(Insert stupid Blog name here) - iBlog 3

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No, I haven't already replaced my iPhone 5. Quite to the contrary, I've added another iDevice to keep it company: an iPad Mini.

 

I recently did some freelance stuff at work, so between that and the Apple gift card I got for recycling my iPhone 3GS, I had enough money to (mostly) cover the cost.

 

I hadn't really planned to buy an iPad, but the more I tried ones belonging to others, the more it appealed to me. Particularly for using it as a digital sketchbook. Several friends of mine all use it for that, and have come up with some pretty cool results (your mileage may vary). There's some pretty powerful software for it now, too.

 

I had tried doing some sketching on my iPhone, but the screen is so small it just becomes an exercise in frustration, especially since the various styli out there all have really thick tips (they have to replicate the capacitance of a finger in order to work).

 

I brought my own stylus to an Apple store, and played around on the iPads for awhile. To my surprise, it worked pretty well. No substitute for Photoshop or anything on the desktop, but that's not the point. The point is to have a more advanced sketchbook on hand that I could do some color roughs, compositing and conceptualizing with. Plus, the iPad would make for a better video playback device, and some games just need a bigger screen.

 

I ended up getting a 32GB model. I wasn't planning to put my music library on it, since I have that on my iPhone and always have that with me anyway. So I didn't really need 64 GB, and I certainly didn't need to spend the extra money for it. There's one gripe I have though - I can't play music via Bluetooth from my iPhone through my iPad. Yes, that may seem like an odd thing to want, but if I'm playing a game on the iPad, and want to listen to music from my iPhone at the same time, I can't do it. I've searched the app store, and have yet to find something that allows me to simply connect the two devices, and stream music from one to the other (there are a couple that sort-of do this, but they're either buggy or really limited). I can stream audio to my car stereo... so why not my iPad?

 

I went with the Mini because it's smaller and considerably lighter than the regular iPad. It's more comfortable to hold while I'm drawing, and the screen isn't that much smaller. The drawback with the Mini is that it doesn't have a retina display. However, since I hold the Mini farther away than I typically do with my iPhone, it really hasn't bothered me any.

 

From the standpoint of surfing the web, watching videos, playing most games, and so on, the Mini is much more usable than the iPhone. However, since I only got the Wi-Fi model, I'm limited in where I can use it (unless I want to pay AT&T more extortion money to tether the two devices together ). Not a big deal though, since I'm most likely to use it at home or work, or someplace else where there's Wi-Fi.

 

Getting all of my app data over required me setting up the iPad by restoring from my iPhone backup. That got all of my settings, game scores, etc., transferred over, but unfortunately, they won't sync up between the devices. Seems to me this should be a really simple checkbox in iTunes where you could keep apps synced up easily. Some apps can sync through iCloud, but the only app that I have that can do this appears to be the Vectrex emulator. Nothing else shows up on iCloud. Hopefully more developers will follow suit, so you can pick up where you left off on different devices. This should be a standard thing.

 

A number of apps are universal - working equally well on both devices. However, fully half of mine aren't. You either scale the iPhone version up to fit the screen (which is chunky looking), or re-purchase the app for the iPad. I would think that if you'd already bought one version, you'd at least get a discount on the second one. I understand that the developers need to make money, but I'd rather pay a little more for one universal game, than buy the same app twice. So far, I've mostly resisted the urge to re-buy apps I already have.

 

Those that are universal look great. The iPad screen is really excellent. Vivid, crisp. It really breathes new life into games like Lili, where you can appreciate all of the detail put into it. Crystal Caliburn Pinball - already a favorite of mine - is vastly improved because I can see the entire playfield without needing auto-zoom turned on. First-person racing games are far more playable because I can more easily see other cars and corners on the tracks in the distance.

 

MLB At Bat's Gameday view is great on the iPad. I've coughed up the dough for an MLB.TV subscription again, and streaming video looks excellent. That said - the Mariners had better make it worthwhile to pay to watch them this year. Last year... well, that's probably just best forgotten.

 

Web browsing is far and away better than it is on an iPhone. It's almost good enough to replace desktop browsing. Not quite, but it's completely usable, and I've found myself using it a lot. Unfortunately, the AtariAge forums can't seem to remember that I want to view the full version of the site on it - not the mobile one.

 

I've been buying up apps for the iPad at kind of an alarming rate. At 99¢, this wouldn't be a big deal, but iPad apps are typically more expensive. And it does add up.

 

So let's run 'em down... shall we?

 

Procreate - A drawing/painting app that has nice "natural media" tools, similar to what made Painter famous. It has layers, like Photoshop, but otherwise it's pretty limited. No straight-line or shape tools, no text tools, etc. But nice for just painting.

 

SketchBook Pro for iPad - I already had the iPhone version, but I wanted a full-on iPad version so I had to re-buy the app. So be it. It has a more complete feature set than Procreate, but not nearly as good of a set of painting tools. If only there were something somewhere between the two...

 

Flowpaper - This is hard to describe... it's a drawing app, but instead of lines, strokes, shapes, etc., it draws by dragging out an ever-expanding wireframe mesh. It's kind of a one-trick pony, but it's a fun trick. Probably most useful for drawing ethereal space stuff.

