The iKlip Studio is an adjustable desktop stand for the iPad mini and other 7-inch tablets. According to the manufacturer, IK Multimedia, the stand is lightweight and shock resistant, and its “solid design” allows for “energetic tapping.” Admittedly, I do like the fact that it has an adjustable viewing angle and the ability to fold completely flat for greater portability.

But is it really worth the MSRP of $30?

Put simply, no.

Since I don’t have the iPad mini, I’m actually using this with the ASUS Nexus 7. The stand is composed of three pieces of plastic that, while very thick and durable, are still just cheap pieces of plastic that, over time, might wear out and start cracking. Similar to the iRig MIC Cast I reviewed yesterday, from the same manufacturer, I just get the feeling that this stand cost a few pennies to make, which makes the $30 asking price really hard for me to swallow – especially considering the fact that, for the same price, I can get the official Nexus 7 dock, which comes with an audio jack and microUSB charging capabilities. All the iKlip Studio does is hold me Nexus in place at a few different angles.

Additionally, the tablet stand supposedly comes with no-slip rubber feet, but these were mysteriously missing on the review unit I received. To me, this indicates poor quality control.

Admittedly, this does have a few advantages over the official Nexus 7 dock. For example, you can use the tablet in portrait or landscape mode when using this stand. Additionally, there are a total of six different viewing angles, offering you a great deal of flexibility when using your tablet with this thing.

But does that make this worth $30? I don’t think so.

It’s not necessarily a bad product; it’s just overpriced. If you find this on sale somewhere for a few bucks, by all means go ahead and jump on it. But at this price, I hate to say it, but I don’t recommend spending your money on this. I appreciate that IK Multimedia sent this my way for free, and I do plan on keeping it and using it with my own tablet, but it’s just not something I’d pay $30 for.

Features, as listed on IK Multimedia’s site:

• Available for iPad and iPad mini
• Works with most 10″ and 7″ tablets and readers
• Sturdy, durable, lightweight, shock-resistant thermoplastic construction holds your iPad securely without scratching or marring it
• Rubber foot-pads grip the desktop and prevent unwanted sliding
• Flexible orientation allows iKlip Studio to tilt from a very low-profile angle to near-vertical positioning
• The device can be quickly rotated between its horizontal and vertical position
• Perfect for the studio, office, travel, home and school use
• iKlip Studio for iPad works with other 10″ tablets
• iKlip Studio for iPad mini works with other 7” tablets (Kindle Fire, Galaxy Tab, Nook, etc.)
• All controls, buttons, connectors and camera of the iOS device are accessible
• Fast installation — can be mounted in seconds
• Folds up for easy storage
• The support tray fits most tablet cases
• iKlip Studio for iPad includes detachable iRig bracket for the AmpliTube range of apps or any other guitar effects app
• Designed and manufactured in Italy

The iKlip Studio tablet stand for the iPad mini and other 7-inch tablets is available for $29.99 from IK Multimedia.

The post iKlip Studio tablet stand review appeared first on Pocketables.

Cameratweak is a jailbreak tweak that has been out for quite a while for the iPhone, and now it’s also available in an HD version for the iPad. What it does is augment the stock camera app, adding several new and very useful features.

First off, the photo camera. It does something that I think every camera app should do: it splits the focus and exposure controls. Normally, you tap to focus, and it will both focus and set automatic exposure based on that point. With Cameratweak, that’s still how it works by default, but you can grab and drag an exposure indicator out from inside the focus box, placing it wherever you want. This allows you to set focus and exposure separately, which can make a big difference in many cases. A related new feature is the ability to lock the white balance.

The tweak also adds time lapse, timer, and burst modes to the camera. The functionality is in the names on those, and they’re all very useful. I especially like the burst mode, allowing you to take a bunch of photos very quickly, which can be very useful for actions shots and similar situations.

Then you have a set of composition overlays, allowing you to place various patterns on top of the screen. You have a normal grid, golden ration, tri section, and and a square. These are meant to help you compose the image better. Finally, the photo camera not has a zoom slider. Not overly useful in my opinion, since we’re talking about digital zoom here, but at least it makes more sense than the stock way of zooming.

On the video side, you also have several features. You have separate focus and exposure controls here too, as well as white balance lock. You also have the ability to manually set the video resolution, as well as the frame rate. Finally, you can take snapshots while filming.

I think this is a pretty neat feature set for only $0.99, and having these features added to the stock camera app is a major advantage over third party camera apps, since iOS doesn’t have a way to set default apps to use for various things. Also, even though the iPad isn’t really what most would use for taking photos, I’m very grateful that an iPad version of this was even made, as I find having a camera on my iPad mini quite useful.

As you can expect, Cameratweak HD is available in the Cydia store.

The post Cameratweak HD improves your jailbroken iPad’s camera appeared first on Pocketables.

It’s been a few months since I reviewed the Satechi Smart Pointer, an awesome little remote for presentations on the iPad. I’ve been using it quite a lot since then, and it’s a very neat accessory to have around.

The other day however, something occurred to me that should have occurred to me earlier. The Smart Pointer connects as a keyboard, and has several modes that allow you to switch between it being a media remote, an iOS presentation remote, and a computer presentation remote. Because it does all of this via simple keyboard emulation, however, the effect actually transfers over perfectly when using remote computer software that handles Bluetooth keyboards correctly! The only thing you need to do is make sure to set it in presentation mode for a PC, not for the iPad.

Wheat this means in practice is that you can use apps like the RDP/VNC client Jump Desktop to hold presentations, and still use the Smart Pointer. While Keynote on the iPad is fairly good, I’ve found that it’s not as good as Microsoft’s proper PowerPoint software, and I’ve especially had issues with animations not working correctly; In PowerPoint it does bullet by bullet no matter how many levels of bullets you have, while Keynote will only do bullet by bullet for the main level, not any nested ones.

I think it’s quite interesting to be able to use proper PowerPoint remotely, and still be able to use an accessory like this. It turns the iPad into a no compromise presentation tool, even for presentations that really need proper PowerPoint to work.

The post Satechi’s Smart Pointer works with remote computer apps appeared first on Pocketables.

Freemium games – games that are initially free but cost money if you want to upgrade parts of the game – have been an issue for years now, on multiple platforms. Apple has ended up in the news on multiple occasions, after children playing such games have spent thousands of dollars on in-game items without them or their parents realizing. Still, Apple keeps approving them and letting them into the iTunes store.

When you see the video above, however, you’ll see just how bad things have gotten. The constant spam to spend money is in itself just ridiculous, and that’s even before you count in the ads, characters stolen from Pokémon, and sounds and gameplay stolen from Mario games.

The game is called Super Monster Bros by Adventure Time Pocket Free Games, and seems to be only one of who knows how many practically identical games, as I managed to find another one called Super Robin Hood: Monster Hunt Bros in the app store as well. I don’t know why on Earth this game was let into the App Store, or why it hasn’t been kicked out yet since becoming an internet phenomenon, but it truly shows how useless Apple is at filtering the apps that should be filtered out of iTunes.

