Where do you want to go? You probably know, but do you know how to get there? The CoPilot Live app can help in ways that you’d need other apps to assist. A route that’s optimized for time. One that suggests places to eat or gas up along the way. An interface that lets you stay inside the app while you take advantage of Wikipedia place entries or Facebook Places. Even traffic updates, for just a little extra each month. Like under a buck.

But the thing that sets this nav app apart is that you’re not buying maps to use it. There are no in-app $49 purchases for North American roads. CoPilot is sold with maps included and free updates How’s that possible? Well for one thing, they do their own maps, instead of paying a third party. Then there’s the company background: they sell truck fleet software and have for 25 years. You don’t have to care about how CoPilot does its business but you’ll want them to keep up with those free maps. Nav apps can get expensive in several ways

But before we look at that, let’s do a discount dance. Until the end of this week the CoPilot app is $9.95, the iPad version $14.95. Discounts a-plenty here in Macworld week. Even at the regular prices this app looks like it can lead you to better value for nav.

Read the rest of this entry »

PowerPoint slides in SlideShark

Brainshark will use Macworld to introduce a new workgroup version of its SlideShark app for the iPad. The company says the software has begun to solve the problem of PowerPoint’s incompatibility on the iPad. There’s 30 million PowerPoint decks created every day, according to the company.

SlideShark has been selling since October, and the company says its been downloaded twice a minute since then. A version that will launch in early February adds functionality to support teams and groups within organizations. The current version is geared more toward individuals.

“Prior to SlideShark’s launch last October, millions of iPad users who wanted to view and show PowerPoint slide decks on their device had only spotty, unreliable options,” the company said in a release. The existing software on the iPad market flattens presentations into PDFs at worst. Or the competition’s conversion techniques render animations inactive, sometimes distorting fonts, colors, images and more. We can attest to the last outcome. While we don’t animate with PowerPoint, those slides check into iPad apps of today and don’t check out the same.

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.

Macworld has packaged its User Conference experience as iWorld this year, tech talks and presentations that run Thursday through Saturday during the Macworld Expo, January 26-28.

Today’s the last day to get a $75 rate on iWorld, the end of the early-bird registration. They’re also packaging an opening night Blast with the three-days of classes for a total of $110. In fact, today is the last early bird day for all of the Macworld experiences, from pre-show training to the Mac IT meetings for administrators and high-end business users. Even the Expo Pass, the lowliest entry ticket to the January events, goes up by $5 tomorrow.

A full list of everything that’s on offer in the iWorld sessions is online. For example, at 10AM Friday is a Super iPad Tools for Work tech talk that promises to “cover office type applications, presentations without projector, database management, PDF management, outlining and brainstorming, tracking secure data, tracking travel and expenses, dictation and transcription, remote OS administration, making phone calls (on an iPad!), and remote meetings (like WebEx and GoToMeeting).”

You can compare the packages and register to save some dough at the Macworld 2012 website.

Order online at Apple's website

Search as you will for the deals from Apple’s retail outlets on Friday. The supplier advertises special deals on its products for the day after Thanksgiving, and the retail store pricing on Wednesday appears was as it’s always been on products at its retail outlets. The iPad, for example, was at $499 rock bottom. The retail outlets clambered onto the Black Friday bandwagon with slight discounts, matching those online.

The Apple Store online posts discounts only on Nov. 25. Apple’s got iPad 2s at $458 (plus tax) through the end of Friday (looks like they’re running that sale through midnight PST, judging from when they updated the store page early Friday), as well as the iPod Touch, the Nano, the iMac, Macbook Pro and the Macbook Air. The Air has the steepest discounts at $101 off the regular $999 price for the 11.6-inch model. That Air is a great alternative to the iPad if you need a keyboard — and the more recent models have a backlit keypad, too.

Check the Apple Store webpage for details. Shipping is free.

