The Brooks Review

Category: Articles

  • Apple also Sent me This

    I also received this note from Apple on the order for my Wife’s iPhone:

    Dear Customer,

    We were unable to complete the authorization process for your iPhone order. As
    a result, we had to cancel your iPhone order. To complete the purchase of your
    iPhone, please visit an Apple Retail Store or an AT&T company-owned retail
    store.

    This was not good news – it explains why Apple cancelled her iPhone order. I ordered this on my Alaska Airlines Bank of America card, which as of right now has an available credit limit of $12,500 – which is still apparently not enough for them to allow me to buy an iPhone 4. Now this is clearly a screw up on Bank of America, but instead of it being no big deal I get to wake up at 5a and go stand in a pre-order line – assuming I get my iPhone on the 23rd.

    (For those curious I paid for my iPhone with my business card – a perk for sure as it always is approved.)

  • iPhone 4 To Be Delivered Early?

    Last night – I along with other pre-orderers – received the following email from Apple:

    Dear Apple Store Customer,

    You recently received a Shipment Notification email from Apple advising you that your iPhone has shipped.

    This email is to confirm that your delivery will occur on June 23rd. Although Apple and FedEx tracking information may currently indicate a later date, you can check the FedEx website the morning of the June 23rd to track your package to your doorstep.

    In the event that you will not be available to accept delivery on June 23rd, it may be more convenient to use our pre-sign delivery option by visiting our Order Status website at http://www.apple.com/orderstatus.

    Sincerely,

    The Apple Store Team

    When Apple initially sent me tracking info it said it would show up on the 23rd, however this not being my first time with Apple launches I knew that to be false and that it would be here on the 24th. It now says it will be here on the 24th – but Apple is telling everyone we get it a day early. If true I am really happy, however if this is not true then I am confused as to why this email went out.

  • On Governments Getting into the Ad Game

    It occurred to me today when I read about how California is considering new license plates (digital ones) that when the car is stopped they would display ads – what occurred to me is that governments can be a lot like newspaper companies. Bear with me for a moment.

    In publishing we have the infamous ‘paywalls’ where content providers put all the good juicy content behind a login page that requires you to buy a subscription. Often times owning a subscription though does not mean that you get content free from ads – the subscription price alone is not enough to pay for the production of the content.

    So let’s go back to governments and this digital advertising on license plate idea. You have to pay to license and register your car (tabs, plates, taxes, etc.) and then once you do that you get a plate that will then show ads. Hmm sounds familiar.

    This brings more than just paywall problems to rise – what about taste, endorsements, or moderation? If CA does this, then would they allow strip clubs, or porn to be advertised on the license plates – surely they would not. That in itself represents the government limiting free speech, does it not? What if the government had been running ads for Bernie Madoff, would they be sued by citizens who expected them to fully vet each advertiser.

    This is all just concept at this point, and I am sure there are some very smart people in the tech heavy California that will point out these obvious problems. Still – it makes you think – should the government be allowed to sell advertising on license plates? I would think not.

  • Email: We Are All Doing It Wrong

    Email started in 1965 (1) and for the past 45 years (17 of which I have been using email) we have been using it wrong, terribly wrong. This is not a post designed to make people stop using email and move to a future standard – I am not trying to change the world – just you.

    I am going to stray from hard facts here and instead go with common knowledge and common sense – sorry to those who hate when I do this.

    Today we use email for just about everything and anything, people even use it to try and share large files (bad way to use email if you haven’t guessed). However we use email today, we mostly use it wrong – save for one very hated group: spammers.

    This is in no one defending spammers (I hate them), but rather to illustrate a point. The point is: email was designed as a way to replace mail (what you may call snail mail), not to replace all communication.

    If you believe that to be true – then you truly get it and can stop reading now because you already know what I am going to say (still though I took the time to write it so you can read it). If you don’t believe the above statement to be true then let me start by telling you some things that email is really bad at.

    Things Email Sucks At

    Planning:

    We all do it, we try to plan meetings or vacations with groups of people over email. In the end it is a headache, 30% of the people don’t know what is happening and why – in the end someone ends up having to call a physical meeting or make a phone call to clarify. This is all because email was never designed to be used for this purpose – that and nobody knows how and when to correctly use the ‘reply all’ button.

    Example: My friend Joe emails me and my other friend Steve to schedule a quick trip across town. I hit reply all and say that I am available to leave starting at 4p. Joe and Steve both get this email and see it. Steve hits reply and says that works for him. Now Steve and I are the only ones that see what Steve has said, often not even realizing it. An hour goes by and Joe assumes Steve is not around to do something – to which he sends out an email saying we should leave at 4p, and Steve is welcome to join if he can. In the end we all get sorted out and leave at 4p, but not without confusion and wasted time.

    You can imagine just how poorly the above scenario would play out if you go from 3 people planning a trip to 10, or more – it becomes a nightmare. We have all been in these situations, most of it has to do with the ‘reply all’ button – but truly it is just a poor choice in tools.

    This is where tools like Google Wave were supposed to come in and save the day – collaboration made easy. Except it still has yet to take off, and I have my serious doubts about its longevity. A better way is to use tools like Timebridge, or collaboration tools like Basecamp. Of course these tools are all better suited to a company than they are to a group of friends.

    Time Sensitive Messages:

    Not a day goes by where I don’t receive a message from someone that is time sensitive. Messages such as “Ben, please take care of X by Y.” This is a very clear email, but what happens if – unbeknownst to the sender – I am out on vacation or hiking in the woods. Plain and simple never send a time sensitive email to someone, ever, even if you ‘know’ they always check their emails every 5 minutes.

    Email was not designed to notify people of urgent matters, it was designed to replace snail mail. Would you send someone a letter in the mail with urgent actionable items in the letter (excluding bills here – which are rarely that urgent and take into account mailing delays)?

    Time sensitive messages should be reserved for face to face conversations, or better still, phone calls. Which brings me to my next point.

