Month: April 2010

  • Purchasing the Insider

    Well, I was going to bitch about other things tonight, but instead I’m going to bitch about this first.

    So, for those of you who didn’t see my tweets, I wanted to buy The Insider from Amazon because it isn’t in the iTunes store. As many of you know, Amazon has this payment method called 1-Click. The idea is that you click button and it automatically orders for you given presets such as shipping speed, address and most importantly, method of payment.

    I have something called an Amazon.com Store Card. This is a line of credit that Amazon or some underwriter provides. I have used this card in the past; specifically, I signed up for it in December to buy Christmas presents.

    When I went to check out, I kept getting a screen that said that I needed to have a card on file in case I ran over my credit. The message was geared towards using gift certificates, but I figured that it was at least semi-logical to want a second funding source. After all, Paypal does something similar.

    So I provided the information for one of my cards and the next thing I know, the order has been charged to that credit card, NOT the Amazon.com Store Card.

    I’m pissed.

    So I call support to see if they can swap the charge for me. They can’t. I’m more pissed.

    To top it off, when I went to iTunes to transfer The Insider to miniP0d, I found a duplicate copy of the album sans artwork. This must have been an album that [info]ehowton had given me during the party.

    That pissed me off even more.

    Finally listening to the music on miniP0d has helped to calm me some, but that doesn’t mean I’m not upset over the whole situation.

    Just got an email from Amazon. They are refunding the purchase. This makes me happy for all the reasons mentioned above in addition to the fact that the album isn’t tops as a unit.

  • Tea Party Infiltrators to Harvest Information for Identity Theft

    It has been suggested that those wanting to infiltrate Tea Parties are going to attempt to do so by handing out “petitions” for information harvesting to commit identity fraud later.

    If someone hands you a petition, make sure you know that both the person and the organization is legit. Be especially wary of petitions that want lots of pedigree info such as Name, Full Address, E-mail and Phone number all on one petition.

    Please spread this post via Twitter, Facebook, email, etc. to warn fellow Tea Partiers.

  • Republican Fundraisers Terrorized, Media Silent

    NOTE: I’ve already received two requests to turn my pulse into a post so it can be rec’ed and receive more exposure, so here goes.

    bautsch-300x200

    First Things is reporting that Allee Bautsch and Joe Brown (Jindal fundraiser and fundraiser’s boy toy respectively) were viciously attacked after a fundraiser because they wore Sarah Palin pins. The couple was hospitalized but their story has yet to be picked up by the state controlled media.

    Click here for story

  • iAds

    iad

    iAds is a direct slap in the face to what used to be one of Apple’s biggest allies–Google. Apple figured out they have an untapped captive audience which means Apple can bombard this audience with ads and make even more money.

    Google could never tap the AppStore market no matter how hard it tried. Sure, the AppStore is really just a bunch of webpages, but even so, Apple would have to include the script that would allow Google ads to run which Apple would never do.

    During his speech, Jobs quoted the following numbers:
    • iPhone users spend an average of 30 minutes a day in Apps
    • If ads were displayed every three minutes, that would be 10 ads a day per user
    • There are over 100,000,000 iPhone and iTouches that have been sold.
    • LOTS of money could be made.

    One must admit, this is a very clever entrepreneurial move. Of course, the question becomes, “If Apple has done very well during the current recession, why is it that Apple wants to make tons more money by selling ads? Are they just being greedy?” Perhaps this is one of those situations where you just don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

    iAds WILL Drive the Market – HTML5
    iAds is really going to drive the online market in more ways than one. All of the mock-ups used during the demo were delivered via HTML5. Though Google has been pushing HTML5 via Chrome (and Mozilla via Firefox) the question has been, what video formats should HTML5 support. Now, that question is going to be solved through market place competition, not some standards setting body.

    There are pros and cons to this.

