Tag: Reviews

As I wrote a few weeks ago, I enjoyed editing video on my iPad 2 in iMovie which got me started on putting all my video in a format that the iPad could read without conversion. While our Canon PowerShot SD960IS wrote video in h.264, a format that the iPad can read, the audio was a PCM format that the iPad didn’t like and therefore iTunes wouldn’t put the video on the device and using the camera connection kit, I still couldn’t get the iPad to play it. If my dream of taking an iPad on vacation to edit a movie while still on the vacation using video shot during the trip, I had to find a compact digital camera that output the video in an iPad compatible format. I wasn’t convinced that just reading the specs would ensure compatibility, so I decided I was going to look and buy locally in the event I had to return the device.

About 2 weeks ago, I was going to go to Best Buy, but due to a cranky child, I didn’t make it. The following day, I saw some cameras in the Best Buy ad, so I looked up specs on a few of them. I decided to take a shot on the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-WX9
. Normally I’m not a huge Sony fan because of their insistence on using Memory Sticks, but a friend of mine told me that starting in all their cameras from last year or maybe earlier, the cameras also accepted SD cards.

Best Buy was sold out of the camera (it was on sale for $199, $20 less than normal) so I ordered it with free shipping and received it last Friday. After reading and re-reading the specs, I absolutely couldn’t wait for it.

The first thing I did when I got it was find the setting to capture videos in mp4 format in 720p. After doing this, I shot a video, took the card out and placed it in the camera connection kit on my iPad. The iPad imported and played the video without problems. That pretty much sealed the deal for me to keep the camera; the rest of the features were gravy since the camera already did more than my Canon.

The Sony almost has too many features to be usable, so I’ve tried to learn a few ones that are useful to me. First off is panorama mode. I’ve used stitching programs before, but due to them not being convenient, I think I have 1 wide picture in my collection. This mode makes it simple to capture a very wide picture that looks great. It’s easy to use and one feature that I’ll be using again.

The next feature that amazes me is the smile shutter. You turn it on and it detects when someone smiles in order to snap the shutter. In my testing, it works quite well if there is only one person in the picture; if there is more than 1 person, it’s only going to focus the detection on one of the subjects. However this could be used for self portraits and getting in the picture by having everyone frown until the photographer gets in the picture then everyone smiles. It should also be great at getting pictures of my son when he’s smiling even when he’s not really a happy camper.

The 16 megapixel resolution is a bit overkill, so I scaled it down to 10 megapixels and the images still look great. The Carl Zeiss lens and 5x zoom seem to perform better than the Canon.

While flipping through the options, I saw it mentioned Eye-fi and I had to dig into the docs which are inconveniently only on the CD and not the website (they’re in HTML and I prefer PDF since I can put them in Paperless and even put them on my iPad for easy access on my next vacation) to figure out what this meant. Basically there is an icon which tells you when the Eye-fi card is uploading and you have the ability to turn off the uploading to conserve battery.

I almost fell over when I saw that it charges over USB. Unfortunately one end of the cable is a Sony proprietary connector. The good news is that as long as I remember the cable, it is pretty easy to find a USB port for charging. One caveat is that it appears to draw a little too much power to charge from one of my chargers. Using an adapter I recently got for my XPal Power battery to charge my iPad, I can get the camera to charge on that charger. The large battery charges the camera without the adapter.

The one major downside I found to the camera is that the colors on the LCD are pretty awful. The images look washed out, but viewing pictures on my computer or iPad show that the colors are properly represented in the actual images.

Pros

• Records movies in a format the iPad can read directly (720p, mp4 format; this is not the default).
• Easy to use panoramic mode.
• Smile shutter is pretty good at detecting smiles.
• USB Charging.
• Indicator for Eye-fi uploads.
• Pretty sharp pictures.
• Accepts a variety of formats including SD, SDHC, and SDXC.
• Burst mode to capture 10 images in rapid succession is easy to use and works well.

