IPAD BASICS

The iWorks application suite has programs within it that function a lot like Microsoft Office or Google's Office web applications.  They have programs for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations.  The most commonly used one is the word processing program.

Every word processing program has the typical features such as font customization and styling, image inserting, and editable graphs.  Normally I would use a program such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to make my own custom graphics just because I know how the software works and is easier for me to use to edit an image.  After watching the tutorial on iWorks Pages application I found that it was incredibly easy to crop and size an image from within the document itself.  With cropping being one of the biggest things I normally have to do to edit a picture this would save a lot of time, especially while trying to type and edit on a tablet.  The same type of feature was found for graphs.  A type of graph could be chosen in either a 2D or 3D model and data could be edited instantly to change the graphic.  Once again, this eliminates my need for another graphics editing program and greatly reduces time spent having to remake images with wrong data.  The one thing about word processing on a tablet that I have never liked is the ability to freely move around the document as easily as a mouse.  I do not find that the magnifying glass and selection features are as easy to use as a standard mouse and can easily slow down production when it comes to standard text editing.

The touch features of a tablet allow for some easier manipulating of documents when it comes to inserting graphics and editing them but for the main purpose of word processing I still have trouble navigating and stylizing exactly what I want as quickly as I can with a conventional mouse and keyboard.

The concept of cloud storage and the digital dropbox have been around for a while and I have been using them for quite some time.  When the feature was just getting started I remember having to use it for assignments even back in high school.  Today I use the feature to share documents across my two computers and phone so I am never without an important document.  Box.net is a great piece of software that does exactly what you want it to do.

Between the iBooks and Kindle apps I am not so sure that I have a favorite.  I have not put extensive time into either app by reading books so I am not aware of the little features that one has that the other might not. They both seem to have all of the standard features such as text manipulation, highlighting, notes, and screen brightness options so I believe that it really just comes down to personal preference and even possibly where your book library currently is.  The only noticeable difference that I could find was how to actually purchase books.  iBooks allows for books to be purchased from within the application itself while Kindle does not.  If Kindle were to allow purchasing of books from within its app it would have to pay a % to Apple for its service.  Because of this Kindle links directly to their website and you must buy books through the browser and then reopen your Kindle app.  Not a terribly annoying or complicated thing to have to deal with but definitely a difference in simplicity between the two.  I don't see a clear cut difference but I think I would prefer Kindle based on its ability to be read on other devices that I own.

Safari and Rover are completely different types of browsers.  Safari is your standard browser but on the iPad it does not allow for some of the standard plugins that have become a staple to the Internet.  These plugins include Adobe Flash and Shockwave as well as Sun Java.  Rover is a browser that attempts to allow both of these types of plugins run on an iPad.  However, it does not do so by normal means.  It essentially has another computer sitting somewhere that will pull up whatever web page you desire on a standard computer running a Firefox browser.  It then captures its screen as a video and streams it to your iPad making it appear that you are looking at a browser window when really you are just watching someone else's screen.  Because it does this in such a strange manner it takes a lot more bandwidth than expected.  For any kind of classroom purpose this would be unacceptable because it would tie up most of the school's network resources and would only allow a small number of iPads to do this.  For a home setting this would be acceptable but even so I think I would rather my child use a standard computer for the short time they will be using the program anyway.  I applaud Rover for its concept but not for its execution.