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Okay then, so we have had the Apple iPhone 5 event and I am more confused than ever. Well, maybe not that confused because the combination of features and prices are starting to firm up my choice of next iOS device. With the fact that Apple announced the new versions of the iPod Touch at the same event, I could be moving more towards buying that device instead of an iPhone.

The story so far with my iPhone

At the beginning of the summer I bought an iPhone 4. This is because I needed to replace the iPhone 3 which was getting rather long in the tooth. My main use for it was to play podcasts and I needed that to keep me sane during quiet periods at work. I bought the iPhone 4 for €499 and I must say that I have been very happy with the device. With the fact that I use dictation so much, I do find that I miss the ability to dictate in the same way as I do with the iPad. Due to my desire to have an iOS device that I can dictate to and control with my voice using Siri, I would need to get the iPhone 4S. At least I have the new iPad Siri, I can still use Siri with iOS 6.

iPhone vs iPod Touch – decisions decisions

I was quite pleased to see that the iPhone 4 has come down in price substantially, instead of the €499 that I paid recently, it is now available for €389. I can’t complain about the difference in price because I needed to buy the phone when I needed it. What I might complain about is, that the iPhone 4S has not come down in price a similar amount. If the 4S had come down enough, then I would be saving cash towards buying one of these iPhones. This is because, if it comes to a decision between having the iPhone 4S or the iPod touch fifth-generation, then there is no contest. The extra connectivity available within the iPhone over the iPod Touch is more useful to me than is the larger screen of the iPod Touch.

Costs and tech comparisons – iPhone vs iPod Touch

So now that I can rule out the iPhone 4S from my buying decision, the next comparison to make it is between the iPhone 4 and the iPod touch. I should say that the reason I need to get another device is because I have promised the iPhone 4 that I have been using during the summer, to pass it on to my wife. I needed the use of it while I was working during the summertime and now she’s back at work and will make better use of it than I will. I have my iPad three available to me here while I am working from home with all of my Wi-Fi connectivity. I actually have very little use for the phone capabilities of the iPhone.

I can’t say that I am particularly looking forward to the idea of using her nearly smart phone rather than the iPhone, but we do have an older iPod in the house that I can use to listen to the podcasts. So I will have to be carrying around a separate phone and an iPod. There is one other reason why I might be better to have an iPhone rather than an iPod Touch, it is for the GPS facilities. Yesterday I went on a bicycle ride of 20 km and I used to the application called Trails. This is a super application which records your journey while you are walking, cycling or with whatever other transport. For this you do need to have the mobile phone connectivity for the data for the maps. Of course having a GPS receiver in the phone is also necessary. My friend who has an iPod Touch is able to get around this to a certain extent by using a Bluetooth GPS receiver connected to his iOS device. Yet another thing to have to carry around.

Given my circumstances, which would you buy? An iPhone 4 or one of the new fifth-generation iPad touch’s.

There are plus points to having the iPod Touch such as the faster processor, the better screen, 32 GB of storage rather than only 8 GB and the ability to dictate to it using Siri. It would be nice if I could afford the iPhone5 Siri.

The plus points for the iPhone 4 would be the GPS, the mobile connectivity and to be honest I am having difficulty in coming up with any other reasons. Is it worth to buy this device even though it only costs €70 more than the new iPod Touch.

As I am writing this article the new iPod Touch is becoming more desirable to me. With regards the connectivity, for the most part I am within range of Wi-Fi. For the times when I am out of range, I do have the MiFi product which does at least give me data. It will not turn the iPod Touch into a phone for me, so I will need to take something with me to take phone calls.

One more thing to take into consideration

There are very strong rumours that there will be a new iPad Mini, possibly available in October. On account of the fact that the new iPod Touch is not available until October either, perhaps I would be better to wait and see what happens. It could well be that there will be good reasons to buy such a device which at present is still just a mythical. It is a little hard to see how the iPad Mini will fit into the price ranges that Apple have presented us with. It will probably have to be more than the €319 32 GB model of the iPod Touch. This will be more than the predicted pricing from the Apple pundits, so maybe there will be capability differences that will allow Apple to price it lower. If that happens, then I could still have a conundrum on my hands with regards to deciding which device to get, based upon the relationship between the capabilities and the price. Obviously, like most people I am looking for the best bang for the buck. Look out for a new iPod review. When does the new iPod Touch come out? October 2012. Along with the new iPod Touch release there are new iPod Nanos which have changed shape again. Good to see Apple new iPods even if it has led to my confusion with the iPhone vs iPod Touch debate for me.

I am so pleased to have the iPad 3 to work with now with its two cameras. It means that I can use iPhoto and do some of those iPhoto Journals and also use other iPad photo applications. Not only that but I can shoot video on the iPad. I had a go at that today and it sort of worked. When I had recorded into the iMovie app the video was upside down in the app. I suppose the trick is to set the app the right way up as I. The same as it will be when I set it down to make the recording. What happened today was that I flipped the iPad over after I had tapped on the button the make iMovie record.

Shooting video with the iPad three

The other thing I noticed after shooting the video on the iPad was that the sound quality was not that good. I could have used my iRig microphone but I didn’t have it with me. It should have been decent enough because I was in the car doing this.

Still trying to get my head around ThinkBook

I like the application but I have found some thing s that are not so good. I would like the app to let me turn larger lumps of text into separate notes that can be indented. I want a way to change a question type note to a norma, note easily. I would like better ways to import text too. Overall I think the interface and the way it works needs a bit of a sorting out. Still believe that it is useful for outlining and worth the $1.99 but it could be better. Why is it possible to have book inside pages?? That metaphor just doesn’t work!