    The pro is that whatever people use the most–also known as the path of least resistance–should float to the top unless some interested party with plenty of money and advertising suave comes along and convinces the market to shift to their proprietary format. Mozilla has been fighting to keep Ogg Theora in HTML5–nay, for HTML to only support open standards like Ogg Theora–yet, Youtube and Vimeo have went the way of H.264. Jobs did not comment on what video encoding the demoed iAds were using, but the one technology it wasn’t using was Flash.

    The con is that truly open codecs may not be included in HTML5 at worst or will be included but abandoned and ignored. As has been pointed out on various places on the web, accepting closed, licensed, proprietary codecs will lead to the .gif fiasco all over. Open Source advocates are begging netizens to learn from history and not repeat this costly mistake.

    Of course, Adobe has been banking on Flash being around on the internet for a long time. In fact, Adobe recently complained to the SEC that the exclusion of Flash from the iPhone was going to hurt their bottom line. Boo hoo!

    iAds Incentives App Development
    Ostensibly (the program wasn’t discussed in depth) developers can choose whether or not to include ads in their apps. Of course, since developers can generate more revenue if they include ads than if they don’t, ads will be included wherever possible. And why not, when developers are getting a 60/40 split in their favor?

    Due to Jobs’ cryptic word choice, it’s difficult to tell just who exactly will be allowed to include ads in apps. Jobs talked about “keeping free apps free” but went on to say that “our developers need more revenue” citing the low prices of apps. So will iAds be for free apps only? What are the rules?

    In either case, Jobs does have a point: there is a captive global audience which can drive a lot revenue for both Apple and developers. Why would these developers choose to develop for a platform such as Android for free when they can instead get paid to develop for the iPhone OS? Sure, there will always be that healthy Open Source community that want to share their code and believe that code shouldn’t be proprietary, but those developers have to eat too. How will they pay the grocery bill developing for Android?

    Bonus: Does Palm have a large enough market with WebOS to attract any developers?

    iAds iAnnoying?
    The most troublesome things about iAds was how they would be displayed. Would they pop-up, annoy the user and not be able to be gotten rid of until an animation played much like the ads that run on IMDB.

    All three demos of iAds started with a banner ad on the bottom of the app. Once the user clicked that banner, the ad took over the screen, but there was a close button in the top left-hand corner that allowed the user to dispose of the ad with one tap. If all iAds follow this paradigm, there should be a perfect harmony: ads will display but not be intrusive and when the user wants the ad content turned off, it’s turned off.

    Print ads vs. iAds
    One issue that wasn’t brought up at the developer’s preview was the various periodical apps being developed and how iAds will or will not effect that market. Consider: because ePub was designed for reflowable content, it’s unsuitable for artwork-heavy publications such as comic books (graphic novels if you will) magazines and to a lesser extent newspapers. What does this have to do with advertising? Outside of classifieds–and even then, there are exceptions to the rule–ads in print media are all images. Add to this fact that magazines often do spreads, and you’ve got a e-publishing mess on your hands. The only solution is to create a .pdf file and hope and pray that whatever device is being used to consume the content is large enough or has an app that eliminates the need to constantly zoom in and out and move around the publication.

    Because of this problem, proprietary apps are being built to display periodical content. Presumably, the content in these apps will be electronic versions of their dead-tree counterparts. If advertising is sold in the dead-tree publication, will Apple allow that same advertising to also be included in the electronic app? If apps come with such paid advertising (for the “app developer” in this case, the publication) will they also be allowed to run iAds at the bottom of their app to further boost their revenue?

    Wrap-up
    iAds will be a game changer, pushing HTML5 forward faster than present solidification and adoption. iPhone OS 4 does not for Flash and hence Flash-based ads on the platform. Via iAds, Apple is upping the ante between Apple and Google, beating Google at its own game in a market where Google can’t compete, making periodicals the item to watch in conjunction with iAds for real game changing occurrences.

  • Why do you blog?