    Phone Calls and Emails Are Different:

    Don’t call someone to tell them something that is better suited to an email (marketing info, spam), likewise don’t email someone something that is better suited to a phone call (engagements, deaths, urgent matters). Even more: don’t call someone to tell them you just sent them an email. I don’t know that there is really much more that needs to be said on this matter.

    One thing I will say is that people always prefer to get really bad news (death of someone close), or really good news (engagement of someone close) in a telephone call or in person – never in emails.

    Sending Large Files:

    Most email servers limit files sizes to 10-20mb per message, this limit is in place because email protocols were never designed to handle large file transfers. It is for this very reason that it is slower to download a 10mb file from you email than it is to do so over the web. There are plenty of web services that will allow you top upload a large file (often up to 100mbs for free) and email a link to that file (even password protected) to another person for download. Because remember, no one wants to try opening a 20mb Powerpoint presentation on their cellphone.

    Making a Change

    Here is a list of tools you can be using to make yours and the lives of others easier:

    Instant Messaging: All the rage when I was in college, seemingly fallen by the wayside now. This is still a great tool for having impromptu conversations with with people, quickly and efficiently.

    Chat Rooms: These are not the old chat rooms that you frequented on AOL in the 90’s, new tools such as 37Signals’ Campfire are amazing tools for collaborating with large groups of people.

    Project Management Tools: think less MS Projects and more along the lines of shared messages, and to-do lists. I love Backpack and Basecamp from 37Signals, but there are a ton of offerings out there.

    Twitter: If it can be said in less than 140 characters don’t waste and email – Twitter is faster and more efficient. It also provides a great platform for informal, impromptu conversations. Want to share a link with all of your friends, post it to Twitter, don’t clutter their inboxes and expose their email address to a ‘reply all’ “that was cool!” message.

    File Sharing: Tools like Droplr make great ways to share an image or file quickly and easily. Apple’s MobileMe Gallery is a far more efficient want to send your latest vacation pictures – email isn’t.

    Meeting Management Tools: Once you get 3 or more people needed in the same place at the same time it becomes very hard to manage everything. Tools like the aforementioned Timebridge make life much easier. It can read everyone’s calendars for you and show you only times everyone else is available. This is still best suited for business, but here’s hoping we can get a social version sooner.

    Blogs: If I didn’t have my own personal blog my friends’ email inboxes would be chocked full of random crap I find on the web. Instead I post it all to my blog – my friends know the URL and can check out stuff when and only when they want to. Setting up blogs on sites like Tumblr (recommended) or Posterous is dead simple – go get one and give it a try.

    Email: Great tool for newsletters, and marketing information.

    Getting Others to Work With You

    All of the above tools are absolutely great – but only if others are willing to use them with you. One reasons we misuse email so frequently is because everyone uses it, unlike many of the proposed tools above. I have found however that people aren’t averse to using newer, better tools – they are typically just lazy.

    When my Wife and I were planning our wedding (OK she did the planning mostly) we would have done the whole thing over email and paper scraps if it was up to her. Instead I took the time to set up a few pages in Backpack that allowed use to collaborate far more efficiently. Even more surprising is how fast she took to using a new tool to take care of the planning.

    The above holds true to most people I have encountered, setup a better way to do something and ask them to use it. More often than not they will take the time to actually use the tool, instead of the just going back to email. Let people surprise you, remember that you can’t make changes happen without trying.

    [This part of an ongoing series on dealing with email, to see more posts look here.]

  • Making the iPad Shine

    My God does the iPad attract finger prints, luckily for Apple it is not the device that makes the iPad shine – the app developers really make this device shine. When the iPad first came out it was really cool, but cool is not enough to keep most people from having buyers remorse. With the iPad though every week brings a new great app that makes the iPad just that much better and usable.

    Apple success with the iPad is very much tied to the quality and relevance of the apps that developers create for it. As it stands right now – based on the quality of apps – the iPad is pretty damned successful.

    Here are some apps that really make the iPad shine:

    Instapaper

    It has existed since day one on the iPad, and since day one it has been the best way to read anything on the iPad. Marco Arment’s app really shines, it is a splendid readings experience for everything you throw at it. This is the best way to read your Instapaper items – the best way to read anything on the iPad really.

    Reeder

    A relatively new player in the iPad app arena ports the popular iPhone RSS reader to the iPad. This is absolutely the best way to read your news feeds on any platform. A mix of speed and beautiful design will leave most torn between reading something in Reeder or sending it to Instapaper (which it also supports).

    MLB At Bat 2010

    It helps of course that I am a huge baseball fan, but MLB has done a fantastic job with their iPad app. I am not going to say that this is better than being at the game (it isn’t) nor is it better than watching the game on TV – it is however awesome if you can’t get the game on your TV, or to supplement your TV watching experience (for those of your hardcore enough about baseball).

    Ego for iPad

    I had no reason to want Ego on the iPad as the iPhone version was nearly perfect. Ego for the iPad expands upon its web analytics offerings from the iPhone to add full page logins for your analytic tracking services. Beyond that it is an absolutely beautiful app.

    1Password for iPad

    This is a great password and credit card number keeper, more than that it really is a well designed app. One of the best parts of using it is logging into the application it takes you through vault doors to access your private data. Very, very well done application that makes you feel secure with your data through the visual design alone.

    Things

    There is no shortage of beautiful task management apps available for the iPad, Things however is among the best looking and more functional options you can buy. Things does a fantastic job of capturing textures without over using them.

    Calendar

    This is all Apple, I have been using iCal since 2004 and have always hated the way it looked. Calendar for the iPhone is nothing special (to be nice), but the Calendar app on the iPad is a true winner. I have stopped using iCal on my Mac in preference of only using the iPad app. Forget about using the Month and List views as they still suck, but the Week view and Day views are excellent (except that you can’t swipe to go through days in the Day view – fix this Apple).