Magical Pad for outlining

MagicalPad is another app that does a pile of thing and could just fit in with what you want to do. It will do mind mapping, although not as good as you get with iThoughts HD it also will do outlining and work for note taking. It is very free form in the way it works and you can combine all these things on one page. That makes it quite useful, and unique. Again with this one it seems that it is not so easy to split chunks of text into smaller sectioned so that it can be indented and outdented. The import functions are very limited with MagicalPad too. Seems that it is just the way things go with iPad apps. We just have to get used to the idea that we need to start working on a project in one application and then maybe work with a couple of other apps along the way to the finished product.

You can read more about ThinkBook on the NoStylus web site as well as see the video in which I demonstrate how it works. I even have a second video in the works to show how to import templates from the ThinkBook website. Working how to do that was a bit of a marathon also.

IPad to edit video and other things

I really did touch the screen of my iMac the other day and expected a window to move. I said to myself “You silly arse.” had a good laugh at my stupidity and that was that. I did wonder late though if one day we will see desktop computers fro Apple that have touch screens included.

Loving the dictation on the iPad and also in Mountain Lion

The only thing. I wonder about is the need to work in a quiet environment to use it properly. If you have music playing in the background or maybe the telly is loudly filling the room with drama, documentaries or other speech. Will the dictation work well enough? I know that I sometimes when I am working want to use the dictation, but can’t because of the extraneous noises.

If you like to go shopping for ladies lingerie using your iPad and Safari and you would like to keep it secret then you should know about how to enable private browsing. With private browsing you will see a black bar at the top of the application and none of the sites that you visit will be logged. You can check out those sites that you don’t want your fellow shared iPad user to see. When you have finished looking at your ladies underwear or whatever it is that you like to look at you can go back to the normal mode of Safari browsing.

Keeping your secrets with iPad Safari settings

Don’t forget that you can also clear out the cache and data from the Safari settings within the system settings. These cookies are usually there so that your settings within websites are kept and the pages will load faster. Whether it is for privacy or not you might consider clearing out the cookies from your system every now and then.

The list of websites in the Safari history blabbed on you

If you forgot to set your private browsing when you’re off buying that ladies underwear, then there will be a list of sites in the history. If you’re using the iPad as a shared computer with your significant other, then you may want to clear out the history. With a proper relationship you shouldn’t really have secrets from your significant other, but they could have been an occasion where you are buying a present. It would be a shame to let the cat out of the bag so that the present would not be a surprise when the present giving day arrived.

Safety, privacy and security on the iPad

There are going to be perfectly valid reasons why you want to keep things completely quiet and to yourself. You can set up Safari so that you have private browsing. If you forget the private browsing facility that is available to you then you can also clear out the history, after the fact. So whether you like to dress up at the weekend, or you are buying presents for a loved one, rest assured that the iPad will keep your secret.This

One of the things that you’re bound to do at some point in time using your iPad, is to edit some text. Whether you are using the on-screen keyboard, an external Bluetooth keyboard or maybe you are dictating, you will want to make some changes. To make these changes you will need to select the text, one or two words or a whole paragraph, to do what you have to do. You could take a selection of text and easily delete it using the backspace key. If you’re working in something that is more than just a straightforward text application, such as the Apple Pages app, then you might want to apply some formatting.

Controlling your text app with your fingers

In your text application such as Nebulous Notes, Textastic, SimpleNote, Blogsy or my present favourite, which is Byword, you can double tap on a word to select it. The trick is to hold your finger on the screen on the second tap and move it to extend the selection. With this iPad tip or trick, you can quickly select the text in your document.

Selecting paragraphs in your text application on the iPad

In my tests I have found that there are some applications in which the trick of tapping three times to select the paragraph works fine and then with others it doesn’t. In Byword on the iPad you have to get the triple tap just right and sometimes it feels like it needs to have four taps to select the paragraph. In Apple Pages application the triple tap to select, works perfectly. While I was testing this in the application Textastic this selection trick does not work at all. That is not too big of a problem though, because there are other selection tools within that application.

How to select all text within the document

If you tap and hold then let go, you will see a pop-up with the choices of Select, Select
All and Paste. The paste option might not be there if you have nothing on your clipboard. So with this context sensitive menu that has popped up, you can easily select all of the text within your document.

With all of these amazing iPad tips and tricks for selecting text you have sufficient tools to be able to control your iPad text apps. You will be able to select text and then either delete it or format it in the iPad text application. These iPad text selection tricks are available across the board whether it be a free text app or one that you have paid for. You now know how to select all text.

Type in Blogsy

This is a test of the application called Blogsy which I’m going to do a review of and the quick run through of what the application is capable of. It is quite handy to have an application on your iPad that will let you do blog postings to platforms. I like to use WordPress but other people might like to use Posterous, Tumblr, Blogger or Joomla. You can even make a blog post to Squarespace.

It is easy to add text to your documents and you can also add photos and videos. The application does take a little bit of getting used to, in terms of how to get your pictures into the document. After you have done it once or twice you will find it very very easy. As the actress said to the Bishop….

You have the possibility of making the text bold, italics or underlined and you can set the formatting to be left justified or one of the other justifications of the text. you can set a paragraph to be header one, header two or header three, or whatever you want and you can even include a block quote. There doesn’t seem to be a way to have the text flow around an image, unless you go in and edit the HTML in the code side of the post.

To get started you need to set up the access to the blog and you can if you do that by adding a blog to the Blogsy application.