    There was this episode of Dougie Houser, M.D. where he begged his dad for a laptop and his dad finally got him one on the condition that he use it to keep a journal. (This was before blogging obviously and I dare say before the internet was used by the masses as a mode of communication.)

    I used to keep a pen an paper journal, but that was sporadic. I had to hide it if I wanted to keep it personal. I was always cryptic when I wrote and struggled to read my handwriting.

    When I got my own computer, I thought about using it in a manner like described above, i.e. keep the journal on the machine. But then if something happens to the machine or the file, it’s gone. If the machine is stolen, it’s gone. There are ways to secure a machine, sure, and you can even password protect documents, but security can be circumvented and passwords can be cracked. In short, for those reasons, but more because of laziness, I never kept an electronic journal.

    I hate social networking sites. I really, really do. I started a MySpace before the site was hugely popular and shut it down shortly thereafter. I got a Live Journal before I started blogging on Xanga. At the time, I used LJ to follow a few people I knew at college, but they didn’t update regularly and I didn’t get the point of blogging until over a year later.

    I was on Face Book when it was colleges only and Facebook opened up to UAH. Soon after it went public, I stopped using mine and then shut it down. I think it was December 2008 when I opened my Facebook account again.

    When I finally figured out what blogging was and how it worked, somehow it just made sense to me to journal things for others to read. If you look at my early posts, I was cryptic then too (probably still am to some degree) but I found that there is very little I don’t mind the masses knowing. There’s one thing I’ve thought about starting a second blog for on a different network, but that is to be totally anonymous when and if it ever happens.

    I’ve never made a blog that’s totally private. Someone has always been able to read it besides myself. There are only two entries I have made private after posting. I never delete a post unless it’s a test post.

    Now that I’ve told you, why do YOU blog?

  • First Moments with iPad – eReaders Pt. 1

    ipad-600x400
    Steve Jobs introduces the iPad
    Having spent a few minutes with the iPad in the Apple store Saturday, I am pleased to bring you my thoughts and initial reaction to the iPad.

    For what it’s worth, I was at the Apple store around 1400 on launch day and though it was a tight squeeze around the iPad, there was no line for either the store or the iPad. I saw no less than 5 iPads sold while I was at the store actively looking for sales. I’m sure more occurred as I had my back to the sales reps while iPad and I got acquainted.

    I think that @adamcurry‘s theory was right: Apple put a lot of hype behind the iPad’s early numbers in order to create a false demand. This paid off because they sold 300,000 units in the first 24 hours including the pre-sales, in-store sales and sales to partners such as Best-Buy. How much inflation is in the numbers is for another journalist with more time on their hands to spill ink over, but no matter how you slice or dice it, the early numbers are good for Apple. The question is, will they last?

    First Impressions
    The first thing I noticed about the iPad was that it was much smaller than I thought it would be. This was the case when I finally dragged my behind down to Best Buy to have a look at netbooks a couple of years ago. I have played around with the Nook and though iPad is larger than the Nook, iPad still somehow seemed like a small device. Not microscopic like any of the other mobile Apple products, but small just the same. The border around the iPad is what creates this illusion, much like the lack of a number pad makes Apple’s bluetooth keyboard seem much smaller than a “full-sized” keyboard despite being the exact same size for a QWERTY board.

    The next thing that was apparent was the angled pedestal that the iPad was placed on for display immediately showed the device’s biggest problem: no support. Not being an iTouch/iPhone/iPod Classic/iPod Nano owner, I can’t say that I’ve had to deal with this frustration before, so I’m not sure how this will play out for Apple fans that have more dough and less soul than I. What I can say, however, is that the weight of the iPad was straining for one handed holding after only a few minutes, so if this device were to become my primary e-reader, I’d either have to lear to hold it with two hands or find a support solution quickly.

