The just announced iOS 4.2 for the iPad brings the iPad up to par with the iPhone in terms of features such as multitasking, unified inbox and the game center. The most important feature however for me is the following:
Keyboard and dictionary enhancements Choose from more than 30 new keyboards and dictionaries, including Arabic, Greek, and Hebrew.
From Apple iPad iOS 4.2 Software Update
This means that the iPad will support the same international keyboards as the iPhone does, including a Swedish keyboard layout.
Now why is this so important? For me, when I write down meeting notes I always write in Swedish. And having to press-and-hold-and-drag-and-drop every time I want to enter a Swedish character like å, ä and ö makes it near to impossible to use the iPad.
Having Swedish keyboard support on the iPad means that I can finally leave my laptop on my desktop and only bring the iPad to my meetings. With it’s >10 hour battery life I don’t even have to bring a charger!
For the past past few months my blog has been suspiciously quiet. The reason for this is that I have spent all of my free time (and sleep time) developing Filerr for Mac OSX.
Having worked with Mac computers since 2002 and working for companies such as Saab, Skype, Sony Ericsson and Sony Online Entertainment to develop exciting new applications for mobile devices such as iPhone and iPad, it has always been a problem copying files with certain names to Windows computers or Windows formatted USB drives. Even when using Dropbox to share files some file names just wouldn’t copy across to Windows computers!
After waiting for a tool to appear for Mac OSX that solved this I finally decided to create it myself. Filerr will be available for purchase and download on August 26 for just $6.95.
If you are a blog writer and would like to review Filerr please contact me and I will send you free license keys. If you decide to publish a review of Filerr on August 26 please let me know in advance and I will send you more rebate coupons you can give to your readers!
If you like me have been struggling to keep your passwords and notes in sync on your iPhone and your Mac, you will be pleased to hear that 1Password now supports DropBox for syncing data between iPhone, iPad and Mac computers.
“1Password 3.3 added tighter integration with Dropbox to enable automatic syncing between Mac, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Windows. Also known as “syncing to the cloud”, this amazing feature allows you to keep your Macs, Windows, and iOS devices in sync at all times, even when they are running on different networks. To enable syncing, simply configure 1Password to store its data file in Dropbox.” From 1Password 3.3 release notes
To enable syncing you need 1Password 3.3 for Mac, and 1Password Pro 3.5 for iOS. On the iPhone you need iOS 4.0.
If you like me use PGP Whole Disk Encryption to protect your Mac you might have discovered that your Time Capsule backups are stored completely un-encrypted. This means if someone steals your Time Capsule disk they will get full access to all your emails and files, even if you have encrypted your system disk. Based on some old tips I have found on the web I have put together a complete guide on how to encrypt and decrypt Time Capsule backups so you can use them both for backup as well as restore.
Today I came across the following tip and figured it might be worth a shot:
“I HAD DONE SEVERAL HARD RESETS BEFORE AND NONE HAD WORKED UNTIL I DID THIS:
When doing a hard reset hold both buttons until after it turns off and as the apple appears and it starts to load. When it starts to load after shutting off after the hard reset, WHILE YOU ARE STILL HOLDING DOWN BOTH BUTTONS, it will turn off again (this time for good).
I pressed-and-held both buttons until the screen went black, Apple appeared, and screen went black again. I then booted the phone in iPhone OS 3.1.3.
In iTunes I choose to upgrade my phone to iOS 4.0.
Once the upgrade had completed and all data was restored I once more pressed-and-held both buttons until the screen went black, Apple appeared, and screen went black again.
And it worked!
Starting the Settings screen now takes around 6 seconds from cold start, and then less than 3 seconds on second start. My iPhone 3G is yet again usable! Give it a try and let me know how it works out for you!
Lovely translation of “Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4″ by John Gruber:
Apple: “Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars.”
Translation: “We decided from the outset to set the formula for our bars-of-signal strength indicator to make the iPhone look good — to make it look as if it ‘gets more bars’. That decision has now bitten us on our ass.”
After an intense work period we at HiQ together with Saab and Valentin & Byhr launched the Saab 9-5 applications for the iPhone and the iPad. I worked in the project as a requirement coordinator, concept developer, software developer and quality assurance manager.
This was my first commercial iPad project, which will most probably be followed by many others this year. I really enjoyed working with Saab in this fun and engaging project – hopefully this application will help them gain brand awareness and interest of the new Saab 9-5.
My word of advice for anyone else planning to develop for the iPad: Don’t trust the iPad simulator. We experienced differences with XIB-file rendering, memory management (especially in low memory conditions) and Core Graphics behavior between real iPads and the iPad simulator. If you plan to develop an iPad application you really need to get a real device.
If you are developing an interactive 2D application for the iPhone or the iPad I would like to recommend the graphics library Cocos 2D. We recently used it in the Saab 9-5 applications for iPhone and iPad, and Cocos 2D is easy to use, robust and has very high performance. Other well-known applications using Cocos 2D include FarmVille by Zynga and The Elements: A Visual Exploration.
The best thing about Cocos 2D however is that you can use it completely free of charge. All you need to do is to acknowledge that you have used it in your product. Check the about box when you’re placed in the Gallery section of the Saab 9-5 applications for iPhone and iPad and you’ll see it there as well.
Johan Sanneblad has a Ph.D in IT and works as a mobile solutions specialist at the Swedish IT Consultancy company HiQ. Opinions and statements expressed on this page do not represent HiQ.
