Sam's iPadventures

iPad Basics: Do You Need A Stylus?

2014-05-28T15:43:00.001+01:00

Strictly speaking, and in my humble opinion, no you don't. Presuming you are equipped with a Mk1 finger, you should get along just fine for the majority of iPad tasks. For those odd occasions, or if you're artistic for example, a stylus may help you get more out of your iPad experience.

Once you've decided you either want or need a stylus, the next question is what sort to buy? There are many different models out there, the vast majority of which fall into two broad categories: standard or fine-point.

By far the largest group is the standard capacitive stylus. These tend to have reasonably large rubber or fabric tips and are perfectly good for most stylus-related tasks. There are fewer fine-point styluses on the market, and where they do exist they tend to be much more expensive however, a fine-point stylus can give a more precise result than either a standard stylus or Mk1 finger in the right circumstances.

Regarding prices, standard capacitive styluses run from a couple of pounds upwards, whereas fine-point styluses tend to start around the fifteen pounds mark, prices increasing dependant upon what sort of extra functionality (bluetooth connectivity, pressure sensitivity, etc) is built in; my personal favourite is the Adonit Jot Pro, more on that later.

OK, so how do you decide which of the myriad styluses to buy? The easiest decision is between standard or fine-point, and unless you particularly require precision, a standard stylus will almost certainly fit the bill, and won't hurt the wallet too much either. Should you have decided a fine-point stylus is the one for you, you'll need to decide if bluetooth connectivity or pressure sensitivity are of importance to you. If you're an artist they may be, if not you'll probably get along just as well with something like the Jot Pro or its baby brother, the Jot Mini. A Jot Pro will run you somewhere around the £20 mark, with a Jot Mini coming in around £15 if you shop around, though if you want bluetooth connectivity and pressure sensitivity be prepared to stump up close to £50 for a Jot Touch 4 stylus.

My personal favourite of the three is the Jot Pro, probably because that's the one I've got, though this choice was based on a fair amount of research prior to handing over my hard-earned. I intend writing a separate review (with pictures) of the Jot Touch at a later date, for now I'll just run you through the basics.

The first thing that struck me was the aluminium barrel, in my case finished in a gunmetal shade, which to be has a hint of brown about it. Pleasantly weighty, the Jot Pro has a rubberised grip section so it remains snugly where you want it to be, which can be a blessing if you're working on something with particularly fine detail. The business end, more on that in a moment, is protected with a screw-on cap that threads onto the other end when the stylus is in use; no more lost caps.

The business end is the interesting bit. In order to work with the iPad’s capacitive screen, the business end of the Jot Pro features a small metal ball seated in a little clear plastic disc; it apparently needs this surface area in order for the screen to recognise it's there. The clear plastic disc is great because it doesn't obscure you're view while you work, though I've read a few reviews that suggest these discs are easily lost, so it might be an idea for you to do what I did when I purchased my Jot Pro, pick yourself up a pack of spare discs at the same time; these can be had for a few pounds if you shop around.

So there you go, if you just want a bog-standard stylus for everyday use, any capacitive stylus will do, if you need so wing with more precision, you could do a lot worse than invest in a Adonit Jot Pro. Try one out and let me know what you think.

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They Gave Me Free Apps

2014-05-27T16:55:00.001+01:00

I'm told by an IT tech friend of mine that not all 16Gb White iPad Minis are created equal, and I know this to be true, though as to the reason for it, I'll have to take their word for it, namely that different retailers have different deals with Apple. When I bought my iPad Mini, from John Lewis, I was offered a bundle of free apps the first time I logged into my iTunes account, whereas when another family member recently bought an iPad Mini from Argos, they got Jack Shit by way of freebies. I'm told this is probably because John Lewis (lovely company!) has negotiated a deal with Apple that gets their customers some free apps and a decent three-pin charger plug; the Argos iPad Mini came with an el-cheapo plug.

So, what did I get?

Pages, iPhoto, Keynote, Garage Band, Find iPhone, Find My Friends, iTunesU, Numbers, iBooks, Podcasts, and iMovie. Not bad for nowt, eh?

And how many of the free apps have I kept?

Answer: most of them! That's not really a fair answer. I've kept those apps that I can see may be immediately useful, or that I perceive to have future potential. It's probably easier to run through the apps I deleted, and why.

Garage Band - I didn't keep it as I'm only ever musical after eating beans, and whilst the basic app is free, getting a complete set of instruments requires some fairly hefty (by the time you add them up) in-app purchases. It was fun to play with the basic instrument set, but it's gone now.

iTunesU - Great idea and something I may come back to in the future, perhaps, possibly, should I be in the market for a free educational course. For the time being I can put the space in memory to better use, so it's gone.

