I love the Blackboard theme that comes with TextMate, so when I started writing Cocoa code, it wasn’t long until I decided I had to have it for XCode. And so I present “Blackboard-ish” — the pretty-much Blackboard theme for Apple’s ginormous IDE. Having it around staves off eye strain and reduces (ever-so-slightly) the existential misery I feel daily from having to write so much code in such a dumbass editor.

I’ve put it on GitHub as a Gist — you can get it here. Download the file and then put it in ~/Library/Application Support/XCode/Color Themes. Activate it in your preferences and then feel your cool factor morph to “red-hot-insane”.

If you’re wondering what Blackboard looks like, it’s like this (except the method names are supposed to be orange, dagnabit):

Anyway, now the color theme is out there, downloadable from the Gist, for all who want to use it in XCode. Viva Blackboard!

OK so I’m really glad that I’m not a professional technology pundit, since all the predictions from my last post turned out to be wrong. Even the name! What the hell? I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be there in line for the thing on the first day, but “iPad”? It sounds like something that the menstrual product industry would market for “young lady’s first period.” “iSlate” was so much better.

I’d still love to see the iPad enable some cool peripheral needs. I understand why they didn’t showcase that as a major use of this thing, but I’m hoping that the SDK will let programmers create apps that enable the iPad to be used as an input device — the 1000-sensor multitouch screen would make it pretty compelling for that. I mean if you watch the Brushes app demo, you’ll get an idea of what you could do with this in something like Photoshop or Illustrator.

John Gruber got to play with one a bunch and said that the main thing that he (and it seemed everyone else there) noticed about the experience is how fast it is. And it’s Apple’s own chip in this beast — a 1 Ghz Apple A4 chip. This is going to drive Apple’s bid toward dominance as the “largest mobile device maker in the world”

Apple now owns and controls their own mobile CPUs. There aren’t many companies in the world that can say that. And from what I saw today, Apple doesn’t just own and control a mobile CPU, they own and control the hands-down best mobile CPU in the world. Software aside (which is a huge thing to put aside), it may well be that no other company could make a device today matching the price, size, and performance of the iPad. They’re not getting into the CPU business for kicks, they’re getting into it to kick ass.

It seems inevitable that they’ll try to put one of these babies into a new version of the iPhone, and then, well holy crap. They’ll need to call it the 3GS^2

Peripheral

I wish I’d been right about the magnetic induction stand, because I think that would’ve been a lot cooler than the flip-around carrying case thing that they’re going to ship this with, but it makes sense that they’re going to have the same 30-pin power/data connection that the iPhone/iPod have. Apple has a history (that they seem to have abandoned) of just drastically changing what’s available in the way of interfaces or peripherals on new devices. Remember how aghast people were that the iMac had no 3.5″ floppy drive? Earlier than that, I think there was a big stink when they did SCSI instead of parallel ports on their boxes. Given this history, it made sense to me that they might want to make the sync interactions of the device entirely wireless. But given the existing commitment to 30-pin connectors, it feels a little more “new Apple” that they kept this tech in the device.

I’ll leave the public predictions to people who know a lot more about the history and industry on these things, but it was fun to speculate. I can’t wait to download the SDK for iPad — I should have it later today — and I’m of course hyper-excited to get one in 60 days. Still trying to decide though whether I care about the 3G access. At this point, hearing that AT&T is willing to sell me an unlimited 3G data plan for $29.95 is sort of like hearing that shit sandwiches are 75% off.

With no pundit reputation to screw up, I stand here unashamed and ready to be proven wrong. Here are my predictions for what the mythical Apple tablet computer will be all about.

It will be called the ‘iSlate’

Cool name. NYTimes editor Bill Keller called it a version of that name (”the new Apple slate”) at one point awhile back, and it just fits nicely. Also Apple owns islate.com.

There will be an awesome accessory

The iPhone comes with an accessory that manages to actually up the cool factor — its headphones. The iSlate will have one if its own: a sleek cradle that will fulfill the functionalities of a stand (allowing the iSlate to sit upright for easy seated viewing), and a charging station, using magnetic induction as its power delivery mechanism, and enabling Apple’s designers to avoid placing a power port on the device itself. I’m also predicting as part of this that it will support over-the-air sync only.