Cons

• Proprietary cable for charging.
• Display makes pictures look wasted out.
• Manual is delivered as HTML instead of PDF. However, using wkhtmltopdf and some command line magic, I was able to create a PDF of the HTML documentation.
• Too many features! I haven’t been able to dig into everything and I’m not sure I can remember how to use everything even if I understood it all.

Summary

Like most of my reviews, this one is pretty favorable because I did my homework to find a product that met my needs. I’m extremely pleased that the device records video that is directly readable on the iPad; just about everything else is gravy to me. The cost of digital cameras has come down so much, that in the $200 price range, there are so many choices. Deciding on which one to get is extremely difficult. So far, I like the camera and it is taking pretty good pictures.

I don’t think that people can go wrong with this camera. If you’re looking to display your videos on an iPad and don’t want to have to deal with conversions, this camera fits the bill. (Note, however, that the 1080i default video format cannot be read on the iPad.)

As someone that deals with computers all day long, I need to upgrade my hardware periodically as the applications get more complicated and my productivity starts to decrease. I try to get a new machine about every 2.5 years. My previous machine was a 15″ MacBook Pro right after the unibody redesign. The machine performed quite well and my SSD upgrade last year kept it going. There was nothing really wrong with the machine, but the new version of Xcode and the increased complexity of my projects began to cause me some frustration waiting for builds to complete.

When I started my new job, I wasn’t issued a new machine and didn’t ask for one as I wanted to wait for the next revision of MacBook Pros. When the new machines got announced, I put in my request and it was approved (slightly different from what I wanted, but still an impressive machine). I ended up with a 15″ MacBook Pro, 2.2 GHz Quad Core i7 processor, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, high density, matte screen.

Since I had an SSD in my last machine, the big changes for me were the faster processor (2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo vs. 2.2 GHz Quad Core i7) and more memory (6 GB vs 8 GB). The first thing I did when I got the new machine and set it up was to compile one of my projects. The project was taking 45 seconds to 1 minute to compile. On this machine, the compile took about 15 seconds! Sweet!

What more can I really say? Compared to my old machine, this thing screams, but I’m sure I’ll say it is slow in no time at all!

I haven’t had a chance to give it the full laptop treatment (take it on a trip and see how the battery performs), but my first impressions are quite positive. I don’t really measure app launching as some people do as I don’t launch apps all day long; the compile time is the number one performance boost that makes me glad that I got a new machine.

Pros

• It’s fast. There is no doubt about it, this machine can outperform a lot of desktop machines.
• Thunderbolt/DisplayPort can do audio out to an HDMI adapter which means I have one less connector to connect when I “dock” my machine.
• Built in SD card reader eliminates the need for me to dig out a reader when I need to configure my Eye-Fi card (I don’t transfer photos using the card, just over WiFi.

Cons

• It’s expensive. The price tag on this thing is something around $3000 which is a lot of money. However, if it was my own money, I would have gotten a similar machine as it is a tool that helps me earn money.
• The high density display is a bit hard to read.
• I’m undecided on the matte display; I’ve had glossy displays before and they work fine.

Summary
My “review” isn’t like the detailed reviews that Macworld publishes, but sometimes people just need a yes/no on buying something. I’ve been a fan of the MacBook Pro line for a number of years and this machine definitely doesn’t disappoint. However, when I get new machines, I like to get them immediately after Apple announces something significant and this upgrade with the Quad Core i7 is definitely one of those times. Luckily the major upgrades seem to coincide with when I want to upgrade.

For professional users, you can’t go wrong with a 15″ MacBook Pro, The size is right for the infrequent traveling I do, but is more than adequate for use as a desktop machine. I won’t get another desktop machine as the portability is worth so much to me even if I don’t use it all that often.

When I decided to ditch my GPS unit to use my iPhone, I needed a way to secure my iPhone in my car or a rental car so I started to look for options. On the MacBreak Weekly podcast, Andy Ihnatko raved about the mounting systems from Ram Mount. Since Andy reviews a lot of products and seems pretty critical of some poorly made ones, I figured he might know what he’s talking about. I decided to give the iPhone 4 bracket a try.

