Hasta La Gadget!

I have been skeptical of iPad and iPhone styluses in the past, but the Alupen, a chunky, pencil-shaped, rubber-tipped pen arrived in the mail today, and it has changed my mind.

The whole point of the iOS user interface is that you can control it with a fat finger. A stylus is necessary on a Windows tablet, as you need to hit targets designed for a pixel-sharp mouse pointer, but on the iPad, it’s superfluous. As Steve Jobs has said, “if you need a stylus, you’ve already failed.”

But it turns out that the iPad is also great for painting, drawing and writing, and the fingers are hopeless for these tasks (unless you are daubing paint in kindergarten). I have tried a few styluses in the past, with too-grippy rubber tips, or floppy foam nibs, and hated them all. Then I ordered the Alupen, for around €20 (the US price is $20). I have been drawing all day.

The Alupen is a stubby aluminum stick, shaped like a thick pencil. A rubber core runs through it to add heft, and the tip is a squishy rubber bobble. The hexagonal cross-section keeps it from rolling away, and the thickness makes it comfortable to hold.

The first test was the tip. I have owned another rubber-tipped stylus and it was impossible to use, the rubber sticking to the iPad’s glass. The Alupen’s tip glides across the screen, and the fat bubbled shape lets you press without the metal touching it, a problem with foam tips.

The weight is good. An aluminum tube would be too light and cause cramp. Like a fountain pen, the Alupen presses itself down for you. At first look, the pen seems to be too short for comfort, like one of those free pencils at Ikea. In use, it is actually long enough (and I have big hands).

In fact, the only fault I can find is that the metal pen gets icy cold when left on my desk. But then, my desk is marble, and my apartment has no heating, so it could be that.

$20 may be too rich for some, although a good fountain pen is much more, and with a stylus you never need to buy any ink. Available now, in silver and a range of anodized candy-coatings.

Alupen product page [Just Mobile]

Photo: Charlie Sorrel

See Also:

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You can now add your own ebooks to Amazon’s Kindle App on iOS devices, as well as books from Project Gutenberg and other copyright-free sources. Great news, right? Not so fast.

The release notes for the iPad and iPhone app contains this line:

Access millions of free and out-of-copyright books from Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive, and other online sources. Open supported files from Safari and Mail or use File Sharing in iTunes to transfer files to your Kindle app. [emphasis added]

That makes it sound like you can load up your EPUB-format books, right? Or at the very least a range of “supported formats”, given the wording. The problem is that you can only use Kindle files, so just dropping in all those EPUBs you’ve relucantly been keeping in iBooks isn’t possible.

And the addition of all those free Gutenberg texts? These are exactly the same texts that have always been available to the hardware Kindle, formatted for the device. You’ll need to download them and transfer them yourself, either via email or using iTunes Sharing.

And talking of iTunes, the Kindle app will let you drag anything and everything in there, including PDFs and EPUBs, although these aren’t actually recognised by the Kindle app.

So it seems that the only big new feature is iTunes transfers, and the ability to open Kindle-format files from emails. You also get a few tweaks. The icon has been uglified with orange text, and the icon view of your library (the “Home” section) now has much bigger thumbnails for your books. The problem here is that they still use the same artwork, scaled up and therefore rather blurry. The app also adds multi-tasking, and can continue to download a book when you quit it.

Finally, here’s a workaround to get your own books into the Kindle app. Grab a copy of the (free) software Calibre, which manages ebooks. Drop in your EPUBS, or whatever you have, and convert them to MOBI format. They will now work on the Kindle.

Kindle for iOS [iTunes]

See Also:

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LAS VEGAS — With dozens of companies looking to gain tablet PC market share away from Apple and Samsung, it’s going to take a special kind of product to succeed, one that offers consumers fast performance and expanded options on the competition. In other words, something that’s not only different but better, in its own way.

RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook could be that tablet.

To be sure, the PlayBook is no iPad. It’s smaller and more intimate, and while the OS doesn’t compare to Apple’s iOS for usability and intuitiveness, the PlayBook has enough going for it that Apple would be wise to closely watch the tablet industry’s best new entry.

Powering the PlayBook is a dual-core 1-GHz processor with a full gigabyte of RAM, four times more than the iPad, and it’s clear that PlayBook operations, especially when multitasking, are sucking every last drop of juice out of everything running on that 7-inch LCD screen. (Full 1080p videos can keep playing in the background, even as you cycle through other open applications.)

Upon cradling the PlayBook, the first thing you notice is that it’s insanely light. Coming in at 0.4 inches thick and 0.9 pounds, the PlayBook has a featherweight feel without seeming flimsy. There’s the same sort of structural integrity you feel when grasping an iPad, and that’ll create an immediately positive first impression for many skeptical buyers.