We’ve found the iPad for about $21 less, at $473.99, at MacMall on a Friday only sale. You have to call and talk to a sales rep to buy the iPad 2 at MacMall, mostly so they can offer you an upsell of a protection plan (which is a pretty good investment). MacMall’s at 800-622-6225.

After almost a year on the market, it’s time to look at whether an iPad can be desktop replacement. If it can’t today, Apple may have another answer to the question, “How can I make my carry-on lighter and smaller?”

I took only my iPad on a couple of business trips this winter, and it served well. Most airports require you to take the iPad out of the carry-on, despite what you may have heard. It has writing and editing tools, the ability to connect to mail and social networks, and bare-bones blog posting and editing tools. I didn’t being along an Apple Camera Connector to hook up my point-and-shoot Canon to the iPad; that would have helped. Instead, I pushed my iPhone camera photos though the web to my mailbox, then pulled them onto the iPad. On that last element, I wished for a nice MacBook Air.

The Air only weighs a pound more than the iPad and takes up just two extra inches in length. What the Air does not have is a multi-touch interface. You can get hooked on that.
What’s more, many of the best apps on the iPad just don’t have a desktop equivalent. Now that there’s an iMovie and GarageBand written for the iPad, there’s a chance for a real iPhoto there. But there’s already plenty of photo editing tools, good ones, on sale for the iPad.

I took along my Kensington Bluetooth Keyfolio (above) on the trip, but that’s become a bit of a disappointment. Between the Keyfolio’s jumpy key repetition, and the ever-vigilant auto-correct on the iPad, it’s actually a bit faster for me to use the onscreen keyboard. It becomes easier to do so if you turn on clicks in the Settings for the keyboard.

Zagg has a nice keyboard and metal case combo, but you still must expose the back of the iPad in that arrangement. Both the Kensington and the Zagg have physical keys, but the Zagg doesn’t use the rubberized keys of the Kensington. I tried out the Zagg at Macworld Expo, and it types faster than anything.

But the recent introduction of Thunderbolt, with its display-plus-disk or printer connections, promises another kind of faster future for mobile computing. This is a category that includes a technology which Apple is not using yet — but there’s still another mobile computer where Apple could use the upcoming Wireless USB. Read the rest of this entry »

Keyfolio keypad: An iPad version of a netbook

One of the best additions I’ve made to my iPad this year has been the Kensington Keyfolio keyboard. It’s a Bluetooth keyboard that includes a nice protective, leather case for the iPad. It also adds a stand capability to the iPad, one which works just great to browse the Web from bed in the morning if you’re getting a pre-dawn start on your work day. In a way, this adds the touch interface of the iPad to the concept of a netbook. The weight of the combined keyboard and iPad comes in at 2.75 pounds, so you’re right into the netbook weight category.

The Keyfolio has a great battery saving feature, pulling itself offline when you stop using it for an extended period. It doesn’t need to be resynced often, and you can bypass it by simply switching it off to use the iPad onscreen keyboard.

It’s a great product in the Kensington tradition: well built, lightweight, protects your iPad. Even can be used in a non-keyboard setting (i.e. just a case to use while reading your iPad.) Some say you can’t use it on your lap, but a nice lap desk (think Levenger) makes that possible, too. Big improvement over the on-screen keyboard.

Only the Apple iPad dock has better speed, but it’s not a traveling tool like this one. This keyboard recognizes and includes the cursor arrows, unlike some iPad writing apps whose softkey keyboards do not. I wish there were a shift key on both sides of this keyboard, and the apostrophe key has its own key that’s not in an intuitive place. You type a bit slower at first while using it, but get used to having those keys in unusual places. So far, very happy with this product. In a way, this makes the iPad a great alternative to the new MacBook Air, which at first glance seems like an iPad with an attached keyboard. The Air weighs a little more than the Keyfolio combo, and of course, it’s a full Mac. Just doesn’t have that touch interface, but a lot richer field of applications.

