Finding the right iPad cover - review of the Incase Convertible Book Jacket

Like many iPad owners, I quickly realized that having an iPad meant exposing the screen and back to scratches, and I especially feared the results of throwing the iPad into a backpack. I did my research and ended up purchasing the Incase Convertible Book Jacket.

Finding the "right" iPad cover for you will depend on your needs. For me, I only realized after a bit of research that I really wanted some kind of stand. A sleeve, while able to protect the screen, would not help much in that regard. I also wanted something that snapped closed somehow.

(One terrific source I returned to repeatedly was The Complete Guide to iPad Cases and Protection at ilounge. The extensive article covers every type of iPad protection out there and helped me narrow down my options and understand the different terminology better.)

Apple's own case can act as a stand, but it worried me that some reviewers felt the Apple case was cheaply made and that its only redeeming quality was that it was a stand.
The Incase Convertible Book Jacket, while a bit more expensive and thicker than other cases, is worth every penny. (It lists at $59.95 U.S. vs. $39 for Apple's case.) The case feels sturdy, all side buttons and ports are exposed (if a bit snuggily), and it has a strap that wraps around the case when closed, keeping it from opening accidentally.

However for me the winning feature was the multiple angles you can place the stand.

By positioning the case cover-down and sliding your iPad up, you can sit the iPad into a groove on the inside of the cover that holds the iPad at an angle of your liking. This is great because the angle I need at the breakfast table is different than when I'm on the couch. Additionally you save your arm from soreness because you're not propping up your iPad all the time.

My one tiny complaint is that, because the grooves are not deep and the iPad is not locked into them, the iPad can slip down once in a while. This only really happens when the case is sitting on an uneven surface (*cough* my stomach *cough*) and is not really a big deal.

The Incase Convertible Book Jacket is available from the incase web site but you can also purchase it through your local Apple store ($59.95 U.S. / $64.95 Canada).

Scrolling a subwindow in Safari on the iPad

The solution to this wasn't obvious to me, so here's hoping you find this post more quickly than I found out my answer.

If you are surfing with iPad Safari and need to scroll a sub window of some kind (that is, a rectangle within the Web page that itself is scrollable), use two fingers pressed inside the sub window area.

In a regular area of a Web page, using two fingers will scroll the entire page, just like swiping 1 finger, but if your 2 fingers don't move exactly in sync with each other, iPad interprets a 'pinch' or 'expand' and zooms in or out.

However, if you swipe 2 fingers within a scrollable sub window, it scrolls only the contents of the sub window.

Making this a bit more confusing is that you can't really tell when something is a scrollable sub window. The iPad standard seems to be to display scroll bars only when you are actually scrolling.

Which brings me to the User Experience tip of the day for developers: An iPad user may not notice that there is more content underneath the "fold". Users are trained to understand that the existence of a scroll bar means "more" - and also trained to believe that lack of a scroll bar means "there is no more". A hint would go a long way. For a different example, install the USA Today app.

App Diary

July 11 - 7 days since purchasing my iPad

What I'm playing: Warship HD, Time Crisis Lite

What I'm using: Jumbo (Calculator), WeatherEye, Molecules

News is coming from: NYTimes Editor's Choice, USA Today, Wired News (web page link)

Currently excited about: Getting a subscription to comic books

Blogs written on: iPad, with Microsoft Bluetooth keyboard :), Blogger HTML view (doesn't support Compose view yet)

iPad Humor

• Various funnies at SmashingShare
• If you haven't seen it, the Mad iPad sketch

How the iPad changed my life

I confess: The iPad really didn't change my life to an extreme that warrants a title approaching religious rebirth. It's more like I get to consume more Internet with less pain. To explain:

My hands hurt. A lot. It started when Doom came out.

Like many other young men, back in 1993, I was hooked and played almost every night. Unfortunately, I've been using computers since I was 15, and spent 9+ hours a day performing desktop publishing in my day job. Luckily, I never developed carpel tunnel -- but through constant use, wrecked my index finger and endure perpetually sore wrists and arms. These days, I still work with computers every day, and I have to be careful.

