GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

Image from InformationArchitects.jp

In design and intent, the iPad is a focus-producing machine. Nearly the entire device is a screen, and every application consumes the entire screen. Information Architects’ new Writer app brings that same hyperfocused aesthetic to word-processing.

Writer is not, like Pages, a desktop publishing application. It’s not really even a textual editor, in the sense that it supports easy correction or rearrangement of already-typed text. When you put the application in “Focus Mode,” it doesn’t even have spellcheck or cut-and-paste. Instead, it’s all about textual production — writing this phrase, this sentence, this word at this moment. As the creators note, “the idea is to activate it when you get stuck, blinding out everything else.”

It’s not particularly customizable, but again, that’s the point. Don’t screw around picking out margins or a font. We’ve picked it for you — and it’s already optimized for your screen. There are a few smart additions, like Dropbox integration and a “reading time” feature that estimates how long it will take a reader to make their way through your text.

More features and tweaks are (naturally) promised for future versions, as is a desktop app. According to iA, it would actually have been easier to release the desktop application first, but the iPad offered something unique: “In spite of its passive character, the awkward keyboard, the stubborn iOS and its many other faults, the iPad has the power to drag you in and make you forget about the world around you.”

Version 1.0 dropped today and is available in the Apple Store for $4.99. With the iPad getting printing with iOS 4.2, there’s a good chance we may see see document production apps for iOS, each offering something distinctive, explode.

H/T to Liz Danzico/Bobulate.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Happy news for iPhone- and iPad-using fans of the $10 standard flavor of office/productivity suite Documents To Go: Yesterday, version 4.0 was released for iOS. The $15 Documents To Go Premium hit 4.0 last week.

These were the first updates of the application following Blackberry-maker RIM’s partial acquisition of Documents To Go creators DataViz. RIM had announced that it had reassigned the majority of the company’s employees to developing applications for Blackberry smartphones and the Blackpad tablet; this had cast some doubt on future updates of Documents to Go for other platforms.

Still, this may be the last major update Documents To Go will see for iOS. We can assume that 4.0 was mostly in the can when RIM bought DataViz’s assets early this month. If RIM does indeed let multi-platform development of Documents To Go slide, that creates an opening for many would-be/could-be competitors — including Microsoft Office.

DataViz keeps Documents To Go updates coming [MacWorld]

Source:wired.com

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Windows Phone 7 Office Image via Microsoft.

Traditionally, Microsoft has been a software company, leveraging its office suites and operating systems, but selling applications for any compatible hardware and platform. For smartphones in particular, its strategy has been to supply the software and let other companies worry about developing the phones. So why not go all the way and sell its software for every device on every platform?

That’s what Business Insider’s Dan Frommer proposes the company do: “Microsoft should develop Office apps for the iPad, Android, Chrome OS, BlackBerry tablet, and any other computing platform that is likely to become popular over the next 5-10 years,” adding that “if Microsoft wants to keep people tied into its Office suite, it needs to go where the people are going.”

Office is integrated into the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 OS, but would compete on several fronts in smartphone and tablet platforms, including iWork on Apple’s iPad, Google Docs on the mobile web, and Dataviz’s multi-platform Documents To Go, just acquired by Blackberry maker RIM.

Frommer sees RIM’s purchase of Documents To Go as a defense against the possibility of Microsoft introducing an Office app for Blackberry. Ironically, if RIM stops active development of Documents To Go for other platforms, that could create just the multi-platform opening needed to entice Microsoft to swoop in.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Image from DataViz.com.

With its flagship mobile office suite Documents To Go, software company DataViz makes some of the most popular productivity applications for Blackberry, iPhone, iPad, Windows, Mobile, and Android. Now that RIM has bought the better chunk of DataViz to work for Blackberry, its days as a cross-platform mobile superstar might be numbered.

The deal had been reported as done on Friday by Crackberry.com, reportedly for $50m in cash, shortly after DataViz had announced that they were cancelling development for Palm. RIM confirmed the acquisition yesterday in a statement: “RIM has acquired some of the assets of DataViz and hired the majority of its employees to focus on supporting the BlackBerry platform.” Translation: it’s all ours, now.

Even if RIM just lets its client apps for other platforms drift along for a while, they’re still a good business: as CNET’s Jessica Dolcourt points out, “fifteen dollars a pop for iPhone business professionals buying Documents To Go for iPhone isn’t a business to quickly pull from.”

Still, having Documents To Go in-house offers RIM terrific leverage. They can use its InTact cloud-syncing software for all media files on the Blackberry; offer the premium version for free to enterprise customers; and package a new suite of productivity and enterprise apps for its forthcoming BlackPad tablet. By buying Documents To Go and its software team from DataViz, RIM just solidified its position as the “serious” and “productive” smartphone company.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Dropbox, the file-syncin’, cloud-storin’ service for the cognoscenti and the extremely good-looking, has released a beta for the Blackberry. Currently limited to 1,000 users (and already fully subscribed), the beta essentially brings gigabytes of remote storage to your crackberry.

Dropbox is a service which syncs any files in the Dropbox folder on your computer with 2GB free space in the cloud (you can pay for more). This is at once a backup (with versioned saves of files, so you can rescue a file you wrongly edited) and as a sharing service.

Like the versions for iPhone and Android, Dropbox for Blackberry lets you open files, stream movies and music and view pictures right on your handheld. You can also upload files: pictures taken with the Blackberry’s camera, for example.

It’s too late to sign up for this wave of the beta, but hopefully this signals that the fully-baked app, which will run on OS 5.0 devices, will be launched soon.

Dropbox for Blackberry Beta Begins [Dropbox Forums via <a href="http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/31/dropbox-launches-a-limited-beta-version-for-the-blackberry/
">Boy Genius]

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews