I found it a bit annoying not to use my current printer with my iPhone or iPad after the new 4.2 software update. Apparently the feature will only work with HP ePrint printers and I didn’t want to buy a new one since I had an Epson multifunction printer connected to my iMac. A google search for a workaround turned up a tip on Steven Troughton-Smith’s blog but that required hunting around and finding a pre-release version of 10.6.5, finding and replacing the files.

However I found a better solution with a bit more searching… AirPrint Hacktivator! Launch the app, click the On button, delete and re-add the printer and that’s it! As you can see from the screengrab above it works perfectly!

Twitter released their free app for both the iPhone and iPad and it’s my favourite client by a long shot. As a matter of fact I haven’t had so much fun going through my Twitter feed since Tweetie on my Mac.

Well no wonder! They’ve both been written by Loren Birtcher, formerly of apebits the company which he formed to write Tweetie, amongst other software. Twitter bought Tweetie from apebits in April and Loren has been working with the team on an official app since then.

There have been lots of grumbles about the fact that it doesn’t have a unified timeline but that’s one of the reasons I prefer it over Twitteriffic. I like having my follows, mentions and DMs as separate timelines and the app keeps my position within those different views whenever I switch. The UI itself is fluid and very responsive. Tapping on a tweet with a link slides the web viewer over from the right and stacks it over the feed like so.

If a tweet contains a link to a video the app doesn’t lock the timeline and you can still scroll up and down the feed as it loads. The app has some other nifty gestures as well. Pinching any tweet will show the author’s profile and dragging an entry down will display the conversation associated with it.

Twitter for iPad and iPhone is free in the App Store.

The screen on the iPhone 4 is just absolutely, incredibly, indescribably beautiful. It’s compulsive viewing, well once you change the horrible default water drops wallpaper! I tried lots of minimalist graphics and wasn’t satisfied until I settled on The Grid.

Nice, no? The image above is 50% of the actual iPhone 4 resolution. Click on it to see the graphics at 100%.

For my iPad I’ve been cycling through a lot of wallpaper from 50ft shadows. Currently here are my lock and home screens.

As for my iMac I set my Desktop preferences to choose at random some of my favourites from 50ft shadows including this one.

Enjoy!

Photo credit: mkniebes

My brother Mahmood was right. When I asked him to describe the iPad he bought 6 weeks ago he replied by saying that it’s the computer we’ve all been waiting for. Conceptually, I understood what he meant yet practically I didn’t have a clue. Until My iPad arrived. Barely a day after its arrival it’s the last thing put down at night and the first thing picked up in the morning.

I half-heartedly put my MacBook Pro up for sale a couple of weeks ago. It’s a beautiful, fast and powerful laptop and the best portable computer I had ever owned and yet it feels like a dinosaur the more I use the iPad. Yes yes I know, there’s no Photoshop, Illustrator, Final Cut Pro, Nuke, Shake or Smoke apps but I honestly don’t care. I have access to all of those applications and more at work and my new iPad is just so… joyous to use. I haven’t been so excited, enthused and enthralled with a new piece of tech since the iPhone appeared.

Speaking of which, the iPhone feels so cramped and claustrophobic to use now! The spacing between the apps! Constantly scrolling around! I never thought I would say this about the iPhone but the iPad makes it look inferior.

These are my impressions and it was interesting to see how others responded to the iPad at work. The reactions varied from WOW I WANT ONE to a bewildered “but this netbook does more than your expansive toy” refrain. Strangely reminiscent of the Mac-Windows war, which strikes me as completely irrelevant now.

Welcome to the future.

A friendly smiling UPS man rang our doorbell this morning with two very special packages. I just managed to switch Gillian’s iPad on and sync it with her iTunes but oh my God is it breathtaking! Can’t wait to get home tonight and dive right in!

Our iPads should arrive on Friday and this is the first thing I’m buying!

YES!

MacBook Pro, 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo, 15″ glossy screen, 4GB RAM, 320GB HD, SD card. Bought at the end of January 2010 for £1,650 (with 3 years Apple Care), on sale for £1,250.

This is why.

Remember when I said I’d buy four iPads? Make that five.

Lovely high-resolution icons from Apple filed with the US Patents & Trademarks Office. More in this Flickr set.