    Penultimate

    I never would have thought that a pen drawing app would be worth paying for, but Penultimate truly is. You get a very vintage feeling notebook on which you can draw (very realistically) with an ink pen. This is one of those apps that you have to see to fall in love with, words here will not do Penultimate justice.

    Financial Times

    Everybody and their Mom seems to have a news app out for the iPad, Steve Jobs was right though as Financial Times really does shine as the start of the lot. The navigation is not as obvious as it is in most apps, but it is for this very reason that the app looks beautiful. Of course the glaring omission in the app is the inability to share links to articles – that fact aside this is the best news app available.

    The Guardian Eyewitness

    Some would say it is a news app, I say it is strictly a beauty app. Eyewitness serves up one news photo per day, full-screen. You get a short description and notes on how the photographer took the shot.

    Articles

    Let’s face it, Wikipedia is damn ugly to look at, Articles though makes it a beautiful way to look through Wikipedia. I can’t remember the last time I actually used the website.

    WeatherStation Pro

    Looks like a one use device that you would find in Brookstone, but WeatherStation is the best looking (yet informative) weather app that you can get for the iPad. Everything you need, nothing you hate (like ads).

    Pinball HD

    It has been ages since I played a real Pinball machine, however aside from getting a TILT warning Pinball HD feels pretty great (and looks even better).

    Solitaire Classics HD

    They get a huge knock for having a title that is too long to display in full – but they more than make up for it in style once you get in the app. The animations and card movements / looks make everything look very real. Especially the fact that Solitaire remains a pain in the ass to beat.

    Night Stand HD

    This clock app for the iPad happens to be one of my favorite iPad apps of all time. Put it on the Flip Clock display and sit back and enjoy. Realistic, beautiful and useful-ish.

    Epicurious

    This app give you recipes, but more than that you can tell that it was designed from the outset to be used in the kitchen, from a distance. The text is large and very legible. The design is not as beautiful as those that I have mentioned up to this point, but it really doesn’t need to be – this app is incredibly useful.

    With over 10,000 apps in the store now, I am constantly finding new apps that push the bar even higher. Don’t be fooled when you look at the iPad’s specs and think that it is just a large iPhone or netbook type computer – because the iPad’s success is in its apps.

  • Thoughts on the Impact of Starbucks’ Free Wi-Fi

    This Starbucks free Wi-Fi announcement is a lot bigger than most people probably think it is, here are a few unfermented thoughts bouncing around in my head about it:

    • With Wi-Fi being free in 6,700 U.S. stores, and me living and working in the greater Seattle area – do I need a Mi-Fi device any longer?
    • It is about damn time – I mean wake up and smell the coffee already (sorry).
    • Oh I hope hotels follow suit.
    • This is not going to be good for small coffee shops that relied on their free Wi-Fi as a selling point. Time to start making better coffee.
    • They are working with Yahoo to get free paid content for customers for sites like WSJ – amazing.
    • Biongo is going under.
    • I think my iPad wet itself.
    • Starbucks needs to add more seats in its stores.

  • Yeah, but What About the Battery?

    Yesterday I was catching up on my Instapaper queue and ended up reading an abundance of Sprint EVO 4G reviews – about five of them. The majority of the reviews complained in one form or another about the devices battery life. That really got me thinking about the battery life in today’s gadgets and what we (as users) really need out of a battery.

    Here are what I think are most important when it comes to battery life in all mobile devices:

    1. All day life – this is not 8 or 12 hours of life, nor is it 24 hours. I want the device to last for the duration that I need it on an average day. No one talks on their phone for 24 hours a day, so a 24 hour battery is not needed. We do however use out laptops for more than 4 hours – we need more life out of these batteries.
    2. Fast recharging – the best example of this I can think of was back when I was 12 I had a really cool stable of remote control cars (about four) that all used a rechargeable Ni-Cad battery. If you remember these batteries (early cellphones and laptops used them) you had to charge them for about 3-4 hours and in my remote control cars they lasted about 20-30 minutes. I had about 4 of these batteries (they went bad fast too) and so I could at most play with my remote control cars for about two hours on any given day – the rest of the day would be spent charging. Today’s batteries or Li-Ion and are far better. They last longer and charge faster – but how fast is fast enough. For starters you should not have to charge a device for longer than you can use it for.

      Small gadgets like iPods, Cellphones, Bluetooth Headsets mostly fast charge to 80% of full then they trickle charge the rest of the way. This method helps users and prolongs battery life. This is great – but where the hell is it in laptops? My Macbook Pro charges for hours before it is 100% and I only get 4-5 hours of use (I wish I had one of those new ones with 8 hours batteries).

    3. Interchangeability – the real question is do we need to be able to swap out our batteries. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said yes. I used to carry two Macbook Pro batteries with me and a bag full of chargers. Then I said screw it and I have learned to charge when and where I can, rarely did I use all those backup chargers and batteries. It is always nice to be able to change a battery yourself, but the only time I can think of when it is really necessary is for long flights where you can’t get to a power source. The rest of the time it is easy enough to find a power source, especially if #1 gets fulfilled. To sum up: a user should be able to change the battery if it offers less than 10 hours of life – if you can squeeze more life than that out of a battery by making it non-removable, go for it.
    4. Cold weather – I hate hiking in the cold because I have to carry tons of camera batteries, they run out of juice very fast in cold weather, as do most batteries – we need this to be a non-issue.

    Back to the EVO

    That brings me to one last point – device usage. One thing that really bugged me about all the EVO reviews was that most agreed that in order to get acceptable battery life out of the device you needed to fiddle with the settings on a regular basis:

    Battery drain depends on how the phone is used, and with so many radios in the EVO it can be hit hard. I find that a little diligence is all that’s needed to stretch the battery out all day. With normal use the lowest the battery has drained on a given day is 11 percent left in the tank at day’s end. – James Kendrick

    That is just absurd. You should never have to do anything special to get the best battery life out of your device. Ever. I know a lot of people will disagree with this, but we are buying a device because it will supposedly make out lives easier, not complicated them more by making us have to turn stuff off and on when we stop and start using them.

