Goodbye, Steve.

Today’s post is dedicated to my personal hero, Steven Paul Jobs, who thought me to believe in design and quality. As we all know by now, Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple Inc, the world’s biggest technology company and makers of the Mac, iPhone, iPad and other great products. 

The news about Steve’s departure although saddens me was inevitable. Steve’s health has forced him to be on medical leave since January. In 2009, he had a liver transplant and he has been reported dead several times. 

As Walt Mossberg of All Things D writes; Steve Jobs’ resignation as chief executive officer of Apple is the end of an extraordinary era, not just for Apple, but for the global technology industry in general and I agree with him.

I however have no doubt his successor, Tim Cook (The Apprentice as some of us refer to him as) can run Apple Inc. as well as Steve Jobs did. Tim Cook has been with Apple since 1998 and is decried as an operational genius. He served as iCEO in 2009 and has been running Apple for the past 8 months.

I wish Steve Jobs good health and the very very best on his new position as Apple Board Chairman.

You are forever my idol!

How The iPad Is Changing My Reading Habits

Growing up, I used to read a lot. My favourite author was Enid Blyton and not a week passed without reading an Enid Blyton book. I read a lot of comics too; The Adventures of Tintin and The Adventures of Asterix & Obelix. Somewhere along the line between Junior High and Senior High, I completely lost it.

I don’t know why I developed a dislike and a lazy attitude towards reading. I was brought up as a reader. My mom made sure I registered at the Sunyani Regional Library and borrowed a book every week. At the same time, I was bringing a book from the the school’s library. I remember my mom would drop me and my kid brother at the library every day of our school vacations. We thought it was cruel and unfair for her to drop us off at the library at 09:00 and pick us up at 16:00. All we wanted to do was stay home, play with our Sega 2 console and sleep.

Thanks to the iPad, my reading habits are changing. I am rediscovering the old me. I always said I would rediscover the habit of reading with the iPad and gladly, I am. I could touch on other habits and how beneficial the iPad had been but I think ultimately, what I am grateful for is it helping change my reading habits.

The iBooks app and the iBookstore provides a wide variety of books to choose from. No more waiting for the Silverbird Lifestyle Store to get a book from the New York Times Bestseller List. I can make purchases directly on my iPad. I can also add epub and pdf files, making it easy to read reports and other documents on the go.

It is great to read on the iPad. I enjoy reading on the trotro, the bus stop and before those boring meetings begin. I can bookmark pages, highlight texts, add notes, change the font size and type, change the background colour, listen to music whilst I read, look up meaning of words with the in-built dictionary as well as search in Google or Wikipedia.

Currently, I have 650 books and pdfs on the my iPad. Now, I may never be able to read all 650 but it’s cool keeping a library. I have read a couple of them and I am currently reading Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference.

The iPad beats the Kindle hands down in reading. The added advantage is the ability to install the Kindle app and buy books from the Kindle Store. I prefer iBooks and the iBookstore over Kindle though.

If you got a few cedis to spend, spend it on an iPad and some books. Most importantly, it is green!

Dropbox: Best App of 2010

Dropbox is my 2010 best app hands down! I am so in love with this app.

What is Dropbox? You remember when we used to attach files and save them as drafts in our emails so we don’t lose them? Well, those days belong to the last decade. Dropbox is an online backup/sync service/software offering 2GB for free. Bigger space is available for a monthly fee.

Dropbox is like your hard disk in the clouds. I use it for backing all my important data; office documents, iOS apps, eBooks, pictures, bookmarks, 1password backup files, reports, etc.

Once, I had a bad malware on my office pc. It ate up my files but since it had it all backed up on Dropbox, I didn’t panic. A few clicks and I had my files back. What if you mistakenly delete a file from your device and want it back, it is simple. Dropbox by default keeps deleted files for 30 days. All you have to do is undelete.

It is also a good tool for sharing files. If you are working on a document with a group or you want to share a file with your twitter friends, just use Dropbox.

Dropbox is available for Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, Blackberry and Web. Your files are always in sync with Dropbox. Once you work on your mac and save a file, it syncs it to your iPad and other devices. Isn’t that cool enough?