[IGN]

The post You won’t believe how bad this freemium iOS game is appeared first on Pocketables.

One of my favorite, but least mentioned gadgets are the Bose QuietComfort 3 noise cancelling headphones. Reviews are mixed about them because of the price, but I love mine, as the integrated active noise cancellation is just invaluable in noisy situations.

I have however wished for a wireless module for a long time. They’re actually made to allow for switching the cable, thanks to a 2.5mm 4-pin headset jack connecting the cable to the headphones. From what I can tell, Bose did actually plan a Bluetooth module at some point, but for some reason left that project for dead.

I’ve actually “made my own” Bluetooth headphones, and since those are working so well, my Jabra Clipper hasn’t seen any use since I did that. I decided that an accessory I don’t use is worthless, so I decided to risk it to try to create my own QC 3 module.

Obviously I was successful, or I wouldn’t be writing this. I split the Clipper in two, removing the metal clip, and ended up with a (luckily still functioning) flat Bluetooth module. I had a spare cable for the QC3, and managed to figure out which pin is what, as the pinout on that 4-pin 2.5mm jack is proprietary(!). I then added a jack directly to the audio output connector of the Jabra Clipper, giving it enough length to read down into the 2.5mm input on the headphones. Finally, I simply atteched the whole thing with poster tack.

Ugly as hell, you say? Indeed it is! Looks like someone blew up something and then glued it onto the side of a pair of perfectly good headphones.

The QC3 are expensive headphones, and I don’t want to permanently change them. As such, I need the module to be fully detachable, and that means that I need to compromise. I could have stripped a lot from the module and integrated it in the headphones somehow, more similar to what I did with my previous mod, but like I said, it’s important for me that this is an option, n
ot a conversion.

Despite it being ugly, I’m extremely happy with the result. I don’t use this outside, so it doesn’t bother me that it looks strange, and around the house this combination is amazing. I was vacuum cleaning the other day, and actually had to check to see if the vacuum was on, as I couldn’t hear it. Normally that means very loud music, but not in this case, thanks to the noise cancellation. The range of the Clipper (maybe I should call it Clipped now) is good enough for it to work anywhere in my apartment, hooked up to my Android phone.

This is my second Bluetooth-related mod in a row that I’ve ended up loving, and it makes me wonder why I’ve never been as happy with any commercial Bluetooth headphones. With the QC3 still being popular after so many years, and having just gotten an upgrade with an iPhone remote control cord, I do wish that Bose would see the potential in this and finish making a module of its own.

The post Converting a Jabra Clipper into a Bose QC3 Bluetooth module appeared first on Pocketables.

I tend to get a lot of crazy ideas, and I find a lot of crazy products that way. This morning I started thinking about uses for joaomgcd’s new AutoVoice app, and I started thinking about the communicator badge from Star Trek. For those who haven’t seen that (part of the) series, the idea is that you have a wearable badge that also works as a communicator. Tap it, and you can talk to other people or the computer.

With today’s Bluetooth technology, I thought that perhaps someone had already made a viable Bluetooth speakerphone version of the Star Trek badge, so I did a Google search, and found CommBadge. While it’s not shaped as a Star Trek badge, the functionality is spot on, and it cleverly markets itself as something more than just a Star trek “toy”. It’s essentially a wearable speaker phone, where tapping it enables voice control on iOS and Android devices. It also has vibration, sound, and LED alert functionality, and to top it all off, there are versions that will hold an ID badge.

I think this is a great idea, and best of all this is something that works out of the box with both iOS and many Android devices. The video shows it being used with Siri, but Google Now is also an option, and I’m hoping that it will be relatively easy to use this with other apps, such as AutoVoice.

I have to say that the idea of a real life commbadge intrigues me, if only to cater to the Trekker in me. It will be available this summer, starting at $89, and I fear that come fall, I’ll be running around tapping my chest and yelling “computer, lights.”

The post The upcoming CommBadge gives you Star Trek-style voice control appeared first on Pocketables.

As you may know, I don’t use a laptop. I use a jailbroken iPad mini, Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover, a Logitech m555b Bluetooth mouse, and Jump Desktop- a RDP/VNC app that happens to support the jailbreak tweak that allows the iPad to use a mouse. My main reason for this setup is that it gives me both iOS and Windows in a package that fits in a tiny bag, weighs less than some laptop chargers, and runs for 10 hours on a charge. I have however found that there are other advantages to using a remote PC setup than just the hardware.

Before I continue though, let me clarify that I’m not saying that a remote PC setup is necessarily better than a native Windows environment. It has a lot of disadvantages as well, and at the end of the day it’s up to each individual to decide which solution is best. All I’m saying is that disadvantages aside, there are still advantages to this kind of setup, other than just the portable hardware being smaller, lighter, and more battery efficient.

So, with that out of the way, on to the advantages of a remote PC setup. First off, remote controlling a PC means that you can run more powerful hardware in the other end than what would be possible to have as a portable setup. By going the remote PC way, I can focus on using a desktop computer at home, and even an older desktop computer will beat all but the most powerful of portable setups in terms of performance. This results in some very weird situations where you might for instance be doing video editing, and end up having a far smoother experience by remote controlling the computer that runs the actual software, rather than running it natively- all because connection lag is nothing like trying to do heavy tasks on devices that don’t have the power to do them.

Another issue that also has to do with doing heavy tasks is what happens to the device you have with you while an automated task runs in the background. If you were to initiate any sort of rendering, bulk conversions, OCR, or any other similar type of task on your local machine, it would become very slow and annoying to deal with while that task was running. If you use a remote PC setup, however, you can just log out, use your device, and log back in when the task is done.

Another advantage I’ve found has to do with how a lot of people have several devices, without them necessarily being synced. If you have one machine you use at home and one on the go, there’s an above average chance that you don’t have every single app, every singe file with you on your portable machine. With a remote PC setup, they’re essentially one and the same, and you don’t have this issue. I’ve found myself logging into my computer for all kinds of weird reasons, from checking on IM services that I can no longer be bothered running on mobile devices (since they can’t behave properly with several devices signed in), to grabbing files, to simply checking the logs for apps I only use there.

Then you have the matter of connection speeds. I have a 100/100Mbit connection at home, and as such, the connection I have more or less anywhere else is much slower. As such, it sometimes makes more sense to use my slower connection to remote control a device with a faster connection, rather than doing things directly. It’s an odd situation, but it’s useful for many things- like sharing files that you first have to upload, or just checking something right in the middle of a huge file (PDF, video, whatever).

Finally, startup. An Android/iOS device will very often be able to wake up and log into a remote computer much faster than a mobile device can wake up from sleep, let alone boot. What’s more, you’ll find the computer as you left it when you do so, ready to go straight away. Any processes that were running will still be running, so if you want, you can start something, pack up, go home, and find the computer still working away when you get there.