    Apple shipped the first Macbook Pro Unibody computers with dual graphics cards that you can switch between, the catch was that you had to log out and back in to your computer if you wanted to switch – meaning that I only switch about 5% of the time that I should. They righted that wrong with recent updates to the computers allowing the computer to make the switch on the fly based on need.

    If Apple can engineer their laptops to switch between graphics cards based on need (a pretty major component of your computing system) then surely cellphone manufacturers as large as HTC and Apple can engineer a device that switched Wi-Fi / 3G on and off based on need. It is only logical.

    We need to demand better battery life – now.

  • Why the Apple iPhone 4 Kills Google’s Android

    Yesterday the latest version of Apple’s iPhone (dubbed iPhone 4) was released at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco. This is a huge leap for iPhones, so the implications for Apple alone are major, however I think the iPhone 4 is going to have the greatest impact on the smartphone market as a whole. This phone is a game changer for everyone: consumers and competitors.

    Last month I posted about the rivalry between Google and Apple – in that post I said:

    Google is running with the open source guys, pushing all the features that users say they want and doing it on a wide range of Android devices. If Apple says that they won’t do it (Flash), Google quickly does it. Google is in a people pleasing mode — a dangerous mode to be in. Instead of doing the normal routine of copying all the good and improving upon the bad, they are copying as little as possible and barely improving upon the bad.

    What I am basically saying is that Google is copying Apple (and poorly so) instead of innovating their product. This is why the iPhone 4 is so damned game changing for Google.

    Since 2007 the major iPhone complaints have been the following (as best I can remember them):

    • No Flash
    • No Copy & Paste
    • No 3G
    • No Multi-tasking
    • No Porno / anything goes apps
    • No Video
    • Poor camera
    • Lacking MMS
    • Headphone jack sucks (remember that recessed jack in the first iPhone?)

    Out of all those complaints Apple has addressed each one with flying colors – with exception of the ‘anything goes app store’ and Flash (which we all know why by now). Google has none of these complaints and really have had none of them from the outset of Android, yet Apple is clearly in the lead – why?

    Google is building software to run on lots of platforms, HTC is building most all of the hardware, Carriers are tweaking the looks of the interface to fit their ‘brands’. Apple is building everything – allowing no one else to tweak their device.

    Polar Opposites

    So why now is it that I think Google has finally been backed into a corner – there is not much left to complain about the iPhone. You either accept the fasted, smallest, crispest phone you can buy (and buy for cheap for that matter) or you buy an Android phone. In other words, there is no compelling reason to buy and Android phone over an Apple phone any longer. If you really want porn or other apps that Apple will not allow into the App Store you can get it all on the web. If you think you need Flash – think again, over 50% of Flash based media sites are making the move to web standards viewable on the iPhone and iPad.

    It will take HTC months if not a year to build a phone that can compete hardware to hardware with the iPhone, and even then would be upgraders will run into another major problem: their contracts. One reason Apple has stuck with AT&T is because AT&T up to this point has been willing to offer upgrades to existing customers, thus allowing current iPhone users to buy the newest iPhone each year with minimal penalty (sometime no penalty).

    I don’t see Verizon or T-Mobile / Sprint being willing to do the same for Android users – meaning if you want the latest and greatest Android device you have to wait 2 years for your contract to expire, or pay up.

    Oh I almost forgot – this whole FaceTime video chat thing. Yeah Android users can already do it over 3G with Fring, but can they initiate when on a regular call, can they flip from camera to camera like on the iPhone? No. Can any user figure out how to do it? No again. People can’t even yell at Apple for creating another closed standard, as they are opening up FaceTime to all as a protocol for Smartphone video calling. Now it makes all handset makers look bad if they don’t use it, after all Apple was first-ish.

    Then as always it comes right back down to marketing. As Gina Tripani of Smarterware says:

    That’s the thing about Apple marketing. They don’t talk about how many gigabytes of memory or how many CPU cycles or how many apps (much). They aim for your heart, and show you how technology can make your life better during its most important moments.

    She is spot on, just watch the iPhone 4 video or this shorter commercial video from Apple and tell me that you don’t see what this video is really telling you. A soldier seeing his unborn child, a deaf couple talking on the phone. This is heartwarming stuff, this isn’t telling you want the phone can do, Apple is telling you what the iPhone 4 can do for YOU.

    Compare and contrast that to this Sprint HTC EVO 4G commercial which is the current king of the mountain for Android phones.

    I know you can see the difference, Sprint/HTC/Google touted the phone be a revolution and told you nothing about what the phone can do for you, it didn’t even really tell you what 4G was or that it is faster. This just said first a lot. Really neat.

    The difference is night and day, if you have been waiting for the iPhone to come to your network or to come to maturity – time to stop waiting. The iPhone 4 is here and you are throwing away your money buying anything else.

    [Updated: 6/9/10 at 8:56 AM] Reader Roger Barnes pointed out an inaccuracy – Sprint does allow their premier customers to upgrade phones every 12 months. Though not everyone can be a Premier customer – it is easy enough to qualify.

  • What I Got Right / Wrong With My WWDC Predictions

    Here is how well I did:

    iPhone HD / 4G

    Wrong Name

    • Front facing camera – check
    • Higher resolution rear camera w/ LED flash – check
    • Higher resolution screen – check
    • Base will be 32gb and upgraded version will be 64gb – nope
    • Longer battery life – check
    • Better 3g signal reception – pissobly, a new antenna design was made to help this

    iChat Mobile

    Wrong Name

    • Video chatting on the iPhone – check
    • Carriers will determine if you can use it on 3G- check
    • AT&T will say no – TBD, but we know already
    • U.S. will only get Wi-Fi video chats – check
    • Require new MobileMe subscription (see below) – nope, better yet it is going to be an open standard

    iPhone 3GS

    This will drop to $99 replacing the iPhone 3G – check

    iPhone OS 4.0

    This will be out for iPhones – check. The iPad developer seeds will be made available for devs and will ship to the public in September – nope.