Part of the pitch will be for use as an accessory

Not a big part, mind you, but I think there will be significant emphasis on using this as a secondary input device for an existing computer — as a drawing tablet or a multi-function “hotkeys” device or something. This could just be wishful thinking on my part, but I just can’t get past the idea that Apple wants people to view this as a computing device whose primary attraction is that it lends itself to a paradigm-shifting generality of use. That means fulfilling the roles of computer, television, magazine, and yeah, Wacom tablet.

More importantly will be the idea that the iSlate fits into your life in a certain way — as your “on-the-go” device; even more so than the iPhone, this is the thing you take to meetings, take on short trips, etc. Auto-syncing important documents and whatnot over the air will be a big deal.

It will run something beefier than iPhone OS

Maybe not full-on OS X, but I agree with John Gruber that they’re not going to just spooge the iPhone OS onto the device:

in the same way that it made no sense for Apple to design the iPhone OS to run Mac software, it makes little sense for a device with a 7-inch (let alone larger) display to run software designed for a 3.5-inch display.

I also don’t think that the file system will be completely hidden away a la the iPhone and that the only way you’ll be able to interact with the device is through apps. If this is to try and be a general-purpose computing device, there has to be some kind of file system access, even if it’s severely limited. Another piece of evidence for it being something somewhere between iPhone OS and full-on OS X is the WWAN (as in 3G) network information reporting in Snow Leopard.

OK — that seems like prognostication enough for now. Can’t wait for January 26th/27th.

I like this Macalope column from Macworld, reminding us all how wrong all the pundits were in advance of the iPhone (and quite a bit of the dumb stuff that’s been said lately about the rumored Apple tablet). The best part though is his insight that the reason Apple has succeeded with the iPod and iPhone is because those two technologies each had a killer differentiating feature that made them able to disrupt an existing market.

if and when it appears, will have some differentiator that makes it a compelling purchase. The iPod replaced your CD collection, the Apple TV would like to replace your DVD collection (but you won’t buy one), and the iPhone, obviously, replaced your cell phone. The tablet (insert caveat about its existential dilemma) will turn another industry on its head. The problem with the JooJoo is that it has no hook, no ecosystem. It doesn’t act as a compelling replacement for anything you have.

One thing that I’m hoping for (but that I think there’s very little possibility of due to the likelihood that they’re going to base it on iPhone OS) is some kind of personal diagramming application. I’d love to be able to add some programmatic heft behind the diagrams I draw of data models, applications, etc. I’d love to be able to put data behind some stuff, or draw things that can go right into a program like OmniGraffle

If my own little personal BS grammar of pseudo UML could get programmed out pop-n-fresh automatically into some ActiveRecord models right after I drew it freehand, I’d be one step closer to some right-brain techie Nirvana.

As we all wait with bated breath for the latest announcement of awesome from Cupertino, I thought I’d mention something that I’d love to see Apple make: a “soft button” keypad for configurable hotkeys.

I spend most of my work day at the computer, either writing code or working in hotkey-heavy applications like Adobe Fireworks or OmniGraffle. I also tend to use hotkeys for closing windows, switching applications, creating new tabs in browsers and terminals, switching between windows, and (all the damn time) copy/paste. The result of all this hotkey action is that I get pain in my fingers, particularly my left index finger — the go-to digit for most of my hotkeying. Between that and the constant need to type almost as fast as I can, the pain can sometimes become nearly debilitating, causing me to have to stop using my computer for up to half a workday sometimes, which in turn costs me money.

As has been pointed out quite a bit, QWERTY sucks and is really just around because of design inertia. Keyboards don’t really seem designed to be used by human hands. As much as I love Apple’s recent innovation of the peripheral keyboard that feels like a laptop one, I still find myself with major hand fatigue at the end of the week.

If I could just set my hotkeys to be what and where I want them to be, I think I could solve a lot of this. I’m envisioning something that looks sort of like a square iPhone, sitting to the left of my keyboard and plugged in via USB. Spread across the screen of the device would be my hotkeys, customized in function and position, and changing automatically when the active application changes. Since the keys would be on a “soft” screen, I could position and size them how it made sense for my hands and my workflow. Since they could each have a custom function, I could reduce the claw-making, four-button combos I frequently have to pull off in my editor to just one tap of one button. This would make my hands happier. Happy hands, happy dev.

I know there are soft keyboards out there, but I’m not really looking for that. What I want would me more versatile — a “key palette” if you will. I could see this being only one of many possible uses for such a device.

Anyway… Apple, should you decide to make one, there’s no need to give me credit. Just send me a free one. My over-stretched left index finger will breathe a sigh of relief from inside its ice pack.