you want to start something?

OK, so the iPad was announced and the official line from the wife is that if I am in the US in late March, I’m to pick up three of them for the house and if I only come back with one, I’m a dead man.

They will fit my usage profile with the software out of the box. My usage pattern is essentially email and web. And when you add the apps that will easily port over from iPhone (by, uh, just installing them) then the remainder of my needs will be filled. Arguably some apps will work better on iPad (like the previously mentioned iSSH).

That one issue with iSSH essentially conveys the only real issue I had with iPhone – it’s a phone. It’s not going to be the best device for everything but the iPad solves a lot of the concerns with the iPhone as a general computing device. The screen is much larger so we can see the utility of a touch interface which can accept more than three fingers. We can see the new metaphors which free people to learn new methods of interacting with their computers. There are some recent iPhone metaphors which have inspired delight – such as the drag to refresh in Tweetie 2 for iPhone, the way you can grab and drag maps in the Maps app and the dice manipulation in Rory’s Story Cubes (based on the Award winning game). With all of these apps and more – we have to wonder what the additional screen space will do for the user experience. Important to note that the iPhone is 320×480 at around 160 dpi and the iPad is 1024×768 at around 130 dpi – so text will be in theory a little fuzzier at the same point size than iPhone but as the text will likely be larger, it should be, in theory be clearer.

What else..

From MacRumors

A shared file directory is provided that will mount on your Mac or PC. This is presumably how files such as iWork documents will be transferred to and from the iPad. iPad applications will be able to access this shared directory.

This is a relatively big deal, if correct. Not only is it the way to get your docs into your iPad, I’d presume that it will sync with MobileMe’s iDisk.

And if applications running on iPad can access this directory then we’re going to see a slew of apps which will be able to use WiFi and Bluetooth to swap files. This (OBEX) is something we can’t do on iPhone but we can with the Mac and other mobile phones. Maybe we’ll see other services being pushed – other than Pages files and images.

And yes, this potentially drags iPad (and maybe iPhone with OS 4.0) into the realms of where every other mobile has been for years.

And lastly…

I have to consider what will come in the accessories for iPad. We’ve already seen the Keyboard Dock, the Dock, the leather Case, the Camera Connection Kit – but what about the third party opportunities

• Air/Auto adapter – this is an obvious one. I’m guessing that existing adapters will work. Those folk sitting up at the front of the plane will need it for the long haul flights.
• Extended battery sleeve - we know how good these are (with the best I’ve seen coming from Mophie) and I reckon we’ll see extended battery sleeves for the iPad as well which will add bulk but also an entire day of operation. Those folk sitting down the back of the plane will need these for the long haul flights.
• Case with built-in keyboard – different to the case above, this is a hard case which either has a bluetooth keyboard or a keyboard with a Dock port cable attached (and a USB cord for charging). There were dreams of these back in the day for the Newton.
• Back of headrest holster – when you’re facing an 8 hour drive from Stranraer to Southampton, you need entertainment for the kids in the back of the car. What better than an iPad loaded with 20 movies, 50 games and a GPS so the kids can see where we are and where we’re going and that should help us avoid the “Are we there yet” refrain.
• Wall/desk dock mounting arm – you can mount an iMac on an arm, so why not an iPad? Put it beside your bed to charge overnight and act not only as your alarm clock but also your clock radio and your late at night reading lamp with built in book!
• Camera tether – whether a tether over WiFi or Bluetooth to an iPhone camera would be possible or whether there’s a hack to get a webcam attached to an iPad via the 30 pin port and a special ‘video’ dock – I think it might be worth it. I can see why it wasn’t built in but I would also hope for a lot more data input devices to be attached by the dock port.
• Double iPad case – establish a communications protocol and use one as display and the other as input (Thanks, Aidan). Why do you need this? WHO CARES. It’s got double the awesome!
• Scientific Instruments – they won’t convince the crazy people who believe in Genesis but I’d love to see a sensor bank which attached by iPad tether. Why do I need this? No idea. But I’d love to see it and I’d pledge to buy it too.

To be honest, I see the iPad replacing laptops and desktops in lots of other circumstances where people use screens to interact and do not have to do massive amounts of data entry. Lawyers, doctors, students, teachers, estate agents – all sorts.

Am I being Apple Fanboi Hysterical here? I don’t think so.

Tags: Commentary by mj
7 Comments »

I have a deep-seated desire for multi-tasking on the iPhone (and now the iPad). I understand their reasons for not including it and I understand the tradeoffs of performance, stability and user experience. I don’t want to be bothered using an app to micromanage device resources – that smacks too much of using Mac OS 9.

And that’s the world you live in with Android and Windows Mobile multitasking. The resources on a mobile device are sufficiently limited that you are forced to manage your apps to maintain the best performance. That’s obviously something that Apple wished to avoid.

In my entirely unscientific survey (which consists of standing about with other geeks and moaning about how we wish there was some multitasking on iPhone), I have come to consider the compromises.

Ahhhh, Push It!
Salt-N-Pepa pre-empted the Apple faithful with the refrain “Push it” when anyone considered multitasking to be necessary. This was meant to be the first compromise – notifications could be pushed from the ‘cloud’ (the new word for ’server on the internet’) to specific installed apps on the iPhone which gave a semblance of being able to interact with more than one application at a time. You could set notifications based on receiving messages on Twitter, a server being down or anything that can be reported (for example, a GPS with sender sending a Push notification that your car alarm has activated). But – push is one way and limited in scope so rather than just demanding multi-tasking, wouldn’t it be better to consider other compromises?

