DDI and IPAD

[Prism]

Not to be rude, but how do you know how powerful the iPad processor is? It's developed in-house. It's certainly true that ARM processors as found in your typical mobile device are slower than the Atom processor found in a current netbook. It's also almost certainly true that the A4 is ARM-based.

I meant an atom is considerably more powerful than a handheld device ie phone which is why people might assume it was going to be slow in comparison. Personally I agree with you - there is no way or need to compare since they arr running totally different operating systems.

Edit: and yeah, what you said about apps actually existing. I mean, as much as I'd love to get fully indexed D&D ebooks, I don't expect I will. I would not get one of these purely for D&D; if I do get one, the nice iPlay4e and Compendium functionality is just gravy.

Thats the main point for me. I can see this being good for a number of other uses. if I was to use it for D&D I can no real benefit over my current netbook but lots of downsides in that I lose all my .NET and Java apps. As far as I can tell there are no combat trackers for iphone, no D&D pdfs and no other apps that I am aware of. Iplay4e is good but I can do that already and might not always have access to wireless. Its a shame really that for such a good bit of hardware and OS its currently pretty useless for me.


My other non D&D uses ie work requires me to use microsoft software so it doesn't help me much there either. (I get my content delivered to me via onenote and silverlight)

 

[Thanlis]

I meant an atom is considerably more powerful than a handheld device ie phone which is why people might assume it was going to be slow in comparison. Personally I agree with you - there is no way or need to compare since they arr running totally different operating systems.

Oh, we're totally on the same page, yeah. Sorry! I am personally not making any real bets on speed till I get my hands on one, because what really matters is speed for the stuff any individual user cares about.

There are a couple of combat trackers for the iPhone, but nothing that really excites me. The iPlay4e combat tracker might be awesome, given the general quality of their work, but I've learned not to buy hardware for software that isn't out yet. I'm an Apple fanboy, but I didn't get an iPhone the first day either.

 

[Vicente]

I am a heavy TabletPC user (I have a convertible HP tx2500z, an old model without multitouch support), and I love it. When I was looking to replace my old laptop (a high end Dell), I was very sure I wanted a TabletPC because I would use it mostly for:

- Give conferences
- Take notes in meetings or for my random ideas

For both things, a TabletPC performs beautifully: drawing in a powerpoint you are presenting helps a lot when talking or explaining things, and OneNote is probably one of the best products I have found to organize my notes and ideas. I also use it a lot when I'm DMing.

I have used it for a lot of other things, and with Windows 7 it works like a charm (W7 support for writting, touch, and speech is superb, and more if you are a native english speaker).

Really, in my opinion, they may not sell very well, but it's because they cover a specific market, not because they are bad gadgets themselves.

 

[OchreJelly]

As an early adopter I'm here to say I've browsed the compendium with the iPad.

Navigating the insider site works generally pretty well on the iPad. I'm surprised by how much I like the software keyboard for entering my user and pw. It took much less of an adjustment over my iPhone for pretty obvious reasons. Nonetheless, the homepage of DDI looks nice, the carousel rotation displays nicely (I figured that it was going to be Flash but I guess not).

I was very hopeful when I got to the compendium itself and performed a random search. I searched on hobgoblins and clicked on a result. The "thickbox" style overlay displays. I figure these are javascript controls so ipad safari should have no problems with it. True enough the display popped. I could pinch-scale the stat block nicely or rotate it. The JS pagination controls work, as does the close button.

All in all it's a very nice experience. The wifi is super responsive. I can totally see it being a good table-side asset as I'm able to search on compendium entries very quickly.

I haven't messed with the iBook much yet. It comes preloaded with one book: Winnie-the-Pooh. It looks pretty amazing. If wotc gets on board with this and offers iBook versions of DND books I will be a happy camper.

Let me know if you have other questions.

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

Have you tried reading PDFs on it yet? I'd be interested to know how it behaves.

Also - can you delete podcasts from the iPad without having to sync through iTunes.

 

[Thanlis]

Also - can you delete podcasts from the iPad without having to sync through iTunes.

Entire podcasts, or individual episodes? You can delete individual episodes on the iPhone, so I would assume you can on the iPad.

Edit: regarding PDFs, see this thread. People seem quite happy. I played with an iPad briefly this morning and I'm not surprised; the screen is really lovely.

 

[OchreJelly]

Yeah the UI is pretty similar. Of note, you can specify which apps you want independent of iphone / touch apps or you can just say "give me everything". It's smart enough not to install apps that won't work (like "Red Laser" which requires the camera).

I haven't tried PDFs yet. Will try it out later.

 

[Prism]

Is there a remote control app that would allow you to acces character builder on a pc over wireless?

 

[abetterway]

Is there a remote control app that would allow you to acces character builder on a pc over wireless?

Yes, there is already a VNC application and I am sure there will be others soon.

I will have to give that a shot.

Kyle

(sent from my iPad)

 

[darjr]

well, that's a great idea.