For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.
-Leonardo da Vinci
So I upgraded the Facebook app on my iPhone and a new feature showed up entitled “Places”, a similar version of what we call Foursquare. My first impression was “great another geo-tagging online social service that Facebook is copying”…”one more to keep up with”….”i hope I can sink my Foursquare check-ins to my FB account, just as I do with my status updates”.
Then I came to thinking… you know, if it weren’t for FB’s popular status updating function and the trending topics of people flaunting/stating “I’m here at the blah blah blah with blah blah blah”, Foursquare wouldn’t exist nor have a purpose. Then I thought about it even more, and Foursquare is probably the first internet application that I’ve ever used without the use of an actual laptop or desktop. The functionality, to state the obvious was intended for mobile, on-the-go tagging…Given, one could bring his laptop with him where he goes and check-in, but not quite practical nor probably not in mind when creating Foursquare. If mobile internet on phones didn’t evolve into what it is now, there would probably be no need for such an application… For an application’s core function to be based off mobile online usage, speaks volumes. It may seem straight forward and you might be thinking “yeah.. okay so what?”. But think of where I’m coming from… I had AOL 3.0. I watched music evolve from CD to mp3. I watched internet connectivity evolve from dial up to hi-speed wireless. People, GPS and Geo-tagging was once used only for scientific research. It has now become a utility for socializing and networking and part of our every day lives. The technology has become integrated among the masses. The future is here. It’s loud and clear. And for the geek in me, I my ranting and run on sentences are a figure of my appreciation for the ever evolving realm of telecom and its’ technologies.
p.s. Coincidently, I have to point out Facebook’s “Places” icon seems to have a hidden call out to FourSquare. The street intersections form the number 4 while being contained within a square map. Get it? FourSquare?
Posted: August 17th, 2010 | Filed under:Tech Talk, Video
Title speaks for itself. Got my free iPhone case in the mail today, per Steve Jobs. Not that I really needed it, but I guess it’s more or less a souvenir of all the shenanigan regarding the “death grip” and the “antenna design flaws” that Apple was facing. Enjoy.
My thoughts: The tablet game is still being written and both consumer and company are trying to define what exactly a “tablet” actually is. I think Dell is taking a pretentious attempt at entering this market. In my opinion, as shared in the above video, the Streak is playing more of a smart phone roll. I can’t help but think “man, that’s a really big phone”, weighing in at a 5-inch display. That’s only .7 inches bigger than the EVO’s screen (PLUS, the screen resolution is WVGA. Get outta here!). As is, consumers are having a hard time conceptualize the idea of a tablet. If you make something closer to the size of a phone, but call it a tablet, you’ll have nothing but more mass confusion.
Apple set the tone and has done things right thus far. In terms of size, they didn’t play the fence like the Streak and differentiated itself as an actual tablet, a device smaller than a laptop, significantly bigger than a phone. Although much of us were highly anticipating something of an ultra-portable “touch-screen netbook” running OS X, Apple has taken the higher road and truly redefined what a tablet is. I read somewhere that in the future, the age of the desktop OS would soon become obsolete and everything would become “app-ed” or based on mobile internet technology a.k.a Cloud Technology. With that said, I can’t help but state the obvious: Apple knows this very fact and has decided to be take the lead role in the technologic development. They’ve developed something that rides right in the middle: between laptop and smart phone, in terms of both hardware and software. Ladies and gentlemen, the future is here. Let the wars begin.
Above is my first attempt at creating something in the new iMovie app for the iPhone. It was shot and edited completely ON the iPhone. This is a testament to the power of the backlit sensor. Although only 5 megapixels (we say that like its VGA), as opposed to it’s rival EVO 8 megapixel.. the quality is superb in low lit situation, both video and still image.
Editing on this phone was a breeze, very responsive and didn’t slow down one bit. Amazingly, it didn’t drain my battery either! The basic necessities are there, and by no means is this a replacement for Final Cut Pro. Overall, I’m thoroughly impressed.