Pull
If we can push to an iPhone, what about the server setting up a pull mechanism? Essentially it’s a push designed to ‘get’ data rather than just ’set’ data. That would mean you could have a service running in the cloud which pings your phone for a location update or a state change in a document and updates the server copy. You could obviously set the frequency, you set the amount and quality of data to be pulled and Apple can provide a simple interface. Heck – build it into MobileMe or demand a MobileMe subscription for it – I have MobileMe anyway and they use part of this already for the “Find my iPhone” feature. So – why not extend this and open a Pull API for iPhone and iPad?

Pull puts intelligence in the cloud. It makes you want to run server-based applications which will hold your calendar, pull in your location, intelligently warn you when you’re going to be late. Pull makes a difference by putting apps in the cloud.

Background
The more I think about it, the more I realise that I don’t need true multitasking on a phone or a tablet. iPhone (and by extension iPad) are fast enough that there’s no significant delay in launching apps at all. But I do want some apps to be ‘backgrounded’ when certain events occur rather than quitting. I might want to run Spotify on my iPhone (I currently don’t use it) while browsing the web. At the moment I can’t do this – but if Spotify could be identified as a Backgrounded app so that when I hit the Home button, it goes into the background rather than quitting (a little like the Voice Memos app) and only quits properly when something would directly conflict (like an incoming phone call) or when I tell it to quit by holding down a button sequence (the system in place to quit a running app is hold down the Sleep button and then hold down the Home button). There has to be a simple way to do it and, frankly, it’s a pain that Apple can do it with iPod, Phone calls and Voice Memo and third party developers can’t.

Even just having one backgrounded app would be great – especially when you’re in the middle of something like a multiplayer game – the ability to send a ‘pause’ to the other player because you’ve got a phone call rather than just kicking you out of the game! Backgrounding apps should be a toggle you enable in Settings. Apps that I would background right now would be relatively few but I would consider:

• iSSH – for keeping alive the connections I’ve made to servers while I check something on the web (thanks to MartyMc for the inspiration on that.) Losing the SSH connection can be a pain. This will become more important on larger screen devices like iPad.
• ‘TrafficMob’ – an as-yet unwritten app which just runs in the background on your phone, uses your GPS and records your position every 30 seconds. It then uploads this data to a server which plots the points on a map, crowdsources the lot of them and shows you when and where the traffic snarl ups are.
• Skype – this is obvious. Skype is powerful for me because I talk to people all around the world. I can’t currently just leave it running on my iPhone because then I can’t do anything else and it’s annoying when a call comes in on cellular while I’m in Skype as it takes precedence. This needs a real backgrounding option.

And if something does come in, some notification or call or anything – give me the choice to continue what I’m doing rather than divert my attention.

I’m sure that the talented software engineers and designers at Apple have gone through dozens of permutations trying to find the right one. I just hope that something like this makes it into iPhone OS 4. They’ve already got the UI down, it’s now the engineering challenge of making it work.

Tags: Commentary, iPhone by mj
1 Comment »

Fraser is absolutely right. What’s stopping you?

When I was being consulted on a funding programme recently, it was made clear that funding would not be available for capital (hardware and software) purchases. My response –

“Everyone already has a computer or access to one.”

So, to start your company, what do you need? Sound off in the comments!

Tags: Commentary, Startup by mj
1 Comment »

Alex is right to highlight this. We discussed (on Twitter) the merits of open systems (open data, open health, open innovation) and seemed to agree that openness creates opportunity but it requires individuals to provide innovation.

Code4Pizza is a local group I’ve started to get folk working on projects which are ‘open’. By open, I mean that anyone can contribute, anyone can benefit and as an additional bonus, the projects will generally have a public service value slant. The current project, OpenTranslink, is the result of several months of work by a group of people to get the timetable and route data (most notably, Mark Bennett from the DFP who is part of the team reponsible for OpenDataNI)

Taking the OpenTranslink project as an example. When you travel to a new country, one of the most impenetrable aspects of their culture is their public transport system. This is difficult enough when the native language is not a barrier, but very difficult when the language is different. Nearly every region is developing a suite of apps to run on iPhones, Android phones and Blackberry phones which carries the bulk of their public transport data. I’d wonder – however – if data from other regions shouldn’t be included in “Transport’-type apps.

You innovate with your technology and your design – but from then you just plug regional data into it. Differentiate based on your innovation but you collaborate across regions to provide a seamless experience for the foreign traveller.

In essence – once the clever chaps doing the OpenTranslink data visualisations, API, application logic and interface design are finished, what’s stopping them doing exactly the same for London buses, bus systems in San Francisco, trams in Lyon?

Tags: Code4Pizza, Commentary, Social by mj
2 Comments »

• Can’t use over 3G. This is a complete arse. I get an excellent 3G connection most places I go to, I never use over my minutes and therefore I’m hardly going to abuse it. So, Apple, O2, what the fuck?
  
  
• Lack of Push Notification. It would be lovely if Skype would implement this so that when someone contacts me on Skype, it tells me and gives me the option of answering. As an outgoing-only solution, it’s a complete arse.
• Lack of multitasking. Why is this a problem? Two words: Incoming call. When someone calls my mobile number, the frontmost application quits. This is okay if it’s music or a game I’m playing but it’s a complete arse when I’m mid-Skype. Also means you can’t do anything else when in a call.

A workaround for some of this?

1. First of all, get a MiFi (a 3G router). I have one from Three (3) and it means we have WiFi everywhere. Three don’t give a damn about you using Skype over their network.
2. Consider an iPod touch (or put on Airplane mode and then switch WiFi on). This will remove the annoyance of an incoming call.
3. Leave Skype running. Constantly. This may mean getting a second iPhone. Or alternatively just use your bloody computer.

Tags: Annoyances by mj
2 Comments »