Lovely design ...

A calendar app.

So I think I will do this ...

Maybe you have seen my Twitter-based micropublishing effort titled MailTip. Well, I have established an efficient workflow for it and started looking around for another similar possibility. Reading a review for some iPad apps the other day, I realized that I was reading them regularly, so why not post the best that I find? These apps can be pure delight in form and function. So here’s Apptwips at Twitter and at the blog where I place and index these for my future use. And yours. If you have an iPad or think about getting one (Do!), get my Twitter feed. Thanks!

So who needs a phone? ...

So what’s new about a text message? Well, this on arrives free to my iPod Touch and announces its arrival. Skype does not do this as yet. So when the other person isn’t available to chat with Skype, also free, I can schedule a call using textPlus, also free. I like free. Requires wifi, so this and a couple bucks will get you a cup of coffee and a call.

Cool use of the iPad ...

This might not be legal in copyright terms, but it’s something. Takes your Facebook and Twitter feeds and makes a magazine from them.

Don't know if I care for this bug ... feature ...

Kindle books want to let you know when you have highlighted what everyone else does. Hmm.

Yikes! Audible on the iPod ...

Post an item HootSuite ...

If you do much Twittering, Facebooking, et al., check out HootSuite, an online feed server. Then get the iPhone/iPod app for free. Great features including scheduling your posts.

Saw these little cuties yesterday on the Root River ...

And we got response calls using the iBird app sound files.
Thanks to birds in photos for the thumbnails. Gorgeous bird photo site, btw.

Liking the new iOS version ...

What’s not to like?

Displays that boggle the mind ...

Apple announced that its new cellphone screen will display over 300 dots per inch, or pixels per inch in electronics. Having worked in publishing, that’s extraordinary. I’m sure we never printed anything over 200 dpi. Publishers get ready.

Why Chris will want an iPad someday ...

and me too. When you purchase a show/movie on iTunes, you can play it at home or take it with you on the iPad. Nice. And Rome is great: BBC on steroids. As usual, the leaders of the filmic Roman Empire have the accents of the British Empire.

Taking "printed" out of print publishing ...

Or "Honey, I shrunk the bookcase!" This morning Don and Jack and I got to talking about a local music publisher and I trotted out my latest take on print publishing. (Credit to blogger Mike Cane. Be warned: Mike writes “explicitly.”) When I read his comment that publishers are ignoring technology, the idea sunk in. Unnerving in its implications. Really.

My rendering: Book publishers giving their content to the Amazons, Apples, and other hardware vendors of the world because they don’t know how to produce hardware is comparable to their handing over their content (and revenue) to book printers because they don’t know how to print books. The tablet is the new print delivery vehicle. So just as publishers go to China to print their books, they need to partner with Chinese hardware companies to produce their own inhouse tablets.

Of course scale will matter, and publishers like Hal Leonard, the largest music print publisher in the world with institutional buyers, get to be first. The Kindle will be just one of three or four tablets per household. One for music, one for Bibles, one for other books, one for cookbooks, and so on. Each tablet will have its own focus, features, and store.

And they will be free with a subscription to the publisher's wares.

[Mike Cane linked to this post. My apologies on edits to the quote he excerpted. Didn't change the substance of the thought, just the styling.]

Its feats show it, they're iPads ...

Dunno what that means. Just to say, the iPad is a cool tool reading machine.

Where's my waldo-pod? ...

Cool feature. Find a computer’s location and wipe the memory if it’s been lost or ‘napped.

A great educational tool just dropped into my budget ...

WolframAlpha just lowered the price of its app from $50 to $2. Free online use.

Mixing coffee with cocoa ...

Now this looks like trouble. For me, anyway. Just whip out an iPod to pay for your coffee. (Cocoa is the programming language for Macs. Little joke there.)

Happily rationalizing ...

According to this site, my first Mac, back in 1987, cost about $6,000 in today's dollars, $2,800 back then. Or 12 iPads or 30 iPod Touches, using this linga techna. And that for a device that had 1/100 or less the capability of an iPod Touch.