Mobile – Page 15 – ɔimoɈɒ

Shortcomings of our digital pals…

Robert Scoble was quietly raving about the Kindle for the last week but as he says, it’s easy to get geeks excited by new and shiny and much harder to excite the mass market. No ability to buy paper goods from Amazon through Kindle. Usability sucks. They didnâ€™t think about how people would hold this … Continue reading “Shortcomings of our digital pals…”

Robert Scoble was quietly raving about the Kindle for the last week but as he says, it’s easy to get geeks excited by new and shiny and much harder to excite the mass market.

No ability to buy paper goods from Amazon through Kindle.

Usability sucks. They didnâ€™t think about how people would hold this device.

UI sucks. Menus? Did they hire some out-of-work Microsoft employees?

No ability to send electronic goods to anyone else. I know Mike Arrington has one. I wanted to send him a gift through this of Alan Greenspanâ€™s new book. I couldnâ€™t. Thatâ€™s lame.

No social network. Why donâ€™t I have a list of all my friends who also have Kindles and let them see what Iâ€™m reading?

No touch screen. The iPhone has taught everyone that Iâ€™ve shown this to that screens are meant to be touched. Yet weâ€™re stuck with a silly navigation system because the screen isnâ€™t touchable.

It seems apparent to me that Kindle would have done a lot better if released one year ago but like the Nokia internet tablets, I’m betting that Amazon is trying to build a platform here.

The crazy thing is the comparison to the iPhone.

This gripe list reads to me like a iPhone wish list for OSX version 1.5. I’d expect that we’ll see some new features on the iPhone come February but anyone who’s Mac-development savvy should be getting up to speed with Leopard, Core Animation (LayerKit), Objective C 2.0 and starting to fill these gaps.

Build a Reader application which will hook into the dozens of online novel repositories, read PDF. Make a deal with O’Reilly to get their book into the new format (even if it is just reformatted PDF). Make the sharing thing real, make it like your book lending. Get Wil Shipley to make Delicious Library more than just what it does. What if it actually stored your books and allowed you to lend them in a reader format. How freaking cool would that be? Make it hook into the net to tell you when friends are online so you can send them your books directly over the net, rather than having to be in the same room.

Make sure the iPhone has capability of social networking. I’m not talking about MyFaceBeboSpaceBookster here, I’m talking about drawing the social network away from the big firms and where it belongs. Sure, there will be some rich apps for JaiTwitterMicroFaceBlogging (like my earlier mentioned Ghost) but realistically we really need to take back what is ours rather than waiting for big companies to provide it. Let’s see something from developers to fill that gap.

iPhone SDK rumours

Some developers are gaining early access to Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch software developer kit, according to reliable sources speaking to Electronista. A handful of companies are said to be getting rough versions of the tools to help code more advanced applications than would be possible with the current web-only solution. Wasn’t me, I didn’t … Continue reading “iPhone SDK rumours”

Some developers are gaining early access to Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch software developer kit, according to reliable sources speaking to Electronista. A handful of companies are said to be getting rough versions of the tools to help code more advanced applications than would be possible with the current web-only solution.

Wasn’t me, I didn’t say NDAnything.

5/100 Technology That Empowers Me

Let me start by saying that I’m not a gadgeteer. I don’t rush out for the latest and greatest. That said, apart from Mac computers I have had my fair share of palmtops and phones over the last decade. Nine gadgets in 10 years isn’t bad. I’ve only ever bought one gaming console, a Nintendo … Continue reading “5/100 Technology That Empowers Me”

Nine gadgets in 10 years isn’t bad. I’ve only ever bought one gaming console, a Nintendo Wii, which I bought last Christmas and haven’t played much (it’s more for the kids) and other than that I have no “spare” computers. I’ve resisted electronic photo albums, I don’t have a massive HD TV, I do have a DVD recorder (at me mums), I don’t have a Gameboy, PSP, DS or any other handheld devoted to games, I’ve never owned a WindowsCE/PocketPC/Windows Mobile device though at one point I had real gadget-lust for a Casio model. I do have an iPod Video 60 GB which stores the kids movies and my music (which means I don’t need to break out the DVDs when the kids want to watch something). Every old Mac has gone to a new home so it’s only a few other smaller, more personal, gadgets that remain.

