Feature Questions/ponderables (fonts, annotating, subtitles, templates, etc)

[samcraig]

1. I see in iWork Pages - you can select fonts and have choices. Interesting. Raises the question - how will you add/manage fonts. Or will they be a fixed menu without the ability to add more?

2. Annotating eBooks and/or copy/paste into a document. Say I've downloaded Fodor's guide to Spain and I'm taking a trip. I want to copy/paste selections I want to make note of from the book. Possible? If not - I see this as a quick/easy fix coming down the pike. At the very least, they should be adding annotations/highlighting of passages.

3. With the benefits of multi-touch - why hasn't Apple (yet) added the ability to touch one email and then one several below to be able to delete a range of emails instead of one by one and then clicking delete. Surely this isn't a real technical challenge. I hope to see this in a soon-to-be-release OS update.

4. As of now with movies (with the guided tour) interesting that they didn't indicate any features like subtitles, language selection and/or multi audio-tracks (directors commentary?).

5. Based on the Guided tour it "appeared" that Keynote was scaled down in that the templates available LOOKED abbreviated compared to what's available on the full version. Could Pages/Keynote only have a select # of templates. Will you be able to add/manage which templates are available. Interesting in "ponder." on this one.

6. Typing. How fast and responsive will it actually be. Not to be a negative nelly (sincerely). But the demo as part of the guided tour wasn't impressive. The person typing (and I do believe the screen shots were in post-production and not really live) wasn't typing at all what I would consider a decent speed. I am sure with a bluetooth keyboard it will be no problem. But touch typing - how fast is fast?

Just a few things noted...

 

[sfwalter]

Sadly iBooks doesn't have the ability to annotate in version 1.0. Nothing from the UI suggests that you will be able to, plus I would expect Apple to talk about this feature if it exists.

This is really going to hurt the text book market, unless textbooks are delivered in some other format and not thru iBooks.

I believe this isn't so much as an iBooks problem as it is the ePub format. I know Kindle users who actually have a Kindle device can annotate. So hopefully the iPad kindle reader will allow the ability as well.

 

[Night Spring]

3. With the benefits of multi-touch - why hasn't Apple (yet) added the ability to touch one email and then one several below to be able to delete a range of emails instead of one by one and then clicking delete. Surely this isn't a real technical challenge. I hope to see this in a soon-to-be-release OS update.

How do you propose to differentiate between someone wanting to select an entire range from the first email to the one several below, and someone just wanting to select two emails a few emails apart?

 

[samcraig]

How do you propose to differentiate between someone wanting to select an entire range from the first email to the one several below, and someone just wanting to select two emails a few emails apart?

Simple - touch and hold the first - then click on the next one. Or touch and hold and it pops up "delete | range" or something similar and then you click the end range.

Surely you're not suggesting it can't be done...

 

[Night Spring]

Simple - touch and hold the first - then click on the next one. Or touch and hold and it pops up "delete | range" or something similar and then you click the end range.

Surely you're not suggesting it can't be done...

Agreed that it can be done, but coding an extra gesture or menu like the ones you suggest takes *some* work. I guess it's just not a priority on Apple's todo list at the moment.

 

[anthonymoody]

I *believe* the number of templates was stated for each of the 3 iWork app videos. Don't recall offhand. 16-ish?

 

[samcraig]

Think it will be expandable? What about fonts?

 

[anthonymoody]

No idea. For me it doesn't matter at all though I recognize others may have different needs/wants.

I can't recall ever having used a template. Even the most complex financial models I built (in a prior life) I did from scratch. And Word/Pages docs I either bang out letters from scratch, or work on a script in Final Draft which automagically formats everything.

Wow - automagically is accepted by spellchecker.

As for fonts, same deal - it's classic 80/20 for me.

 

[Arnia]

A quick search for 'iPad fonts SDK' on Google revealed this: http://twitpic.com/18qhp4

I imagine therefore that apps can support custom fonts in some fashion; not sure about allowing user customisation/installation though. I'm personally just hoping that Mobile Safari will enable @font-face support .

 

[Bodhi395]

6. Typing. How fast and responsive will it actually be. Not to be a negative nelly (sincerely). But the demo as part of the guided tour wasn't impressive. The person typing (and I do believe the screen shots were in post-production and not really live) wasn't typing at all what I would consider a decent speed. I am sure with a bluetooth keyboard it will be no problem. But touch typing - how fast is fast?

I'm also interested in how typing will be on the ipad. I think its a VERY important aspect, and could be a make or break as to whether its widely adopted.

I want to use my ipad to blog, and am hoping that the keyboard is functional enough that I can lay on my couch and write on my blog for awhile, but I'm just not sure until I get one in person.

I'm leaning towards it not being that great, merely based on the fact they've made the optional keyboard accessory, showing that Apple thinks you can't type that easily or for long periods of time on the ipad touch keyboard.

We'll see in the next few weeks.