The makers of the PDF reader app Readdle showed a new app with a wider range of features at the recent Macworld. The new Remarks can do plenty of things — note-taking, free-hand drawing and PDF annotating. But what struck me the most was the perfection, it seemed, of the ability to rest your wrist on the iPad glass while you write or draw with a stylus. This is a tricky thing, I’ve learned during use of other apps. Somehow the Remarks app just sensed where I’d rest my rest while I toyed with the demo at the Readdle booth. No telling the app where you were writing, or having to stay inside a safe-zone area of the iPad with your wrist.

Denys Zhadanov of Readdle told me it wasn’t easy to solve the problem. But the company, whose tech staff is based in the Ukraine, has some other impressive chops to show in the market. Readdle built Terra, one of the best alternatives to the Safari app. Zhadanov said that Apple actually made Readdle slow down the speed of Terra when introducing new programming standards for iOS. I always found Terra to be a lot better Web experience.

Remarks takes a slice of ReaddleDocs’ powerful PDF annotation tools, includes a zoom mode plus a drawing engine. It offers pens and highlighters of different colors, floating text boxes, shapes and an eraser. We’re looking forward to testing the ability to annotate PDF documents that we’ll create from Word docs, printed to PDF files using the Mac’s inbred abilities. Zhadanov said an update to Remarks later this spring will let you pass your annotated documents into your Dropbox. Remarks is on sale at the Apple iTunes App Store.

Garmin is using Macworld to introduce new social search and check-in capabilities for its StreetPilot onDemand navigation app, as well as a new function for the Tracker app that allows users to share links to a live tracking map. Dan Bartel of the company said the new features help users to stay connected and share location-based information with their friends and families. Navigon introduced StreetPilot; Garmin acquired the German navigation provider in 2011.

The new social media capabilities for StreetPilot onDemand integrate Wikipedia, Facebook and foursquare. Users can display locations from these networks on the map and check in upon arrival at their destination. Clicking on one of the Wikipedia icons on the map will reveal detailed information about a location, such as the identity of an interesting building or landmark. Also new for the are visually refined 3D renderings of buildings to provide a better overview.

Garmin’s Tracker app works in conjunction with the GTU 10 tracking device to display its location on a map “to virtually follow anything from your loved-ones to valuables or the family dog. Users can set up a geo-fence to get alerts when the device crosses in or out of a defined area. The latest version of this app now also allows a continuous tracking mode, and enables users to send out map links to others.”

SmartPlans

Left Coast Logic is unveiling new apps and a cloud service at Macworld this week. The SmartDay organizer integrates tasks, events, notes, and projects into one app. The company’s SmartTime logic is behind the organizer. It schedules tasks directly into free time between calendar appointments. SmartDay Mac is the company’s first Mac app, but it includes a feature-set similar to its iPad organizer, SmartPad. The company is also unveiling a web version, mySmartDay.com, that synchronizes with both.

A new version of the SmartPlans app uses Smart logic at a higher level to manage multiple projects within the context of a weekly work balance. Version 3 adds business-oriented features such as milestones and dependencies, but the most significant new feature may be the way it integrates projects into the native iPhone and iPad calendars.

The CoPilot Live Team is making Macworld passes available for free. Apple fans just need to visit the CoPilot Live USA Facebook page and Like the company. To show their appreciation for its giveaway, they’re offering a few free CoPilot Live HD apps for the iPad. We’ve got their free iTunes store codes for the first couple of readers who contact us or send a comment. This is a $24.99 app, so go visit the Facebook page and come back for your codes. First come, first served.

Printronix has announced a unique solution for the office that’s using iPads and iPhones and requires print capability. The xPrintServer, sold for $149.99, connects to networked printers via a cable and then presents these printers in the iPad and iPhone device menu.

The product fills a gap for the mobile device market. Apple’s AirPrint is available to iOS users, but the list of supported wireless printers is small indeed. At least compared to the 63 pages of printers supplied by Printronix at this month’s announcement. Neither of our office printers are on the list, but they’re fairly antique or not networkable.