    Safari 5

    Nope

    • Faster than Chrome
    • More CSS3 and HTML5 support
    • Support for Bing search over Google
    • Auto Flash toggling so that it makes for a more ‘stable’ web browsing experience (think Click2Flash)
    • (long-shot) Ad blocking

    New MobileMe

    Nope

    • Free subscriptions with 1gb storage
    • Required for iChat Mobile
    • Wireless syncing for all
    • Dev access for cloud storage with iPhone apps.

    Mac Pro Refresh

    Nope

    Storage & speed bumps only.

    Macbook Air Refresh

    Nope

    • Screen resolution bump
    • Storage bump
    • Speed bump
    • Battery increased

    One More Thing: Apple TV

    Nope

    • Will run iPhone OS 4 TV
    • 16gb and 32gb SSD models
    • Will stream video and audio from new MobileMe service
    • iTunes Store on device
    • MobileMe syncing with computers
    • iPhoto slideshow syncing
    • App Store

    In other words I should stop trying.

  • WWDC Announcement: iPhone 3GS now $99

    Called that.

  • WWDC Announcement: iPhone 4

    Features so far:

    • Thinnest iPhone yet 24% thinner than the 3GS – thinnest smart phone on the planet.
    • Front facing camera.
    • Noise cancellation.
    • New Design (Gizmodo did have the actual design with the phone they bought).
    • The metal band is actually 3 antennas (clever).
    • 4x the pixel density called Retina display (326 ppi highest in a phone ever for really sharp text). This is a game changer for app design, if you thought apps looked great on the iPhone already – you haven’t seen anything yet.
    • Existing apps will look better on this display without the developers having to do a thing. This will help the app developers take time to design for the new interface instead of doing a rush job.
    • Powered by the A4 chip (iPad chip) and if the speed of the iPad is any indication this thing should fly.
    • Improved battery life: 7 hours 3G talk, 6 hours 3G browsing, 10 hours WiFi browsing, 10 hours movies, 40 hours of music, and 300 hours of standby – all in all about 40% more talk time.
    • 32gb Max storage
    • Quad-band HSDPA / HSUPA
    • 802.11n WI-Fi (yes)
    • Three axis Gyroscope for better gaming (this is tied to the GPS to give developers 6-axis motion sensing – very cool)
    • All new camera: 5 megapixels with the same pixel density (this is good) and an LED flash. Tap to focus (like the 3GS) and backside illuminated sensor.
    • The iPhone can record HD video – I wet myself when I heard this. 720p @ 30fps. Record and edit on the phone LED flash will stay on to illuminate the scene. (this could kill the Flip Cam)
    • iOS 4
    • iBooks (as part of iOS 4, presumably available on all iPhones)
    • FaceTime – video calling. (what a great name) This is Wi-Fi only as I predicted it would be. This also does the video in either landscape or portrait, though I can’t imagine holding it in landscape to make the calls. Also Jobs demoed two people talking in sign language on the phone, which is, well just amazing. Working to get it over Cell networks (fat chance with AT&T) and you can switch between front and rear cameras automatically.
    • Comes in White and Black (I have been a White iPhone guy, but it doesn’t look so great to me this time around)
    • 16gb for $199 and 32gb for $299
    • AT&T will upgrade any customer whose contract expires in 2010.
    • Pre-order next week for June 24th launch

    More from Apple here.

  • WWDC Announcement: iBooks on the iPhone

    This was to be expected.

    Steve Jobs via GDGT:

    The same controls, the same highlighting, the same bookmarking, the same PDF reading. If you get a PDF in Mail, tap on that and you’ll go right to iBooks. And, of course, the iBook Store right on your iPhone. We’ll have it on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.
    What can we do with all these products together? Well, the first is you can download and purchase a book to any of these products, and it’ll be wirelessly downloaded right to the device. Now, you can download the same book to all your devices at no extra charge.

    With place syncing just like Kindle – Amazon should be scared. There are now 100 million devices that can buy books from Apple, how many Kindles has Amazon sold?

  • WWDC Announcement: iPhoneOS Renamed: iOS 4

    This makes a lot of sense as the iPad running this OS lead to some confusion. iOS 4 however is a silly name (also I am hearing chatter that this name is already owned by Cisco, atleast the iOS part).

    We already know a lot about this next version of the iOS so here are the key items:

    • Multitasking
    • Folders for storing groups of apps together (this is going to be very underrated, but really popular)
    • Unified email inbox – finally.
    • Threaded email conversations – yay!
    • Better enterprise integration – this will help Apple out on the biz side tremendously
    • Can now use Google / Yahoo / Bing as search engine, Google stays default
    • iAds looks great and is a great solution for Developers
    • Available on June 21st

    There is a lot more, but that is all that was touched on in the Keynote. Launching soon, no date given. (will update with links later)

  • WWDC Announcement: iMovie for iPhone

    Apple releases iMovie for the iPhone today an all new application. You can now record and edit HD video on the iPhone – more than just cropping the length of a movie.

    Features:

    • Transitions
    • Titles
    • Add photos and audio from the iPhone’s library
    • Geotagging
    • Themes just like on the desktop version (only five – which is impressive and dissappointing at the same time)
    • Export to 360p, 540p, and 720p (HD).
    • Costs $4.99 in the App Store and the screen shot only shoes it with a rating of 4 stars (funny).

    Looks just about as full featured as the desktop version – no Final Cut, but beats the hell out of any other cellphone video capturing and editing. Simply put no other mobile device can touch this.

