability to take an existing technology and make it stupid easy for everyone. Forget about anyone reading this blog. I’m talking about people who don’t even know what the term “cloud storage” means. The other 95%.

Apple’s next big thing needs to be a dead simple online storage solution. Something where all of your iTunes media, documents, pictures, and data exist in the cloud. A solution that allows you to go into the Apple store, buy an iPad, log into the Apple servers and have all of your data. Implementation will be so easy that typical users will not even realize exactly what is going on. They’ll just know it works.

Apple already has most of the pieces to make this work. They can build a user friendly interface. They can deliver it to the masses. The only missing piece is the ability to push the data. MobileMe certainly hasn’t proven this ability. There is a lot of talk about mystery server farms that may be the missing piece.

I have no idea what Steve will announce tomorrow but if Apple is going to stay in this game, the next big thing needs to be in the cloud.