So the new iPad now has voice dictation in Japanese.
You speak into it and it'll type the words.

I'll have to try it out next Friday

Also, I'm wondering how good manga and light novels will look on it.
If light novels are readable on the retina display, I'm sold. They require
reading the whole page vertically from top to bottom.

On the iPad 1, the kanji are too small and fuzzy when you shrink
the page to fit everything on the screen.

[s0apgun]

The iOS 5.1 update will be available today with Japanese SIRI.

chamcham Wrote:So the new iPad now has voice dictation in Japanese.
You speak into it and it'll type the words.

There is already the dragon naturally speaking app for iphone that does this... terribly. In its defense though my Japanese is not the best. I hope this turns out better

Dragon Naturally Speaking actually does an excellent. I've seen a guy test it in Spanish, Japanese, and English. Everything came out perfectly. He was using an iPhone.

juniperpansy Wrote:There is already the dragon naturally speaking app for iphone that does this... terribly. In its defense though my Japanese is not the best. I hope this turns out better

Don't you have to "train" it? At least that's what you do on the PC or Mac. I have a colleague who mumbles terribly and who uses Dragonspeak at work. Dragonspeak understands him a lot better than I do.

@chamcham
When you check it out please tell me how good PDFs look on the retina display. If it's good enough for reading on them I'm getting an iPad.

Norman Wrote:Dragon Naturally Speaking actually does an excellent. I've seen a guy test it in Spanish, Japanese, and English. Everything came out perfectly. He was using an iPhone.

I agree it works well for English.... but where did you see it tested? I'm pretty suspicious about 100% accuracy as
1)The desktop versioin doesn't do that
2)Japan has many words with the same proounciation but different kanji and meaning.

Curious anyone else try Dragon Naturally speaking for iphone? My accuracy is maybe 50% even for simple sentences...

@Irixmark - you dont train this version of DNS

So, what's the verdict then? Is iPad 3 a noticeable improvement over iPad 2 for manga?

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Hi shinsen, I don't read mangas on it, but the "Retina" iPad I'm sure will be a great improvement if you read PDFs on it. Some of the official apps that sell digital comics are also updated for Retina.

On the new iPad you can't see the pixel grid, at all. I mean it, hurts my eyes trying to see the pixels. Also before I sold the iPad 2, I had them side by side and the colours are much better. It isn't something you notice when you use the iPad 2, but when you can compare them side by side you can see the difference it's very clear.

I had them side by side, AND the iMac. The colours on the new iPad were identical to my iMac, whereas the iPad 2 had saturated skin tones (reddish tint), and also saturated blues. The iPad 3 has more subtle colours. My guess is that the pixel grid, with the space between pixels, darkens the overall image, and the colours are saturated to compensate for it.

Also because of pixel density, you get a slightly increased range of brightness (my impression anyway, it seemed to me late evening the lowest setting was slightly less bright than on iPad2).

For kanji and hanzi, clearly it is much finer, and you'll get a much nicer fonts in ebooks and Safari.

The question is: do you have high enough resolution PDFs if you get your mangas from the internet instead of an iOS app? If you use a Japanese manga iOS app (just guessing there are, I know there are for US comics), then it's very likely it was updated for Retina.

Also worth noting Siri and dictation is coming to iPad 2 & 3 with iOS 6, with support for Japanese and Chinese.

For me the upgrade was a no-brainer as I absolutely love this thing, and I only had to add the difference, while reselling the iPad 2.

One year down the line, I started using a bluetooth keyboard with it, with the iPad sitting in a nice stand when I'm at my desk. It's great to be able to edit notes in a Dropbox-enabled app, even when my computer is shutdown.

ファブリス Wrote:Also because of pixel density, you get a slightly increased range of brightness (my impression anyway, it seemed to me late evening the lowest setting was slightly less bright than on iPad2).

AnandTech has some charts comparing the black levels and brightness in case you're curious.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5689/the-n...analysis/3

juniperpansy Wrote:I agree it works well for English.... but where did you see it tested? I'm pretty suspicious about 100% accuracy as
1)The desktop versioin doesn't do that
2)Japan has many words with the same proounciation but different kanji and meaning.

Curious anyone else try Dragon Naturally speaking for iphone? My accuracy is maybe 50% even for simple sentences...

I don't get 100% but not far off sometimes. I wrote a lang-8 entry with it before. It probably depends on your accent. If you weren't nailing mora rhythm or your vowels were off, it'd probably be useless. Maybe pitch accent is an issue too. The desktop version probably has UK, US and Indian versions of English for that sort of reason. I try to do my best NHK announcer voice. If it didn't automatically add spaces to a language that doesn't use them and corrections weren't so painful, it might actually be usable.

Here's a demonstration for you:

Supposing i wanted to get a tablet for Japanese translation work / writing... would the iPad3 still be the right choice? Or would i be better off getting one of those transformer tablets with the keyboards?