  • My WWDC 2010 Predictions

    I am going to throw down my predictions for what Apple will release tomorrow at the WWDC keynote. I have no sources here so these are complete guesses and I may (probably) will look like an ass tomorrow.

    iPhone HD / 4G

    We already saw some version of it. I think it will have:

    • Front facing camera
    • Higher resolution rear camera w/ LED flash
    • Higher resolution screen
    • Base will be 32gb and upgraded version will be 64gb
    • Longer battery life
    • Better 3g signal reception

    iChat Mobile

    • Video chatting on the iPhone
    • Carriers will determine if you can use it on 3G
    • AT&T will say no
    • U.S. will only get Wi-Fi video chats
    • Require new MobileMe subscription (see below)

    iPhone 3GS

    This will drop to $99 replacing the iPhone 3G.

    iPhone OS 4.0

    This will be out for iPhones. The iPad developer seeds will be made available for devs and will ship to the public in September.

    Safari 5

    • Faster than Chrome
    • More CSS3 and HTML5 support
    • Support for Bing search over Google
    • Auto Flash toggling so that it makes for a more ‘stable’ web browsing experience (think Click2Flash)
    • (long-shot) Ad blocking

    New MobileMe

    • Free subscriptions with 1gb storage
    • Required for iChat Mobile
    • Wireless syncing for all
    • Dev access for cloud storage with iPhone apps.

    Mac Pro Refresh

    Storage & speed bumps only.

    Macbook Air Refresh

    • Screen resolution bump
    • Storage bump
    • Speed bump
    • Battery increased

    One More Thing: Apple TV

    • Will run iPhone OS 4 TV
    • 16gb and 32gb SSD models
    • Will stream video and audio from new MobileMe service
    • iTunes Store on device
    • MobileMe syncing with computers
    • iPhoto slideshow syncing
    • App Store

  • I Deleted My Facebook Account Last Night

    Facebook sent me this when I deleted the account:

    Hi Ben,

    We have received a request to permanently delete your account. Your account has been deactivated from the site and will be permanently deleted within 14 days.

    If you did not request to permanently delete your account, follow this link to cancel this request:

    http://www.facebook.com/account_delete.php

    Thanks,
    The Facebook Team

    14 days?! WTF? Also if I log back in during that period they assume I don’t want the account deleted and cancel it. So basically they are making it really easy for people to undelete the account – but there should be an immediate deletion option.

  • What AT&T‘s Data Plans Mean for Video Conferencing

    As you probably have heard by now AT&T changed its smart phone data plans – you can no longer purchase ‘unlimited’ data plans. Instead you must settle for 2gb of data – not too shabby, but no unlimited. This all seems well and good given that most users barely broach the 300mb mark each month, but then again isn’t the new iPhone 4G rumored to have a front facing camera?

    According to a lot of reports, including the iPhone 4G that was ‘found’ by Gizmodo, the new iPhone will indeed have a front facing camera – presumably for video conferencing. Now this seems pretty sweet, until you remember that AT&T is only allowing you to use 2gb of data each month. Uh Oh.

    So there are two options that I see here, assuming of course that Apple is going to launch the iPhone 4G with built-in video conferencing. The first is probably the most obvious, AT&T will make U.S. customers wait a year to use the feature and then add $30/mo to your bill to allow you to talk on video chat for 100 minutes each month (I am making this all up, I have no sources). Basically, option one is AT&T charging an extra charge each month for video conferencing, not at all unlikely.

    Option two is that the new iPhone won’t be able to use the existing cellular networks for video conferencing and instead this will be a Wi-Fi only feature (making one wonder why you would use an iPhone over your home computer). This would allow Apple to completely by-pass AT&T and give its customers free video chats.

    Assuming Apple does launch video chats on the iPhone, I unfortunately would expect them to go down the road of option 2 – wi-fi only. My guess would be that at that point they would work with AT&T to get it over 3G and release a software update supporting it just before Christmas.

  • Apple to Save the News Biz?

    At the D8 conference Steve Jobs remarked that perhaps the news industry needs an iTunes type model for news. He went on to say that we need news outlets so that we don’t become a “nation of bloggers”. Agreed.

    The question then is does Jobs mean that we really need an iNews, or was he simply using that to illustrate the point that news is lost and needs a common strategy that they can band around? I of course think that Jobs meant the latter: news outlets need to band together to create a common and standardized system by which they will make money off of their content.

    The reasons iTunes works so well for music is because you can get everything at one place for the same price. Just because Ke$ha is more popular right now than Bob Dylan, doesn’t mean her music costs more. Everything in one location for a standardized price. Makes sense. So why hasn’t news done this?

    What is stopping the major news outlets from coming together and saying that starting next week we have to pay $5 a month for a subscription to a news site, every news site is now $5/mo and that is that.

    I know what is stopping them from doing this: ego.

    There is no way that the Wall Street Journal and New York Times are willing to charge their customers the same price that The New York Post charges – no way.

    Ego: that is going to be the news industries downfall.

  • Thoughts on What Steve Jobs Said at D8

    As most of you have probably heard Steve Jobs took the stage at the D8 conference with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, who led the discussion. I thought instead if trying to find the best quote to post I would just give you a run down of what I think and read into what Jobs was saying. My thoughts are in no particular order, nor do they match up with the order of the discussion.

    Apple & AT&T

    Steve Jobs stated pretty much what I have been saying all along – no matter what network the iPhone debuted on, that network would have had the same problems. I think most would agree with this.

    The interesting part about Jobs’ statements on AT&T was the sense of loyalty that you get from the way he talks about the two companies relationships. AT&T took a huge risk with marketing the iPhone and allowing Apple to design it with no input from AT&T (not industry standard at the time) – it would seem because of this Jobs feels compelled to keep the iPhone AT&T only for as long as it doesn’t hurt the phone. I would say given the sales numbers that we have not hit that point yet.