The first problem I ran into is that Ram Mount website is a bit confusing, so I surfed over to GPSCitywhere they had some very helpful videos to explain the system. Basically you purchase a bracket and a mount. When you get a new device, you just get a new bracket and use the mount you already have. Since the brackets are relatively cheap (about $10 with shipping), this seems like a huge win as it will be cheaper in the long run and reduces waste.

After I got over that hurdle and received my bracket and mount, I put it all together and tried it out by placing the suction cup on the window. I’ve never been a fan of suction cups as they tend to fall and don’t seem all that reliable. However, I chose the suction cup mount for its flexibility. It stuck quite well and it looked promising for actually using in a car.

On a recent trip, I rented a car and the 3 hour drive to our destination would definitely put the mount to the test. When I tried to get the mount onto the windshield in the lower left corner (California law requires it to be in the very lower left corner within 5 inches of the bottom or something like that, so the gooseneck was going to be a big help), it didn’t stick. I realized that I had it on a sticker, so I moved it slightly and got it directly on the windshield, locked it in place, and put my iPhone in it. The first part of the trip was quite bumpy (I’m not sure where CalTrans spends our tax dollars repairing roads, but it wasn’t on the freeway we traveled) and I was expecting my iPhone to fall. However, it held up not only for that part of the trip, but for the entire 3 hour drive and then all the way back without coming loose once.

The gooseneck allowed the iPhone to be positioned at the right position so I didn’t have to take my eyes off the road. All the pieces feel stiff and I hope that they stand up to the test of time.

This definitely seems to be a system that I’ll be using in the future when I get my next phone as it held up on my first test and seems well made. I like the interchangeable pieces and the locking suction cup mount appears to work well and is quite secure.

Pros

• Ingenious system that allows you to pick and choose mounts and brackets.
• Appears to be well built.
• Suction cup mount sticks well despite bumpy roads.
• Gooseneck allows for easy positioning of mount.
• Relatively inexpensive components.

Cons

• Website for ordering directly from the manufacturer is confusing.

Summary
If you’re looking for a way to mount an iPhone (or other smart phone) in a car, I don’t think you can go wrong with the Ram Mount system. Ordering from GPSCity is the way to go as the prices and shipping are quite reasonable; they’re also quite fast at shipping.

I’ve written in the past about my poor experience with phone based navigation systems that relied on a network for the maps as well as the routing information. Last summer with iOS 4 released, a new crop of useless navigation applications appeared for the iPhone. With a trip on the horizon where I’d be renting a car, I decided to try out Navigon for iOS as it received decent reviews from users and had all the maps self contained without relying on the network. The navigation apps are all in the range of $25-$50 (or so), so I did a bit of research before plunking down $40 on Navigon’s USA edition (it was on sale when I bought it).

When I first started using the app around town, the biggest difference from my Garmin 765 was the screen size. However, I soon realized this didn’t matter as I just listened to the voice navigation. My Garmin became increasingly frustrating to use as the resistive touch screen wasn’t very accurate and entering information was cumbersome. Navigon’s interface is quite straight forward and data entry is easy. The voice prompts are clear and gave me enough notice before I had to make a turn.

Once you enter an address and start navigation, there is no need to touch the display again, except if alerts come up (which is kind of annoying, but Navigon can’t do anything about notifications and battery warnings). As with all GPS apps on the iPhone, Navigon sucks the life out of the battery. If you combine this with being in an area without cell coverage, you pretty much need to plug the iPhone into a car charger. Luckily I have a 2 USB port car charger and an extra USB to dock connector cable.

California law is very specific on where you can place a GPS unit and effectively it can only be mounted in the lower left corner of a windshield (you can put it in the lower right corner, but that’s pretty useless). So, you’ll need to get some type of mount so that the iPhone can maintain an adequate GPS signal and you can hear the voice. Also, if you want to glance at the screen for an upcoming turn, it needs to be at eye level. However, relying on the voice navigation seems pretty adequate (and safer) to me.