Like I said though, there are disadvantages to a remote PC setup. Connection lag, limited accessory support, the need for a fast connection to transfer files, double the chance of internet and power outages, and so on and so forth. Still, I feel that these two methods of having access to a full blown OS on the go are both valid methods, and that is why it surprises me how few people go the remote PC route. At the end of the day, there’s something quite ironic about sitting there with a 9-inch iPad mini, outperforming a 17-inch laptop on Windows tasks, all the while weighing less than its power adapter, and lasting four times longer on the battery.

That was my situation yesterday.

The post The advantages of a remote PC setup over a native Windows environment appeared first on Pocketables.

A few months ago, I bought a cheap $25.80 keyboard for my iPad mini. Since then I’ve started using the keyboard more and more, especially since switching from Splashtop 2 to Jump Desktop made me use a mouse and keyboard more for remote computing. This made previously minor issues like weird key placement and non-Norwegian layout on the cheaper keyboard unbearable, and when I found the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for the iPad mini at a local store, complete with a Scandinavian key layout, I couldn’t resist buying it.

In the box

As this is a keyboard, the box doesn’t really contain much. You have the keyboard, the charging cable, some paperwork, and that’s it. The box itself is pretty weird, designed like a drawer; you pull on a piece of silk tab, which slides the inner compartment out like a drawer, stopping just shy of coming all the way out. The paperwork and cable are then located in a box that’s stuck to the inside of the outer box. It frankly serves no purpose, and it’s not often you look at a box and wonder WTF.

Furthermore, I’m quite annoyed at the lack of a window on the box. Like I said, one of the reasons why I wanted a new keyboard was the key layout, as using an English keyboard when you’re bilingual causes more issues than using a Norwegian one (we have 3 more letters in the alphabet). The keyboard has a Scandinavian layout, the box has Scandinavian text on it, but the image of the keyboard on the front is of the English version. Again, WTF?!

To add to the idiocy, there’s a sticker on there indicating that it does in fact have the Scandinavian layout. So, to sum up, they printed a new box with Scandinavian text, English keyboard in the image, and then put a sticker on it saying that it does indeed have the layout of the text on the box, just not the image of it. How does that even happen?

Anyways, I digress.

Design

The mini version of this keyboard is pretty similar to the large size version. It’s essentially designed like the other half of a clam shell design where the iPad mini itself is the first half, where a Smart Cover-like hinge connects the two. It’s designed to be carried with the keyboard covering the screen, meaning you’ll find some rubber bumpers around the top. I would say that this is very close to the MS Surface Type Cover, but then again, Logitech was first, so the Type Cover is technically very close to this.

The back is anodized aluminum, similar to the iPad mini itself, and the keyboard actually comes in the same colors. When folded together, it fits nicely with the iPad mini, giving you something very close to a folded together laptop. The top of the keyboard is a glossier type of metal, just like how the front of the iPad mini is glossy glass- starting to see a pattern here. There’s a slot on top to slide the iPad into, which is how you’re supposed to set up the iPad for use, and the plastic keys are below it. On the right hand side you have the microUSB charging port, on/off switch, and Bluetooth connection button.

I was a bit hesitant to drop this much money on a keyboard, as I use a Smart Cover/back cover combination that I didn’t want to part with for the sake of storing the keybord the way it’s intended. Luckily, the hinge works perfectly fine on the outside of the original Smart Cover, meaning that you can use both. Furthermore, using the Smart Cover to stand up the iPad behind the keyboard, rather than using the slot for it on the keyboard, works perfectly fine- and the magnetic hinge then works to keep the two aligned. Aside from dropping the slot to slide the iPad mini into, I don’t think you could have made a keyboard that would have fit a Smart Cover/back cover combination better than this, and that’s quite a feat when that’s not even the main way to carry this.

It perhaps therefore goes without saying that the keyboard also works well the way it’s intended, i.e. with a naked iPad mini. The 0.05 cents that Logitech saved per unit by printing the wrong picture on the box seems to have been put into details, and the plastic slot on top of the keyboard that the iPad mini slides into when in use has both magnets to keep it in place, and some padding to keep it safe.

Key layout and typing performance

Any keyboard that is the size of the iPad mini will have to have a smaller layout than a normal keyboard, unless it folds. Logitech has done a good job of utilizing as much space as possible on this keyboard, and I have to say that the difference to the cheaper keyboard mentioned earlier are huge. Like I said before, I have the version with a Scandinavian key layout, however the keys themselves are identical, just mapped differently. Compared to a full size keyboard, the biggest differences are:

• Caps Lock and A key are one and the same, former being an FN key function
• Tab and Q key are one and the same, former being an FN key function
• Backspace, right Shift, and Enter keys have been resized more than the rest of the keys.
• There’s only one CTRL key, located to the right of the space bar

There are also other differences compared to a full size keyboard, though most have to do with size and key mappings.

As this is a dedicated iPad keyboard, it does come with a fair share of dedicated buttons for various iPad features. You have home, volume, media control, copy/cut/paste, search, Siri, and a few more.

As for the keys themselves, they’re rounded near the edges, spaced well, and very nice to type on, despite the size. I found myself hitting the wrong key far (!!!!! and then some more !!!!s) less often with this than with the cheaper keyboard, and I’m very comfortable typing on it.

I adapted to this keyboard surprisingly quickly, and now find myself typing quite quickly on it. Having tried a handful of different iPad mini keyboards now, I have to say that this is by far the best one I’ve tried, though I haven’t tried Belkin’s FastFit Keyboard Cover, which is the closest in terms of looks and functionality. I think that it’s impossible to make a perfect keyboard this size, but I still think that it’s worth it to have a more portable package. I can fit both the iPad mini, this keyboard, and about a dozen other accessories into a bag made for a DSLR, and it fits perfectly.

Other thoughts

Logitech states a battery life of up to three months for this, which despite being a mostly arbitrary number based on two hours of use each day, still results in a fairly impressive battery life. That means you don’t need the charger often, and while a microUSB charger might be commonplace for some of us, that’s not necessarily the case for many Apple-only users. I don’t know if Logitech could legally implement a Lightning charging port in this thing, but in any case, it would have made more sense to charge this thing that way.

I should also mention that while I think this is a great keyboard, it’s still not a 100% fit for me. That would instead have required this to have no slot for a naked iPad mini, but instead have the keyboard further up, and a trackpad below it. Obviously that is very unlikely to happen, since you would need a jailbroken iPad mini to use it, but I just want to point out that this isn’t the optimal keyboard for me, no matter if it’s good.

Conclusion

At $80 in the US, and a heck of a lot more in Norway, this isn’t a cheap keyboard. It is, however, a very good one. Despite the size, it’s comfortable to type on, and makes the iPad mini a very powerful typing tool. With this and a Bluetooth mouse connected to my jailbroken iPad mini, and using Jump Desktop to remote control my computer, I essentially have a 9-inch laptop with a 10 hour battery life and more processing power than actual Windows tablets (all thanks to remote controlling a desktop computer). I’ve already used it for countless hours, and I hope to get my money’s worth from this thing in the months to come.

The post Review: Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad mini appeared first on Pocketables.

