ipad ?

Hi,

Just was wondering if there would an official publishing of the Ars Magica books for the ipads ?

I am seriously considering purchasing one and it will mostly depend whether it can reads PDfs or not...

Anyway its not out yet in my country, so it can wait.

François

There's a list of things it can't do, but I'd be surprised if it can't display PDF documents. Personally, I'm happy to wait for a Windows-based iPad-alike. That way I'll have more options at my fingertips than just what Apple tell me.

You mean a Tablet PC?

Nearly. Slim it down to just the screen and get rid of the optical drive etc. and that's about what I want. If anybody knows of a windows device like that please let me know as I'd be keen to get one.

No plans to do so, nor things specifically for the Kindle if anyone is curious. I would expect that the iPad would be able to view the PDFs that we do offer for sale, but I'm no expert on its technical details.

What triggered the question was this :

Deep Ones for iPad

Are you an early adopter? If you're one of the first to acquire a brand new Apple iPad, may we recommend an app to you: the official licensed iPad rendition of Where the Deep Ones Are, available now for only 99 cents!

You can also get the lower-resolution version for the iPhone, also only 99 cents and available now.

So I asked :wink:

François

The iPad screen is not very large, so reading a .pdf of an Ars Magica book will be a bit difficult, although I haven't actually tried it yet.

If you want a windows version, check out the HP Slate
engadget.com/2010/04/05/hp-s ... r-battery/

Also, Google is rumored to be creating their own version.

Cheers!

Yeah, I found that one. Smaller screen, but still very tempting. And I use an Android phone so I'm interested to see an Android tablet/slate. But for flexibility I think I'd prefer the Windows option. But it's going to be an interesting space. Really useful for gaming!

The slate is half the size of the ipad, how can you say it might be better ?

I did not say Iphone, I said Ipad :wink:

Ipad size : 24 cm per 18 cm, which is perfect to display A4 full size...

More I look at it more I like it !

François

Apple generally get the hardware about right, but it's hampered (in my opinion) by running an Apple OS. It means I don't have the flexibility of installing my own software on it or some standard windows apps that I enjoy (Firefox, Metacreator, for two examples).

But as a concept, taking the tired old tablet PC on to the next level, I think it's great and the wider industry will owe it a debt of gratitude.

Metacreator could be ported to the ipod family, but getting aproved to be distributed in the apple stores in an expensive process.

F.

That's the size of the whole thing.

The ipad screen only has a diagonal of 9.7 in. A piece of A4 has a diagonal of 14.3 in.

If the screen has the same aspect ratio as the actual ipad, that means that there is only about 294 square cm of display space. By comparison a piece of A4 has 623 square cm of display space.

So, the display is about half the size of a piece of A4.

Only A5 in size? I thought it would be larger. An A5 piece is quite small for what it is supposed to be used for.... Good for books, but for other documents (including PDFs) it is less than perfect....

Xavi

That seems to be the size of the actual display (I'm just going by the reported specifications). Of course, most A4 documents don't actually use the whole piece of paper --- there is lots of marginal white space (and/or a border). So, if you reformat your document to have no marginal white space (and get rid of the border), then what was originally an A4 document should look fine.

So, for an ArM5 pdf you would need to get rid of the fancy border (or zoom in the display) so that you are just looking at the text within the border. How easy it is do that, is another question.

True :slight_smile: Shouldn't be too difficult. An ipad is likely to have the functionalities of the smaller devices (iphone and other "touch" phones with screens) and they allow you to zoom in and move the page around. I am still surprised that the screen is so small, though.

Xavi

Where di you get your numbers from ?

Height:9.56 inches (242.8 mm)
Width:7.47 inches (189.7 mm)
Depth:0.5 inch (13.4 mm)

(source : http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/ )

OK display size, 9.7.

BUT !

It's a ipad, based on the iphone, you rotate the whole thing and just read the A4 holding the ipad horizontally.

When using a character sheet you rarely read the entire thing at once.

François

I got numbers from the same place you did.

Look at the picture on that page. Yes, the whole thing is about the size of an A4 (actually it is a bit smaller and closer to B5). However, that big black border on the front is not screen. The screen is just the bit inside the border, which is much smaller, and, as they say, has a diagonal of only 9.7 in.

A piece of A4 has a diagonal of 14.3 in.
A piece of A5 has a diagonal of 10.1 in.

Sure, you can presumably display half an A4 in landscape. But that's not quite the same thing as displaying an entire A4 page.

I will borrow one and try :stuck_out_tongue:

Ill see if it works or not :wink:

François

Playing with one ipad right now. Does what I wanted with my arm 3/4 pdfs.

If only we could have all the ArM5 book in PDF format (with text in them) it would be a dream come true.

Well, as you can read, it works for me.

Just have to wait for 3 weeks for the official release.

François