Newton MessagePad 120 – given away
Newton MessagePad 2000 – can’t quite bear to part with it
Palm Vx – lying somewhere about the house
Ericsson T39m – traded in…for…
Sony-Ericsson T68i – traded in…for…
Motorola RAZR V3 – in my room, as a spare phone
Sony-Ericsson K800i – spare phone again, just in case
Nokia N800 – sitting in the house, abandoned…
iPod touch – with a new master
iPhone – toy of choice

I guess it depends on how you define empowerment.

Empowerment

# To equip or supply with an ability; enable: “Computers … empower students to become intellectual explorers” (Edward B. Fiske).

For the most part, the phones never changed the way I worked. The only devices which have seriously changed the way I did things were the Newton MessagePad 2000 and the iPhone.

The MessagePad was the first device that made me leave my laptop at home. When travelling I’d have it on the plane, keyboard placed behind the screen, typing away. I’d download email over the modem before dinner at the hotel, eat dinner and reply to email and then when I returned to my room, upload my replies to the mailserver. It worked well. It had enough utility to mean I stopped bringing a heavy Dell laptop bag everywhere. When I got ethernet and a VT100 terminal emulator on it, it became indispensible for my work. I could connect to the routers and switches in the network using either a serial cable or over ethernet. The battery life lasted days rather than minutes (my DELL had a battery life of about 90 minutes) which meant it just stayed with me everywhere. Of course it was massive which meant I had to keep it in my hand, inside a large jacket pocket (and this was before fatigues-style cargo pants were fashionable). It changed my lifestyle. I felt connected. But it got left behind as my job became less “footwork” and more “deskwork” and the keyboard was no match for the Powerbook that graced my desk and powered a 21 inch monitor. People still wax about the Newton and take the jokes about it in a good-natured way. No-one who really used it found it funny – it was just essential and we’re reminded of it every time we empty the trash in Mac OS X or delete a message on the iPhone.

The iPhone has done much the same. Heavy laptop and bag doesn’t often leave the house. It’s still used in the evening because it has apps I need (iWork, Mail for the accounts I don’t carry with me, XCode) and a massive screen. But day to day I carry iPhone with me because it means when I get home I have 10-20 emails to clear down rather than 200-300. Again I feel connected but this time it’s the real thing. The technology here makes Star Trek look positively dated. The only issue is battery life. I get a full day of heavy usage out of it but I’d really like a good bit more than that. It’s not much different to my crappy, blocky, slow K800i but the difference being that I’m actively using the device all day. It’s checking my email every 15 minutes, dragging down updates all day, letting me view my new house, searching out WiFi hotspots continuously and dazzling me with the brightness of the screen. I’ve yet to completely run out but this device is working constantly for me. Web pages load faster than on my allegedly 3G K800i and the whole device is just a lot more fun.

Other than that – technology that empowers me?

WordPress – accept no substitutes.
Mac OS X – working with Windows every day makes me appreciate my Mac all the more.
Cocoa – based entirely on what I learned and achieved last night with NSMutableArray and NSTableView.
RSS – because it brings the web back to 1995 in terms of formatting and delivers it to your doorstep. Content-enriched!

There’s more. Digital photography so I can keep photos of my kids with me everywhere. Instant Messenger applications which help me work, collaborate, ask questions, help friends and otherwise be part of a rich social network. Text-Messaging (SMS) because it’s the norm for communication – it’s like RSS – a content rich form of communication with really low overheads. And I’d add social networking because it’s how I met her-indoors. And I’m really grateful for that.

I can’t wait to see what technology empowers my kids. They’ll take so much for granted and it’s getting to the point where they will need to have their own computer, complete with iSight, just to maintain their own social network. I would like to think that our children would grow up educated and informed and wouldn’t be stupid and arrogant enough to believe they can get away with things that are illegal or just wrong.

We can marvel at the iPhone but I marvelled at the Newton and the comparison there is 10 years of technology. Our iPhones now will look as bulky and ridiculous as the Newton does now by the time my kids are in their teens.

Northern Ireland Mac User Group meeting tomorrow in Belfast.

It was a long time ago that I started NiMUG and for the last three years it’s been somewhat dormant. But tomorrow brings us the first proper NiMUG meeting in a very long time. We have a room. Hired from Windsor Lawn Tennis Club in Belfast. We have a projector. Kindly donated by Mac-Sys Ltd … Continue reading “Northern Ireland Mac User Group meeting tomorrow in Belfast.”

