Review on Shivanand Velmurugan — Product leader. Systems thinker.

iPad and friends

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a year since I sold my kidneys for an iPad. It’s been fun. It has replaced every other device I own (ie, a couple of PCs and the nexus one). It’s an outright winner, when it comes to reading, especially long-form articles, and books alike. It has become my go-to machine for everyday news, twitter/facebook, and even for browsing my favorite photographers.

It have however remained strictly in the realm of content consumption – until now. In the last few days, I’ve added a stylus - the Targus iPad stylus (available quite readily at most ‘best-buy’s, and on Amazon), and the iPad’s camera connect kit. If you own an iPad (v1 or v2) I would recommend that you fork out the moolah for these two. It will be the best $50 you’ll ever spend on accessories for the iPad. Forget the cool looking smart cover. These will be more rewarding than the 2 hours of thrill of watching the smart cover turn off the ipad when you close it.

iCaved

Sat, 29 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I did it. I said I wouldn’t. I said I will hold out for purely ethical reasons, but it is very hard to resist the iPad. The first impression in-store is simply – awesome. This of course is not a surprise and is something that one can expect from apple these days.

Warning: This is a long post ..

Here are some thoughts, after a day of use:

It’s fast. Much faster than the iPhone 3GS. This is good news for the upcoming iPhone.
The battery lasts a really long time. It was around 80% and I used it for incessantly until it died 7/8 hours later. The a4 processor is at this point THE chip to kill for. If you have any samsung shares, I would dump them now, and load up on apple (although they are a tad pricy these days)
iPhone apps are useless and look ugly on the iPad. Don’t bother synching any of them
The keyboard is a lot more usable that I thought it would be. I’m typing this post at about 60-70% of my usual typing speed. (Only true if inclined at an proper angle – the perfect angle: the one you get with the iPad case).
I missed the universal back button. I’ve been spoiled by the freedom-toting nexus one robot ;)
Other small annoyances include URL copy pasting between apps, and how the app store lists apps. Exiting the app store every time I install an app is also mind-numbing. I know I can use a Mac and install all apps at one go, but I didn’t spend a 1000 dollars for workarounds.
Although I could type very well, creating a blog post is not this device’s forte. For one, all the switching back and forth, is a nightmare, and there is simply no way to get the links to apps for instance from the ipad. Adding images is a pain as well (which is why this is a purely text-only post). It is really nice until you want to go beyond its function as a consumption device. Even a little, and it makes you want to get to a mac/pc in a hurry.
Some apps are just stellar, that make it worthwhile go through the above mentioned niggles.

I don’t feel any remorse at having bought it, but at the same time, I’m not floored by everything either. That is actually the strength of the device. It is the first time a computing device completely disappears and you interact with data. The experience depends on the app that you are using. Instapaper does a great job, so does the gmail web app.

OPML Editor as a wordpress editor

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is a test post to see if Dave Winer’s OPML editor works with a self-hosted wordpress blog. There is something geeky about seeing crappy fonts on a screen, that makes one want to use a tool more.

I’ve known of the OPML editor for a few years now, and have tried several times to find a neat use-case for it in my workflow, and it never had a compelling enough reason for me to stick with it. I’m hoping that this new wordpress editor tool will make me want to use this more.

Guess what I'm getting in a week or two?!

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been waiting for this for a while now! Gary I hope it is all that I expect it to be. If I don’t read this the day I get it, and jump up from my bed at 2 AM crying “crush it” … well … I bet I will.

In the browser lies the power - Wave 2 of the Google takeover

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Finally it’s out in the open. The ultimate weapon in Google’s powerchest to combat desktop applications, render the need for a specific platform meaningless - the browser. I guess this has been in the making for the last decade, and here it is. A browser by a company that downloads pretty much most of the internet every day.

If you are still reading this, you shouldn’t be. Get outta here and read this. (Actually just open in a new window, and continue reading this).

A web based writer for writing to a blog?!

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

WriteToMyBlog.com, is a web-based editor (with a lot of formatting options), that allows you to write to your blog (from another website?!).

First thoughts go like,

“wtf?!”, … “hmmm.. interesting”… “I am a web 2.0 junkie?!

The likes

1. Simplicity of the UI interface - neat, allows lots of space for text

2. Integration of Flickr and Youtube (although I would love to see more such services)

3. Zero account creation overhead. (I wrote this post, before I created the account to publish it, and is a 1-click process.)

Jott - a voice-based blog client!

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Well, this is a first post to my blog using Jott, which is a very cool service. It allows you to call a number and talk what you want to post, and post it to your blog. I think it’s one of the new tools that really enable blogging. I’m just going to try it and see how it works out. listen