Disruptive Conversations

Last night here in hotel room in Orlando, Florida, I watched a colleague of mine, Adam Kalsey, give a presentation about Tropo.com out in San Francisco at the East Bay Ruby group... on my iPad. Now, big deal, you say... well on one level, it IS a big deal because Ustream.com uses Flash, which is of course evil to the iPad. So I couldn't just go to the Ustream.com website. Instead I had to install the Ustream app from Apple's AppStore. With that installed I could search on the video and... Ta da ...

Now the reality is that the "app" may in fact be a packaged flash player... but it worked! Pretty cool to see...

Have any of you iPad users come across a decent offline blog editor for the iPad? I haven't yet... so I thought I'd post a note. Here's what I want to do:

1. Start writing a blog post when I'm somewhere without access (such as on a plane).
   
   
2. Add some degree of formatting and add in links. Potentially add in pictures as well.
   
   
3. Save that blog post and work on another blog post.
   
   
4. When I finally get somewhere with network access, be able to either hit "Publish" and have all the posts be posted... or at least open up each local copy and press "Publish" to have the post be posted.

On this last point, I want the app to be able to use the various weblog APIs to be able to upload the posts directly to my weblogs.

I'm interested primarily in using plane trips as a time to be generating content. I do this all the time on my MacBook Pro using the offline blog editor MarsEdit, and love to use it for writing posts. The problem is that while MarsEdit is truly an awesome editor, the reality is that the airlines keep shrinking the space you have. It's a whole lot easier to bring out the iPad and write on it than it is to bring out the full size MacBook Pro.

I've tried a number of different apps, but so far not found what I'm looking for. There are some great blogging apps but they seem to assume that you will always have a connection. The WordPress app for the iPad is the closest I've seen, because you can create local drafts offline and then upload them... but that assumes you are using WordPress everywhere, which I'm unfortunately not yet doing.

My approach thus far has been to write up text in Evernote on the iPad and then copy/paste that into the web interface for one of my blogs. While that works, it's not as seamless as I want. I've tried a few of the HTML editors, too (because I write most of my posts in HTML, anyway), but again haven't found an ideal app yet.

Any iPad users found anything like this yet?

Image credit: wader on Flickr

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Viewing this post and video from TheNextWeb today, I couldn't help but wonder if OnSwipe will be like Flipboard for your own blog? The video makes me think it is perhaps some type of WordPress theme that would reformat your content for an iPad in a similar fashion to all the various themes that will reformat your blog for a mobile browser like the iPhone.

But is it purely a theme for WordPress? Or is it a hosted service? That's not clear from the video... and you can only sign up to be notified of the beta whenever that will happen.

Regardless, I definitely like what I see here! Being a heavy user of the iPad, I'd love to present my content in a format like this...

The Next Web / OnSwipe Interview from The Next Web on Vimeo.

What about you? Would you like a service or tool like this that took your existing content and made it look awesome on the iPad?

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UPDATE: In the comments to TheNextWeb article, founder Jason Baptiste (shown in the video) says this:

We no longer and won't be offering the Flipboard look with OnSwipe. That was a technology demo we did previously as PadPressed.

Too bad on one level as I definitely like the look, but yes, it does conflict with what Flipboard already offers. It will be interesting, then, to see what they come up with...

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How are people using Apple's iPad? What devices is it replacing for iPad users?

Back in early July, Mashable.com published an article "An In-Depth Look at How People Are Using the iPad" that made for good reading. The article reviewed data out of a study by Resolve Market Research and had a few gems. For instance, I found it fascinating that 38% of iPad owners said they would not buy a portable gaming device after owning an iPad. I'm not a big game-player, personally, and I can see the logic of this finding, given that the iPad reduces the number of devices you need to carry... it was just something I hadn't really thought about.

Also interesting to note that for 37% of the iPad owners this would be their first Apple product - bodes well for Apple!

Now, three months have gone by since the Mashable post was published, which is in some ways an eternity in the consumer products space. It will be interesting to see whether these trends continue over time... in the meantime, it is just good to see more data out there on iPad usage.

P.S. The comments also made for interesting reading...

When writing my last post about iPad apps, I stumbled upon this post over on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW): "iPad hacked with Verizon MiFi innards".  As the post explains, someone took apart their iPad and merged it with the contents of a Verizon MiFi:

Not something I'm personally thinking of doing anytime soon... but it's cool to see!

(And a sign of just how far people will go to NOT have to use Apple products with AT&T's network!)

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Over on the Socialized Software blog, Mark Hinkle came out today with a great post called "The Traveler's Guide to the iPad." He also included the great graphic I'm including here on the right. I love to see pictures like this that so aptly capture the intent of the post.

Anyway, Mark's post contains a solid list of apps that any iPad traveler should definitely consider. I'm actually quite partial to the Apple case, but that's just personal preference. I like his suggestion for the Verizon MiFi hotspot - I'm eligible right now to upgrade from my current Verizon data card to a MiFi and am definitely considering doing so.

I do like his app suggestions... DropBox and Evernote, in particular, are two that are now critical parts of my iPad routine. I also love the fact that an e-book reader allows me to read books on a plane that would be too bulky to carry in my already-space-optimized carryons. One addition that Alec Saunders recently turned me on to was "Rocket Taxi", an app that uses your iPhone GPS to find the nearest taxi companies to call for a cab. It's an iPhone app, but presumably would work great on the iPad as well.

There are a couple of other apps on his list that I'll be checking out...

I don't know about others of you who use an iPad while traveling, but for me the iPad has definitely become a key part of my travel routine... so it's great to see lists like this offering suggestions for other travelers.

If you use an iPad while traveling, what apps have you found useful?

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