Materials science and the future of publishing
Publishing technologies
EPUB trick and web apps on the iPad
Aug 19th
- Easier EPUB Experimenting and Updating in iBooks – Use iPhone Explorer to modify EPUB files directly on your iPad to avoid going back and forth with iTunes and syncing.
- A List Apart: Articles: Apps vs. the Web – A good explanation of the difference between native apps and web apps on iOS, and the pros and cons of each. Why is everyone today going for native apps?
WordPress core automatic upgrade not working?
Can’t get WordPress to upgrade automatically because it hangs on “downloading update” and the file size stays at 0 bytes on the server?
Here’s an easy fix from the WordPress support forum:
Add
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');
to your wp-config.php file. Worked like a charm for me.
iPad apps (and here comes the “Blackpad”)
Aug 4th
You can make great apps for the iPad using either Webkit or the App Store. Oh, and the “Blackpad”.
- Creating Content for the iPad – Create a photo web app for the iPad using Automator.
- Redesigning the New York City subway map – Visualizing and redesigning the New York City subway map (of course, with an iPad app).
- iPad OmniFocus Review – If you’re not bound to Outlook or another Windows solution for managing your GTD, OmniFocus on the iPad looks sweet. The desktop app was designed in consultation with Merlin Mann.
- RIM Said to Plan Tablet for November to Take on Apple’s IPad – The “Blackpad” might be a godsend for corporates who want a tablet but are limited by their IT policies.
Dragon Dictation iPhone app is genius crowdsourcing
Aug 2nd
David Pogue describes in his NYT State of the Art column how Nuance used their free iPhone app to crowdsource training its revised Dragon Naturally Speaking algorithm:
Back in December, Nuance began offering a free iPhone app, Dragon Dictation. You speak; the company’s computers in Boston analyze your snippet; within seconds, the converted, typed text appears on your screen.
But this was no altruistic move; Nuance had an ulterior motive. Its computers keep copies of those hundreds of thousands of dictated messages (no names attached, of course), creating an amazing central archive of American voices and speech patterns. Nuance engineers later exploited this gold mine, using it to test out new recognition algorithms to improve Dragon’s accuracy. Sneaky, eh?
The accuracy is so good that you no longer have to begin by reading a four-minute training text, as in years past.
Genius.
More ideas on iPad design
Jul 29th
Which is harder, designing for the iPad or having your app approved?
- Time Inc. Frustrated by Apple Over iPad Subscription Issue – Apple rejects Sports Illustrated app that would allow in-app subscriptions. Whaaat?
- An In-Depth Look at How People Are Using the iPad – The biggest category that has been affected by the iPad is that of standalone e-readers.
- Derek Powazek – Thoughts on Designing for iPad – From the article: ”Design language [is] still emerging. We’ve had 15 years to figure out a visual language for the web, and it’s still evolving. The iPad has a few conventions, but they’ll look as silly in a year or two as the candy-colored iMacs look now.”
- More Touchscreen Innovation: ABC News for iPad Launches – Another example of user interface madness spawned by the iPad.
- Newsweek for iPad – How NOT To Do a Digital Magazine – Author’s summary: “It’s crap – don’t waste your time.”
Kindle: Device or platform?
Jul 29th
Maybe the Kindle isn’t going anywhere?
- New Amazon Kindle announced: $139 WiFi-only version and $189 3G model available August 27th in the US and UK – Amazon looks like it is pursuing a twofold strategy:
1) Make the Kindle platform ubiquitous on all devices
2) Dominate the eInk dedicated reader niche market - Why the iPad Hasn’t Killed Kindle – Dan Lyons (of Fake Steve Jobs fame) argues that the Kindle device (as well as the platform) is actually here to stay.
Traffic estimators don’t work (well)
Jul 20th
The social news website Reddit has a post “Experts” misunderestimate our traffic, and we dont know why that documents how traffic estimator sites like Compete.com, Quantcast, and Alexa don’t work very well. They compared their own server log data and Google Analytics data to the estimates provided by these other sites.
These traffic estimating tools use their own voodoo to generate numbers so advertisers can compare sites without having access to the actual traffic numbers. The problem is, they’re skewed (and as the Reddit post documents, inaccurate).
For example, Alexa samples users who installed the Alexa toolbar, considered by Symantec and McAfee to be spyware. Do you want to rely on data generated by the kinds of users who would install BonziBuddy?
If you want real usage, you need the server logs. If you can sacrifice some accuracy (resulting from Javascript and privacy blockers), use Google Analytics. If you want a guess, take your pick.
Second thoughts on H.264
Jun 29th
Looking to send video to an iPad? It’s more complicated than I first thought.
- MPEG-LA Considering Patent Pool for VP8/WebM and X264 developer says Google’s new VP8 WebM codec is a mess – VP8 may have patent issues in addition to being a bit of a messy spec.
- Why Flash Isn’t Going Anywhere, iPad Be Damned – Moving from the Flash plug-in to the H.264 codec is like moving backward — from Flash to a more expensive Flash.
- HTML5 video and H.264 – what history tells us and why we’re standing with the web – “Much like MP3, H.264 is currently liberally licensed and also has a license that changes from year to year, depending on market conditions. This means that something that’s free today might not be free tomorrow. Like sending an H.264 file over the Internet.”
- No, you can’t do that with H.264 – Confusing licenses may limit what can be done commercially with increasingly popular video codecs like that used to deliver video to the iPad, H.264.
Update: After publishing this, John Harding of YouTube posted a defense of Flash as the primary means of YouTube’s video delivery on his company’s API Blog: Flash and the HTML5 <video> tag. This debate isn’t going away.
HTML5? Yahoo!
Jun 28th
The Yahoo! Entertainment app for the iPad is based on HTML5, but it looks like the hotly anticipated Sports Illustrated app falls a bit short of the promise of the concept.
- Sports Illustrated Releases Apple iPad App – Sports Illustrated shows how difficult it is to execute the iPad magazine app that we’re all (still) waiting for. The SI app is built on the same “backbone” as the Time app, from The Wonder Factory and WoodWing Software. Chris Hercik, SI creative director, also answers a few questions in an accompanying video.
- Is That HTML5 in Your App? – Yahoo! Product Engineer Travis Young gives an overview of how the Yahoo! Entertainment App for the iPad is based on HTML5.
- HTML5 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – Just in case you wanted a semiofficial definition of what HTML5 actually is.
- Papers for iPad – The popular alternative PDF library app for OS X, on your iPad.
- Gourmet Magazine Revived for the iPad – Can a shuttered magazine find a new life on the iPad?
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