Keyfolio is $69.99 at Amazon today and worth every penny. I bought an Apple Keyboard Dock in the very first month of the iPad’s existence, but the Apple device doesn’t offer a landscape mode like the Keyfolio does. (Keyfolio won’t do portrait, in contrast.) But the Apple keyboard isn’t portable and won’t act as a stand for Netflix movies. There’s a lot to like here.

Apple has pushed out an update to the Snow Leopard version of the OS that adds new security guards against malware. It’s the first release in 10 months that improves this sort of hacker barrier.

If only the new iPad could be so lucky to be so well protected. We’ve been using the tablet since its release, but nary an update is to be downloaded to advance the device’s security.

The 10.6.4 version of Snow Leopard, which is a 17-minute download on a middle-fast DSL line, introduces new protection to prevent back door attacks on Macs through the iPhoto software that ships with every system. A new feature called XProtect gets an update that keeps hackers from installing malware by fooling users into thinking iPhoto is at work, when damage is being done.

An update of a Mac’s operating system for security reasons — that’s a good idea. But Apple doesn’t have a practice of identifying security holes they patch with a new release. And sometimes a new OS version will make software stop running on a Mac. This is why backups are a vital complement to any security updating. Read the rest of this entry »

Mail checks get easier

Apple’s Steve Jobs waltzed around onstage for more than 90 minutes this morning, much of it showing off the soon-to-be-shipping iPhone 4 at the Apple WorldWide Developers’ Conference. While the new phone is 24 percent thinner than the current iPhones, the most impressive business feature comes from the new iPhone OS. Apple has renamed this operating environment iOS, because it runs the iPods, iPads, and the phone.

iOS 4 makes a distinct difference to Apple’s Mail program on the iPhone and the iPad and Touch iPod. Instead of breaking down your mail checking into multiple tries, Mail now consolidates your different accounts into a single “All Inboxes” menu item.

The current state of affairs is frustrating if you use more than one mail account, which is the case for so many small businesspeople. Your personal email goes to a separate account — or at least a separate email address. The new iOS 4 understands that you’ve got multiple personalities for mail.

The iOS 4 will be available to the iPhone and iPod Touch users later this month. The new environment brings things like a $4.99 iMovie, a choice of search engines including Microsoft’s Bing (take that, Google) and a PDF viewer that’s going to make long documents easier to read on Apple’s mobile devices. The Reader will be worked right into the iBooks application.

Oh yeah, and there’s that multitasking thing in the new iOS4, too. Palm hammered Apple on it all of last year until the Palmsters had to sell themselves off to HP. It was not a big enough deal to save the Pre, but Apple’s got the feature now. It’s probably best used with the newest Apple mobile devices, though — for reasons below.

Using iOS 4, there are now folders to organize that mess of apps so many of us have on our Apple mobile devices. But perhaps the best news of all for business phone users involves battery life. The new Apple chip just made things last a lot longer. Read the rest of this entry »

Apple’s mail program, Mail, is gaining a regular place for our business. One of the best things about this software is its ability to travel. We’ve learned to use it on our iPhones to keep up with e-mail while we’re out of the office. The 3G capability is what makes this possible, but you can check mail while mobile over a WiFi connection on other Apple devices.

That includes the iPad as well as the iPod Touch. Take Control Books, edited by Mac veteran Adam Engst, has a new PDF book title out to maximize your use of Mail while mobile. Take Control of Mail on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Written and edited by Joe Kissell and Dan Frakes, the 96-page book promises to make Mail more useful on these devices.

This new ebook takes a practical look at using the Mail app on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. It explains various email account options, helps you develop a real-world mobile email strategy that integrates with your Mac, explains the mechanics of sending and receiving mobile email, and provides essential troubleshooting advice.

Mail is one of the most useful things on the iPad, in part because you can create something in it — an aspect of the iPad that’s still gaining credibility. Even over a WiFi link, it’s become a ready tool in my business belt. Take Control has other Mail training aids as well, if your exposure to Mail is limited to your desktop. Read the rest of this entry »