It one-ups Apple on its famous minimalistic design, eschewing any front-facing buttons while integrating its own proprietary OS that’s more similar to WebOS than iOS, as you swipe and gesture your way between categorized panels of apps.

The PlayBook’s camera options and UI are poised to be some of its bigger selling points. While the iPad boasts no built-in camera, the PlayBook has a 3-megapixel front-facing camera and 5-megapixel camera on the back, as well the ability to shoot in 1080p and stream your high-def media out on a Micro HDMI port. And while experienced users will have no problem switching between the front and back cameras, it could be confusing for novices since you have to (on faith) tap a blank area on the lower-right corner to bring up a camera-task button.

Of course, the PlayBook also has full support for not only HTML5 but Flash 10.1, and while it may be a convenience to not be limited in terms of what sites you can visit, pulling up one or two Flash sites proved to be a choppy and (ironically) limiting experience.

But an ultimately bigger problem, aside from hunting down phantom buttons, could be battery life. RIM reps wouldn’t comment on how much battery life they expect the PlayBook to maintain on a single charge — the product rep I spoke with confirmed it would be “more than a hour” — but considering the iPad can get 10 hours on a single charge with typical usage and that many other tablet makers here at CES are claiming around six hours, the PlayBook must be able to get into that eight-hour range to separate itself from the pack.

But PlayBook scores well for its ability to instantly sync up tasks and other functionality with your BlackBerry via Bluetooth, so it’s not just for 3G tethering. And those early adopters that can hold out until summer will be rewarded with a 4G-enabled PlayBook running on Sprint’s network. Considering (at least for the moment) that any iPhone on AT&T or Verizon (unless it’s LTE-enabled) would be limited to 3G data speeds, 4G mobility could wind up being RIM’s biggest short-term ace.

If — and that’s still a big if — RIM can launch its first-gen PlayBook by March and 4G model by summer, we’d have ourselves the makings of an epic tablet war.

Photo: Erik Malinowski/Wired.com

See Also:

• RIM Unveils Tethered Tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook
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LAS VEGAS — Samsung climbed aboard the increasingly crowded 4G train with a trio of 4G LTE-enabled devices Thursday afternoon at CES 2011.

Among the devices are a new version of the Galaxy Tab. Along with 4G connectivity capability, the new tablet will have an upgraded 5-megapixel back facing camera, distinguished from the current model’s 3 megapixels.

Samsung didn’t announce when the tablet would be available. It will be exclusive to Verizon’s 4G network in the U.S.

In addition to the new tablet, Samsung also unveiled a new, yet-to-be named smartphone, provisionally called the 4G LTE. It’s yet another launch of a mobile device with a massive super AMOLED screen — it measures in at 4.3-inches — debuting only days after the company had first announced its 4.5-inch Infuse smartphone.

Under the hood, the 4G LTE has a 1 GHz single-core processor. Just like the Infuse, the 4G LTE has an 8-megapixel back facing camera, with a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera for video chat. Both the 4G LTE and the Infuse will run Froyo. Like the tablet, there aren’t any pricing or availability details being made public yet.

And to round out the announcement, Samsung also introduced its aptly named 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot for Verizon’s 4G network. The device will work much like other hotspots do, acting as a wireless access point for up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices at once. It’s also backward compatible with Verizon’s 3G network.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

LAS VEGAS — Google’s Android development team has previewed the upcoming “Honeycomb” version of its mobile operating system. Honeycomb is the first version of Android to be tailored for larger-screened tablet computers.

We first got a glimpse of Honeycomb when Android boss Andy Rubin showed of off a Motorola tablet prototype in December last year. And Motorola’s new Xoom tablet, a tablet without a price or a release date, will also run the tablet-centric OS.

The video shows that Honeycomb has much more than just a scaled-up smartphone UI, a complaint leveled at most Android tablets so far. It comes on like a desktop/smartphone hybrid, with friendly, finger-sized controls mixed with a desktop metaphor. It looks pretty neat, if sparse, although that’s to be expected with any Google software.

Here we see Gmail (much like the iPad-optimized version) and the new 3D Google Maps, with vector and offline support. Google Voice comes into its own on a tablet, with video-calling supported to pretty much anyone with Gmail and a webcam, and you have access to Google Books.

When Android Honeycomb tablets finally ship, we’ll be excited to get a proper look. And one thing, Google: can you please fix up the font-rendering in Android? This is 2011, and your on-screen type looks like something from Windows 95.

A Sneak Peek of Android 3.0, Honeycomb [Google Mobile Blog]

See Also:

• Motorola Previews New Android Tablet, Droid Smartphone
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• Video: Motorola Tablet Running Android 3.0 Honeycomb
• Motorola Teases Android Honeycomb Tablet for CES 2011