iPads Now Clearly a Platform to Pay Attention To
July 4th, 2010
I got an iPad a couple of days ago. I decided that it’s important to pay attention to the iPad as a browsing and e-book reading platform. Google analytics for the PFRE blog shows that 2% of the PFRE blog traffic is already from iPad users. Probably a more significant fact is that the traffic from iPad users doubled in the month of June. The first iPad user accessed the PFRE blog on April 3. I guest this is not surprising if Apple is selling and iPad every 3 seconds.
My primary motivation for purchasing an iPad was to see how my e-books that I distribute in PDF form look on the iPad and how PDF files are handled on the iPad in general and to decide if I need to distribute my e-books in ePub (the standard iPad e-book format) in addition to PDF format.
I have to say that so far I am generally pleased by how the iPad handles PDF files. The free iBooks app that comes with the iPad handles PDFs nicely except for the fact that hypertext links in PDFs don’t work like they do on a Mac or PC. You can easily get PDFs into the iBooks App via e-mail or by dragging the PDF into iTunes on your Mac or PC.
The native ePub format on the iPad has some nice benefits:
- The ePub format supports Hypertext links.
- The ePub format has a nice table of contents that you can click on a chapter name and go straight to that chapter.
- The text flow of ePub documents is easy to read. You can change the font size and font.
I’m thinking that in the future I will move towards distributing e-books in both PDF and ePub format since the ePub format on the iPad has many nice features.
I was dismayed to see that the PFRE blog has some wacky behavior when viewed on the iPad. The little ad JPEGs along the top don’t work very well and the Woopra link doesn’t work right on the iPad. Looks like I have some work to do to get things presentable for iPad users. I think it is time to start paying attention to how sites look on the iPad. More and more of your traffic is going to be coming from these devices.
6 Responses to “iPads Now Clearly a Platform to Pay Attention To”
Milton July 5th, 2010 at 5:01 am #
Love my iPad!!
It’s now a just a normal part of my daily life.
I’ve used it to show clients and agents the photos I have taken and often use it as a portfolio outlet. I’m syncing a “best of” folder from LR to it so it’s always up-to-date.
My wife is getting sick of me buying new gadgets though…cameras, lens, iMac, iPhone, 405 head, all my new software..Dxo, LR3, CS5…when is this going to stop she asks??
Uuurrhhh…..when the money stops rolling in…….:-)
But, boys have gotta have toys…
Anton July 5th, 2010 at 8:46 am #
You don’t need to buy an iPad to test your stuff..
You can get access to Apple’s iPad SDK simulator @
http://developer.apple.com/ipad/sdk/
Costs you $100. Also great to take screenshots or screenrecordings.
iPhone SDK is free.
marcus July 5th, 2010 at 10:28 am #
Or you could go to PCWorld and check your sites on their ipads
It’s a sleek little gizmo, but overpriced for what it can do IMO. But like Larry says, we need to make sure our sites show well on them… better get on and sort mine out then !
Jeremy Berg July 6th, 2010 at 4:25 am #
You can even have 360 panoramas on an iPad or iPhone. You do not need to have an app to see them, you can have them automatically conform to your viewers browser, so they are flash if you have it or JavaScript if you are on an iDevice! By using krpano’s latest JavaScript software you can use the same source image to have both formats created.
You can see examples on my website and also krpano’s site.
larry July 6th, 2010 at 8:01 pm #
@Milton- You have to educate your wife that all this equipment and software you have are TOOLS of your trade, not TOYS:)
Andrew Hughes August 26th, 2010 at 1:31 pm #
Larry – the new iWork Pages feature may be the answer for getting your e-books into the ePub format – see:
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/08/26/apple-brings-epub-export-to-pages-with-iwork-9-0-4/