Our guide to game controllers on Android talks about an app that allows you to use a range of game controllers to control Android games, with the root ability to have buttons emulate touch input, resulting in compatibility with games without support being built into them. This is a very powerful tool, and now jailbroken iOS devices are starting to get a similar app.

Bluetrol itself isn’t new, but a recent update put it one step closer to the functionality of its Android equivalent, by adding support for analog sticks. You can then map any of the buttons on your game controller to parts of the screen, and by matching this up with on-screen controls using a screenshot, you can get game controller support in a ton of games.

The video above shows you how, and it’s fairly straight forward. I only have a PhoneJoy controller that’s compatible with this right now, but hope to test it with a PS3 controller soon. I’ve had some issues with random button presses with the PhoneJoy, and I need to test with other controllers to determine whether the controller or the app is at fault. In the meanwhile, you can get Blutrol in the Cydia store for jailbroken iOS devices if you want to give it a shot yourself.

The post How to use Blutrol to use game controllers on jailbroken iOS devices appeared first on Pocketables.

There are a ton of note taking apps for the iPad, but despite me checking in on several of them from time to time, I’ve stuck with Goodnotes for ages now. During that time I’ve come to know the app quite well, and there are a handful of things that aren’t perhaps as intuitive as they should be. Heck, I didn’t even know of one of these myself a month ago, until someone pointed it out.

I’ve noticed in forums and elsewhere that other features in Goodnotes are also unknown for many of its users, so I thought I would put together a video showing some of the things that I myself find to be semi-secrets in the app. I’ll let the video speak for itself this time, and hopefully this will help other Goodnotes users get more out of the app.

If you haven’t tried Goodnotes before, but want to give it a try, you can grab it from the download link below.

PS: the video is missing the last five seconds, for reasons you have to ask YouTube about, but it’s of no importance to the contents.

Download: iTunes

The post Tips and tricks for using Goodnotes on the iPad [Video] appeared first on Pocketables.

A while back, I got fed up with Splashtop’s constantly deteriorating user experience, and went looking for a new remote PC app. Having such an app is paramount to me being able to use my iPad mini as a portable computer, as it allows me to control a full desktop computer from the iPad. I use it quite a lot as a teacher, as dealing with educational websites more or less demands a full PC OS. After a bit of searching, I ended up with Jump Desktop, and I have to say I’m glad I switched.

RDP vs VNC

Unlike Splashtop, Jump Desktop is a client app for stock remote desktop protocols, rather than being a proprietary solution. It supports both RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) and VNC (Virtual Network Computing), two protocols that have been around for ages. RDP is built into Windows, and doesn’t require any third party software, while VNC support can be achieved with any number of free apps on many platforms, including jailbroken iOS devices and Android devices.

On top of this, Jump Desktop offers a tool that will help bridge the gap between these protocols and the proprietary solutions out there, the latter of which tend to have much more reliable discovery systems. The tool will both set up RDP and VNC for you, and also allow you to use your Google account to help discover your computer over an internet connection, meaning you won’t have to deal with IPs, port forwarding, and so on. This has worked flawlessly for me, and that’s a requirement for me to use such an app at all; I need to be able to reach my computer any time I need to.

As for RDP and VNC, the two protocols differ quite a bit. RDP essentially logs you on as a remote user, kicking the local user off (meaning the computer you control gets locked/logged off), giving you the screen optimized for your device (meaning a single screen 1024 x 768 picture on the iPad mini), and applying certain interface changes (like deactivating Aero) to make it more usable over the remote connection.

VNC on the other hand is closer to Splashtop in functionality, and essentially mirrors your screen(s) to the remote control device, as well as allow for remote keyboard and mouse input. This means that the computer you control won’t be logged off, you can see what happens on it while controlling it, it doesn’t change the resolution or number of screens, and you see the device exactly as it would otherwise appear.

I quickly realized that VNC simply wasn’t an option for me. Remote controlling two 1080p monitors with a 768p iPad isn’t exactly the best experience, and unfortunately Jump Desktop doesn’t have any feature to change the resolution to fit the device. VNC in itself doesn’t have that capability, but since Jump Desktop has a helper tool, it would be perfectly possible to get it working anyways. In fact, when I asked them about it, they said that it’s on their to do list of things to do.

Features

My issue with Splashtop, aside from the horribly treatment of customers, has always been lack of features rather than lack of speed or connection stability. That’s also why I started using Jump Desktop, as it solves a lot of the issues I had with Splashtop.

First and foremost, mouse support. If your iPad is jailbroken, and you use BTC Mouse & Trackpad (a jailbreak tweak) to get Bluetooth mouse support, the same tweak has a build in scenario for Jump Desktop, where it takes direct control over the mouse. You can read my full post on this here, but bottom line: Jump Desktop is the only/one of few (not sure which) remote computing app for the iPad that can handle a mouse like a mouse. I can’t emphasize enough what a difference this makes, and that feature alone would have made me stick with Jump Desktop, even if it lacked other things.

Luckily though, it doesn’t lack a whole lot. One issue I have with Splashtop is that it doesn’t handle Bluetooth keyboards in any way that can be considered logical, as it requires you to bring up the in-app keyboard in order to use the external keyboard. Both Jump Desktop and Splashtop operate with the stock iPad keyboard with some specialized computer buttons on top, but while Splashtop requires this to be activated to input text at all, Jump Desktop allows an external keyboard to input text regardless. Obviously that’s how it should worked, but sometimes “obvious” s apparently relative.

Unfortunately, Jump Desktop does fail in a related matter. If you use multiple languages, like me who’s Norwegian but type a lot in English, you will likely run into problems. My iPad have both US English and Norwegian keyboard enabled, my Bluetooth keyboard has a US layout, and my computer is set to Norwegian. In order for the English Bluetooth keyboard to work properly, both the iPad keyboard and the computer need to be set to English for it to work.

This is highly annoying, and I don’t quite understand why both devices need to be set to the correct language for it to work. Splashtop only requires the iPad language to be correct, which makes more sense. I think it has to do with Jump Desktop’s extended external keyboard support, which allows you to use various computer keyboard shortcuts. Unfortunately, if that’s the case, it’s actually the second issue I’ve found with that feature, as it also prevents the Bluetooth keyboard’s iOS-specific function keys to work.

One final issue I have with features is how RDP disconnects are handled. The RDP protocol is designed to lock out the current user when a remote user logs in, so that when you disconnect, you’re still locked out of the other computer until you enter your login details again. You can still log back in remotely with RDP, but not other services like Splashtop. This means that if you use RDP together with other services that need to contact software on your computer, you’re out of luck as using RDP will mean you’re locked out of those until you physically log back in on the computer.

Like I said, this is a “feature” with RDP, which is made by Microsoft, not Jump Desktop. It’s there for security reasons, but in typical Microsoft fashion, there’s no way to turn that feature off. For me, who has a computer that’s in a locked apartment all day, it’s a completely useless feature that serves no purpose other than to make RDP less usable. Luckily, there is a workaround, which I put in a separate article to keep things clean.

