Opus Research » iPad

The iPad’s New Role for iTunes: Document Storage and Retrieval

Dan Miller — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:51:49 +0000

Apple Computer is not getting the credit it deserves in promoting the overall advancement of Recombinant Communications. Over the past weeks, most talk surrounded the iPad’s future as “the next big thing,” a “Kindle Killer”, newspaper reader or enterprise productivity booster. Lost in such discussion are the nearly biological forms of mutation and adaptation that are taking place inside Apple’s service delivery infrastructure (what Asymmetri’s Joe Bentzel calls “The Mashitecture”) and its implications for enabling application developers (whom I call Mashufacturers) to deliver better user experience and services to the owners of a multiplicity of devices, primarily iPods, iPhones and iPads.

Apple’s core application platform, iTunes, provides a vivid case in point. Its evolution (or adapatation) began at the turn of the century when Apple acquired SoundJam MP to serve as its digital media player as well as a library for managing media, primarily for the MacOS. Over the years, it has introduced versions of iTunes to run on Microsoft Windows operating systems (originally Windows 2000, but quickly adding Vista and Windows 7 to the mix).

But a real quantum leap occurred when Apple made iTunes the core of its application delivery and billing strategy for the iPhone AppStore. It was a bigger act of genius than the introduction of the Genius function to build playlists. Like Amazon.com, iTunes has a pre-established billing relationship with its customers. It enables very flexible pricing arrangements, including “in app” purchase of upgrades or message units. It can make recommendations based both on an individual’s purchase history and the trending of “most popular” apps or music by category.

In each of these cases, Apple refined or defined features in response to (or anticipation of) user demand. So it is that iPad owners who download the productivity applications that make up the iWorks suite, find that they can use iTunes as a platform for importing, exporting or “synching” business documents such as .doc .ppt, .xls or .pdf files created by Pages, Keynote or Numbers apps respectively. This use of iTunes is by no means intuitive. Users can find their docs after attaching their iPads to their PCs through the sync cord, clicking on the application tab, choosing the desired app and then dragging the document onto their desktop (or at least that’s how I did it).

Admittedly, they can export their documents from the iPad via email or “share” all documents through the iWork.com Web site. Still, I’m interested in observing the transformation of iTunes from a media player and CD burner into a platform for managing content for a variety of business apps.

Speechable Moments on the iPad? You Betcha. But Finding Them is a Challenge.

Dan Miller — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 17:50:37 +0000

For the past few weeks, I’ve been taking stock of Apple’s carefully orchestrated, gradual disclosure of the iPad’s pricing, capabilities and accessories on the Apple Web Site; the device’s native applications and use cases (as illustrated in this video tour); as well as 3rd party apps available through the iTunes Store.

Heck, Apple features access to its Software Developers Kit as prominently as its “How to Order” link. So it is no wonder that the cottage industry that is “user generated content” will be bigger for the iPad than it is for the iPhone (well, at least that’s my prediction).

But can it talk? Thus far, it has been hard to discover the full spectrum of applications that run on the iPad. Apple claims there are already 150,000 iPad Apps. Yet search for “iPad” in the iTunes App store delivers a scant 2 pages. But wait! A search of the iTunes store for “iPad apps” that feature “Speak” yields a number of applications that don’t appear when the “Select All” option is invoked. These include:

Speak4It from AT&T Interactive R&D (listed under “Lifestyles”)
Speak It! Text to Speech (listed under “Utilities”)
iSpeech for the iPad (listed under “Education”)

Thanks to this article in Gizmodo, I was clued into the fact that a version of the Dragon Dictation app that I have on my iPhone has been made available for the iPad. The availability was confirmed in this press release from Nuance, which contains a link (which opens iTunes and delivers you to the iTunes Store where the app is tagged as “Business”.

Clearly, “speech enabling” apps defy categorization. I dare say that, before I shell out $69+tax for an iPad keyboard/dock or wireless keyboard, I will try my hand at dictating email using the free version of Dragon Dictation.

VoIP over 3G on the iPhone: It’s a Matter of Policy

Dan Miller — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:50:29 +0000

Take heart Skype, Fring, Truphone and all other IP-Telephony service providers. Apple (and I assume AT&T) have finally approved a VoIP-over-3G application for the iPhone, iPod Touch and, yes, the iPad. According to an article by Joseph Palenchar in TWICE (This Week in Consumer Electronics), the new application is the result of “a revision made by Apple its licensing agreements with applications developers” to correspond with a modification in the Apple iPhone’s SDK that enables VoIP phone calls over the cellular network.

It was a move that, among other objectives, aimed to please FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who is also quoted in TWICE, commending “Apple’s decision to open its platform to 3G calling, an action that will create new opportunities for entrepreneurs and provide more choices for consumers.” The immediate beneficiary is Connecticut-based iCall, which has added “free phone calls” from the iPhone to a roster of free or low-cost voice calls using PCs running specified versions of Windows, Linux or MacOS.

According to reports Fring has already joined iCall in the AppStore, while Skype says its app is ready but waiting for a few tests and modifications to be complete. The move dramatizes the opportunities presented by iPhone while, at the same time showcasing how opportunities can be created or destroyed at the whim of Apple’s policymakers. At this point, just a few days after Google launched its Web-based access to Google Voice features, there is no turning back, and charging forward means that new features and functions are bound to augment vanilla, free long-distance.