Coming from the Garmin, I really only needed the GPS application to navigate me to my destination without relying on the cellular network and be easy to enter information. Navigon easily met these conditions. In my testing, I took it on a trip to an area that had no AT&T coverage for the last about 1 hour of the trip, so any GPS app that didn’t have built in maps would have been a complete failure (i.e. Garmin’s offering for the iPhone).

While I’m not a huge fan of the colors that Navigon used and the non-standard looking buttons, I believe they made the choices to be easy to use with one hand and be as non-distracting as possible. Of course, the app says not to use while driving, but the developers probably knew that people would ignore this, so they made it easy for people to use while driving (I don’t condone this activity; rely on the voice navigation while driving).

My torture test was to use the app in an area I’d never been before and have it navigate me to my destination that was about 3 hours away. I was either going to have huge problems if it got me lost (no cell coverage for part of the trip as I said before) or it was going to deliver me safely to my destination. (OK, I had actually put Google Maps directions on my iPad in case there was a problem as I’m not a complete idiot.) The Navigon software performed flawlessly.

There are a number of GPS apps out there that probably do a similar job, so I can’t say that it is any better or worse than others. I can say, however, that it is better than my Garmin and frankly better than a standalone GPS unit due to the fact that I don’t have to carry an extra device and it has all my addresses in it. I packed up my Garmin and am ready to pass it on as I no longer have a use for it; I really haven’t had the Garmin for that long (about 1.5 years) as I bought it after my last fiasco with phone based navigation software. My, oh my, how quickly things (and my thinking) change.

Pros

• Built in maps.
• Doesn’t rely on a network connection to operate.
• Text to speech voice tells you where to turn and when.
• Active Lane Assistant makes it easy to see which lane you need to be in on a freeway for exiting/merging.
• Different options for routes based on your preferences.
• Decent list of points of interest. I was able to enter “Budget” and an option came up for Budget car rental return which is what I wanted.

Cons

• Address book integration is kind of poor. Tapping on a friend’s full address sets the destination to be about 30 miles away from where it really is.
• Social networking integration is useless.
• Inconsistent use of British spelling. In one case Favorites is spelling Favourites and Optimize is spelled Optimise. For the version with USA maps, it should use American spellings.
• Black background and black buttons just don’t look right to me. It looks like someone wanted to get fancy and instead made it look ugly.

Summary
Navigon USA edition does what it is supposed to do and easily replaces a standalone GPS unit. If you are going to travel in a rental car or even your own car in an unfamiliar area, the Navigon app (or one of its competitors) would definitely be worth your money to have at your disposal. The cost may seem a bit steep at $50 or $60, but compared to a standalone GPS unit that does less, it’s a drop in the bucket.

For many reasons, I’ve been interested in video editing and making movies for years; nothing professional, I just thought it was kind of neat to be able to put together movies. Over 20 years ago, I put together footage that I had taken at the 1989 National Scout Jamboree and put together a little video that I edited using our camcorder and a VCR. I may have even put in some titling using a computer, but I can’t recall. That was quite rudimentary compared to what can be done today.

When Apple first introduced iMovie for the Mac, I thought it was quite neat and made a few videos, but the more video I took and stored, the more time consuming it became to edit the videos. Since then, I’ve made a few movies, but have mostly left that to my mother as she seems to like doing it and does a great job throwing together random clips and photos to make something interesting.

At the iPad 2 introduction, Apple showed iMovie for iPad. The ease of use looked amazing and getting it was one of my many reasons for buying an iPad 2. After I got my iPad 2 the other day, the first app I bought was iMovie. My intention was to make a movie from videos and photos that we shot in the last year of our son. While I was hopeful that I could accomplish that this weekend, I was also realistic that based on my past history, this might have been a pipe dream.

The first step in creating a movie was to make sure all my video was in the proper format for the iPad. I already wrote about transcoding all my video the other day, so that part was accomplished. I decided to see how far I could get this weekend. In about the 1 hour or so that I could use my iPad, I managed to apply all the video I wanted to the timeline and trimmed it. I then spent maybe another hour adding photos and dropping in some songs.