The xPrintServer can be connected anywhere on your LAN (on the subnet on which your printers are located). Simply use the RJ45 cable and plug it directly into the LAN, router, etc. Your iOS device users should then connect to your corporate WiFi network – at which point the xPrintServer will auto discover and auto populate your available printer list on the iOS device. It supports any iOS device running version 4.2 or later, including iPad and iPad 2, iPhone (3GS or later), and iPod Touch.

Attaching the xPrintServer to your network won’t impact any existing networked printer settings or printers. Users can continue to use printers as they normally do.

The product will be sold through standard retail channels including Amazon.com, starting early next year. There’s a clever commercial online at YouTube to sell the concept to your IT manager or Computer Guy.

Rolling tablets out into companies and businesses presents a special challenge. How do you get your users or employees comfortable with the change from laptop to tablet computing? It’s a good idea to provide some kind of a primer for the iPad, especially since Apple has done so little on its own to document the product. In paper, anyway; there’s a modest collection of videos on using the included elements of the tablet, like iTunes, Safari and Mail. And Apple has a 140-age user guide you can download and read in a PDF reader.

That kind of vendor-supplied documentation is fine, to a point. But this kind of training rarely gets as honest as an independent guide to a product. For example, if you look over those videos on the Apple website, you’ll find they’ve got a snappy 2 minutes on buying music via iTunes on the iPad — when what you really need is a primer on how to use iTunes on the Mac or PC to control what’s on your iPad. No such video exists.

No Starch Press has produced a “My New iPad 2” book, written by Wallace Wang, to help. We reached out to a first-time iPad user  who’s running a travel agent business, Ron Wilcox of Seabird Cruises, to tell us how this book stacked up for him. He added, after reviewing it, “now just try to get it out of my hands.”

I’ve often found instruction manuals to be frustrating and confusing.  Many are written with an assumption about the level of understanding that the reader already has about the subject. Online manuals tend to be exasperatingly user-UNfriendly, but manufacturers are so fond of the format that good print manuals are often difficult to find.

However, this manual, for this user, was pretty close to perfect. The index was detailed and complete. As a reference manual, it was quick and easy to locate information specific to a particular function. Read the rest of this entry »

A colleague of mine in the analysis business bets the Barnes & Noble Nook can become the first tablet to hit a magic, cheaper price point. Guy Smith is fond of calling tablets “slabs,” which is one way to cheapen the iPad’s innovation. After all, nobody’s come close to making a comparable tablet that is cheaper to own.

Looks like the B&N Nook may be the $250 slab we have discussed. Given recent software upgrades and a cottage industry into making them full Android slabs, the Early Majority market seems to be defined as under $250, powerful enough to read, surf and play a few games.

If it weren’t for the blasted “take up all the supply” deals that Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook negotiated for tablet components, maybe Lenovo could afford to build a sub-$250 tablet. It’ll happen one day, and the people who waited will be glad to pay less. For the next year, the cheap tablet is something like what we call a jackalope here in Texas, a mythic cross of jackrabbit and antelope. You can imagine one, but that’s as far as you’ll get.

Guy is reading from Crossing the Chasm to get that Early Majority Market label. The book was written 20 years ago and has not been refreshed in this century. But even by those aged measures, the Nook won’t be measuring up. While people are “rooting” their Nooks to turn them into Android tablets, they’re playing with a toy that doesn’t have a strong future. It’s the old Windows world dream of getting some big part of $500 worth of value by spending $250, just because there’s a lot of demand. This chestnut is the “nice try Apple, and very clever: but cheap, primitive copycats will overrun you.”

No product is perfect, but it will take bigger treads than the Nook’s to do that running. I’d be betting on something besides any book reader that needs its users to slap a new operating system into it. There are some other Nook problems, and all of them point to strengths in Apple’s tablet model.

– Barnes & Noble, the Nook’s maker, was hoping for a buyout this summer and had to settle for about $200 million in fresh investment. This sounds a lot like Palm, which was building the iPhone killer WebOS until it got bought out by HP. And then got killed by HP in the wake of the TouchPad debacle.

– About 270 people comprise the Nook technical team. Apple probably has more than that in California alone.

– Barnes & Noble is suing the content providers who stock the Nook with many of its books. B&N hates the $9.99 or better pricing Apple negotiated with the top six publishers. Apple negotiated, while B&N pushes back with a lawsuit.