With that method, I just click the task bar icon I made to log off, which kicks Jump Desktop off and restores the local session. It works brilliantly, and should frankly be a feature in Jump Desktop itself. I have suggested it to them, and it turns out that no one has thought about it before- which I think is weird, since there’s a ton of talk about this issue for RDP in general online.

Speed and usability

First off, let’s get one thing straight:

Splashtop is much, much, much faster than Jump Desktop

No matter if you use RDP or VNC, Splashtop is faster. Much faster. Splashtop is fast enough to stream video and games on a local connection, and do it well enough that you will have absolutely no problems watching it. That is why I’ve been able to do things like this with Splashtop. It’s even fast enough that I’ve been able to do it on a fast internet connection, which is quite amazing.

I haven’t been able to get neither RDP nor VNC anywhere close to video-capable, not even on a local connection. Furthermore, Splashtop is more reliable on a slow connection, as it streams the image differently. When it comes to RDP, it seems to send every frame in the same compression format regardless of network quality, which means that on a slow network, you get perfect single frames of the remote computer, but at ridiculously low framerates (been down to about 0.5 FPS). Splashtop on the other hand works more like streaming video, in that it compresses the image more. You get a pixelated/blurry image, but at higher FPS.

The best way to properly explain this is to simply show you. The video below is a screencast I recorded a couple of weeks ago, while on the bus (hence the sounds), accessing the internet on my iPad via my phone working as a WiFi hotspot. In other words, far from the best connection, and so it works to show the difference between the two:

The speed thing is a limitation with RDP and VNC, and until Jump Desktop gets a proprietary protocol of its own, it’s unfortunately unavoidable.

However, I don’t think it really matters, at least not for me personally. I have a semi-decent WiFi connection whenever I use RDP, which means that speed isn’t really an issue. I don’t watch or play games remotely; I do things like use OpenOffice, heavy duty PDF editing apps (for things like Optical Character Recognition), and use the web browser to have access to Flash, Java, etc. For those things, on a decent WiFi connection, I never actually think much about the fact I’m remote controlling a computer, because everything is more than fast enough to keep up with what I’m doing. Coupled with storing everything in Dropbox, meaning that both devices have access to all files, it just becomes a natural thing to do to switch seamlessly between native iOS and Jump Desktop.

I know a lot of people are skeptical when it comes to using remote computer software instead of a full blown portable Windows machine. The thing is, the iPad mini is a 308 gram device that lasts for 10 hours on a charge, has a ton of (educational) software that you simply can’t get on Windows, and I can fit it and a ton of accessories into a bag whose only use for a laptop or Windows tablet user would be to store the charger. I only use Windows for things that I either can’t do on the iPad, or much more commonly, things that are easier with a desktop OS, mouse, and keyboard. The are advantages to both this setup and a native Windows setup, but to me, the advantages of a remote computer setup far, far outweighs those of having a native Windows device.

As an example, I often bring the keyboard and mouse to classes I teach. If the students are doing any individual/group work that doesn’t require me staring intently at them, I can take the time to do post files and messages on the school portal, or look at hand-ins as they come in- things that are easier with a desktop OS. If someone needs help, I just grab the iPad mini, leaving the mouse and keyboard behind. Then suddenly I have a notebook sized device that has the textbooks, tasks, keys, schedules, dictionaries, and everything and anything else I might ever need to answer questions on the spot. Rather than finding myself in a situation where my need for Windows at the desk has left me with an inferior device for moving about the classroom, I can just minimize Jump Desktop while I use the native, finger-friendly apps on the mini.

Point being, even if Jump Desktop is slower than Splashtop, it works perfectly for things like that. The combination of RDP interface optimization and Jump Desktop’s automatic discovery, mouse, and keyboard support, essentially just makes it feel more like a proper computer than Splashtop ever did.

Conclusion

Jump Desktop is in many ways a very different app from Splashtop. In fact, I still keep Splashtop around because of its speed. That being said, Jump Desktop is in my opinion a far better option for those who want to do common office tasks on their iPad, rather than use remote computing for video and games. I’ve been remoting into my computer far more often after I started using Jump Desktop, and a large part of the reason for that is the excellent mouse compatibility if your device is jailbroken and use BTC Mouse & Trackpad. I can honestly say that I really don’t miss my laptop when using it, though you have to find out if the same is true for yourself.

Jump Desktop will currently run you $15 on iTunes. That’s a fairly common price for remote computer apps, and in my opinion well worth it. The biggest issue is that there’s currently no trial version, and with the myriad of similar apps out there, it’s very hard to justify spending $15 on something that you haven’t tried.

For the record, Jump Desktop is also available on Android. As I haven’t tried the Android version, however, don’t consider this a universal review.

Download: iTunes

The post Review: Jump Desktop for iPad appeared first on Pocketables.

I’m a big fan of self made accessories, and know that there’s no substitute for tailoring accessories for your own use. That’s also the spirit behind the DIY project of MacRumors user peabody, who couldn’t find a commercial case that fit her criteria:

I have been on the look out for a thin, professional looking case that is a folio type with a notepad I can use to take notes etc. Only two exist that I could find – a very thick moleskin folio cover for e-readers, and the booqpad mini. Having owned the larger ipad 2 version of the booqpad, I was not a fan of how lose the ipad was inside the case, and there were too many pockets, too many things going on with that case (and not a fan of the material it was made out of).

Inspired by this blogpost, she took a Moleskine Large notebook, removed the pages, slipped a thinner notebook into the back pocket, and attached the iPad mini with some mounting tape. The finished case then holds both the iPad mini, a paper notebook, and her Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo in a very professional looking cover. The total cost should be about $25 if you live in the US and buy from the right places (like Amazon).

While that’s not a huge saving from the $40 Booqpad, I have to say that I’d take the DIY version over the Booqpad any day, as the latter looks much more cumbersome, with tons of unnecessary material, and even a much less useful notebook to boot.

Another user also posted his case in the thread, offering yet another approach to this mod. There’s also the case from the original blog post, which however doesn’t have an actual paper notebook.

I love projects like this, and I have to say that these people have done a great job on their cases. It goes to show that sometimes, commercial solutions aren’t just more expensive, but also inferior- at least for some people.

[Macrumors | John Chandler]

The post iPad mini users fashion brilliant iPad/notebook cases from Moleskine notebooks appeared first on Pocketables.

Back in December, I wrote about how I find Apple’s Siri voice assistant to be “Siriously stupid.” In that post, I mostly talk about how the basic idea behind Siri as a “one size fits all” just results in a voice assistant that is outright moronic compared to something programmed from scratch. At the end, I also mention that even as a “one size fits all” voice assistant, Siri falls short of expectations. Like I wrote back then:

Even if you are a fan of the “one size fits all” mentality, Siri isn’t really impressive in that area either. When I got the iPad mini, I asked Siri “how much RAM do you have”. The display showed that it understood every single word, even capitalizing RAM, but it still gave me sports scores for a team called the Rams instead of giving me a useful answer. I’ve tried to get it to send emails, but the pronunciation of Norwegian names often creates issues. Siri isn’t available in Norwegian, so that’s understandable, but the following isn’t: If it understands the first name, e.g. Thomas, it asks which Thomas I mean. If I then answer “the first one,” it doesn’t understand what that means. Instead it wants me to say the entire name of the person on the list, which means the chances of it not understanding the Norwegian pronunciation increases. How hard is it to get it to understand “the first one”?