    When holding the iPad, the aluminum backing made it’s presence known. It was quite like handling the uni-body MacBooks, but I could have swore that the middle of the back felt more like rubber than metal. This could have been a weight-distribution thing or it could have been that the metal hadn’t been covered in oil from human hands. All I can say is it was smooth and a joy to hold minus the weight.


    portriat iBooks landscape iBooks
    iBooks automatically redraws text to suit the orientation of iPad. Click the thumbnails to enlarge.
    iBooks
    The one thing that I definitely wanted to experience was iBooks. I didn’t think about playing with attempting to arrange books on the bookshelf, but I did search the store. Lots of observations here.

    The most amazing thing about the iBooks app itself is that based on orientation, the number of pages change, in some cases dramatically. For instance, Stephen King’s Under the Dome was 1,000 and change in portrait but over 1800 in landscape. I think that this is more the ePub standard at work here and not some fancy new feature that Apple created, but Apple did add a nice touch by going with a single page when in portrait mode but an open book complete with faux pages around the edges when the iPad is in landscape.

    All three titles that I searched for were not to be found in the iBook catalog. I searched for The Writer, Conquering the Sky: The Secret Flights of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, and Going Rogue.

    Lessons learned? That not all content is available on the iPad. As a corollary, the defamatory Going Rouge: An American Nightmare was in the store. Given that Steve Jobs demoed True Compass during the iPad’s unveiling, that the cover of said book featured prominently in the iPad advertisement, and that Apple’s board contains and heavily supports Democrats, one wonders if there wasn’t some political ploy at work here, though it is possible that Going Rogue was missing because of lack of negotiation.

    iPad keyboard landscape
    Using the iPad’s keyboard to search the App store is much better than navigating on the Nook

    About that On-screen Keyboard
    Having previously tested the Nook at Barnes & Noble, I must say that the iPad’s capacitive, multi-touch screen was a dream to use compared to the Nook’s setup. I instinctively turned the iPad to a landscape orientation. The keyboard didn’t feel cramped at all, undoubtably because there were no physical keys to which to attempt to conform one’s hands. Actually typing on the iPad wasn’t difficult at all, but it would take some getting used to if you plan on attempting to type anything more than a string or two of text. Even standing in the store, I remember the keyboard dock that Steve Jobs promised on launch day and yearned for it.

    This necessarily segues into a discussion about content creation. As Macworld points out, At the moment, the iPad seems more focused on media consumption than media production. (Hatip @caroleagent.) As such, first reports are coming in that if you use iWorks on the iPad, you can only save in native formats of iWorks or export as .pdf. No native Office compatibility here unlike the desktop counterparts, meaning if you really need to get the document or presentation onto a Microsoft title, you’ve got to sync with your Mac first. This is antithetical to what Jobs promised Walt Mossberg of All Things D. (Shoot for 3:20). Tested this on a subsequent trip to the Apple store. You can export Pages document to .doc

    I think that iPad could become a laptop replacement tool if you bought the docking keyboard and had enough app support. Frankly, if you’re just taking notes and only care about the text, a simple text editor would suffice until you had time to transfer the notes to whatever other tool(s) you required for long-term storage.

    iPad-keyboard
    The keyboard dock is going to make the iPad compete heavily with laptops as a primary mobile computing device. Too bad Apple didn’t introduce a keyboard dock for the iPhone as well
    Other Thoughts
    One wonders–much like with the glossy MacBooks–how the iPad would do in bright light conditions, such as a sunny day at the park. There’s only one way to find out, but that methodology of testing isn’t allowed at the store.

    iBooks only works on the iPad–the app page says so if you open in iTunes but if you open the link in a web browser, the title of the page is iBooks for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad on the iTunes App Store. The world doesn’t end just because you can’t have the fancy app run on anything but an iPad–there’s always apps like Calibre–but the non-orthogonally is enough to drive a person crazy.

    The one rate-limiting factor of the iPad–and indeed e-readers in general–is periodicals. The reason for this is that the re-flowable text which makes ePub a marvel doesn’t serve content that requires precision placement for content–think centerfolds for just one example.