    The AT&T announcing new (very reasonable) data plan pricing and the eventual support of tethering it would see that this is a last ditch effort for AT&T to knock down the price of cellphone bills. However there was an interesting tidbit in the news – AT&T is doing this to try and curb data usage on its network, as 3% of the users account for 40% of total network usage. This is not in line with what I normally agree with, however if it can improve AT&T’s network for everyone while they work to upgrade it, then I am all for it. Jobs eluded to AT&T working on a lot of things, and I believe this is just one such solution they are going to try.

    iPad

    Three iPad’s sold every second – are you kidding me? Wow.

    Jobs confirmed what we all had the sense of when we first touched the iPad – it was the initial thought, but the iPhone was released first. You can really see that once you use one for a while.

    Steve believes that the iPad is the future, plain and simple. I agree, it may never do as much as your laptop does right now, but how often do you need anything more. I am a huge technophile and I only need something more 20% of the time right now, add a few more apps to it and that could drop to 2%. The iPad will be an amazing tool when it matures in the next few years, and until then it will grow in popularity and with that acceptance.

    Apple & Flash

    You knew that this topic would be broached, and indeed it was. What is interesting to note is that as far as I can tell Jobs was being genuine when he said, it was not about Flash as it is about picking future technologies. Jobs likens Flash to Floppy Drives, in other words Apple sees Flash not as a future technology but as an outdated technology. This explains a lot and should show that it is not so much a performance issue with Flash, Apple just doesn’t want to support a Floppy Disk on their devices. Those of you holding your breath for Flash on the iPhone OS platform, you should breath now, because you will die before it happens.

    Jobs on Google

    It was inevitable that Mossberg & Swisher would ask Jobs about Google and their relationship with the company. I am going to take Jobs’ statements on the matter to be honest, he has never shown a pension for being anything but honest. Jobs made it very clear that Google stepped into Apple’s territory and not the other way around. He also made it very clear that they are not going into search and that they will continue to provide Google products so long as they are the best option for its customers.

    Jobs would not touch on his personal relationship with Schmidt and Google, nor should he have to. I got the distinct impression from the way Jobs was talking that Apple is not out to defend itself or try to bury Google – Apple and Jobs just want to make cool stuff that consumers will buy. This is where Microsoft is going wrong (and thus far Google is as well) – both companies are focused on killing the competition and trying to win, when they need to be focused on making stuff their customers want to use.

    So to recap:

    Microsoft wants to dominate with Windows Mobile 7 Phone.
    Google wants to dominate everything with Android.
    Apple wants to make products that people want to use.

    Who do you think will win long term? I am not saying Apple will win, but they are on the best path.

    On Gizmodo

    Nothing new here, he was very brief about the matter as he reiterated the facts that we all know already. Not much more could be said without legal counsel present. However he did say that he could not let it slide, and as I speculated when this all went down – this is about setting an example, not about legalities of stuff. Bummer for Gizmodo, but they had it coming on this one.

    On Publishing

    Jobs made a very important point when he said (according to the WSJ coverage):

    Jobs adds that he believes people are willing to pay for content and that content providers are not pricing their offerings as aggressively as they should.

    I don’t think there are many that can disagree with that. I would love to pay for content, but the content has to be good, ad free and priced at a reasonable rate. The Wall Street Journal does none of this, nor does anyone else. Time to pull your heads out of your asses publishing industry.

    On App Store Rejections

    Apple approves 95% of apps within seven days. Incredible. There will always be the vocal minority when it comes to app rejections, but most of the time Apple has a strong basis for their rejections. When Apple doesn’t they usually analyze it and change their policy to suit. Short of removing all policies and letting all apps through I don’t know what more Apple could do here.

    I applaud Apple and Jobs for acknowledging when they are wrong and defending themselves when they think they are right. You can’t ask for more these days, and rarely do you get such candor from a company. (Imagine Microsoft publishing an open letter on Flash?)

    Questions Not Asked I Would Have Liked to See Asked:

    • What are your thoughts on the Wired App created with new Adobe technologies?
    • Is the future in video conferencing or text communication, or do you think it will remain audio only?
    • What is your primary computer? (because who doesn’t want to know that)

    Link to coverage of the event here.

  • Google vs. Apple – Gaining Perspective

    If Google’s I/O conference taught pundits anything it is this: Google is out to hurt Apple. Gone are the days when Google and Apple would band together to fight the common enemy of Microsoft. Microsoft isn’t even a thought in the minds of these two giants anymore. They have their sights squarely focused on each other. This is the last scene of a bad action movie, the two opposites had joined together to defeat a larger villain — now that the villain has been defeated they turn on each other.

    Just like in the movie, this is when the good stuff starts to happen. The original Mac forced Windows, Wordperfect forced Word, iPhone OS forced WebOS and Android. An increase in horsepower from BMW leads to more horsepower from Audi and Mercedes. This is competition at its finest — this is competition that benefits the consumer.

    There was a time when I thought Mac users were pathetic — Mac OS 9 looked like crap compared to Windows. Then I got a glimpse of OS X 10.1 and I saw something that was finally better than Windows. There was a time when I sung the praises of PalmOS and RIM’s OS — then there was the iPhone, and the game changed.

    Competition is the common denominator in all of these changes. Microsoft knew that DOS was dead when they saw the Mac, so they pushed and innovated. When the iPhone was announced in 2007 a story would pop up just about every week announcing that so and so was creating a new ‘iPhone Killer’, it’s 2010, where is it? Contrary to what most would think, each time I read about an ‘iPhone Killer’ I truly hoped that it would be just that because:

    1. The iPhone is so good, I would love anything that improved upon it.
    2. Better competition leads to more innovation.

    What this means for Google

    I started this whole post to talk about Google and Apple, not to give history lessons — so what does all this have to do with Google? It has a lot to do with Google, they are now stepping up to the plate trying to challenge Apple the same way that incumbents have been challenged in the past. Every example I have shown above was how the incumbent was eventually knocked back (sometimes regaining later), here we have Apple with the iPhone as the incumbent — but can Google knock them back? I am not so sure they can.

