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Apple iPad 2 |OT|

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Is there a way to back up the .ipa files for iOS apps on my PC, so if I reformat or something I can save them and load them onto my iOS devices again? I assume the .ipa files have some kind of DRM, but if I'm using the same Apple ID in iTunes will the backups work?

Just downloaded neu.Annotate since it's free. I wonder if it's any good for adding notes to lecture PDFs.
 
Zzoram said:
Any good free document readers for iPad?
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Cloudreaders. It's a great PDF reader and also is the only cbr/cbz comic reader that does "zoom lock." (retains custom zoom across page turns)
 
Teddman said:
Cloudreaders. It's a great PDF reader and also is the only cbr/cbz comic reader that does "zoom lock." (retains custom zoom across page turns)
Click to expand...

The info page says it lets you annotate PDF/comics. Are the annotations somehow kept seperate? Or do they get added to the PDF/comic as a permanent addition drawn/typed on?
 
Zzoram said:
Is there a way to back up the .ipa files for iOS apps on my PC, so if I reformat or something I can save them and load them onto my iOS devices again? I assume the .ipa files have some kind of DRM, but if I'm using the same Apple ID in iTunes will the backups work?
Click to expand...
They're tied to your account, so you can back up the .ipa files to a disc or whatever, and copy them back to their proper place as long as you log into itunes with the same account. I recently swapped harddrives and just burning the files to a dvd worked fine.
 
Zzoram said:
Is there a way to back up the .ipa files for iOS apps on my PC, so if I reformat or something I can save them and load them onto my iOS devices again? I assume the .ipa files have some kind of DRM, but if I'm using the same Apple ID in iTunes will the backups work?

Just downloaded neu.Annotate since it's free. I wonder if it's any good for adding notes to lecture PDFs.
Click to expand...

There's no itunes backup unfortauntly, but the ipa files are located in

C:\Users\Nathan\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Mobile Applications
 
Zzoram said:
The info page says it lets you annotate PDF/comics. Are the annotations somehow kept seperate? Or do they get added to the PDF/comic as a permanent addition drawn/typed on?
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Good question, but I can't speak to it as I only use it as a comic reader. The zoom is so good for cropping out borders that it's become my go-to comic app.
 
Teddman said:
Good question, but I can't speak to it as I only use it as a comic reader. The zoom is so good for cropping out borders that it's become my go-to comic app.
Click to expand...

Cool thanks. What comics are worth reading nowadays? I never got into them because they're way too expensive to buy issue by issue. I've read collections of events after they finished like Age of Apocalypse, House of M, and Secret Invasion though, but I borrowed those from a buddy.
 
J. M. Romeo said:
So after a lot of consideration I am gonna get an ipad 2. Probably a white one. I'll go check later this evening if there is any way to combine my iphone 4 3G plan with it or something, and if they don't offer that I'll just go with the wifi one.

I may also get one of those fancy smart covers, in pink or baby blue or something like that (ain't I corny?).

So I have one question. I really don't plan to jailbreak the thing. I don't jailbreak my iPhone because even though you can do shitloads of customization and whatnot, I really like the way iOS works and for a phone I'd rather have a closed system.

With the ipad, however, I plan to watch movies on the go and here comes the big question: how good is the codec support and overall hassle with the built-in apps? Because if I must transcode, I will transcode but I'm more interested in ease-of-use rather than going through many hoops.

Ripping my own movies is no big deal, though. As long as I don't have to fiddle with settings for hours on end.

So, any of you guys can give me some starter's advice?

Thanks in advance!
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To echo a bit of what Milo said, GoodPlayer will be the most convenient option for not dealing with different filetypes. While your iPad is connected to iTunes, on the apps tab with good player selected, you can browse for video files you want on it through the iTunes share feature and just drop them in, regardless of filetype. No hassle, no waiting for conversion. It's truly beautiful.

