Useful iPad Tip of the Day -- Force Reboot and a Bonus

OK, it might be trivial, but I admit I didn't know it (and kudos to Apple for that). iPad is truly, almost ridiculously stable device. Until today I really didn't know how to force it shutting down. And this is even more impressive given how intensively I am using the iPad to debug on it with Xcode.

Still, today the iPad got stuck with a black screen. I guess it was Xcode fault causing some sort of deadlock. The screen was completely black, except the top bar showing the clock, battery and the WiFi indicator.

It didn't respond to touches.
It didn't respond to pressing the home button.
It didn't respond to pressing and holding the sleep button (top right).

It did respond to rotation though (rotating the black screen and the status bar) and I was able to take screenshots of that black goodness (see below).

So how do you reboot it?

Press and hold for a few seconds both the Home button and the Sleep / Wake button. This forced the iPad to reboot. Problem solved.

Well, not so fast. Next time iTunes attempted to sync the iPad, I was greeted with a message that it cannot be synced as the required file was missing.

And here we come to the bonus -- simply shutting down iPhoto (on the Mac) solved my problem, but apparently some people had to manually delete the iPhoto cache folder as well.

iPhoto for iPad

John Gruber on iPhoto for iPad:

I thought the understatement of the day was at the very end of Randy Ubillos’s demo, when he added, as a mere aside, that iPhoto is a universal binary that runs on the iPhone too.

Right.

The New iPad And Some Retrospection

Lots of hype about the new iPad. Yes, Apple didn't call that iPad 3, nor iPad HD. Just iPad. Many rumors turned out to be true, many turned out to be BS.

Many folks are disappointed, but as MG Siegler points out, "They’ll undoubtedly remain disappointed as they wait in line to buy the new iPad next week.".

I cannot help but remember a post I wrote about 5 months ago about iPhone 4S. (I wrote that without knowing that Mr. Jobs was about to pass away only a few short hours later). 

And do you remember this one? 12 reasons not to buy an iPad. Really?
And as much as I love Android, I can't see Android tablets (and the whole ecosystem of apps and experience) catching up anytime soon.

As Cook said "Apple has its feet firmly planted in the Post-PC future,". It's hard to disagree.

At Last: My Great (well... no) iPad App [proof of concept, video]

The title says it all. After a few evenings of moonlighting and orienting myself in the Cocoa/iOS/Xcode world, I finally declare my proof-of-concept effort an epic success. Joking, really.

The proof-of-concept is a very basic iPad app (video below). Nothing special, just playing around. Graphics are all made with Inkscape (but if you don't like them, believe me, it is not Inkscape to blame).

[the piano sound around 0:50 is quite loud... you're warned]

So here it is: