In my last post I surmised what the probable specs of an Apple tablet would be while also showing why Apple has a great shot at making it all work. But a tablet is only going to be as good as the software that runs on it and will only work if people see a use for it so this post is going to look at what the Apple tablet will do if it exists at all.

There are two rumours about the name of the tablet device... iSlate or Magic Slate. The latter actually is a better name in my not so humble opinion. But the name points to something bigger than just what it’s trying to name. The word “slate” conjures up the idea of a blackboard (screw you PC thugs) which of course gives the idea of writing. It’s this, mixed with the rumours about Apple’s iWork.com that provides the key as to what Apple is trying to achieve with the tablet.

Apple’s iWork application is a Mac suite in the same vain as Microsoft’s Office but it also has an online collaboration aspect since early 2009. The big problem with iWork.com was that it has been beta for the last year and also lacks many features but in its current form works well with the desktop application. iWork.com however may become more than just a collaboration tool for other iWork users. Currently you can share documents with Windows users by way of Word/Excel or PDF documents but no one can edit them online. There appears to be a move towards online editing in some form that resembles Google Docs but with a much more advanced interface a la MobileMe Mail. Throw in a mobile version of iWork for iPhone/iPod Touch/mythical tablet and you have document editing on the fly and access to documents on the fly and you’ve got a documentation system that can give you the information wherever you are whenever you need it.

Documentation on portable devices has often been poorly done with some exceptions. Documents To Go has long been a favourite of mine since the days when I had a Palm and I currently use it on my iPhone as well because it is such a nice tool to be able to edit documents on the fly and then synch back. The big problem I have with Documents To Go is that it doesn’t support the iWork format which is what I use all the time for my document editing, especially spreadsheets which I often use. It also requires a separate application to transfer those documents onto my iPhone and back again. If Apple produced a mobile version of iWork that stored everything on iWork.com then you’d eliminate the need for synching all the time because it would just work on documents stored online (a backup would be stored on the local machines though for security).

The other facet of documentation will more than likely come from Apple getting into Books. Amazon has the Kindle and Sony has the eBook Reader and there is another device called the Nook but these are single purpose devices that aren’t really that nice to use. On the iPhone there are great apps like Classics which has a beautiful interface that feels like you’re actually reading a book but there is also Stanza, BookShelf, Eucalyptus all of which have nice interfaces. I like Classics because it doesn’t feel like a computer program and that’s the problem with reading on a screen. It doesn’t move like paper it moves like a long list of text and if you’ve ever read a long list it gets tiresome and boring and you switch off. Classics however has an animation when you turn the page and the text doesn’t scroll so it really feels like you’re reading a book. Now, if Apple developed something similar and had books as purchase options from the iTunes store then Apple would have conquered the entire media sector. This isn’t a bad thing because it would force competitors to buck up their ideas instead of being stagnant in their approaches to things, especially media. Now while a device like a tablet will never replace physical books and papers and magazines it does give people more than over priced options (I mean how many books really are worth $30?) and therefore people would buy more. It happened with music and movies so there’s nothing to suggest it won’t happen with books.

But it won’t stop there. It seems to make sense that Apple will release mobile versions of the iLife suite as well. Imagine a keyboard on the screen that lets you make music in GarageBand wherever you are. Imagine being able to blog in iWeb wherever you are (handy for my site). Imagine editing your videos or keeping all your photos organised wherever you are all from a mobile device rather than carrying around a bulky laptop or being forced to do that sort of work when you get back to your desktop.

The potential for a tablet device really is huge but it needs to be done well. Apple has experience in turning sloppy technology into game changers as can be seen with the iPod, iPhone, and iPod Touch. But Apple is a software company above all else, it just happens to make the hardware that goes with it. As such Apple’s software is screaming out for a mobile outing which I think Apple will deliver on. When it delivers it will show Microsoft, Palm and Google how cloud based computing should be done. This comes not because I’m a Mac fanboi or anything like that but because of pure hard evidence. Apple has time and time again changed the way we interact with the media we have today and I can’t wait to see what this year has in store for us.

I was under a Non-disclosure agreement so couldn't say much about what I saw in Kuala Lumpur related to Acrobat 9, but the big emphasis with the next version of Acrobat (announced yesterday) is multimedia...without a doubt!

In particular, the digital ePortfolio functionality of their Acrobat Professional product is staggering...considering this is all delivered in a PDF...just writing that staggers me...I never saw PDF as a multimedia delivery platform at all.

I won't go into detail here, but instead point those interested to....

Greetings from Singapore. I started this post on a fairly state-of-the-art bus just outside of Kuala Lumpur, with my laptop plugged in to the power adaptor provided at every seat...and am finishing it in a hotel in Singapore with free wi-fi access. Why is it that when you go to amazingly expensive hotels they charge you for broadband, but drop down to a cheaper location overseas and access is often free!?

I'm on a 5-day holiday in Singapore, after being invited to attend and present at the Adobe Education Leadership Forum in Kuala Lumpur. It was a real delight and honour to be invited to present and I was amazed by the conference. My thanks to Adobe.

