Last post

Just for info, that last post was created on the iPad whilst in line. I used Simplenote to draft the text, and intended to copy and paste into the blog via Safari. Forgot I had the Squarespace iPhone app on the iPad so I ended up pasting into that. Works pretty well although it's crying out for a Squarespace iPad app as well as the ability to manage comments.

Typing on the iPad is fine for me as it suits my hunt and peck style of typing!

No laptop for me whilst at the conference as it's back at the hotel. The iPad, MiFi and manbag combination is working pretty well!

Waiting in the WWDC line

It's now 6:35am and I've been waiting in line for an hour or so. I was originally intending to leave it until much later as the keynote is slightly different from the Macworld keynotes of the past. WWDC has a much smaller attendance than Macworld (5000+ attendees) so it should be easier to get in.

Turns out, the line is very similar to the Macworld line with some people queuing overnight!

Thank goodness for the time difference which allows me to wake up at 4am with no effort (and no alarm)

As far as the keynote is concerned, I've deliberately made no predictions to date, finding this one very hard to call.

The introduction of the iPhone 4G (or HD) seems to be pretty much a given. The Gizmodo debacle has given us a glimpse of the likely hardware but there are still questions around the software and importantly, the screen resolution. Still plenty of scope for Apple to surprise us with some new features.

The success of the iPad will get plenty of coverage and will go a long way to validate the focus of this years WWDC on the mobile space. Although the keynote will introduce iPhone 4.0, Apple have already stated that the iPad will not receive the iPhone 4.0 update until late in the year. Will be interesting to see if there are any announcements about specific iPad enhancements in the 4.0 release.

On the understanding that the Mac will take a back seat this year, I doubt we'll see much about OSX 10.7. Any "normal" company might go out of there way to just mention plans for future updates, but that's not how Apple roll, so we may not even get a mention of it.

It will be interesting to see if this is the keynote where the Apple TV gets elevated to more than just a hobby status. A fully blown low cost Apple TV, optimised for content delivery via the cloud, with enhanced games capability and the possibility of running apps would be a great addition to the consumer line up for the Xmas holiday season. Fully controllable via the iPhone or iPad, together with the option to stream content to the iPad for personal viewing within the home. All the platforms, except for the central Apple TV hub is in place. Perhaps WWDC is the place to announce to give the developers time to prepare for Apple TV apps before Xmas.

MobileMe may well be split into free and paid for components. Standard sync between Mac and mobile devices should be free, with extra value add such as email, storage and the location based services a paid option.

So nothing completely off the wall and still plenty of scope for some new and unexpected developments.

Exciting times.

We'll see just how exciting in three hours!

Going off line for a bit...

Crickey! Only 4 days before I head out to San Francisco for WWDC.

That crept up on me!

In the 4 days (and nights) left I have a few tings to sort out:

• A small video segment to extract and encode
• Two full shows to produce
• A new payment system to introduce*
• An evening iPad session - iPad at the C.U.C
• Two nights videoing for the local Dance school

Nothing new really but I really should get more organised. The unusual thing is that my evenings are fully booked up, so there goes my usual safety net. The journey to SF will take about 17 hours so plenty of time there - wonder if I can record next weeks show and edit on the plane?

Anyhow, this week I'll be trying to limit both my email access and my twitter activity to try and make some head way of the rapidly increasing to do list in front of me. So if you don't see me around much - don't worry ;-)

Now lets get cracking and break open Things!

* BTW, the new payment scheme is just a change of payment processors, no changes to the membership or renewal prices

iPad Jailbreaking Update ...

I may have been a bit hasty in my criticism of iPad jailbreaking yesterday as I received some comments that others had not experienced the instability that I had noticed. I can only call it as I find it, your mileage may vary.

My solution to the situation (as some of you may have already noted from my tweets yesterday) was to invest in a second iPad, one I can jailbreak and use purely for creating video tutorials. Having a second iPad may seem excessive but its a good way to keep my personal stuff and demo software separate for the show.

On a Mac it's not too difficult as you can setup multiple users to demonstrate software, even multiple drives which is the way I've approached it.