Finally, let me tell you about Dropbox’s really cool referral package. Once you refer someone and the person joins and activates his/her Dropbox, you get 256MB additional space. The referred user also gets 256MB more space. So, if you don’t have a dropbox yet, use the referral link for 256MB more space: http://db.tt/lpd1aHl

APPLE iPAD: WHAT SUCKS, WHAT ROCKS!

“I have an iPhone and a MacBook. Where does the iPad fit in?”

Two days ago, Apple announced their much anticipated tablet device, the iPad. There was a lot of buzz about the device before it was announced. As usual, mock-ups were posted and various websites with a lot of speculation.

Now the tablet has been announce and not everybody is amused by it. Apple executives seem pretty happy about their new device but various polls and online comments suggest that people are not enthused at all. I am not enthused about it too. I am quite disappointed with the iPad. I remember when the iPhone was announced at Macworld 2007. That was a real breakthrough device. The euphoria of owning one gripped everybody but the iPad…

I think Apple rushed in announcing this product and they could have done a better job. Let me tell you where I think Apple went wrong with this device.

1.   Design: Apple is noted for sleek designs. The iPad looks ugly. It’s that ugly you get used to and then you think it’s beautiful. The space between the ends of the screen and the device could be a little a thinner than it is. It is just ugly!

2.   Software: Can you believe Apple? The iPad runs iPhone OS 3.2. Why not Snow Leopard? And as if that’s not enough, the OS hasn’t been tweaked enough to multitask yet. I believe multitasking will come with OS 4.0, which is expected in June or July. Running OS 3.2 makes it look like a big iPod touch. The iPad isn’t a stand-alone device. This means you require a mac or pc with iTunes to set it up. Come on! This also means you can’t connect your iPhone or iPod to it and sync it. That’s just shitty!

3.   Camera: The iPad lacks an in-built camera. This is 2010, Apple! iPod Nanos even got cameras. How can you not put a camera into this device? The lack of a camera just throws a lot of people of.

4.   ITunes + DRM: Does Apple have to tie all their mobile devices to iTunes? I love iTunes but what if I buy an iPad to use in Ghana? Apple doesn’t have a worldwide iTunes Store or Ghana Store and the last time I checked, it was illegal to use an iTunes Store account in a country other than the country of the store. Apple wants to replicate the success of the iPhone and the App Store but I already have eBooks on my mac. Can’t I just sync them? Oh and according to the Apple site, iBooks is US only! With the iBooks application, it means a new era of DRM. DRM sucks!!!!

The iPad has some pretty good sides too. I watch the presentation by Steve Jobs and the demo on the iPad site and I like some things about it.

1.   I like what Apple did with the screen; a high-resolution, 9.7-inch LED-backlit IPS display with a wide 178° viewing angle. That’s really picture perfect.

2.   The iPad has a month stand-by time and 10 hours of battery life while surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching videos, or listening to music.

3.   I think the web surfing experience on the device will be wonderful. The safari demo as well as the mail demo was on point. We just need flash and it better be in 4.0

4.   The one reason I will get the iPad is iBooks. I think it will be pretty cool reading on this device. I have a feeling the iPad will change a reading habits worldwide.

5.   The iPad comes with Wi-Fi basic and a 3G option. Costumers will have the option of getting a Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi+3G model. I would go for option 2 so I can surf the web everywhere.

6.   The iPad will have a digital compass (which I love), built-in speakers and microphone

7.   The iPad will have a mobile version of Apple’s Office suite; iWork

8.   The iPad runs on Apple’s own silicon; A4. A4 runs at 1GHz while the chip on iPhone 3GS works clocked to 0.6GHz. What this means is that running iPhone OS, the iPad will deliver superior performance

Check the full list of the iPad specs here

The iPad will be available in the next 30 to 90 days. I am not too sure if spending $729 on a 32GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad is a good idea but if and when I get $729, I will give the iPad a try. I am still confused about where it fits in if one has a MacBook and an iPhone. Help me if you have the answer. I would love to read books on it and tweet from it and occasionally watch a movie on it probably on a bus from Accra to Sunyani.

Check out an 8-minute video of the iPad