The app ecosystem for mobile devices has, for good reasons, been primarily oriented toward consumption of media content. This is particularly true of Apple’s touchscreen-only iPhones and iPads: these elegant portable computers make for a delightful way to peruse content, as evidenced by wildly popular apps like The Elements or Flipboard. Facile access to internet connectivity makes communication-oriented apps very effective, as witnessed by the number of mobile users of clients for social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Content creation, on the other hand, presents a significant challenge. Creating new data of any kind suffers from the inherent clumsiness of the finger-on-screen user interface paradigm, which makes something as simple as writing an email message somewhat of an inconvenience akin to learning how to touchtype all over again. Read the rest of this entry »