    This has nothing to do with design and everything to do with hype and marketing. This is where the mythical ‘Reality Distortion Field’ of Steve Jobs comes into play. It is even more than Steve Jobs though, it is a face, an image — a brand. Apple has it and Google doesn’t.

    Walk into a room of normal Americans and say the name Steve Jobs, they will know it. Say the name Bill Gates, again they will know it. They may not know exactly who these people are, but they will know the name. Now say the name Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, Sergey Brin — I doubt that 20% of the people in the room will know these names. Normally this isn’t a problem for companies, but in Google’s case they really need this recognition, they have three leaders — and nobody knows them. When nobody knows your leaders, nobody listens to them — you lack charisma, you have no ‘Reality Distortion Field’.

    Google’s Challenge to Apple

    Google is running with the open source guys, pushing all the features that users say they want and doing it on a wide range of Android devices. If Apple says that they won’t do it (Flash), Google quickly does it. Google is in a people pleasing mode — a dangerous mode to be in. Instead of doing the normal routine of copying all the good and improving upon the bad, they are copying as little as possible and barely improving upon the bad.

    One look at the home screen on the iPhone versus the home screen on an Android phone tells the tale. One looks modern and sleek, the other looks a bit clunky. It is clear which company values engineering more than design. Google has implemented an impressive amount of features and is building quite an App store to compete with Apple, and yet I still think they will fall short.

    Google is Missing the Point

    As it stands today Google will not and cannot beat Apple with their current strategy. Google is truly missing the point, it is not about features, design, price, openness, flexibility — it is about one thing: User Experience.

    This is what SanDisk failed to realize when they tried to compete with the iPod (by all accounts the Zune was decent — just late to the party). People didn’t want expandable memory (even though they complained that they wanted it) — people wanted all their music with them. People wanted better playlists (thank you iTunes) that they could retrieve on their iPods. No one at SanDisk seemed to understand this — now they are good at selling flash memory for cameras.

    Google, like SanDisk, is still missing the point that people don’t want all the features they say they do, they just want something that works, and is a pleasure to use. The lack of Flash, the overbearing approval process for iPhone Apps, and the AT&T network are all things that the iPhone lacks. Yet it still is killing Android because you can’t compete with the ease and reliability of the phone that Apple has brought to the table.

    User Experience and Grins

    The way I like to think about user experience is based on grin factor. Back in 2006 my father bought some new Sea Doos for the lake that he lives on. I, being his son, got to drive them first — they were brand new models with a staggering 215hp on a machine 10’ long. I hit the gas and went from less than a mile per hour (you can’t be standing still on one) to 70 mph in less than 3 seconds. That is scary fast, yet I was grinning with the excitement of a child the entire time.

    JUNE 2007

    I opened the box and pulled out the sleekest phone I have ever seen, it wasn’t activated, but I still grinned, that same Sea Doo grin, just sliding the unlock slider back and forth. Tapping keys and veiwing the internet smaller than I ever want to view it, yet I relished every second.

    JULY 2007

    I am checking my email, in the Bahamas when I find my self surrounded by wait staff. They had never seen the iPhone, they had heard about it, but it was not on sale internationally yet. I reluctantly passed it to the waiter and watched as his teeth and those around him lit up the room. They didn’t do a thing on the phone except stare at the screen dumbfounded, amazed.

    JANUARY 2010

    We all watch Steve Jobs sit on stage and show us his newest creation, the iPad. We are watching a billionaire surf the web, news websites, and we all watch as a grin flushes his face.

    APRIL 2010

    I opened the box and pulled out something hailed as a revolution, I was jet lagged and yet a grin shown across my face. How could something so simple, inflexible and underpowered be so damned amazing.

    I arrived at my office and set my iPad on the desk. The biggest Apple hater in the office came over and asked to see it. I pulled up a racing game (knowing that he races cars for a hobby) and watched as a grin spread from ear to ear — even while he was crashing into every wall.

    TODAY

    Google has absolutely nothing in their product arsenal that gives people that grin factor. Wave was supposed to, but it turned out to make people even more overwhelmed then they already are. If Google wants to start a real war with Apple they will need to start with grin factor.

    Finding the Grins

    The question then becomes can Google get the user experience right, and if so, how? Google absolutely can get the user experience right, they already have with Google Maps and Google Earth — what a great set of tools to use. I love street view and flying around in Google Earth is always a lot of fun.

    Google needs to add that fun into their Android phones. They need to make a mandate the carriers offer free OS upgrades on phones for two years after they are purchased, making sure that all of their users get the latest and greatest. Further, and more importantly, Google needs to stop worrying about what users want and start making things that users truly want.

    Huh?

    If you look at what the iPhone offered in 2007 – as a smart phone Windows Mobile had the iPhone out matched (so did Palm and RIM to some extent). Yet the iPhone took off. It took off because even though every other ‘guy’ had a web browser on their phone — no one had Mobile Safari and the amazingness it brought to mobile web browsing. No one had beautiful threaded text messaging — something that if you had asked a user if they wanted it pre-iPhone they probably would have shrugged it off and said “I guess.”

    The iPhone of 2007 had visual voicemail — the fact that voice mail is a huge pain in the ass wasn’t even a factor in deciding which phone to get, until the iPhone came out that is. Before the iPhone it was more common for someone to not have a data plan on their phone then it was for them to have one — let alone an unlimited data plan.

    Before the iPhone did you think that you would ever want a phone that didn’t have an answer and hang up button on it? I didn’t. Yet lacking those buttons have never tripped me up during the past 3 years.

    Google Needs to Think

    And by that I mean they need to stop engineering and start thinking about the usability of all their products. They need to find their visual voicemail moment with Android — that is they need to fix something that annoys everyone, even though they may not know it.