When you’re ready to export, you have 3 options: Medium -360p, Large -540p and HD -720p, all in the .mov QuickTime format. The clip quickly renders and saves to your photo album. The only downside, when exporting directly to YouTube from your Photos on the iPhone, the quality is degraded. In order to maintain quality, I had to sync my phone with iPhoto and export the file from the laptop onto YouTube.com. No biggy, since the sync/file transfer occurs seamlessly.
Depending on how you use your device, results do vary… however in my case, the EVO’s battery life depleted pretty fast. I would use the device just as I did on the iPhone 1st gen and 3G… I do understand that the battery is removable (and therefore you could possible buy another battery for a second charge) and there are such things as task killers/managers, but one shouldn’t have to take these measures to get a full day’s worth of use. It also comes with the territory of having a large screen to power…however, I believe that there is still room for power management improvement! The touted “true multitasking” is probably the biggest contributor to battery depletion. It is fluid and does a really good job at juggling all your running apps…BUT, this is the very reason why Apple didn’t employ multi-tasking until they came up with a better way of multitasking.
“Apple claims their multitasking will save battery life and resources, unlike the competition. But how?
The reason is simple: This is not 100% true multitasking. Not in the sense that developers define it: All system resources are available to all applications, with the system assuming the role of a traffic controller, giving preference to some tasks and less preference to others as needed.
Free-for-all multitasking will consume way too many resources, especially memory. This will make the system choke, given the limited memory available in these devices. The CPU would also be taxed, and it would deplete the battery life quicker while slowing down applications running on the foreground.
Apple’s method, however, is quite clever: Basically, it allows you to pause applications—like you can pause them in any UNIX-based operating system, while enabling some special services to allow some types of tasks—like receiving calls or playing music—to run on the background.”
Click here to read Gizmodo’s well put explanation in full.
Flash: Having had a phone (iPhone) that didn’t support Flash and then owning one that did (Evo), I now see why Apple thinks it’s unnecessary. a) Flash, at best, loaded very slowly b) When it came to ads, side-bar Advertisements loaded well (how annoying) c) touch interface and Flash… not very applicable.
Apple: Better battery performance, the battery is about two-thirds of the phone’s innards. Just the perfect size, not too small, not enormously big in your hand. The OS seems consistent across the board. Retina Display. SUPER CLEAR.
Small things on the EVO: No native screen capture, no native notepad, only the power button wakes the screen. Volume rocker does not wake the screen…and lastly, for such a large screen, the spacebar in the keypad was very small. My sentences would.look.like.this.,hitting.the.period.instead. of spacebar.
So, I currently own an unlocked iPhone 3G running on T-Mobile’s network. I currently pay approximately 60 bucks, unlimited EVERYTHING (text, data, and voice –non-contractual). Since I’ve been with the company for over 9 years, I was grandfathered into these rates.
As an early adopter of new technology, I was strongly considering leaving T-Mobile to obtain an iPhone 4 — just as I had considered 3 years ago with the advent of the original iPhone. Yet AT&T fails again… proving themselves unworthy and ridiculously over-rated…rate plans. It sucks that such a pristine piece of hardware is soiled and imprisoned by ridiculous rates, terms and conditions, and limitations.
I did some research, and it looks like I’d have to pay 200% (per month) of what I am with T-Mobile just to have a similar package with AT&T. CRAZY! Stupid. Deal breaker. I understand that the unit is subsidized and is now affordable up front, but damn, AT&T really makes the money back on the phones in the long term — the 2 year long time. Stupid sales trickery.
Looks like I’ll just wait for an opportunity to buy it outright or find one on craigslist to unlock. AT&T, you grind my gears. More power to the unlocking devTeam who I have full trust in to find a methodology of jailbreaking and unlocking the new firmware.
Okay, I promise this is not an Apple dedicated blog. There’s just been tons of news lately, and I’ve gotta put my two cents in.
