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.
Watch the World Cup and you’ll notice a swarming bee sound. That sound is attributed to what is known as the Vuvuzela, a plastic horn that produces a loud monotone sound. This phenomenon is blowing up the internets.
With that further explained, here is the infamous Hitler meme making reference to the wide spreading Vuvuzela.
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.
I really can’t complain, things are going…for the better. A year since graduating, things are panning out slowly but surely–nonetheless going for the better. It’s crazy how and where life can take you sometimes, but it’s important to stay adaptive and to remember there’s always a reason behind everything, known or unknown.
My online endeavors are blooming, both the ones that have launched and the ones still in Excel Sheets and Word Document business plans. Taking my time, I know it’s well worth it. Especially while I work up the necessary and obtainable capital.
With the challenges I will soon face, I ask You to bless me with the strength and courage.
I’m so excited that even after a fun,yet very tiresome day…somehow I’m managing to blog my stream of thought at 4:48 in the morning. Why? I guess I just can’t hide it.
Keep checking back, there will be plenty in store.