It might be worthwhile to see what tablet Amazon brings out this fall. But compared to a real tablet, it is likely to be a primitive device that performs the browse and email and listen and watch functions that make up the biggest part of iPad ownership. It takes passion about a product — not an operating system like Android or just the content — to give a tablet purchaser lasting value. Read the rest of this entry »

Urban Tool’s Pocket Bar is a big enough deal to warrant its own field testing here at Bites HQ. To be thorough, we took this $100 mobile device case outside of headquarters, carrying it on a business trip to San Francisco that put the bag though its paces. Urban Tool bills it as being the perfect fit for the iPad, and they’re right, by one measure.

Urban Tool’s Pocket Bar is flexible, but my iPad had to ride bareback to fit into the best compartment

The Pocket Bar looks like a good match for the iPad, taller than the tablet but with just about the same width. The bag is woven with a nylon and elastane cloth that has some stretch and a waterproofed quality. Inside there’s a full cotton interior to protect sensitive gear. The main pocket is roomy in its thickness, but it’s mouth is a bit tight on the width of the iPad. Only the most spare of iPad cases can squeeze their way through the zippered opening. I stripped off my ZooGue case and let the tablet ride bareback, for the first time in months, inside the Pocket Bar. It was an easy slip in and out at airport security.

The outside of the case is dotted with pockets that stretch to fit mobile phones, point and shoot cameras, wallets and more. A key lanyard is clipped on the outside, and another key yo-yo is inside another pocket. The array of outside pockets is one of the best features of this bag. I was about to discover another one when I stepped off the BART on Powell Street. It was pouring, a classic February California rain. Read the rest of this entry »

The MacBook Air's 11-inch model is a better upgrade from the iPad than the iPad 2

All around the world, people are clamoring for the iPad 2. Apple cannot build them fast enough. The company’s stock lost 7 percent of its value this week, simply on the news that iPad production has slowed in China. It’s clear this device is a hot ticket. But it is one that Apple won’t be selling me soon.

It’s not that the iPad is a bad choice for a business. I’ve worked on websites, articles, spreadsheets, databases, photos and communication (email, social networks and chats). But we already own an iPad, the original model, the unit .3 inches thicker than the iPad 2 you cannot get this month, if you didn’t order on Day One. Our iPad has proved itself to be a business tool that also has a fun side, a home computer as well that’s easy to use.

The iPad 1 has also proved to be a worthy competitor to the iPad 2, once you look at the device in the Apple Store while we’ve held our original iPad. What makes for a better upgrade from the iPad is the MacBook Air. You lose the multi-touch experience when you shift from the iPad to the Air. But I’m counting on Apple to bridge that gap somewhat when the 10.7 Lion release of OS X ships.

That’s why the MacBook Air is going to join the diverse collective of Apple products serving here at our offices. You can make a case for this by the numbers, as well as the feel of the user experience. Apple cares enough about your experience to bring a lot of thought to both the Air and iPad. Read the rest of this entry »

Bento stays in sync between mobile devices like the iPad or the iPhone and your Mac

Over the last three years Filemaker, the division of Apple that builds database software, has created a database for the rest of us: people who run businesses instead of computer departments. With the latest release of Bento, it looks like the product is maturing enough to meet many common and unique needs to manage data.

Today Filemaker begins to sell Bento 4 for Mac, now available on the Mac App Store, as well as Bento 1.1 for iPhone, and Bento 1.1 for iPad. With many new features including the ability to print labels, export libraries with data, automatically add geographical locations to records and lock down forms, Bento 4 is a major next step for the popular personal database family.

“People just love the way Bento helps them organize their lives – especially their work tasks like managing contacts and tracking projects,” said Ryan Rosenberg, vice president of marketing and services for FileMaker, Inc. “We’ve enhanced the entire product line: Bento for Mac, Bento for iPad, and Bento for iPhone to provide you with a major productivity boost at your desk and when you’re on the go.”

Early customers have praised the product. (We’ll have our own review here soon.) “With Bento 4, I’ll be able to print address labels directly from records and synch my iCal to-do items using Bento 1.1 for iPad and iPhone,” says Robert Terry, educational journal editor, Richmond, Virginia. “It really feels like Bento can do everything.” Read the rest of this entry »