Find My Friends - Stalk your mates online using this handy app, just remember to turn on Location Services on your iPad so they can stalk you back. Err, no thanks. Binned. I'll need a compelling reason to put this one back on my iPad.

So there you have it. By way of a summary, it's worth considering John Lewis if you're in the market for an iPad Mini, though of course this comes with the caveat that your mileage may vary; I don't know how long the free apps deal will run for, and please, don't blame me if you don't get any freebies, I was truly flabbergasted, having seen nothing on the website about it when I ordered.

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Flight Simulator Review: Infinite Flight, Part 1

2014-05-25T14:45:00.003+01:00

aka, G-OCOK*, Flying the Super Decathlon in Infinite Flight Sim.

I must begin this review with the caveat that I've never flown a real aircraft in my life, I've flown in a fair few in my time, but I've never been at the controls. I've also always been put off trying a flight simulator on my laptop due to the cost of a decent one and all the fancy peripherals you seem to need, so finding Infinite Flight for my iPad was definitely serendipitous; predictably, I was looking for something else at the time, but I digress...

The first thing that struck me about Infinite Flight was the professional look of the thing. The App Store page featured some beautiful in-game photos and plenty of information about the sim. Reviews seemed largely complimentary, and it seemed you got a fair bit for your £2.99, more than enough for a good few hours of fun before needing to scope out the in-app purchase options. Neither is it a huge download, weighing in at around 35.6Mb, so it's unlikely you’d need to prune your apps to make room for it; having said that, now I’ve downloaded some of the additional free aircraft and bought the “London” region expansion (more on that later), my Infinite Flight has grown to a healthy 165Mb.

Once I'd downloaded the basic sim package, I had a poke about, keeping my virtual feet on the virtual ground until I'd seen what the app had to offer. So, just what do you get for your £2.99? I'll gloss over the beautiful graphics and the high quality rendering of the aircraft and scenery, you'll see these aspects yourself when you download Infinite Flight. In terms of sim content, you get:

- 17 aircraft (with a further 18 available through in-app purchases), everything from a Cessna 172 light aircraft to a Boeing 747-400. Also included are several modern airliners, a couple of military jets (A10 and F/A-18), a military transport (Boeing C-17 Globemaster), the Space Shuttle, Spitfire Mk VIII, and my personal favourite at the moment, the Super Decathlon aerobatic trainer.

- 7 regions covering thousands of square miles (Amsterdam, Netherlands; Charlotte, NC; Chicago, IL; Oshkosh; San Francisco; Southern California; Sydney, Australia) and featuring a total of 1145 different airports for you to take-off and land at.

- Instrument Landing System (ILS), Autopilot, Pilot’s Logbook and Achievements.

- Adjustable Weight and Balance for the aircraft.

- User defined flight plans.

- User configurable weather, time and temperature, so if you've a burning desire to attempt a winter night landing you can, and best of luck to you!

After a couple of (mostly successful!) flights around Amsterdam in The Netherlands, I decided that if I was to properly get to grips with Infinite Flight, I'd prefer to do it somewhere at least vaguely familiar, so I coughed up a further in-app purchase of £2.99 (yes, the same price as the basic sim) for the new “London” expansion.

To be honest, calling it “London” doesn't truly reflect the scope and content of this expansion, which features an additional 128 airports including London Heathrow, Stanstead, etc. plus several RAF stations, and a good selection of smaller airfields, including a few I'd never heard of, Farthing Corner, Top Farm and Little Snoring to name but three of the latter; also included is White Waltham airfield, formerly an RAF station and the home of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) during WW2. Geographically, the “London” expansion covers an area from an imaginary line drawn through Birmingham, Leicester and Peterborough, south to London and its environs, and down to Southampton on the south coast. Not bad for three quid, eh?

So there I was, sitting in the cockpit of my Super Decathlon parked up at a little grass strip airfield somewhere in Southern England (I have no idea where. I figured once I could take-off and land reasonably successfully I'd start taking notice of which airfield I was at!).

I'd decided on the Super Decathlon after my introductory flying lesson (part of the app’s Help section) in a Cessna 172, which handled like a brick; apologies to Cessna owners, but it did. I got a bit ahead of myself after that and thought (note the word “thought”) I could fly the Boeing C-17 Globemaster, I couldn't! So, in an effort to master this flight sim lark I went hunting through the available aircraft for something with a high wing and only one engine; for the uninitiated, the Globemaster is a military transport aircraft with four jet engines, which turned out to be three too many for me to handle. The Super Decathlon seemed to tick all the boxes, so off I went, up, up and away...

Super Decathlon in flight. Look, that's me, that it!

Being a complete novice, I was pleasantly surprised by how responsive and easy to fly the Super Decathlon was, so after a bit of flying around and a couple of turns I thought it was time to land. I still had no idea where I was, but I spotted a grass strip below me and figured I'd try a landing there. I swooped in like a pro, throttled back and...bounced across the grass like a pea on a drum, but at least I was down, having remembered at the last minute to apply the brakes! Well, that was bloody scary! Definitely one of those, “any landing you can walk away from is a good one” moments.