The stupidity with emails continues. If I tell it to “email X with subject hello and text hello,” it literally creates an email to person X with subject “hello and text hello.” If I then say “attach a picture to this email,” it puts the text as “attach a picture to this email.” If I tell it to “create an appointment in my school calendar for tomorrow from 10 to 1500,” it creates an appointment called “in my school calendar.” I have multiple calendars, one of which is literally called “school.”

Having had a few more months with Siri since I wrote that, I can only say that my impression of it has gotten even worse. Sure, I’ve found it useful for controlling music from Bluetooth audio devices, but even in that area it has some glaring faults that drive me up the wall.

First off, the internet dependency has to go. Because Siri actually uses Apple servers to interpret what people say, it can’t do anything without an internet connection. That’s fine for things like Google searches, or very dynamic phrases like “do you think it will rain” or anything like that, but for things like music control you basically just need to support a very basic [play][name][settings] structure. In fact, the old Voice Control feature in iOS- which is available on some devices if you turn off Siri, as well as on non-Siri devices- works perfectly fine without an internet connection. It’s less accurate and less capable, unless you’re in a situation where you don’t have an internet connection, in which case it works while Siri doesn’t.

Second, the stupidity I talked about for email has relatives in the music control part of Siri. I recently bought the Elton John song “Rocket Man” and put it on my iPad. If I tell Siri to play that track in a normal voice, it will reply that it can’t find a track called “Rocketman”. If I intentionally speak in such a way that I pause between “rocket” and “man”, it will find it just fine. It amazes me how something as simple as word compounding confuses this thing, and it makes me glad the thing isn’t available in Norwegian, where word compounding has a much bigger place in the language.

The inability to truly understand dynamic language/commands is also very much present when dealing with music. A very common problem I have is that I get an urge to listen to a specific song/artist/album, give Siri the command to play it, and then when it’s done, it just stops. It understands music selection and “play all songs” commands individually, but not when combined- despite the fact that it’s really not that hard to treat “and then” as a command separator when interpreting the input. I made my own voice assistant for Android using Tasker, and I could literally have done it better myself than what Apple’s software team has been able to come up with after years of work.

I consider linking together two commands like that basic, and so it would take a lot more than that to really make me impressed. I would have liked to be able to set up entire temporary playlists using voice, using a command in like “queue up the album [album title], the songs [song title], [song title], and [song title], and then continue playing all music, shuffled”. Furthermore, a variation of this could allow for a party mode, where people could come up to the playback device (or just a microphone enabled Bluetooth receiver), and simply ask it to add something to the current playback queue.

But enough about the music feature. I’ve also tried to get it to do some other things, although I have to admit I haven’t explored all aspects of Siri, mostly because it’s failed so miserably in the ones I have tried. I once experimented with the Reminders feature, and in a moment of optimism, tried to get Siri to delete one it had just created. “I’m not allowed to delete reminders,” was the reply. I don’t quite get the logic behind allowing someone to create reminders, but not delete them, and considering the kind of mayhem you can do with Siri access as it is (send email, SMS), the “it’s a security precaution” excuse simply won’t fly.

Here are some more examples of what there’s no point in asking Siri:

Call a spade a spade

I think part of the problem is that Apple is focusing so much on Siri’s alleged ability to understand dynamic commands. When you show off a product being able to interpret dynamic language, you create expectations of that being the case outside the handful of examples you showed off. The higher the expectations of a product, the bigger the disappointment when it fails to meet those expectations. Had Siri instead been touted as a static command based assistant, and had dynamic interpretation capabilities as a neat bonus, I think people would have been much more satisfied with it overall. Then again, it wouldn’t look so good in ads.

In conclusion

Siri remains a feature that is only impressive in carefully scripted commercials, and to me at least, what it fails to do completely overshadows what it can do. If you give me a voice assistant that you showed off as being able to understand dynamic language, I will talk to it that way.

Apple has essentially made a name for itself selling perceived quality, but very often things are not what they seem once you dig underneath the surface. Between Siri, Apple Maps, Passbook, and other Apple services that have gotten luke-warm receptions over the last few years, it seems that Apple is more or less living off previous momentum at the moment. I use both Android and iOS, and I use both for their third party capabilities, and I really hope that one day I’ll be genuinely excited about a first party feature.

The post Apple really needs to fix Siri [Video] appeared first on Pocketables.

Ever since I got the iPad mini, I’ve been trying out various solutions to keeping a stylus with my iPad. I used to just attach my Maglus stylus to the Smart Cover magnetically, but that doesn’t work well on the mini. I came up with a solution that I’ve been using since December, but I’ve also occasionally played with ideas for other ways of accomplishing this.

After scrapping a few other prototypes over the last couple of weeks, I finally came up with a solution that I frankly should have thought of sooner, since I have in fact used it before. After testing it out on my prototyping back case (one of the advantages of using cheap but good cases is that you can have one to experiment with), I implemented it in the case I have on my mini, and it works great.

The concept is quite simple: cut a slit in the side of the case, and create attachments that have long plastic pieces that slide into the slit. I cut the slit with a thin Dremel cutting disc, made the edge smoother with a scalpel, and then cut pieces out of a plastic document folder to create the attachments. To make the stylus holder I ended up using, I cut a small piece of elastic band, sowed it together into a loop with a diameter slightly smaller than the stylus, and glued it onto the plastic cutout. It’s important that the plastic piece is thing enough to be able to be inserted between the iPad and case, rigid enough to support the attachment, and not end up scratching the iPad.

The purpose of this is to have a stylus holder that I can quickly attach and detach. This allows me to use it during the day when I’m carrying the iPad and stylus around with me, and still be able to take it off when I come home, without changing the case in any way that matters for using it without the attachment.

This should work fine with a variety of cases for a variety of devices, but will probably work best for hard cases. This trick can be used to attach a variety of accessories, including passive amplifiers (plastic pieces that redirect sound), headphones, styluses, and so on.

The post From the DIY drawer: Accessory attachment system for cases [Video] appeared first on Pocketables.

When you jailbreak your device you pretty much accept that you fragment the way your device works. Jailbreak tweaks is one community, one eco system, and App Store apps is another. Occasionally, however, what you get from one benefits something from the other, such as the trick with symbolic links (a jailbreak-only tweak) suddenly opening up a lo of possibilities for normal App Store apps.

Turns out that such cross compatibility gem is hidden in the way the jailbreak tweaks BTC Mouse & Trackpad (the successor to BTstack mouse) interacts with the remote desktop app Jump Desktop. Jump Desktop is a RDP/VNC client, which means it’s an app/service that utilizes the existing VNC and RDP protocols to allow users to connect to their computer remotely. Like other such apps, it uses a touch-to-mouse system for allowing the user to handle a mouse-controlled UI from the touch-controlled iPad, which isn’t the world’s most intuitive system at times.