I have two drives in my MacBook Pro, an SSD drive for normal usage, and a 500GB hard drive with a separate OSX Installation. Whenever I need to record for a show, I boot off the second drive and I have a completely separate environment, email system, 1password setup, etc. So now with a "demo" iPad, I can configure that to sync with my ScreenCastsOnline demo Mac and all is well.

I ended up deciding to go for a UK 32GB WiFi and 3G model, although to be honest, I don't really need the 3G as I have my MiFi unit for internet on the go! I just figured that it would be best to have both a WiFi model and a 3G model for future proofing.

So now I have a second iPad, I can safely jailbreak that and not worry too much about the instability. As long as it doesn't crash out on me when demoing a single product, I can live with that, but even if it does require a restart now and again, no hardship!

Now the problem is, if I can get a VGA signal out of the iPad at 1024x768, how do I actually capture that into the Mac to create a high res movie?

I have a Matrox MXO2 capture box but that won't support such a low resolution - in fact, most of the modern capture cards only support SD or HD resolutions.

The only option I've found is a USB device called the VGA2USB LR from Ephihan Systems. They do a cheaper version called the VGA2USB but the LR captures at a much higher frame rate. It's not cheap at £555 plus VAT, but as luck would have it, I found someone in Australia selling one on eBay for half the price! It's now arrived in the UK but still stuck in customs.

So a fairly (very!) expensive solution to create high res iPad tutorials, but it's my living and the kit is tax deductible.

I'll let you know how it all works out!

iPad Jailbreaking Woes...

As you probably know, I managed to snag a 64GB WiFi iPad from my recent trip to the US.

I've been delighted with the iPad and itching to do more shows or mini iPad segments over on ScreenCastsOnline, but I've always been conscious of the fact that it wasn't available everywhere. Even where it was available, it's still seen by many as a luxury item, and some people can't quite understand exactly where it fits into the Mac ecosystem.

I'm sure this will change and the iPad will become more widely adopted as it starts to be seen and used by more people. Bottom line is that I will be doing more (but not too much) iPad related stuff on the show. The core of the show will always be Mac but the iPhone and iPad have a definite role to play in the future direction of the show.

So I need a way to do high quality screencasts of the iPad, but how?

When the iPad was announced, Apple also announced that the iPad would have video out in the form of an VGA adapter.

Excellent!

But, this video out is only limited to applications that have been coded to support video out, relatively few and far between. Even when the apps have been coded, the video out is usually restricted to just one aspect of the app e.g. in Keynote you can only push out the presentation screen in VGA out. No good for me.

I have used a video camera for capturing the screen, but although it works, it's not really the optimum solution.

I have also used the iPad simulator. This allows you to run iPad apps on the Mac and then use my standard Mac screencapture software (ScreenFlow) to grab the screen. This works well but it's dependant on acquiring special builds of the app from the developer. Not always possible.

No, the only option for me was to go down the iPad jailbreaking route to use an application called DisplayOut. This is a third party app only available on jailbroken iPads

So with some trepidation, I set about jailbreaking my 64GB WiFi iPad.

It was a cinch!

Downloaded and installed DisplayOut. connected a VGA monitor to the iPad and.....

It works!

Fantastic....

Once that was solved, I disconnected the monitor and went about my usual business. Later that night I picked up the iPad to couch surf and catch up on my emails and RSS feeds.

Oh dear?

Within a few minutes of using the iPad, one of the apps crashed out on me. This was very unusual as in the six weeks or so I'd had the iPad, I'd been impressed at just how stable it had been and had only had one or two instances of apps crashing in the full six weeks. In the first night of using the jailbroken iPad, I think it crashed three or four times - not good.

I used it for a couple of days but the crashing completely ruined the whole experience. It seemed to be a memory problem and a hard restart would usually sort things out for an hour or two, but really, there's no way I could use it as my main machine in it's current state.

Just to prove it was the jailbreak, I restored the iPad back using the iTunes restore feature, and I'm glad to say, it's back to normal - phew!

So what to do....to be continued!