It was a long time ago that I started NiMUG and for the last three years it’s been somewhat dormant. But tomorrow brings us the first proper NiMUG meeting in a very long time.

We have a room. Hired from Windsor Lawn Tennis Club in Belfast.
We have a projector. Kindly donated by Mac-Sys Ltd

We don’t have an agenda. Tomorrow is just the meet and greet. It’s designed to get things started, see what numbers we can generate and otherwise get the ball rolling. For future meetings I’ve had pledges of demos from quite a few people, and demo pledges are very welcome!!!

Maybe see you there?

(P.S. We have a NiMUG FaceBook group too)

iPhone: can be a pain in the butt

I don’t recommend this because it’s bound to cause all sorts of warranty issues. Sometimes your iPhone enters a mode where you can’t answer it unless you use your earbuds or bluetooth headset. Well, you CAN answer it, but you can’t hear anything. The handset speaker stops working. It appears that the iPhone still thinks … Continue reading “iPhone: can be a pain in the butt”

I don’t recommend this because it’s bound to cause all sorts of warranty issues.

Sometimes your iPhone enters a mode where you can’t answer it unless you use your earbuds or bluetooth headset. Well, you CAN answer it, but you can’t hear anything. The handset speaker stops working. It appears that the iPhone still thinks the earbuds are plugged in so it turns off the speaker. This is how to fix this problem without having to go to the Apple store.

Here’s the video demo in ITunes/AppleTV/iPhone format

The headphone socket on the iPhone turns out to be a dust trap.So, apart from requiring you to have an adapter to use any other headphones, they also put a magic dust magnet in there. And if it collects on a contact in there, you can’t receive calls without a bluetooth headset or your proper headphones because the iPhone thinks the dust is the headphones.

Apple’s recommendation is to stick the headphones in and out 7-8 times so it acts like a brush. I’ve found that a little compressed air will do the trick as well (and no, I don’t recommend blowing into it as your breath is warm, moist air).

Licensing Mac OS X…

There’s not a lot of sense coming out of Steven Berling’s Disruptive Technology blog. Yes, it’s ZDNet. Bear with me. The main points seem to be with the facts that Mac OS X has been “hacked” so it runs on vanilla PCs. And the iPhone has also been hacked months before the advent of the … Continue reading “Licensing Mac OS X…”

There’s not a lot of sense coming out of Steven Berling’s Disruptive Technology blog. Yes, it’s ZDNet. Bear with me.

The main points seem to be with the facts that Mac OS X has been “hacked” so it runs on vanilla PCs. And the iPhone has also been hacked months before the advent of the SDK.

Berlind thinks this is going to force Apple into licensing Mac OS X for third party hardware.

I had an animated gif of tumbleweed here but it was kinda annoying

Steven – what on earth are you talking about? I could understand it if Apple’s sales were flagging or if they needed to open up to a new marketplace, maybe to get some developer interest by supporting commodity bargain-basement hardware. But Apple isn’t flagging, it’s been ages since anyone described them as beleaguered (now they use that to describe Nortel, Microsoft, Dell, Gateway).

Apple is doing well in their current model and if they’re doing well why would they want to change? They have a hot selling phone product, they’re selling more Macs than they ever have and they have the attention of motivated hackers dedicated to making the platform better.

So this is going to force them to open the platform?

Berlind discusses this as a uniquely Apple problem and he’s half right. It’s uniquely Apple but it’s not really a problem. Apple is not dedicating hordes of engineers to combat this any more than there were hordes of engineers “hiding” the music on an iPod. If they were wasting significant resource then Berlind might have a point here but there’s no evidence that any of the Firmware updates for iPhone were designed to stop hacking. Plus they’ve not been vehement in trying to stop Mac OS X hacking either. It’s not as if we have Macintosh Genuine Advantage to worry about.

Kindle and an unlikely competitor

This article on Forbes asserts that Kindle already has competitors: The ability to grab free books online points to the deviceâ€™s real competition: not paper books but Internet-friendly laptops, tablet computers and smart phones. The amount of content available online is growing fast, and devices for accessing the Net are getting better and cheaper quickly. … Continue reading “Kindle and an unlikely competitor”

This article on Forbes asserts that Kindle already has competitors:

The ability to grab free books online points to the deviceâ€™s real competition: not paper books but Internet-friendly laptops, tablet computers and smart phones. The amount of content available online is growing fast, and devices for accessing the Net are getting better and cheaper quickly. One such device is already here. Itâ€™s called the iPhone.