Normally, when you use BTC Mouse & Trackpad to connect a mouse to your iPad, that mouse will actually emulate touch. This means that when you connect to a remote computer, your BT mouse won’t act like a PC mouse, because in reality the mouse is emulating touch, which in turn emulates the mouse. This means that the cursor only updates when you click the mouse button, as that’s when it emulates a screen touch. The right mouse button in those cases will be mapped to the iPad home button, which is part of how BTC Mouse & Trackpad works. So, if you try to right click to copy text, you actually leave the app.

However, with Jump Desktop it’s different. BTC Mouse & Trackpad has built in support for Jump Desktop, which allows it to let the connected mouse take direct control over the computer mouse. This means the mouse works the way you expect it to with regards too tracking, left and right clicking. Move the mouse, and the cursor moves. Right click, and you right click in the app. It’s the way it should work, naturally, but it’s also the way it doesn’t work in most remote desktop apps.

I’ll do a full review of Jump Desktop in a few days, but I just wanted to share this little discovery right away. As far as remote computing goes, it’s outright revolutionary, as there’s no substitution for using a proper mouse when you remote control a UI that’s actually made for a mouse. Having a mouse at all is of course useful, but it just works so much better when it works exactly how a mouse should. The best part of it is that since this works by having a unrelated jailbreak tweak take control of Jump Desktop, rather than Jump Desktop adding compatibility for the tweak, Apple can’t put the blame on Jump Desktop.

The post Jump Desktop for iPad has revolutionary Bluetooth mouse capabilities thanks to jailbreak tweaks [Video] appeared first on Pocketables.

Last night I started looking into the possibility of doing the whole thing directly, meaning streaming video directly to the iPad. All my media is stored on my desktop computer, which is located on the same network. Windows’ built-in sharing feature uses SMB/CIFS to share media on the network, and so I wanted an app that would allow me to stream that way, while still supporting hardware decoding of 720p h264 files with AC3 audio, in .mkv containers.

Unfortunately this seems to be something of a tall order. Very few apps actually support AC3 audio, because of licensing involved with supporting it. Hardware video decoding is another feature that isn’t all that common, and you can forget about watching 720p content that isn’t converted specifically for the iPad on the iPad mini without doing it through hardware. Finally, a surprising number of highly rated video players have no streaming capabilities at all, or lack SMB support, which is pretty pathetic.

After looking around for a bit, searching the App Store, and reading some forums posts on the matter, I came to the conclusion that there simply isn’t a single App Store bought app (as far as I could find) that combines all these features into a single app. I could find apps with SMB support, hardware decoding, and AC3 support, but no single app with all those features.

In fact, the only app I found that does all of it isn’t an App Store app at all, but rather a jailbreak-only app. Many people know the famous Xbox Media Center solution whose Xbox-related name at this point only hints to where it started out, and one of the many platforms you can get it on is jailbroken iOS. You need to add http://mirrors.xbmc.org/apt/ios/  to your repos (sources) in Cydia, and once you have, XMBC will be available as a free download.

I have to warn you that XBMC for iOS is essentially just a port of XBMC, meaning that it’s not like most apps made from scratch for the OS. Everything is just off enough to make you notice that it’s definitely not made for tablets, and one of the biggest issues I’ve found is the lack of multitasking capabilities. If you leave the app at any point, it will start up from scratch when you go back in. This also seems to screw up the automatic resume functionality, which means it can be quite a pain to use if you’re the kind of person who jumps between apps like crazy, like me.

That being said, XBMC does what half a dozen App Store apps I tried, and a dozen I have only read about, can’t. It lets me browse the video library on my computer using Windows’ folder sharing system, pick a file, and stream it. The 720p h264/AC3 .mkv files that kills any software decoding-only apps on sight and turns AC3-incapable apps mute play back perfectly on my iPad mini, and 720p looks awesome on the display, even if it’s not able to display it in full resolution.

I do hope that someone releases an App Store app that combines all these features as well (or that there’s one out there that I haven’t heard of), but until then, I’ll live with XBMC’s awkward UI and iOS support.

The post Streaming 720p h264+AC3 .mkv video to the iPad mini via SMB/CIFS using XBMC (jailbreak only) appeared first on Pocketables.

It’s essentially a combination of a WiFi router, a portable DVD burner, and a network storage device, all packed into a single unit that’s also iOS- and Android- compatible. Apparently, it came out about a year ago, but more or less flopped due to it flying under many people’s radar, being such a weird device, and being buggy and cumbersome to use. Still, I was intrigued, and at that price I just had to get one.

After finally getting it to work, I thought I would show you how you can use this device to both read from and write to CDs and DVDs from iOS and Android devices, as those are the two most unique features of this device.

Before I get into it though, I want to just quickly go through the basics of this device. It’s slightly larger than most portable DVD drives, and it requires AC power – you can’t run it from USB. It has an Ethernet port for connecting to a network, a built in WiFi router for wirelessly connecting to devices and to share that wired connection, a USB port for connecting USB drives (I wasn’t able to get USB hard drives to work), and a mini-USB port for connecting to a PC, allegedly for using as a USB DVD drive (a feature I haven’t tried).

When operational, the device can be controlled from apps available for both Android and iOS. Samba-compatible file managers should also be able to connect to it for file management, like this one for iOS. The phone/tablet needs to be connected to the SE-208BW’s WiFI network for the connection to work, and then it should allow you to use the built-in features of the app. These features aren’t all that intuitive, as they’re limited and rather fragmented. You can play a DVD using the DVD player mode, but have to switch to the file manager to access files from a drive, the audio CD player to play a CD, and so on. The ability to burn a disc is hidden inside the SMART Backup menu, and actually getting files in there to burn is much easier to do by having a USB drive connected, transferring files to it using a Samba-compatible file manager, and then “backing up” the files from the USB drive to the disc. This is all shown in practice in the video at the top.

Bottom line, it’s a complicated device, which is why I’m not doing a full accessory review of it. The disc reading and writing features are the most unique aspects of it, so I’ll focus on those.

When you first get the unit

Setting this up is ridiculously complicated. After a lot of trial and error, I got it working, and here’s a basic step-by-step guide on what to do from the moment you open the box.

1. Plug the device into power and an internet connection, using the Ethernet port.
2. Put the included disc into a computer connected to the same network.
3. Run the program on the disc and follow instructions for installing the device. It’s fairly self-explanatory.
4. Once everything is connected and running, go to http://smarthub/ in your browser (no, that URL is not a typo).
5. Leave the password field blank; by default there is no password
6. Go to the administration section of the UI and set up a password. This is separate from the SSID/WPA you configured during the installation process, as this is instead the password to access the device’s control UI (like a router).
7. Go to the firmware update section of the UI.
8. In a new tab, open this link. Select the latest firmware depending on your region. Right now that’s SE-208BW/AW3 or SE-208BW/TW3. Under “Web UI FW upgrade,” use the Flash widget to download the file.
9. Once downloaded, select the file in the device’s firmware update UI (from step 7).
10. Upgrade the firmware. This involves staring at the device for a few minutes while its LEDs blink away.
11. Done! You’re running the latest firmware.

