Mac20Q Podcast 97 iPad vs MacBook Air or Pro and some dad dancing

My Mac Week

My wife wants a computer to do stuff in school, she is a teacher. For a long time she has been drooling over the MacBook Air – mainly because of it being light in weight. Many people have told me – that having owned one they think it to be underpowered and short of ports. I recommended the MacBookPro for her but she is not keen – as it weighs just over 2kg compared to the iPad at less than half that.

So Enter the iPad – Also low powered and fewer ports – but has the advantages over the Air by being lighter and much cheaper to buy. Another good point for the iPad is that when you switch it on it is instantly ready to do some work. We took a trip to Girona the other day to check out the iPad. There they had iPads to view but none to sell. I was delighted to get playing with one – trying out the on screen keyboard in the notepad application.

Predictive Text on the iPad

I would need time to get used to the predictive text ability because it was putting in words I didn’t want
You would think I would be OK with that after being an iPhone user, I was typing in English though and the iPad was dealing with Spanish – so that didn’t help. Looked at the Bento on the iPad and was not that impressed with its usability compared to the desktop version which I have – although perhaps I would need more time to research it . i have Bento on the iPhone too. I just expected more from the iPad version.

Loved playing with the photo app and thought that Safari on the iPad was OK – much better than on the iPhone. If they had, had an iPad in the shop we would have gone home with one for sure. Despite some reservations I have about how it fits in with what she wants to do computing wise. I just know that it won’t be long before I am getting kicked off my computers so she can do some video editing or to make a Keynote presentation which is undoubtedly going to be better on a more powerful machine with the full OSX operating system.

Already it has happened that my wife has been using ScreenFlow on my iMac to edit some movies – ScreenFlow is much easier than iMovie and when I have time I will show her FinalCut Express.
Blimey I will never get to use my iMac again…..

I suppose I should be grateful that I am getting her away from her Windows machine that is driving her nuts at the moment – The school where she works has only Windows computers too – and it is dreadful for the virus problems. I don’t think they have much in the way of a sys admin looking after them either.

OK back to the iPad testing in the shop

My wife wanted to see how the bluetooth keyboard would work with the iPad but the guy in the shop couldn’t get the one he had there – to pair with the iPad demo machine for some strange reason. He tried many times with more than one iPad.
but probably due to other bluetooth conflicts within the shop. – No Joy

Have any of you had problems getting a BT KB paired up with an iPad. Talking of the keyboard thing she imagines that she would want to use the iPad on the sofa and use the BT KB there. I suppose the iPad could be propped up on the table in front of the sofa and the KB be on her lap. I wonder if the iPad would be too far away then to be able to read well while typing. I can’t imagine how you might have the keyboard and the iPad together on the lap unless you have a specialised holder for the 2 items – and even then it could be awkward.

I would give her my MacBook Pro but it has an English keyboard on it and she would need the Spanish Keyboard for the accents. A bit too much messing to swap the keys for Spanish ones also. Have to see how this conundrum runs. The best solution would be an iMac on her desk – or a Mac Mini and an iPad to go with it. for taking to school. Don’t expect the funds to run to that though seeing as all public service workers here in Spain have just had a pay cut of 5%. The banks that created the financial mess should be paying to put the economy right not the people at grass roots level just working to put food on the table a a roof over the head. – Oooh don’t get me started…..

Wizardgold Betfair Trading videos

This week I have been creating video for my Wizardgold business extolling the delights of trading on Betfair, so I have been stuck into FinalCut Express and enjoying doing the editing work. I get in a bit of income from the advertising on that site and the software sales so it needs some effort from time to time. I have one video on YouTube explaining this particular technique under 2.5 goals trading – which has been downloaded 37 thousand times – It would be nice to get those sort of numbers for the Mac stuff I do – I had better take some lessons from the talented iJustine – learn to dance in the Apple Stores – do spoofs of songs and wear silly wigs then post the resulting videos. I reckon I could manage some Dad dancing no problem. I am not averse to looking silly if it brings in a bit of cash.

Other news here is that I have reverted to the telephone line bringing in my internet service – it is slower at 1mb but more reliable that the crappy Wimax. It was worth a try though but now I can expect Skype to work better for me.

Nambu

I have given up on Nambu again – it kept crashing on me and I have had to go back to Tweetdeck, Really wish they could come up with an app that didn’t keep falling over

Raymond Did It

Today I posted a new podcast interview of a horror movie director by the name of Travis Legge. He is shooting the movie Raymond Did it – this very week. if you are into horror movies and would like to support Travis he is still taking donations to help fund the movie. Just before I was about to interview Travis I saw a tweet from him to say he was covered in Blood. No worries though it was just some testing of the special effects for the slashing effects in the slasher movie.

Apple WWDC 2010

OK I suppose I had better mention WWDC. The iPhone 4 looks great and I will be drooling over one for quite some time to come
I like that it has the A4 processor same as the iPad because the iPad is lovely and quick as I saw in the shop.

Nice that there is a front facing camera now and Face time will be great except we will have to get dressed to make face-time calls
I don’t think it is there to provide a better service for the sexters. You know the young ones that like take photos of their bits and send them to their friends, who then distribute the images to every on they know and they pass them on to all their friends……

talk about sexually transmitted diseases – here we have technically transmitted sexbits going viral, although I expect some pervs will still be doing some of that sexting anyway.

Nice shape too – yes I am back to talking about the iPhone 4 again…..

iPhone 4

Apparently the screen resolution is one of the highlights of the new phone and when I see one in action I will be able to comment – looked good in the keynote from Steve

IOS 4

iOS 4 looks good too and I will be admiring from afar as most of its benefits are not available for the 3G iPhone I have. I wonder if the iMovie for the iPhone will be available on the iPad – his Steveness didn’t say so but I expect it will be the case. That was one of the questions my missus had about the iPad and its ability to edit video. I was asked about that and other things on the way to the store and I was amused to hear the same questions being asked of the guy in the store. She must not have believed the answers I gave to her.

Here is a weird one – the iPad is such a good idea for the education market but there is no educational discount
Another plus point for the MacBook Pro and more bang for the eurobuck

Give me some advice

So tell me given the circumstances we have here – what would you do
get the iPad
get a MAcBook Pro
Or go for the Air

Or tell me whether you will be ordering your iPhone 4 and getting in line for it on June 24th

My next trick will be to get some interviews set up for Mac 20Q – If you would like to be featured on the show to talk about what you do with your computer I would love to hear from you. send me an email to mac20q@gmail.com and lets get something arranged.

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