Over the last few years I've purchased various editions of the Nintendo DS. The first was the fat red brick, which is now in the hands of my 5-year-old niece.

The second was the DSi, mostly for the brighter screen. (If you have a red brick and have never seen a DSi, it's day and night.)

I actually have two of these. I wore out the left shoulder button and gave it to my oldest son, who plays Pokemon with it.

I needed to use glasses to play the DSi. After testing a DSi XL, I saw I wouldn't need glasses to play. This was important, so I went out and got one.

(If you're asking how I was able to convince my wife of the necessity of so many gadgets, we have a "don't ask don't tell" policy. I don't ask why we go to Sears every few weeks to pick up shoes, and she doesn't ask why the brown DS is better than the white DS is better than the red DS...)

Throughout, the one characteristic I grew to appreciate was the ability to point the stylus and click on something. I didn't have to move a mouse precisely and adjust position and then click; I just pointed. I grew up with a TI-99 4A, a Commodore 64, an Atari 2600, and the Mattel LED one-on-one football game. I've purchased more precision (and expensive) mice and ergonomic keyboards that I care to think about. I've tried 4 speech recognition systems over the last few years, but I can't seem to convert my inner brain thought process for writing to speech. (Besides, the output requires too much cleanup.)

Perhaps I appreciate this kind of thing more than most, but being able to point at something, instead of having to drag a mouse or use arrow keys, is a big step up.

Getting back to the iPad, Steve Jobs calls the ability to point and flick magical. Since I'm used to the DS, I'm a little less impressionable. Indeed it felt magical when I first touched the DS. I'd rather say the iPad is "useful" and even "ignorable".

The thing about the iPad (and, I really hope, about any of the new tablets coming soon), is that you forget there is an interface and you are simply interacting with: a book, a driving sim, a Web page, a kaleidoscope, whatever. When it doesn't work (you click on a link with your finger and it wasn't precise enough for the iPad's touch-sensitive screen), you break out of the dream. That's when you notice it.

Back to the pain. I went on vacation recently. I love browsing the web, especially with Stumbleupon [WARNING! Do not click that link unless you have the next 18 hours free], to discover new things. I like to say I'm an amateur on string theory and the theory of everything, and I've discovered several sites related to string theory that helps me understand it better. As a hobby, however, browsing the Web meant browsing with a mouse and keyboard. Since I have to be careful about my hand usage (insert your lewd joke here), I gave up after day 1.

I tried using speech recognition with Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Mac OS X 10.6. I liked Windows 7 the best but would need a new computer to make it work better. Since I was buying a new computer, why not an iPad?

The rest is the history you will see in this blog. And that's why, albeit undramatically, the iPad changed my life.

The First Post, and Recommendation #1

Welcome to my blog about the iPad. Having devoured as much information I could on why I should or shouldn't get an iPad, I finally bought one. It costs $1000 in Canadian dineros, and I can state with 100% honesty and conviction that I do not regret it one bit.

First, about my iPad:

I went whole hog. 64 GB. 3G. Biggest screen I could find. (That's a joke. They're all the same size.) I've ordered a pen. I will buy the Apple case. I will probably buy my son one soon, if only to keep him away from my Precious.

(See the iPad I really want.)

One of the reasons I went for the 64 GB is because it was the only model FutureShop had in stock. (I live in Montreal, Canada.) However I had my eye on the model with the biggest storage because I was frustrated with my previous 'i' purchase, the iPod Touch. I bought the 8 GB model, you see, and kept running out of room.

This brings me to recommendation #1: If you are planning to buy an iPad, buy the most storage you can afford. During the first few weeks you will participate in an App orgy of gargantuan proportions. Not having to worry about storage is very liberating.

That's it for now. I'm typing this on a my wife's MacBook. The irony is this: I was trying to write the whole thing on the iPad. However, in Blogger's editing system, when you get to the body of the text, iPad Safari doesn't recognize the field as editable, and you can't write in it. :)