About the 3G plan, it might depend on where you are in the world, but in the US you can add a mobile hotspot feature to your iPhone data plan. But you're required to reset your phone plan if you go that route, which undoes the unlimited data if you're grandfathered into it still. That wasn't an option for me and my wifi iPad 2. So I decided to jailbreak my iPhone and buy the wifi tethering app. I was like you, never wanting to jailbreak, preferring the tried and true iOS, not wanting to deal with glitches and having to redo the jb with every update. But I'll tell you having an unlimited 3G plan with a jailbroken iPhone and MyWi is fucking amazing and absolutely worth it if you have a wifi iPad. Worth every penny (the app is a one-time $20). It's the only reason I did the jb and the only jb feature I use.

Also Smartcovers are totally worth it. Mine ended up a thousand times more useful than my skeptical ass imagined before I got it. I stuck a skin on the back to protect the aluminum and got a neoprene zippered sleeve for taking it out and about and I'm golden.
 
Stumpokapow said:
calibre will convert any document files into iBook files, but depending on the DRM situation you'll also need the calibre DRM-stripping plugins. You can find both the application and the plugins in the Kindle thread :)
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Ah that sound like it would be perfect. I'm a sucker for the iBook UI.
 
arnoldocastillo2003 said:
One question though, can iBook show images/photos/ilustration if the epub has some on it?
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Yep, assuming the code is right and nothing funky is going on at least. Pretty sure the free Winnie the Pooh book has illustrations here and there if you want to check it out.
 
Zzoram said:
Speaking of iBooks, what are the best free books available through it?
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This is a loaded question, as you can get some of the best classics in Literature for free. It's too many to list, you'd need to specify a genre or narrow it down.
 
bigswords said:
I second this and it's free as well.
Click to expand...

I must admit that ComicGlass is now clearly the best manga app (essentially because it does all of the things CloudReader does right, but is both faster and automates page zoom/orientation), but CR is perhaps the best app for general purpose use - to do everything it does and still cost nothing is pretty amazing.
 
Crux Loaded

The Crux Loaded™ is the world’s first clamshell-keyboard case to features both a remote-Bluetooth trackpad and an additional-external battery for your iPad.

Trackpad: CruxCase™ has been developing technology that allows you to navigate the iPad via a remote-Bluetooth trackpad. With the remote trackpad, you’ll be able to control your iPad’s screen using all the same multi-touch functions currently on iOS. Scroll pages, resize pictures, play games, and do many other functions without having to lift your arm to touch your iPad’s screen. The Crux Loaded™ is also the preferred tool when accessing another PC using a remote-desktop program such as LogMeIn Ignition™, Jump Desktop™, or Splashtop™.

Battery: The Crux Loaded™ features an extra-external battery within it’s base. When the battery is connected to you iPad via Apples 30-pin cord, it extends your iPad’s battery life by about 7.5 hours between charges.

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Available Fall 2011
USD 249.00
Click to expand...

... I want to believe but it's probably not possible.
 
Charred Greyface said:
Crux Loaded

... I want to believe but it's probably not possible.
Click to expand...

What's not possible? Bluetooth keyboards and external batteries are widely available now. It's running a remote desktop app, of which there already exists numerous choices that work beautifully. The only thing that is questionable is whether the trackpad support actually works with all those remote desktop apps, which there's no reason to believe it won't. Otherwise the trackpad isn't going to bring anything positive to iOS.

For $250 I would expect something much more than a case with a battery and keyboard (and extremely limited trackpad functionality)

If they could incorporate the card reader, camera connection kit, and HDMI adapter and offer those ports on the shell, at least the price would make sense.
 
Looks like "Splashtop Remote Desktop" is on sale for $2.99. It's normally $10 so that's a good deal.

BTW: Does anyone know of a good place to get alerts when stuff goes free or gets discounted for iPad? I know there's one that has a twitter feed for iPhone, but I haven't seen such a thing for iPad yet.
 
foomfoom415 said:
What's not possible? Bluetooth keyboards and external batteries are widely available now. It's running a remote desktop app, of which there already exists numerous choices that work beautifully. The only thing that is questionable is whether the trackpad support actually works with all those remote desktop apps, which there's no reason to believe it won't. Otherwise the trackpad isn't going to bring anything positive to iOS.