IceCream Wrote:Supposing i wanted to get a tablet for Japanese translation work / writing... would the iPad3 still be the right choice? Or would i be better off getting one of those transformer tablets with the keyboards?

For creating content, a laptop is usually better than a tablet (I have an iPad and PC/MAC laptops). Tablets are all about consuming content (games, videos, pics, books, etc).

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The keyboard shouldn't be a big concern since you can get a nice Apple bluetooth keyboard that will work with the iPad 3. However keep in mind that you'll need a stand.

Or you can go for the Logitech keyboards that also acts as a stand or cover for the iPad. There are tons of keyboard solutions for iPad but imho they make it look rather bulky and not very nice, like a small laptop. This is why I went for a fairly pricey BookArc, but that's because it sits really nicely next to the iMac. The advantage of the Apple keyboard + free stand is that you can "dock" it quickly for a music player or rss check next to your main computer, and take it off easily to read on the couch..

Incase Origami is another option to hold the iPad and carry the bluetooth keyboard when travelling.

There are some nice perks with using an iPad keyboard: you can play/pause, skip tracks from any music or streaming app. You can change brightness, volume. And the best shortcut is basically when you press space it wakes up instantly to the last app that was used, without going through the slide-to-unlock feature. If the last app is a RSS Reader, for example, it will usually refresh feeds at that moment.

Cons

One thing that does not work on iPad + keyboard is it does not really offer any shortcuts for application features. It has shortcuts for typing like cut, copy, past, cursor keys, and so on. I imagine it will work just fine for typing in Japanese with the non-english keyboards. However you can not switch between apps. I think Apple purposefully does not offer apps a way to take advantage of the keyboard atm, to avoid turning the iPad in a laptop... though that didn't stop third parties from making tons of keyboard cases

If you want to "alt tab" on iPad you can enable the four finger gestures in General Settings. The gesture is fairly easy to use, swiping sideways you can quickly switch.

TLDR: On the iPad at this time you can do very efficient typing, however don't expect it to work exactly like a laptop, you'll still be touching the panel to switch between apps, and even in Pages to use bold/italic/etc. This may be something to consider if Android tablets do provide this functionality.

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chamcham Wrote:Tablets are all about consuming content (games, videos, pics, books, etc).

Primarily perhaps, but that's a cliché phrase from tech blogs.

After about a year I started to take simple journal style notes in Pages. Eventually I realized I wanted to do some edits on the iMac too, so I started looking into DropBox enabled apps like the free PlainText app.

The iPad IS a content creation device in many ways, and for typing text it's very capable. It is somewhat less efficient than a laptop when you need tons of alt tabbing, as described in my prev. post, and this is why, in fact, there are many apps designed with that in mind: quite a few apps offer a direct Wikipedia and web lookup within the text edit. Lots of apps also have Markdown and HTML support.

Have a look here for iOS Text editor comparison chart.

http://brettterpstra.com/ios-text-editors/

If that says anything, it's that the iPad is a potent content creation device, it's just not a true replacement for a laptop. The question is, will the Android tablet with keyboard be a replacement for the laptop?

PS: There are even apps that update web pages directly through SFTP, and blog platforms like WordPress.

PPS: And most obvious I didn't mention is that of course when you enable the bluetooth keyboard the virtual keyboard disappears, so you have the full view for the document. It's possible to toggle the virtual keyboard with the Eject key of the Apple bluetooth keyboard, with may be useful to enable some features that apps include on the keyboard's upper row, or perhaps linked to the IME?

One thing that I find really annoying now, is that I have to remember to turn off the bluetooth keyboard (faster on the keyboard itself than going through settings), everytime I take the iPad to my couch, because then I want to type a url in Safari and the virtual keyboard does not show up because the bluetooth connection works several meters away >_> This one is sooooo annoying !!

I just got my iPad 3. Any app suggestions?
Thus far the only exciting app I got is iBunkoHD for manga and Aozora Bunko novels.

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shinsen Wrote:I just got my iPad 3. Any app suggestions?
Thus far the only exciting app I got is iBunkoHD for manga and Aozora Bunko novels.

Get the AppShopper app it is really awesome to track new apps, you can make a wishlist and it'll notify you when price drops or even when it becomes free! It looks really great too. You can specifically search in it for Education or Productivity apps.

There's megatons of nice apps, if you have specific needs I can share some of my favs.

Otherwise, what I did in the first months, because there are so many cool things to learn on iPad, is get a free RSS Reader like MobileRSS, and then follow a few good blogs like AppAdvice and TouchArcade for games.

If you don't have a Google Reader account or are new to RSS, then Flipboard is a great alternative.

Also another great way to introduce yourself to feeds is feedly. It's great because it comes by default with a large set of popular feeds for Apple, Android, Tech, Gaming, etc.