Another post on Counter Notions claims that the big issue will be the DRM content:

iPod users have had an easy way to populate their devices, without having to repurchase most of what they have already paid for or illegally downloaded.

Kindle users, however, will have to purchase or repurchase all the content on their reader. Whereas it was possible to pay $399 for an iPod and enjoy all the music you wanted legally or illegally without any additional expense, not so with Kindle.

For my purposes, iPhone will likely serve me well. It’s already replacing my laptop for most of the things I use the laptop for (casual browsing, checking email) leaving the laptop to be used for document editing, instant messenger and detailed web searches. The screen is 40% smaller (which is a lot) but the device is only half the weight. Battery life may be an issue where the Kindle wins out.

Will Apple see the need to respond? Will Google assist them with their online content much like they gave them access to Maps?

iPlayer. For the love of god….

We’ve covered this before in september and October of this year. But it’s never been more plain than in this posting from Justin Masons blog at taint.org. The BBC has been sold Related posts: Take a couple of minutes to appreciate genius. OpenMoko FreeRunner: *sigh* iPlayer on my iPhone We got Youtube, Vimeo, CBS, iPlayer … Continue reading “iPlayer. For the love of god….”

We’ve covered this before in september and October of this year. But it’s never been more plain than in this posting from Justin Masons blog at taint.org.

The BBC has been sold

Unqualified Reservations talks Google Android.

From Five Problems with Google Android: The quality of the user experience on the iPhone makes a major difference to Apple’s bottom line. The quality of the Android experience has only a slight connection to Google’s. Sure, everyone on the project would like it to succeed. It’s not about the users. It’s about the advertising. … Continue reading “Unqualified Reservations talks Google Android.”

From Five Problems with Google Android:

The quality of the user experience on the iPhone makes a major difference to Apple’s bottom line. The quality of the Android experience has only a slight connection to Google’s. Sure, everyone on the project would like it to succeed.

It’s not about the users. It’s about the advertising.

The rest of the article describes some of the issues facing customers and developers of Android. The fact it’s a plain-jane implementation of an OS. That the development environments are Java and Javascript. That it breaks no new ground.

A very good read.

Kindle previews, now on sale in the US

Whatever your opinions on Kindle (I still think it’s fugly, but it is growing on me), you could do worse than to spend a little time looking at it on Amazon’s product page. The most interesting thing? We wanted Kindle to be completely mobile and simple to use for everyone, so we made it wireless. … Continue reading “Kindle previews, now on sale in the US”

Whatever your opinions on Kindle (I still think it’s fugly, but it is growing on me), you could do worse than to spend a little time looking at it on Amazon’s product page.

The most interesting thing?

We wanted Kindle to be completely mobile and simple to use for everyone, so we made it wireless. No PC and no syncing needed. Using the same 3G network as advanced cell phones, we deliver your content using our own wireless delivery system, Amazon Whispernet. Unlike WiFi, youâ€™ll never need to locate a hotspot. There are no confusing service plans, yearly contracts, or monthly wireless billsâ€”we take care of the hassles so you can just read.

Okay…

Let’s process this.

Apple brought out a device with unlimited internet data plans in June.
Amazon are releasing theirs this month.
Google is bidding in the 700Mhz auction.

I like this. We’re going to see all sorts of competitive jiggery pokery. Based on what I’ve seen of Kindle it looks like around the size of the MessagePad 2100. Now if Apple released an iTablet using the iPhone’s OS and the same higher resolution screen (we’re talking 160-170 dpi for these devices) we could see some real competition in this space. (That’s not to say the iPhone screen isn’t readable!). This device will deliver RSS feeds, online magazines, books – and free wireless access to Wikipedia. It will also read Word documents and process pictures (you email them in for 10 cents a document and they’re stored on your unique Kindle email address.

Now there’s no sign of this working in the UK and it’s not yet for sale on Amazon’s UK site. And I can’t imagine they’ve worked out a roaming 3G deal with every provider? According to the guide it’s only working with Sprint’s EV-DO service. So, it’s US-based for now.