For $250 I would expect something much more than a case with a battery and keyboard (and extremely limited trackpad functionality)

If they could incorporate the card reader, camera connection kit, and HDMI adapter and offer those ports on the shell, at least the price would make sense.
Click to expand...
iOS doesn't support bluetooth trackpads (unless Crux knows something we don't about iOS5).
 
Charred Greyface said:
iOS doesn't support bluetooth trackpads (unless Crux knows something we don't about iOS5).
Click to expand...

Their webpage says "CruxCase™ has been developing technology that allows you to navigate the iPad via a remote-Bluetooth trackpad[...] The Crux Loaded™ is also the preferred tool when accessing another PC using a remote-desktop program such as LogMeIn Ignition™, Jump Desktop™, or Splashtop™."

I would translate this as "we're praying Apple approves the trackpad functionality we developed for iOS to do all the stuff we listed, but they probably won't, so worst case scenario you'll be able to use the trackpad in these specific remote desktop apps".
 
AVclub said:
Looks like "Splashtop Remote Desktop" is on sale for $2.99. It's normally $10 so that's a good deal.

BTW: Does anyone know of a good place to get alerts when stuff goes free or gets discounted for iPad? I know there's one that has a twitter feed for iPhone, but I haven't seen such a thing for iPad yet.
Click to expand...
Splashtop has been $10 for roughly five days (and some hours) since its release last August. They toss the price back and forth to trigger things like appshopper and it normally hovers somewhere around $2-3.
 
What's the best app to get push notifications of a twitter timeline? I tried Boxcar but it's not the fastest and it often combines multiple tweets in one notification which only displays the most recent. I'd like a service that sends a notification for each individual tweet.

foomfoom415 said:
Their webpage says "CruxCase™ has been developing technology that allows you to navigate the iPad via a remote-Bluetooth trackpad[...] The Crux Loaded™ is also the preferred tool when accessing another PC using a remote-desktop program such as LogMeIn Ignition™, Jump Desktop™, or Splashtop™."

I would translate this as "we're praying Apple approves the trackpad functionality we developed for iOS to do all the stuff we listed, but they probably won't, so worst case scenario you'll be able to use the trackpad in these specific remote desktop apps".
Click to expand...
... which was why I said it's probably not possible.
 
Charred Greyface said:
... which was why I said it's probably not possible.
Click to expand...

You said that right after "I want to believe" and I just found it surprising anyone would want a trackpad for the iPad, so I assumed you meant one of the positive sides of the story (the keyboard or the extended battery life). A trackpad for the iPad is like hitching a donkey to a Porche. :P
 
Pastry said:
So is there anything like The Daily that isn't from Newscorp?
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Try Zite. Which is more of a news aggregator. There are also a ton of newspaper apps, like New York Times, SF Chtonicle, etc.
 
StopMakingSense said:
Just be prepared for the dry-heavingly fun UI experience that is Calibre.
Click to expand...

Uh...wow. I just had to download Calibre to convert something for someone and...wow...

Wow.
 
What's the gesture in iBooks to bring up the page select for PDFs? I have done it accidentally a few times but I can't figure out how to do it consistently.
 
Zzoram said:
What's the gesture in iBooks to bring up the page select for PDFs? I have done it accidentally a few times but I can't figure out how to do it consistently.
Click to expand...

touch the middle of the screen
 
Anyone else see that Garageband for iPad now lets you import files, including Apple Loops and .wavs?

Should probably have been there day one, but yay!
 
I'm definitely seeing the "consumption not creation" side of this thing. Every app that adds notes to PDFs just makes a new JPG for each page of the PDF with the notes added. Then you have a huge slideshow of JPGs to read. Not ideal at all.
 