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Also the new Podcasts app from Apple is out and you have to download it, it's free. You should be able to add subscriptions in there for audio and video podcasts in Japanese with a little bit of searching. Or I think you can add them through iTunes and then sync.

You may like Google Earth?

The Chrome browser just came out this weekend too, I always liked it's tabs better than Safari.

Connecting your Google credentials in General settings is very useful, you'll get notifications from Calendar for anything you setup in calender.google.com

Trunk Notes is a pretty awesome fully local wiki ! It's nuts, you can even insert Javascript and CSS in yoru pages. You'll really want a keyboard to use that kind of app though.

Obviously DropBox if you want to check some of your PDFs on the move... though there are tons of DropBox enabled apps that have more useful features.

Wikipanion or Simplepedia are nice Wikimedia apps which can remember your favorite pages and store them for offline use.

I started using InstaPaper as well, or you may like Pocket. Those let you save pages basically so you can read them later, but you'll be able to read them offline too.

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shinsen Wrote:I just got my iPad 3. Any app suggestions?
Thus far the only exciting app I got is iBunkoHD for manga and Aozora Bunko novels.

So are you happy about the resolution, how the japanese fonts come out?

Thanks for the info

i don't necessarily need a good switching between apps function, because i usually use an online word processor anyway. (unless i'm reallllly serious about writing, in which case i use a full screen app, so a no alt-tab option is great for concentration). I assume you can just use the touchscreen to switch between tabs on a web browser?

An iPad + external keyboard seems like the perfect solution really, and the incase origami looks great.

Is it easy to change between different IME's though? i do that often. (does this work just like on a laptop?) What about on the non-external keyboard too?

I'll still keep my laptop, but i'm out and about more often now, so it'd be sooo nice to have something that a.) has a decent battery life (no laptop i've ever had keeps its battery charged longer than 10-20 mins after a few months), b.) is easily portable and not heavy, and c.) does not leave scorch marks on my leg. So i'm fairly easily pleased, really.

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IceCream Wrote:I assume you can just use the touchscreen to switch between tabs on a web browser?

Yups, in Chrome which is just released, they have added a gesture that's not in Safari: touch and swipe from the left/right edge inwards to change tab. You can hold and then reorganize tabs. It has an incognito mode that's easier to use than Safari's, which I actually use often simply to clean up clutter from history and make history more useful (like random Google searches).

IceCream Wrote:Is it easy to change between different IME's though? i do that often. (does this work just like on a laptop?) What about on the non-external keyboard too?

Well let me see... First you go to General > Keyboards > International Keyboards. There you can add mutliple keyboards just like on Windows, including the emoji one (which I tested, has lots of Japanese cute icons, but those don't show on PC email). I see Japanese (Romaji) and Japanese (Kana) (+3 Chinese Simplified and 5 Chinese Traditional keyboards using "handwriting", "pinyin", "stroke", "cangjie" ,"zhuyin"... handwriting? whoah I'll have to try that..).

From there on, you see a special key on the virtual keyboard with a globe icon on it, which cycles between IMEs.

Oh interesting.. ok so as you type kana there is an additional bar with the matches where you can tap, or if you press space you see that it cycles through these, highlighting the items. Shift-Space goes back (on my bluetooth keyboard).

Oh sweet also you can switch IME from hard keyboard: Cmd + Space, Cmd + Shift + Space Shows a popup with IME's.

Well thanks I never really tried it before :p

So yeah seems to work pretty much like on laptop, plus you can tap possible matches instead of cycling with space.

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Btw there's quite a few other browsers than Safari and Chrome. I even learned recently you can hide one of Apple's apps by using the restrictions feature in General settings.

Also to switch apps I find the sideways swipe cumbersome because often times it'll switch to apps I don't want, unless you kill them manually.

So instead I tend to use the four finger upwards gesture, which has the same effect as double tap on the home button: it shows all your loaded apps and from there if you hold and tap "X" you can kill apps, but you can also directly tap another app, kinda like OS X's dock icons.

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shinsen Wrote:I just got my iPad 3. Any app suggestions?
Thus far the only exciting app I got is iBunkoHD for manga and Aozora Bunko novels.

One of my favorite recent purchase is Track 8, a really sweet looking music player with a Metro style interface. So much better than Apple's Music app :/ Only for your iTunes collection though. Groove 2 is another nice player that includes streaming, and discovery features.

excellent, thanks for checking that out!!! i'm totally sold!!!

now just gotta save up the money......... ><

Apps I use include:

Cloudreaders - FREE manga reader
Comic Glass - some say it's the best paid manga reader. The programmer is Japanese.
iAnnotate PDF - for reading/highlighting/adding notes to my PDFs. One of my main apps.
Dropbox - for storing files in the cloud
Anki - for SRS
Evernote - for notes stored in the cloud

I also have a TON of musical apps. Things like pianos, ear training, and rhythm training.