Here's a tip: if you're landing an aircraft with a two wheel plus tail wheel landing gear arrangement (as opposed to a three-wheel, tripod arrangement like the Cessna), once you're down don't just slam the brakes on, toggle them on and off or else you'll come to a stop and tip forward onto your nose; as usual, don't ask me how I know this, OK?

Buoyed by this success, I wondered if I could handle something, well, a bit more ~~sexy~~ powerful...so I swapped the Decathlon for a Spitfire MkVIII and took off again, aiming for another airport close by. Fully expecting this landing to end in tears, I pointed the Spit’s nose at the glide path and throttled back. Down I went, reasonably gracefully, gear down, flaps to 35°, over the end of the runway, power off and pray...

I bounced twice but I was down in one piece, cue some frantic toggling of the brakes and the Spit coasted neatly to a stop...somewhere on the grass - I could just about see the tarmac from where I ended up, but no flames or piles of twisted metal. I'd done it! Now I wouldn't blame you one bit if you thought I was making this all up, so here are a couple of pics to prove it. The first is me flying the Spit, and the second is us on the ground in one piece.

Spitfire MkVIII in flight.

Spitfire MkVIII on the ground after a successful landing.

This has got be the most fun I've had for three quid in ages (six quid if you include the “London” region expansion), so if you've ever had a hankering to try a flight sim, I can heartily recommend Infinite Flight.

It's also great to see a group of developers who obviously care about their product and about keeping in touch with their customers and fans, so below you'll find links to the Infinite Flight blog, and their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Apparently there are many videos of various aspects of Infinite Flight on YouTube, you might want to check those out too.

Infinite Flight App Store link

http://flyingdevstudio.blogspot.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/infiniteflightapp
https://mobile.twitter.com/flyingdevstudio

In the 48 hours** I've owned it, I'm sure I've only scratched the surface of what Infinite Flight has to offer, for example I'm only now beginning to get to grips with setting a flight plan, but from what I've seen, this app definitely gets a 5 star rating from me.

So, Dear Reader, what’s your opinion of flight simulators in general and, if you've tried Infinite Flight, of it in particular? Please, do let me know, and if you've any tips for me, I'd appreciate them.
Now, where did I leave my flying helmet...

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* The sub-title of this post is a reference to the registration number of James May's (yes, him off BBC tv’s Top Gear) Super Decathlon aircraft, which is based on his catch phrase on the show; go on, read it out loud, you know you want to! It's also a pretty apt phrase for when you pile your virtual aircraft into the virtual ground for the umpteenth time; don't ask me how I know that!
** correct at the time of writing.

Review: Cooler Master ¥en Folio iPad Mini Case

2014-05-16T15:27:00.000+01:00

OK, so you've shelled out a couple of hundred quid (or more) for your shiny new iPad Mini, but what’s the plan? Cart it around in your bag unprotected? No, didn't think so. You'll be in the market for a protective case for it then...

I was in exactly the same position recently when I chanced upon a listing for an interesting looking iPad Mini case, the ¥en Folio from Cooler Master. Firstly, it’s a full wrap-around case so the back of your iPad is protected as well as the screen, it's available in five colours: black, grey, silver, blue and bronze, but the best part is that it's a multi-position case.

By multi-position I mean that by using a bit of nifty origami, the case folds to allow you to stand your iPad Mini up in four different ways. There's a typing setting, two landscape viewing settings and one portrait viewing setting, each of which is ideal for writing, reading or watching movies, etc. The inner surface of the front flap is lined with a black mock suede to protect your iPad's screen, while the back (the part your iPad clips into) has cutouts for all the relevant buttons and speakers, meaning you can use and charge your iPad without having to take it out of its case. The back half is constructed of sturdy plastic and provides a decent amount of protection should you drop your iPad; don't ask me how I know this!

All in all this is a very impressive case, especially when you consider the price paid. The ¥en case retails for £29.99, but a bit of judicious shopping around online got the price down to between £1.95-£5.95, depending on the colour chosen. All round win in my book.

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Welcome

2014-04-22T17:27:00.001+01:00

Hello, and welcome to another of Sam's little corners of the internet. As you've probably gathered by the title of this blog, Sam recently got his hands on a new bit of handheld iTech, and the purpose of this blog is for you, dear reader, to follow Sam's adventures (or should that be, trials and tribulations?) as he attempts to get to grips with being a member of the twenty-first century.

I hope you enjoy what you read here, and please spare a thought for Sam, luddite that he is, as he embarks on this epic (well, to him at least) journey. You know what they say, an iJourney begins with a single tap, so...

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