Zzoram said:
I'm definitely seeing the "consumption not creation" side of this thing. Every app that adds notes to PDFs just makes a new JPG for each page of the PDF with the notes added. Then you have a huge slideshow of JPGs to read. Not ideal at all.
Click to expand...
try good reader
 
Flip book is cool but what feeds should I add to it?

Does Goodreader also annotate PDFs by taking JPG screenshots of them and drawing on that?
 
Zzoram said:
Flip book is cool but what feeds should I add to it?

Does Goodreader also annotate PDFs by taking JPG screenshots of them and drawing on that?
Click to expand...

no, it creates annotated pdfs. and you have a choice to flatten the annotation so it can't be edited by others and can be viewed by some apps that don't recognize pdf annotations.

check out the product description in itunes. it's fairly detailed.


for flipbook, i like a bunch of the design blogs and picture blogs from the flipbook repository.
 
Zzoram said:
Flip book is cool but what feeds should I add to it?

Does Goodreader also annotate PDFs by taking JPG screenshots of them and drawing on that?
Click to expand...
I don't believe so. It gives you the option to add to the original file or create another pdf file to annotate on. I only recently got my ipad, and havent exported anything i annotated back to a PC yet, but i believe it keeps the pdf format
 
I'm always ordering stylus' as I simply haven't been able to find the perfect one.

I've tried the pogo, boxwave, griffin, blah blah and none of them have been what I've been looking for.

This one has come the closest - Kuel.

It's a little short - but has a telescoping piece that makes it longer. The tip is much smaller than the standard boxwave type of stylus. It's also a lot squishier and on paper - all these things sound like a bad idea. But the reality of the stylus is a lot better than I can describe.

Not sure if anyone is in the market - but if they are, it's worth picking up IMO
 
foomfoom415 said:
You said that right after "I want to believe" and I just found it surprising anyone would want a trackpad for the iPad, so I assumed you meant one of the positive sides of the story (the keyboard or the extended battery life). A trackpad for the iPad is like hitching a donkey to a Porche. :P
Click to expand...
Trackpad makes sense once you use it with a hardware keyboard, it's pretty annoying to do anything other than type because for everything else you have to reach up and touch the screen.

One other thing to note, going by the pictures of that thing, the keys on that keyboard will be smaller than on the soft keyboard.
Zzoram said:
I'm definitely seeing the "consumption not creation" side of this thing. Every app that adds notes to PDFs just makes a new JPG for each page of the PDF with the notes added. Then you have a huge slideshow of JPGs to read. Not ideal at all.
Click to expand...
You're using a crappy app. GoodReader and others can do actual annotations on the PDF itself.
 
Yeah, iAnnotate is fantastic. Lots of saving options, including annotated PDF, flattened PDF and JPG.

So is that Kuel stylus effective for quickly drawing diagrams or writing text?
 
Rez said:
So is that Kuel stylus effective for quickly drawing diagrams or writing text?
Click to expand...

I find it best for writing text but i don't see how it could be bad for drawing diagrams. It's the only stylus that I find writing with to be acceptable.

I also use it for drawing in sketchbook
 
So for GoodReader and iAnnotate, do they modify the original PDF and overwrite it, or save a new copy of the PDF with the notes? If it's a multipage PDF, will it just make 1 new PDF file with all the pages and notes, or does it make a new PDF for every page?
 
iAnnotate, at least, just re-uploads any changes I've made back to my drop-box account when I click upload, else saves locally automatically. A multi-page PDF is automatically saved as a multi-page PDF. If you choose to 'share' via email or something, that's when you have the option to flatten, leave annotated or send without annotations. In all cases no additional files are created for additional pages.

So short answer, yeah, it works as you'd expect it to. If only the iAnnotate icon wasn't so ugly. ;)
 
is a stylus compatible with iAnnotate and GoodReader? it's kinda hard to write notes with my finger without making the text huge

what's the finest point stylus that's safe to use on iPad?
 
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