I was absolutely amazed that within about 2 hours, I was able to create a 9 minute movie ready to show. In the past, the movies I’ve made have taken me a long time on the order of 1 hour per 1 minute of final movie which really makes the process a drag. I’m now cautiously optimistic that I can keep up the movie making if it is this easy to make something half decent.

I did encounter a few issues with iMovie including crash or two. iMovie applies the Ken Burns effect to every photo added, something that I find pretty annoying. In order to remove this, you have to set the starting and ending zoom level and picture position to be the same. This is fine as long as you zoom out on every picture and align the picture to an edge; however, if you want to zoom in or center the photo, this process is extremely hard to do. I’ve submitted feedback to Apple to improve this.

iMovie on the iPad is intuitive in many ways, but I read through the in-app help which reduced some of my frustration (removing the Ken Burns effect is documented). I’d strongly recommend that people read the docs before starting a project as some actions are strange at first.

iMovie for iPad is almost a killer reason to buy an iPad 2 (it won’t run on a first generation iPad). However, if your video isn’t in a format that the iPad can show, you have to go through the long and tedious process of converting it; if you’re also shopping for a new digital camera, I’d suggest looking for one that encodes video in a format that the iPad can show natively (also useful to import video when you’re away from your computer). So far, my brief research shows that the Panasonic compact digital cameras use M-JPEG which the iPad should be able to read.

Pros

• Intuitive interface for most editing needs.
• Extremely fast method for creating movies.
• Decent results with little effort.

Cons

• Removing Ken Burns effect is a pain when adding photos.
• No ability to lower volume of music in particular parts of a clip, i.e. no fine grained audio editing. iMovie will “duck” the audio in the background music if there is music in a clip.
• It can be slow at times where the interface appears to be unresponsive.
• Occasional crashes.

Summary
If you have an iPad 2, spend the $4.99 and buy iMovie. Even if you don’t make a lot of movies, just playing with it is worth it to see what the iPad 2 can do. This could be the way to edit movies at the end of a trip even before you get home as it is easy to put off the movie making and simply never get around to it.

iMovie is an impressive piece of software and I hope that Apple keeps making minor improvements to touch up the edges.

The other day my wife came home and asked about Netflix streaming as someone mentioned to her that she used her Wii to stream. I said that we could give it a try as it is only $8 per month. I signed up for the free trial and started playing with the iPad app to setup my instant queue and see how well it streamed.

The iPad app works, but really is an unpolished app. Within a few minutes of using it, I became frustrated with it. First off, when I tapped on an item, it didn’t highlight as most iOS apps do; this is likely due to laziness as iOS provides a way to highlight an entire row and the app uses two columns so it separates the row and highlighting part of a row would have required extra work. Next the app was slow when I tapped on a selection so I wound up tapping more than once. This caused problems as it kept starting to play a selection as the second tap was queued up.

My problems didn’t stop there; after a selection plays and you go back to the home screen, your location in the list is lost. So if I scrolled through the selections, found one, tapped it to view more, but accidentally tapped twice and it started played, when I cancelled out of it, my position was lost. This made the experience quite annoying.

When you scroll through the list, the last row said “Load More Titles”. This is another aspect of what I consider poor programming or laziness. The more polished apps automatically start loading once the last row is displayed. It is actually quite easy to implement and saves the user a tap.

The app suffers from rotation issues as it gets quite confused and doesn’t resize the list at times when you rotate the display. Further showing lack of polish is when I went to switch apps and showed the bottom bar, the main loading page came back up. Strange behavior for an app.

Pros

• Convenient way to add items to instant queue.
• Reasonable playback quality

Cons

Unpolished application that suffers from some serious usability issues.

Bugs cause some strange behaviors when rotating and switching apps.

Summary
While it is great to see that Netflix has come up with an iPad app, I would have expected more from a well recognized brand name. My view is that they either used inexperienced in-house developers or outsourced it to a company that needs some work on developing quality products. I hope that they continue to update the app and address some of the issues I’ve noticed.

The app is still usable to add items to the instant queue, but the process could be a bit cleaner.