On the iPad’s Self-Sufficiency

I read many posts about the iPad being a replacement for desktop computers, the device that’s aimed at changing your computing life. This is partially untrue.

There’s a big difference between replacing desktop computers and changing the computing scene forever. The iPad won’t replace desktop computers as it is now, and you know why? Because it just can’t. The iPad isn’t a self-sufficient device, it’s not independent of iTunes, it can’t manage itself on its own. As long as you can install every application and purchase every song from iTunes on your iPad (like you’d like to do so), you can’t - say - install software updates using just the device. And even in the best situation where you actually buy every single song to build your music library, I don’t think that situation is statistically accepted as “common”. Same applies for contacts, photos and, especially, movies. You need a computer to move that stuff into the iPad, period.

Now the question is, if the iPad can’t replace a desktop computer just because it needs one to fully work, how can Apple even think to revolutionize the computing world? Because it’s a start. I personally don’t think I’ll ever ditch my MacBook and replace it with an iPad, but I’m sure a lot of people will - and today is the start of this process. The iPad we currently know is the first iteration of a (hopefully) series of products that will slowly evolve over time, just as internet connections will grow in speed and reliability. The day you’ll be able to a) download an entire movie or software update from iTunes and b) have that download finished in an acceptable time, that’s when things will change. It’s not now, it won’t happen next year - nobody knows when that’s gonna happen.

You can’t think of the iPad as a full desktop replacement now, even for the less skilled user who just needs Safari and Mail to work, because that user needs the cable to make his device work.

The iPad is not a replacement for desktop computers, but it will be someday. And until that day, keep syncing.

Organizing Files: The Librarian Syndrome

But the more important conclusion is less obvious, which is that nearly everyone can benefit from the use of software that doesn’t require explicit file system management at all.

Instead of putting music files into a folder, all you had to do was put it into iTunes. Once you’ve added a song to iTunes you no longer need to worry about where it actually is in the file system

To argue that users should embrace manual file system management for every bit of data they wish to store is to argue against human nature.

This is not an argument that all software should abstract the file system by using the library paradigm, but just that more software should.

It wasn’t long time ago, though I can’t remember very well. I’m talking about the day I realized I needed a better solution to store all my documents, as the Finder simply couldn’t do that anymore. Maybe it was some months ago, back in September / October, when I made up my mind and decided to give Yojimbo a second, in-depth spin. I fell in love with it, much like I did with Things from CulturedCode the second time I tested it. Guess there’s a second time for everything, right?

Problem is, I couldn’t use a hierarchical folder system anymore. With hundreds of documents to manage (be them .pdf files, spreadsheets, reports, casual but still important notes) and new pieces of text each day, the situation became unmanageable and yeah, Finder was slow and cluttered. So I started using Yojimbo which allowed me to enter any kind of information both manually and in other ways like the Quick Panel or the Drop Dock. Be sure to read my previous post about if you missed it. I still have Yojimbo in my dock, if you ask.

A few weeks ago I discovered and wrote about a new app, iDocument, which wants to be the ultimate solution for storing and retrieving documents on Mac OS X. iDocument lets you import documents, tag them, organize them in folders and smart collections.

If you work with your Mac, you need a powerful centralized solution to sort and archive files. In this post I and Cody will take a look at 4 different systems (Finder, Yojimbo, iDocument, Leap) and discuss how they actually work, in which cases. We’ll surely miss a lot of apps, but we wanted to focus on those we know and use on a regular base.

Enjoy.

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Win a Copy Of Polyhedra for iPhone

Polyhedra, which we reviewed here, is a fun and addictive game for iPhone and iPod Touch that requires you to draw shapes to fill a percentage of your screen.

We have 10 promo codes up for grabs, all you have to do is leave a comment here. No tweets required!

Winners will be announced on Sunday, February 28th.

Good luck!

Digest Launches, The New Face of Read It Later [Invite Only]

I’m a heavy user of Read It Later. Actually, I think I’m completely in love with it. Read It Later, developed by Nate Weiner, is a service that allows you to save pages of interest for later, when you’ll have time to read them. It comes as a web service, an iPhone app and a Firefox extension, so you won’t miss the pages you have to read anymore.

RiL has been out for quite some time now, and when the long awaited 2.0 version came out some months ago, I immediately wrote a review of the iPhone app saying that:

“Read it Later 2.0 is a huge leap forward towards the perfect read later service.”

The 2.0 update was massive. It introduced a completely overhauled user interface, new features, new mobile application. It felt like a new app, and many users switched to it from Instapaper.

But I knew Nate was up to something else, though he wasn’t ready to publicly share it yet.. Today I can finally talk about Digest, a new feature that Nate has been developing for months and that has just launched as a invite only beta. Meet the new face of Read It Later.

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Delibar Updated to 1.3, Adds Pinboard Support

Delibar, the beautiful Mac app that enables you to keep track of your Delicious bookmarks we reviewed some months ago here, has just been updated to the 1.3 version, and it’s a huge update. This updated introduces support for Pinboard.in, the popular minimal alternative to Delicious.com, which was a long-awaited feature, requested by thousands of users.

You can go download Delibar here, both in the free and Pro version.

Get a 50% Off Radar for Basecamp

If you use Basecamp as your project management web application of choice, you might be interested in Radar. Radar is a native Mac app that notifies you of updates to your Basecamp account. It runs in the menubar, has Growl support and automatically checks for updates on the time interval you set.

If you’re interested, you can get a 50% off by following this link, provided by Madewithbits to MacStories readers.