So 4.0 has tons of new features to come, most notable is the Multitasking and Folders. In a nutshell: You can now (finally) switch between Apps via a sliding task manager that pops up below the dock; very elegant and unlike any other task manager on any cellphone unit. Folders will now enable you to organize/consolidate your icons by category into groups represented by a single icons.
Now, to the point of this post. I was watching the keynote that Jobs held today at Cupertino and watched it to the very end. The last segment of the keynote presentation was probably the most intriguing for me, and that was the introduction of iAd… yes.. as in iAdvertisement.
Jobs almost lost me on this one, as my initial reaction was “?”, “why!?”, and “uhhh… wtf?!”. After giving Jobs a chance to fully explain, I was sold. With the iPhone, not only has Apple captured the telecom market,create and nuture a solid app market/industry via the App Store, drive iTunes sales via the iPhone, introduce iBooks (a book store now with 4.0)… he is now taking a share out of the advertising industry.
At first, it may sound like Jobs is in over his head and over capitalizing on almost EVERYTHING. But watch the video… you’ll see that he’s re-innovated the way advertising has been done both online and within apps.
The function of the ads in the first place, is to help generate funding for the developers to keep them going and to help keep free apps, well… free. The only thing is, those apps are annoying, lame and static. They’re in the way. We ignore them and want to continue on with our app usage. Furthermore, even if we were interested in the ad, we are more inclined to either check it out later or choose not to click on it at all, as it will cause alot of opening and closing and switching back and forth between apps. This dynamic makes for the ad impressions to be inefficient and ineffective. Ineffective ads make little to no incentive for advertisers to continue advertising with the app developer.
This is where Apple’s innovation kicks in. They’ve built iAd into the OS so that it is native and will display advertising in a way we have not seen before. Super interactive without having to leave the app that you are currently in. The possibilities are endless, it’s almost as if you have an app within an app. Keep in mind, this does not mean your phone will be laced with commercials and advertisements all over; this is feature that is available for developers to add within the apps they choose to. The ads lay at the top or bottom of each screen in a small banner, just as they have been in the past in other apps that you might have downloaded.
With this being said, Apple is offering 60% of the ad revenue back to the developer. It really seems like a win win situation for all parties: Advertisers are now capable of reaching more of their potential markets with new and improved interactive ads, giving incentive to advertise with developers. Developers can potentially profit and maintain their projects/free apps. Lastly, Apple now has a hand in the advertising market share. Genius.
The “i” in all of their products must mean “innovation”.
So, I haven’t been in the market for a cell phone for a good while… ever since I got my hands on the 1st gen and 3rd gen (3G) iPhone. Every phone that has come out since then, I’ve completely ignored. Simply put, the iPhone catered to all my telecom needs plus more. I was so satisfied, I was never made curious the slightest bit to look at other phones in the market, until recently.
HTC has made 2 handsets that have peaked my interest. The Nexus One and the HTC HD2. Hardware specs on both phones have caught my attention, as they both are running at 1GHz. People! Some computers don’t even run at that speed (including yours! jk.) Form factor and hardware are very sleek. Most especially on the HTC HD2, the screen is 4.3 inches, roughly 1 inch bigger than the iPhone. In terms of phones…relatively speaking, that’s a big difference in size– It’s HUGE! It’s also thin as a pencil, which is quite impressive!
The only thing that has me in a bind is the Operating Systems on both of the phones. Nexus One- I’ve never used Android, and my first (biased) impression of it reads, “iPhone’s ugly cousin”. Despite that biased and naive notion, I’m pretty sure it’s solid. I have faith in Google and what they do. So with that said, I think I could become aquatinted with the Android OS. Secondly, on the HTC HD2, it is loaded with WindowsMobile 6.5 (which is a completely horrible step backwards into 1999). According to reports that I’ve read, the phone will not be loaded nor support Windows Mobile 7.0 (please inform me if this is incorrect). In attempt to offset the lameless of WinMo 6.5, HTC has developed what’s called “HTC Sense”, a User Interface (UI) to run ontop of windows to give it a more user friendly and sleek interface. I tried it out myself at the T-Mobile store, and although it was pretty to the eyes, it felt (operated) a bit clunky, trying harder than it should. Despite the awesome hardware specs, the HTC HD2 looks to be stuck in a OS time warp. I toyed with the idea that, if I could possibly get accustomed to the Android OS, then I could maybe port that OS onto the HTC HD2? Reading forums, it looks like this idea is also not yet possible (again, please inform me if you know otherwise!).
