I did it! I finished my Master's degree! I spent the last four years of my life taking one class at a time while working full time. I enjoyed the distance program in Software Engineering at Southern Methodist University (I even managed to pull off a 4.0). Of course, the best part about finishing the degree is the fact that I now have some free time again. And a little free time can go a long way with software development.

In what little extra time I managed to wring from between the day job, school and family over the past six months, I had gotten my next iPhone app about two-thirds of the way done. Now with my newfound free time I hope to finish this app off over the next month or two. The app is for editing photos of faces (mostly swap and flip effects). Expect more on this when it's closer to releasing, but it's going well so far. In fact, there's a possibility it may even be done by the end of June. I have spent a lot of time figuring out things like rotation and image masking. I love it when I have what I call a breakthrough, and finally figure out exactly how to accomplish what I want to do. I have image masking working so once I finish off masking a rotated portion of the image, I should be left with mostly cleanup tasks (saving state on close, better icons, etc.) and considering the possibility of a couple "optional but very nice to have" features.

Now let's talk about the iPad. I just opened the box with my iPad inside a couple days ago and I must say I am very impressed. When the iPad was first announced I wasn't really sure how it would be needed in between laptops and smartphones. But this is a game changer.

I already believed the future of computers was in mobile web enabled devices like iPhone and Android (and I guess I have to include Blackberry too although I cringe at the thought of the thing). However, I still assumed people would need some kind of standard keyboard & mouse system (Windows, Mac OS) for most computing tasks. But I think the iPad will change that. Professionals who need to do complex work like software development and graphic design may still need to use a computer as we know it (for now anyway), but think of the majority of computer users. Think of the people who only use a computer to surf the web, do email, manage photos, watch videos, write documents and play games. The iPad can do all this. It's lighter, more portable and more fun than a laptop and the poor desktop can't even offer a good reason to exist anymore. Don't get me wrong, I think desktops will be around for awhile still, especially for businesses, but for the average home computer user there is not much of a need for one now.

Another great simplification that the smartphone and iPad have done is eliminate the need for a mouse and keyboard. Tablet PCs have not needed a mouse or trackpad for awhile but still required a full hardware keyboard and often a stylus. Apple's multi-touch interface, specifically for a larger screen like the iPad, opens the door to all kinds of new applications that were previously not even possible on a standard keyboard & mouse system. Of course, it will take time for the existing software systems and web applications to be ported to the iPad. As a side note, I tried writing this post with my iPad but the keyboard would only show up for the title field of this post. I couldn't get the keyboard to appear for editing the message body. But these things will change over time, especially as the iPad becomes more mainstream. I'm anxiously looking forward to seeing the upcoming iPad applications as well as creating my own. And maybe some day in the not too distant future, developers will even be able to create iPad/iPhone apps using an iPad. The thought of being able to work from any place with 3G access is really cool!