the tablet war is heating up

[Fast Learner]

Well, there are already cards that do that at gas stations (and the like) that do swipe payments. That's something I'd like to see more of. But also quite different than transferring music files and such.

It's not different at all, other than the fact that proximity cards are dumb while NFC (near field communication) objects are smart. They use the same basic technology (magnetic induction between two loop antennas) and NFC has a peer-to-peer mode for transferring data between two devices, supporting speed of 424 kbits/second (double that is available but not common). If that speed is insufficient, they can also be used to create near-instant bluetooth pairings to quintuple that.

It is very likely that Apple will have NFC in the iPhone 5 this fall. It's likely that they'll provide this kind of data transfer, at which point 3rd party manufacturers will hop all over it.

 

[falcarrion]

Yes, these are all reasons why it's not fantasy. How long until something is created that will be affordable is the problem. 5 years? 10 years? That's a long time.

The wireless wifi hard drives already exsist. Apple already has a couple that work with time Machince in Mac OS X Leopard.

Fiducials are already being used by Surface customers.

You could very well see this within the next year or two.

 

[falcarrion]

Look at what I just found.
AirStash: wireless flash drive + pocket media server + SD adapter for iPhone, iPod touch & iPad

 

[John Crichton]

Well and good. I'll believe it when I see it and it's easy to use.

Also, the lack of Flash is cheezing me off more than I thought it would on the iPad 2. I play a decent amount of Dragon Age: Legends and it's a no go. Yeesh.

However, I do love goodreader for PDFs. Much faster rendering compared to iBooks.

 

[IronWolf]

However, I do love goodreader for PDFs. Much faster rendering compared to iBooks.

goodreader was one of the first things I bought for the iPad. Great purchase makes my PDF collection the most useful it has ever been!

 

[falcarrion]

I have to agree on Goodreader. Though I do have another pdf reader so I can switch between the two if needed.

 

[IronWolf]

I have to agree on Goodreader. Though I do have another pdf reader so I can switch between the two if needed.

Is Stanza the other one you are using?

 

[falcarrion]

Is Stanza the other one you are using?

no. pdf pro

 

[Fast Learner]

Remember that iBooks will also display PDFs: if all I'm going to do is just read it and don't intend to make notes, bookmark it, etc., I sometimes use iBooks because the reading interface can be nicer (depending on the PDF format).

This is why I particularly love Dropbox: launch the app, grab a pdf out of your space in the cloud, and then send it to whatever app you'd like. No need for iTunes or anything else. Because Dropbox keeps a local copy (unless you tell it not to), if it turns out to not be a good pdf for the app you sent it to, you can simply send it to another.

On my iPad Dropbox offers to send my pdfs to Pages, GoodReader, iBooks, Bluefire Reader, PlainText, iA Writer, and Textastic, since all of those apps have registered as things that can, in some way, display PDFs.

 

[IronWolf]

Dropbox is great. It was good for between computer syncing and it is just as cool with the iPad.