 

 

Forge of Neon 3D - Listed under "Games" oddly enough. Like Flowpaper, another weird, one-trick pony. In this case, you draw in empty 3D space, and it automatically sweeps the results around an axis, allowing you to create stuff that looks sort of like the MCP from Tron. But in neon.

 

 

Paper by FiftyThree - Yet another drawing app. This one is geared just towards quick sketching or painting. There's no zoom, and precious few tools (and if you want to unlock anything more than a pencil, you have to buy IAPs). Some people really like it, and its natural media tools do look really good. But at the moment, it's not getting much use from me.

 

Sketch Club - Remember how I was looking for something in-between SketchBook Pro and Procreate? Here it is! This has good painting tools, drawing tools, layers, and the best interface I've seen in an iPad drawing app. The "Club" part of it has something to do with social media. Whatever. It's just a rock-solid art creation app. That's all I care about.

 

Amazon Instant Video - Guess what this does! If you said, "It lets you watch Amazon Instant Video on your iPad", you'd be right! Too bad Amazon only has, what... four videos?

 

WiFi Camera - This allows you to use one iDevice as a remote to take a picture with a second iDevice, while sending a live preview image to the remote device. Like so:

 

 

Using my iPad to use my iPhone to take a photo of my iPad.

 

Calculator for iPad Free - Because Apple didn't bother including one.

 

Real Racing 3 - This is a pretty astonishing game. I'd (almost) go so far as to say that it's better than Gran Turismo 5. It's not, but it sure gives it a run for its money. Speaking of money, RR3 is free. The way they do this is by giving you the option to pay to speed up upgrades and repairs to your cars (otherwise you have to wait for a timer to count down). But I'm cheap and patient enough to just wait it out. That's why I have other apps on my iPad. Plus, once you buy more than one car, you can just switch cars and race one while the other is getting fixed.

 

 

Drive the wheels off 'em. That's my motto.

 

Zen Pinball: Empire Strikes Back and The Clone Wars - Zen Pinball is the engine for a bunch of different pinball tables you can buy. Since they recently came out with several Star Wars-themed tables, I thought I'd give it a shot. Too bad the physics aren't very good, and the tables don't have enough targets. They're mostly just ramps, and the ball moves way too fast. Stick with Crystal Caliburn. Still, they look cool. If you just have to get your Star Wars pinball nerd on, this is the only game in town.

 

Back to the Future: The Game - This has been on various platforms for awhile, but they recently made Episode 1 available for free, so I grabbed it up. It's actually pretty cool. It's an RPG where you're supposed to solve various problems in order to save Doc, who got himself trapped in 1931. It's set after the end of the movie trilogy, but oddly enough the DeLorean is back in one piece. At times the point-and-tap interface doesn't quite work, since some places you should be able to tap on are ignored. Plus you can get stuck in a loop if you don't know who to talk to or what questions to ask (and at times the questions range from frustratingly restrictive to ridiculously linear). But it nicely evokes the feel of the movies, and the voice acting is excellent. And free is good. There are five episodes in total. So once I get through this one, I'll see about spending $2.99 on the next. It's cheaper than a Happy Meal.

 

Verto Studio 3D - 3D modeling isn't really suitable for a small screen and an imprecise touch-screen interface. But Verto Studio manages to pull off a pretty usable (if relatively expensive) 3D app. It's not anything I'd use for finished work, but it's good for roughing things out on the go.

 

I also downloaded the Cartoon Network app, since I wanted to catch up on episodes of The Looney Tunes Show (from what I've seen - it's actually a pretty good re-interpretation of the classic characters in a modern setting). However, the interface of the app is terrible (rotate your iPad counterclockwise to watch videos, rotate clockwise to play lame games? Really?), and the number of episodes they have is absolutely anemic. There are only four episodes for Looney Tunes available, and probably similar numbers for other series. If you're going to produce an app for people to access your own network's shows, make all of them available. Idiots. I really hope someone figures out this whole streaming TV thing someday. This piecemeal approach is ridiculous. In the end, I deleted the app, and I'll just DVR the show instead.

 

Finally, a non-app purchase was the Ivellop iPad case. I wanted a lightweight, but protective case for the iPad. One that fit well, had a magnetic cover (for auto-wake and sleep), a microfiber lining so it didn't scratch, a folding stand, and didn't cost an arm and a leg. After doing some research, this one hit all points, and it's about as close to a perfect product as I could want. Very highly recommended. The only thing it lacks is a loop for holding a stylus.

 

My next purchases will likely be an iMpulse game controller and possibly a Pogo Connect pressure-sensitive stylus. The latter is pretty pricey though..

 

At the moment, I've been using the iPad for bouncing ideas back and forth with Dave Dries for the Star Castle Arcade label (he's using an iPad as well). It's an interesting experiment, although as of yet we haven't hit on anything we like. But for spitballing, it works pretty well. If nothing else, it's nice being able to camp out in front of the TV and scribble during commercial breaks.

 

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