The Senators have had their first few series at the new ballpark, and I made it a point to catch the opener, as well as the Harrisburg debut of the Nationals first-round draft pick.

Name aside, the new Metro Bank Park is an immense improvement over the old park–it somehow makes the game feel more professional. It definitely has me second-guessing my decision to buy that Orioles ticket package (sadly, the worst team in the majors as of this writing, though I think I saw more Orioles fans on City Island than in Baltimore).

Metro Bank Park’s seating is still affordable and remains nice and close to the action. It’s nice to see an official team store, though I think those Strasburg jerseys are going to be outdated any day now.

I’m a sucker for ballpark promotions, but to me, this year’s promotions are a little sparse. It would have been nice to have someone sponsor a statuette of the new ballpark (to accompany the one I received last season), but alas, it looks like the money was spent on flatscreen TV giveways (the affiliation to baseball I’m still struggling to understand). I also question the $2 drafts on the boardwalk . . . Why make them exclusive to the boardwalk and force people in seats to make the trek?

Strasburg’s Harrisburg debut was impressive, both for his performance as well as the turnout. my only complaint? The Senators’ Twitter feed didn’t provide first pitch updates. Through two rain delays and a power outage, it’s the least they could do for their fans. Regardless, I’ll be back, so long as I can find people to go with.

As most of my friends know, I got an iPad.

Upon announcement of the device, I thought it was a pretty stupid product–simply an oversized iPod Touch with no excuse for omitting Java or Flash Player. Then I began to consider the possibility of it being a portable drawing tablet. I figured I’d get a Pogo Sketch stylus, try it out, and if it didn’t meet expectations I could sell it on eBay at a profit to someone in some foreign country still waiting for it.

After a week or so of using it, I must say I love the iPad. It’s replaced my iPhone in cases where I want to casually search online, and typing is much easier than I expected (though I miss the tab key), which has yielded the device to being an adequate and lightweight replacement for my laptop. I still think Apple’s blockade of Flash is childish, but you can’t win all the time. Onto the comparison!

Before I get into the pros and cons of the iPad, let’s look at the current options available for artists interested in illustrating digitally:

• PC tablets. Expect to drop a good $1,500 for a full-fledged computer here, not including software (I’m talking about stuff like the Dell XT2).
• Wacom tablets. I use mine every day, but there’s a slight disconnect between drawing on the tablet and following what’s on-screen.
• Wacom Cintiq. Yes, I’m spoiled, as I happen to have one of these. They are incredible, but not mobile–and not cheap ($2,000).
• Modbook. Turn your Mac into a Cintiq. Reviews have mentioned the performance to be slightly buggy, and again, it’s not cheap ($1000+ on top of the laptop cost).
• Mobile phones. A little too small of a screen for serious consideration, if you ask me.
• HP’s upcoming Slate or Microsoft’s upcoming Courier tablet. the key word here is “upcoming”. Sadly, these products might as well be vaporware until official release dates and prices are announced (I should probably mention that I’m skeptical of hardware in which the operating system wasn’t built from the ground up with touch and gestures in mind).

Screen comparison

For starters, the Cintiq is a resistive screen, whereas the iPad is a capacitive screen. Resistive screens recognize pressure, while capacitive screens register touch (unfortunately for us artists, capacitive is what’s “in” so our options will remain limited).

The winner? Cintiq by a mile. While using the iPad, I was easily frustrated with the bottom of my hand creating marks while I wanted to draw. I also found myself intuitively attempting to apply pressure as I drew, which, of course, didn’t matter with the iPad. Granted, the workaround is to continually modify stroke weights in conjunction with brush opacity, but it’s simply not on par with the Cintiq.

To the iPad’s defense, I will say that Apple typically chooses the best screens on the market (Samsung?) and is known for having some of the best capacitive screens.

Price

No brainer here. The iPad is much cheaper.

Stylus

You can draw with your finger on the iPad (but not the Cintiq), but regardless, drawing just feels more natural with a stylus. I went out and purchased the Pogo Sketch (slightly longer than the regular Pogo Stylus, since it’s for prolonged use) for use with the iPad. The tip of the stylus is much bigger than Wacom’s pen, and I believe this is due to the fact that the iPad requires a bigger imprint to register input.

I really didn’t like that Sketch on the iPhone, but it’s much better on the iPad (this may be due to the faster processor). Drawing requires more pressure than what feels natural, and I still don’t like how pressure can force the nub around (I’m always worried the aluminum will end up scratching the glass, though it never does). Unfortunately, unlike a Wacom pen, the Pogo cant have another tip on the opposite side that can be programmed as an eraser. In the end, it’s a workable device, though not as natural as the Wacom pen due to the thick tip.

Software

I’d actually call this a tie. The iPad doesn’t have Photoshop or Painter, but I’ve found Autodesk’s Sketchbook Pro ($8.99) to be a perfect substitute that can export layered PSDs. Of course, there’s also Brushes, as well as several other drawing apps available. I hope Adobe Ideas works in new features in the future, as it currently is the only iPad entry to allow for Flash-like vector drawing.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I’d disclaim to artists to not fool themselves into thinking that the iPad is a replacement for a Cintiq, but I’d definitely recommend the iPad as a drawing tool. Its portability paired with its affordable price eclipse its shortcomings, and despite some minor usability issues, the iPad has really impressed me as a drawing tool.

Personally, I had a lot of fun at BarCamp Harrisburg 2, and got to meet a lot of people in-person for the first time, which was great (I hope to see everyone again next year!).

I noticed there were a lot of tagged mentions on my topic, and I feel like I need to set the record straight. Most of the tags said something along the lines of “HTML 5 – the death of Flash” when they should have said “HTML5 – The Death of Flash?”

The idea to present on this topic revolved around Apple’s decision to omit Flash from their mobile products. In some ways, I think it’s a good decision for the iPhone but childish for the iPad. While researching the topic, I was actually surprised to discover how much HTML5 actually could replace Flash. As a Flash designer/developer, I’d love to see a standardized video format hit the Web (though, unfortunately, it looks like OGG won’t be it.

In my presentation, I predicted that Adobe will either make Flash export to an HTML5 canvas or will build a new tool that does just that. Besides that, my conclusion was that Flash isn’t going anywhere for a long time. Some of the reasons:

• Better production tools (HTML5 will catch up)
• Bigger community (HTML5 will catch up)
• Ubiquity and consistency (HTML5 will catch up, but browsers will take years to meet standards consistently, plus the HTML5 spec won’t be finalized until 2022)
• Creativity – <canvas> doesn’t appear to support filters, or tie in effects with video like Flash does
• Video cue points – not built into H.264
• Fonts – there’s the Web Open Font Format and TypeKit, but neither are a part of the HTML5 spec. Me, personally, I’d rather use sIFR over images of custom fonts.
• Browser independence – I’m not talking about Adobe AIR (which, aside from Tweetdeck, seems silly due to the double install), but Flash runs on a variety of devices in standalone form and needn’t sit in a Web page
• Code privacy – perhaps not such a good thing, but compiled SWF files protect their authoring code from being viewed. A <canvas> element would be available via view source. It makes me wonder how long an HTML page will become with really complicated HTML5 canvas-based apps…

In the end, we all ultimately choose the best tool for the job, and my ultimate point was that if you look at the evolution of the Web, innovation isn’t standard.