Muskoka Mac User Group

I thought Meg might appreciate this, especially with International Women’s Day coming up next month.

Here’s a nice explanation of DPI vs Screen Resolution. Lots of good info – for instance I didn’t know that PNG doesn’t store DPI info.

I found the following information on the AppleInsider website. I am copying the entire essay here. This makes me feel a whole lot better! I couldn’t imagine not being able to save documents somehow.

Friday, January 29, 2010
Apple reinventing file access, wireless sharing for iPad
By Prince McLean

Apple is dramatically rethinking how applications organize their documents on iPad, leaving behind the jumbled file system and making file access between the iPad and desktop computers seamless.

In a move foreshadowed by the Newton Message Pad fifteen years ago, Apple’s new iPad jettisons the conventional shared file system and introduces a new, streamlined convention for working with document files that ordinary users should find much more understandable.

Outside of savvy computer users, the idea of opening a file by searching through hierarchical paths in the file system is a bit of a mystery. Add in the concept of local and cloud file servers and things really get confusing.

Apple has already taken some steps to hide complexity in the file system in Mac OS X; Spotlight search was supposed to make a file’s location almost irrelevant, while apps such as iTunes, iPhoto, and Photo Booth now present their databases of content in media folders within the open file panel rather that forcing users to slog through the underlying file system.

The Finder, iTunes and iPhoto also allow users to wirelessly share content between different systems via Bonjour-discovered file shares that pop up automatically whenever another system sharing files is sensed on the network.

The iPhone similarly abstracts away the file system entirely; there is no concept of opening or saving files, just a media library of Photos and file attachments that stay connected to their mailbox items. But the iPhone currently isn’t designed to do much more than view files.

iPad’s new document sharing model

With the iPad, Apple demonstrated new multitouch versions of desktop-class iWorks apps with user interfaces that need to open and save documents. There’s still no file system browser with open and save panels. Instead, each app displays the files it knows about at launch for the user to navigate through directly.

An iPad developer has revealed to AppleInsider how this new mechanism works, without also requiring that users learn about the complexity of the underlying file system. Rather than iPad apps saving their documents into a wide open file system, apps on iPad save all their documents within their own installation directory. Delete the app and you’ll clean out all of its related files. This is how the iPhone OS already works.

Additionally, iPad apps can now specify that their documents be shared wirelessly. With that configuration, the iPad will make available each apps’ documents, allowing the user to wirelessly mount their iPad via WiFi and simply drag and drop files back and forth between it and their desktop computer.

On the desktop system, the iPad will show up as a share containing a documents folder for each app that enables sharing. For example, a user with iWork apps will be able to wirelessly connect to their iPad as if it were a directly connected drive, and simply drag spreadsheet, presentation, or word processing files between their local system and the mobile device as desired.

Documents copied to the app’s shared folder will be graphically presented by the app when it launches, sparing users from having to figure out where to look for their document files and avoiding any need to sort through different kinds of documents. The document listing also presents each file as a large preview akin to Quick View on the Mac OS X desktop.

And iPad app’s documents can be presented in any way that makes sense, depending on how many and what kind of documents the individual iPad app uses. Apple demonstrated its Work apps scrolling through a quick list of documents, while its iBooks app presents its various digital books as titles in a virtual bookshelf.

Just like the iPhone, the iPad will sync some apps’ documents via either iTunes or MobileMe, including photos, music, movies, TV shows, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks.

At the last meeting I mentioned an article I’d read about the iPad that posed some interesting questions which still are unknown about the iPad.

Here’s the link here. It was Infoworld not Macworld, thus my confusion.

The article seems a bit openly antagonistic, but the questions themselves are good ones. The iPad is really an interesting device – we’ll see how this plays out.

Incidentally, if anyone knows someone with a Kindle, Sony eReader etc. I could borrow please let me know so I can do a good job with my upcoming ebook presentation.

Hello Muskoka Mug meeting group.

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Hi folks:
February 8th is a busy day. We are all invited to attend the opening of the Mac Lab called “The Hub” at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Huntsville. In the evening we will have our regular Mac User Group meeting. Meg and Brian will make a report on the Hub. Meg provide an update to the proposal she presented at the last meeting. We have have a good look (as much as we can without actually having one to hold) at the iPad. And anything else that you bright and enthusiastic Muskoka Mac Users have to share. Here is the invitation from Jez. I will bring some video footage when I make my report.
Invitation