the GRIFFIN jumper sleeve arrived

After a little more than a week, the GRIFFIN jumper sleeve arrived today. At last the days of fear of dropping my iPad and scratching it badly are over ! The jumper sleeve costs USD 29.90 and the shipping to switzerland was only 8 USD. That's cheap compared to the outrageous shipping prices that I'm used to.

The jumper came in a spaceous cardboard box that had some flaky stuff inside it which ended up on the nice black material of the sleeve. I only got it off by using one of those sticky rollers that you can use to remove fuzz from a jacket. Unfortunately i took the pictures before I realized how much of this stuff was stuck on the outside - so all the little white dots you see in the pictures are now gone.

It is actually smaller than I thought it would be - it's only slightly bigger than the iPad - here's a picture of the iPad next to the jumper sleeve:

The quality of the sleeve seems to be pretty high with nice black neoprene material and white seams around the edges. It has a lid with a piece of cloth attached (with the GRIFFIN logo on it) which you have to pull pretty hard in order to open the sleeve to get your iPad out.

Sliding the iPad into the sleeve is easily done. The interior is white and made out of a very soft and "fluffy" material. I think my iPad will really enjoy spending some time in such a nice and cozy sleeve : )

Once you put the iPad in the sleeve, you have to almost use both hands to pry the flap back over the device. I guess with time it will get easier. 

On the other hand - you really want the flap to be as tight as possible so that it won't come open when you're walking down the street and your iPad goes flying into the gutter...

Here's the iPad in the sleeve compared to the size of my iPhone. I think I'll be quite happy with this sleeve until i find a professional and multipurpose flip case. I might add some more experience with this sleeve once I've been using it for a couple of days....


At first glance I'm giving this sleeve 4.5 out of 5 stars because i think it really looks good, the material is high quality and the interior is really soft and padded to protect the ipad, even if i happen to drop the sleeve. However, it does not have a separate little pouch for headphones or maybe the iPhone or even better: for the wireless keyboard.


Rating:

Air Video

Air Video from Inmethod allows you to stream media content from your mac or windows PC to your iPad. It is supposed to be able to share content in your private wireless network as well as over the internet. It requires a server component that needs to be installed locally on your computer and it does not support (DRM) content that was purchased in the iTunes store.

Installation - I just downloaded the server component from their website and then ran the software. It creates a little icon on the upper right corner of your OSX menu bar. I did have to go back to their site in order to download the latest beta version - but more on that later.

Configuration - You can configure the server in the "preferences" pane. Here you can either add one or more physical drives that you can share or you can add iTunes playlists. It does not matter if it's a regular or smart playlist. 

When I used it for the first time I defined one of my media drives as the source which resulted in a very loooong liste of files on my iPad. I quickly decided that this was not very usable so i created a couple of smart playlists in iTunes, for example a playlist that would list all movies within the genre "science fiction" or a playlist that would list all files for season 7 of the TV Show "24". This gave me a much nicer structure and also made it much easier to scroll through and find specific content.

At first, the Air Video server did not find any iTunes playlists. I had to download the latest beta release which fixes this particular problem.

Internet Sharing -  When i tried to activate the internet sharing features, i got a "double NAT detected" error message. I am currently using only one router connected to my cable modem and theoretically this should work just fine. I did not want to fiddle with my router settings just to get this feature working, so i could not test this particular feature. There's a whole section about this problem in the air video forums - but I've not been able to read it yet.

Performance - I did have some issues with HD video content with a very high resolution (1080p), which resulted in stuttering playback on the iPad. This could be due to missing ressources on either my iMac or on the network. Content at 720p resoluion or lower did play back just fine on the iPad. Server load on my iMac was at 50%. You can either choose "direct playback" or "on the fly transcoding". I always chose "direct playback" which worked just fine. My wireless network runs on an Apple Airport Express base station in G/N compatibility mode.

All in all it's a great product for just 2.99 USD ! Now i can sit next to my wife on the couch and watch the latest episode of "V" while she's watching Heidi Klum and her beautiful models...

Pros:

• You don't have to tediously sync content to your iPad anymore
• Works over the internet (although not for me)
• Even plays back content that does not come in the standard iTunes formats
• The interface is simple and elegant

Cons:

• Does not support content with DRM protection
• Does not support direct iTunes library integration - you have to manually add playlists. It would be nice if it would just attach itself to your iTunes library - like the Apple TV does

what apps am i missing the most ?

Front Row or Apple TV for my iPad - The Air Video App (see my upcoming review) is great, but it does not play content purchased in iTunes. Currently most of my media content is still ripped DVDs or material i did not get through iTunes (cough...cough) - but i'm slowly buying more content through iTunes and this will be a problem for Air Video.

Whats App Messenger - it would be great to have the same free SMS functionality on my iPad that i'm using every day on my iPhone. I tried to install the App on the iPad but it did not work.

to be continued....

the ipad dock

I'm not going to bore you with a two page review about a dock that's just, well, a dock. It's the only accessory I currently own, so that's what you're gonna get ! It only works in portrait mode and therefore restricts the usage of the ipad while it is being docked. I originally got two of these docks - one for my office and one that I would use at home. I think i am going to sell my dock once someone develops one that lets you somehow rotate the ipad in both portait and landscape modes.

Pros:

• it works in portrait mode
• it's heavy enough so that you don't have to worry about your iPad falling over

Cons:

• no landscape mode
• does not allow other devices with the same connector (iPhone, iPod) to dock, so you end up with ANOTHER dock on your desk

I'm giving this dock 2 out of 5 stars. Apple really should have put some more brains into designing this thing.

Rating:

I really need a case !

After using my iPad for two weeks i really feel that i urgently need some sort of case or sleeve. I looked around online and have decided that i first need some sort of soft and cheap sleeve. I ordered the Jumper Sleeve from Griffin Technologies

I'll probably also need some sort of flip case with an integrated solution to prop the ipad up while it's resting on my lap. I don't like the apple case and the reviews of the thing have not been all that great. I really like the Quirky Cloak case, but i'll wait until they have actual pictures and customer reviews of the case online, not just some pretty renderings.