As I interacted with my iPhone all day, I would look at it and realize how much cleaner the phone is as a whole compared to anything out there… The platform is very solid. The UI is well uniformed. The Apps are top notch. The touch screen is superior to any other phone on the market…but performance has just slowed down. A bigger screen would be nice. A faster processor would also be nice. At the end of the day, I keep torturing myself with the idea of compromise. Do I keep the slow hardware with excellent OS and software? Do I upgrade to sweet hardware specs with a shoddy OS?
All this contemplating and I find this: iPhone 4G announcement TOMORROW, was this just coincidence , or did the Apple heavens descend upon me providing me ultimate salvation, leading me not into temptation? Just as I was on the verge of leaving the iPhone in all of it’s glory, el Jobs comes in on a white horse to deliver the good news. If the rumors are correct, then this iPhone 4.0 and iPhone HD look pretty promising…
What are your thoughts. What are your suggestions? To those who have used any of the mentioned devices and/or Operating Systems… give me some insight! Thanks!
Disclaimer: All bias aside and trying to speak from a non-Apple Fanboy point of view.
Okay, so the age long question of “What’s it for?” will soon be answered. We look at the device and fail to think outside the box. We look at it and only interpret “oh okay, so it’s an eReader.” or “oh, it’s like a laptop..but not?!”. Lastly, we’ve all said it… “OH, it’s a GIANT iPod Touch/iPhone!” with a mocking smirk…But the funny thing about that, in the same breathe should be the very reason to be excited about it’s release.
When the iPhone first came out, we were limited to the very few NATIVE apps, no app store, no games, no nothing:
To say none the least, we were satisfied with that, naive to the fact that our minds were about to be blown with the endless possibilities of function via the App Store and Jailbraking. Since the release of the App Store in a later firmware, people have used this…phone for everything.
Now pause. think. consider. “What if I took this UI (User Interface) and made it 4 times bigger?!” Considering the size of the iPhone and how easy and fun it has become to interact with the apps STYLUS free, in a multi-touch dimension… what kind of possibilities will make itself evident in an environment with much more screen real estate?!
Put the two together. infinite development of more apps + huge multi-touch screen =
SOMETHING LIKE THIS:
DJ equipment has always been evolving more and more into the digital realm: Turntables> CDJ’s> Final Scratch and Serato>iPod decks> etc. There is no substitute for the real deal, but in an age where digital is slowly becoming industry standard, this comes the closest to merging the two together.
* I could probably get away with using the digital turntable decks, but for sure I’d want a physical cross fader.
This isn’t the sole reason why you should be excited for the iPad, but a mere example of what could and is coming. Don’t let this example limit or narrow your thinking of what this device is for. Just remember the times when you looked at your iPhone/iPod Touch and thought “if only this screen was bigger, I could…” while at work, at home, etc.
Keep in mind, this is the same company that made the mouse available to the consumer in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Before that, it was strictly keyboard–how archaic. Multi-touch + huge screen is a good thing.
Stretch your mind and get ready for things to change.
As I interacted with my iPhone all day, I would look at it and realize how much cleaner the phone is as a whole compared to anything out there… The platform is very solid. The UI is well uniformed. The Apps are top notch. The touch screen is superior to any other phone on the market…but performance has just slowed down. A bigger screen would be nice. A faster processor would also be nice. At the end of the day, I keep torturing myself with the idea of compromise. Do I keep the slow hardware with excellent OS and software? Do I upgrade to sweet hardware specs with a shoddy OS?