On your Android/iOS device:

1. Make sure the SE-208BW is plugged into power, and that the WiFi symbol is lit up.
2. Scan for WiFi networks and connect to the SSID you specified in the installation process above, using the password you specified.
3. Open the SmartHub app. Wait for it to successfully connect. This might require you to exit and re-open the app a few times.

At this point you should be able to play around with it. You can try playing a DVD, accessing files from a USB drive, and so on.

Reading from and writing to a disc

The video at the top shows me playing back a DVD using this device and an iPad mini, and also how I burn some files onto a disc using the iPad. The method for Android is identical as far as the SmartHub app is concerned, and only the file management will be different (but easier) on Android, which has an openly accessible file system.

In conclusion

This is a very odd device. It’ a great concept, but terribly executed, which is why it failed so badly, and why it’s being sold so cheap. Firmware and app updates have probably helped a bit to make my experience better than that of early adopters, but it’s still very far from being intuitive. Still, it’s a heavily discounted iOS- and Android-compatible DVD/CD reader and writer, which doubles as a USB WiFi adapter, and triples as a wireless router. I’d really like to see someone take this concept, do it right, and release something that works perfectly, but bottom line, the functionality is worth the hassle when you consider how cheap this thing is right now.

I don’t see myself using this that much, as discs are fairly outdated if you ask me, but it’s one of those accessories that you will one day be glad you have. There’s a lot of talk about how you can replace a computer with a mobile device, and for all its flaws, this device removes the “you can’t access optical media” argument from that equation.

The post How to read from and write to CDs and DVDs from iOS and Android using the Samsung SE-208BW [Video] appeared first on Pocketables.

The iPad alarm clock in itself is a weird contraption. It’s essentially a mix between a traditional alarm app and a calendar, where each alarm is indicated by a event-like label on a time schedule. It took some getting used to, but I actually quite like this design, as it makes it easy to see what alarms are on, and when. I especially like that you can grab and drag the alarm labels around to quickly change what time that alarm is set for, a feature you also find in many calendar apps. In fact, so much of this alarm is is like a calendar, that I can’t help but think it should have been part of the calendar.

The way it works now is that the calendar and alarm are separate, neither overlaying the other. That seems silly to me since they both work on the same principle, and it’s not unlikely that the alarms you set have something to do with the calendar. Calendars do have events with alarm reminders, but that’s still different from actual wake up-type alarms. Why not then just overlay the existing alarm system on the calendar, making it easier to see how your wake-up times would correspond to your events? Perhaps this would even help some people realize that they need to get up early one day because of a meeting, something you wouldn’t see from the existing alarm clock app without also checking your calendar.

The resulting app would look something like this:

This is obviously just a rough overlay of the two, but you get my point. The iPad’s alarm clock is designed to work like a calendar, but doesn’t work with the calendar, which to me is just backwards.

I realize that many people might not even use the alarm clock on their iPad, and those who do might use third party apps, but I like the basic concept behind it, and prefer to have a backup in case my Android phone decides to fail one day. This would be quite useful for that, ad would make it much easier to see when I need to set the alarm for based on the events for that day.

The post The iPad alarm clock app would make much more sense as part of the calendar app appeared first on Pocketables.

I’ve mentioned symbolic links in other articles. It’s a trick I learned about myself not long ago, and one that is unfortunately not as obvious as it should be consider how useful it is.

Symbolic links are shortcuts to files and folders, just like on a computer. It’s possible to create these links using iFile on a jailbroken iOS device, and they actually give your App Store apps new functionality. By creating links to files and folders that the app normally wouldn’t have access to (because they’re located outside the app’s own folder), you can give off-the-shelf App Store apps the ability to access both files that are stored within other apps, and files that are stored on external storage devices.

The video shows how you do this in practice, and includes several tips for making the most out of this trick. You need a jailbroken iOS device, as well as iFile, which you can get in the Cydia store. To use external storage devices (iPad only), you need various accessories. I’ve covered both how to connect an external hard drive and how to get around the “this device requires too much power”-issue with flash drives, so make sure to read up on those if that’s something you want to do. In the video, I use the second method, with a unpowered USB hub connected to the Lighting to USB Camera Adapter on my iPad mini.

The post How to use symbolic links on a jailbroken iOS device [Video] appeared first on Pocketables.

One of my favorite features of the iPad mini is the camera, which is decent enough to actually allow me to scan documents directly. It’s quite sad that one of my favorite features on a modern device is its backwards compatibility with remnants of what might as well be the stone age. Keeping paper around when it’s not necessary just serves to prolong the inevitable and force everyone to take one step backwards for every two steps forwards. 

The other day however, I stumbled across an instance of innovation actually winning through. I was applying for a master’s program at the university college I’m attending, a procedure that has been only partially digital for ages now. Sure, you can apply digitally, but they then print out a document that they send you, in which you need to put copies of your diplomas (that contain your grades) and send it back to them. These copies need to be made by authorized copiers, meaning copy shops, government buildings, or the schools themselves. Otherwise you might falsify them, or at least that’s the logic.

This time, however, sending in the application included a page for “uploading digital documentation,” with very little explanation other than the headlines for each section being self explanatory as to what to upload. Being used to a system that’s only slightly less ridiculous than needing armed guards to watch you while you copy your documents, I was confused by the lack of documentation as to how documents needed to be digitized, and sent the school an email. I quickly got a response saying that the new digital system accepted digital documentation in a lot of different forms, including the PDF files I had of my diplomas- which were just scans I made myself.

To ensure that no one falsified documentation, a new system has been implemented where the original documentation needs to be brought and checked when you first start the course. You’re basically then accepted based on the documentation you provide, but won’t actually get as far as the first class if you did falsify the documents. This way, it’s still secure, but makes the task of applying so much less of a pain- for both parties. I was able to do in a minute what would have taken me a trip to an authorized copier followed by a trip to the post office, and the school doesn’t have to deal with two billion tons of paper.

What impressed me about this was that they actually managed to find a paperless solution, rather than just concluding that it’s not possible to replace verified paper copies with digital versions. That it took them this long to implement the system is less impressive, but better late than never.

I think a lot of the slowness we’re seeing in the adoption of paperless systems is due to a combination of stupidity and unwillingness to change. I still get amazed by the outright idiocy displayed by “high security” services here in Norway, meaning things like taxation documents, bank documents, and so on. A lot of them still insist on sending you stuff via postal mail, the argument being that it’s safer than digital methods. Yes, I’m sure it’s much easier  to hack into my online account. which is a multi-step process requiring both a password and my phone to get into- than it is to raid my mail box that’s sitting unguarded for roughly 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 30 seconds every day.

Either way, I’m glad I’m seeing some progress in the world, even if a snail could still outrun the adoption of digital paper replacements. I’m really looking forward to the day when paper is only used for one thing, and you no longer have to look at it once you flush.

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