It was a delight to meet so many people from the Asia-Pacific region, but even more so, to meet so many important people from Adobe. I'm not trying to patronising when I say that...the people I met from Adobe were people with significant roles in many of the applications that were being discussed, and we also got to see a sneak peek at Acrobat 9 (sorry, we had to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement so can't say much) and learn more about the next version of Adobe Connect and Adobe Presenter. My presentation was about these two functionalities (part of the Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional server system) that I introduced into Massey University and have responsibility for.

The effort they put in to entertaining us meant that we were very well looked after. Of course I had to take advantage of the shopping in KL and am now the proud owner of a completely fake and unnecessary Rolex that cost me around $28 NZ and three DVDs that cost around $2.40 each. One of the most amusing discussions was with a stall owner over what type of DVD I would like....I was offered a cheap version of a movie filmed by a camera in the cinema, a slightly better DVD quality version or the full featured DVD we'd mostly expect.

It wasn't until I got back to the hotel and looked at the cover of one of the DVDs that I cracked up. It is a very recent movie, but the cover states that Siskel and Ebert (famous Film Critics in the U.S.) gave the movie two thumbs up.....which is pretty amazing considering Siskel died in 1999!! I've not actually tried the discs as I think just the cost was hilarious, so I'm not overly concerned if I've been done.

Last night we visited a well-known plaza for IT gear and a chap from Adobe came with us.....we kept hassling him as to what he would do if he found illegal Adobe products on sale, and he commented he'd be even more surprised if it was a future release. As it was, software was scarce as it was all hardware.

I did see a number of authorised  Apple dealers selling genuine products, as well as a few iPhones for sale for about $740 NZ....I didn't buy one. But what surprised me the most was a few shops claiming to be an Apple resellers, with iPod lookalike products in their window. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of them, but they looked like old and new Nanos, as well as shuffles...complete with the menu and click wheel layout.

I can't really go into detail on what we saw with regards Acrobat, but I'm thoroughly impressed with what is coming. PDFs are something that have always been on the periphery of my interest. I use them, make them...and even 4 years ago read a 500 page book about how you could use Acrobat. I was amazed....but hardly did much with the possible functionality beyond that point. That started to change recently when I started playing with the embedding of multimedia in to PDFs (yes, that's right...multimedia into PDFs) and things in that area are going to advance considerably in the next version.

What really impressed me with the Adobe staff was their enthusiasm for their products and the understanding of the education needs of the institutions that were present...and their absolute willingness to listen. This perhaps couldn't  have been highlighted to me any more significantly by being asked by someone heavily involved with the development of Adobe Presenter (a PC only plugin to PowerPoint that enhances presentations significantly) to sit and chat for 45 minutes at the end of the conference on what I would like to see come out in the version after the next (the next version about to come out soon).

Do you get the significance of that? That's the equivalent of someone at Apple asking me to sit down and spend 45 minutes saying what changes I'd like to see in Keynote!

The depth of organisational detail and the desire of the Adobe staff to communicate, chat and debate their software in an open, friendly, fun and professionally rewarding way, was worth the trip alone.

So thank you Adobe. The invite, the organisation, the conference, the company, the food, the fun, the contacts I hope will be established and the valuable discussions all just staggered me.

Wow Adobe.....keep up the amazing good work. I'm looking forward to what you're bringing out next!!

It's easy to blame Apple or the movie industry for not having movies on the iTunes Store despite having it for a year or so. It's a little more complicated than that and I think it's a shame because it's forcing the movie industry to make very very bad movies.

There's a couple of flaws in the views of Phil's. Firstly to say that the timeline allows more power is actually not true, in fact quite the opposite. While iMovie '06 does allow for a better volume adjustment, the fact that it only allows for two audio tracks + whatever audio is in the video means it is woefully inadequate.

OK, Darryn and I have been having a bit of a discussion about iMovie 08 and Final Cut Express within the blog area. I wanted (through the use of state-of-the-art images...I joke!) explain what I mean about the issue related to the way of working (note - I had a habit of saying 'anology' when I should have said 'metaphor' in my last post).

There's one phrase in Darryn's reply that really struck a chord. And for me, it sums up my surprise and concern at what Apple has done....

"iMovie has about as much to do with Final Cut (Express) as tomatoe sauce has to do with a rock."

I'll come back to that comment later, but first there are some things that I want to respond to that I disagree with in Darryn's comments. Most notably, the issue of timeline use in iMovie.

I'm only just starting to get to play with the copy of Final Cut Express 4 that Apple recently sent me. I decided to start by taking a quick look at the Apple site to find out what had changed, and one page really caught my eye. Take a look at this page...

http://www.apple.com/finalcutexpress/

On the page about what is new is a movie showing how you can import iMovie '08 projects into FCE. Take a good look at it and what struck me the most was how different the "way of working" (for want of a better term) is between these two applications.