    The iPad’s color display will be a game changer in the e-reader market, especially as periodicals port to the device. The color display will also attempt to drive HTML 5, a speculation that is too early to call with any certainty.

    Apple has announced a preview for iPhone OS 4 which inevitably means that all the suckers that went out and bought iPads on the opening weekend will likely get stuck with no less than a $10 early adopter tax when the new OS goes live. Couple this with lack of 3G connectivity on the iPad models that you can currently put in your hands and the confiscatory pricing that Apple has set on the devices and you have a product that better suited for a gift to a techie, not a toy for a casual buyer despite all the benefits over current e-readers.

    Cut the price in half and quadruple the demand–a pipe dream never to be realized despite the millions of dreamers out there. Sure, the stated reason for cutting the price of the MacBook Air was lack of projected demand, but I don’t see that happening here. There’s too much hype and the price is low enough that there will be enough demand even if it falls short of Apple’s internal projections.

    There’s been a lot of bellyaching about the lack of camera in the iPad. Frankly, a camera isn’t needed. If it’s front-facing, that means you can do Skype…provided you find a way to prop the iPad up. If you want to take pictures of something, you’d need a back-facing camera which means that every time you set the iPad down, you risk scratching either the camera or its protective covering.

    As the iPad currently stands, you ought to be able to take it into a secure area. The only way to transfer data onto the iPad is either bluetooth (which ought not exist in a secure environment, so I’m not sure what the iPad would connect to in that scenario) or through the Apple 40-pin connector, which again, should not exist in a secure environment. The lack of camera, then, becomes a plus, not a minus, just like on the iTouch.

    ipad-long
    iPad

    Conclusion
    iPad: only time will tell how the device will ultimately do. Early numbers best the iPhone, but this is a pricier device than the iPhone and it will cost more to keep the iPad relevant (ebooks, apps, etc.) The success of the iPad will be directly determined by total cost of ownership, something we will take a look at in a future column.

  • User Interfaces of the Future a Reality Now

    Want to know why Apple’s iPad will be the reigning champion of mobile devices? They make a device that so simple and intuitive to use, even a two year old can use it. If a two year old can use it, so can you and your one hundred and one year old grandmother.

    If Apple has bridged the gap between intuitive human based interaction and computers with the iPad, what will come next? Will we leave behind our QWERTY keyboards and have more natural interfaces such as gesturing vs. touch, eye movements vs. gesturing and embedded chips for thought control? Will we reach the point in human-computer interaction where the computer ceases to exist as a stand alone object and becomes the environment much like Microsoft House?

    Take a look at how intuitive it is to use the iPad.

    Apple’s iPad is so intuitive, even a two year old can use it

  • What’s on the Secret List Everyone Has?

    Apple-Come-see-our-latest-creation

    Everyone has one. You know you have one. No matter how Applephobic you are, you have a list of Apple products you want to buy, just like the Apple fanboys.

    Show me yours, I’ll show you mine…behind the cut.

    Continue reading →

  • What’s on the Cards?

    wheel of fortune cake
    This is a picture of a Wheel of Fortune cake. It is not a picture of the iPad or the iPad 3g

    One of my favorite game shows is Wheel of Fortune. I like the show because it’s smart, short and moves fast. You’re always trying to guess the puzzles before the contestants and it isn’t to your detriment to shout out the answer while watching; it’s not like you have any money on the line.

    According to Wikipedia, the wheel itself weighs over 2 tons. You can find lots of information about the show on the web, but there’s one very important question that I can’t find the answer to which bugs me incessantly: what’s on Pat Sajak’s cards?

    This may sound like a simple question at first, but really, I want to know. Do the cards have the solution to the puzzle? Is it just a letter count of letters in the puzzle? Pat, SHOW US YOUR CARDS!.

    Pat-Sajak cards
    No, Pat isn’t holding an iPad 3g

  • Name that Quote!

    Who said the following: “I don’t care about the Constitution!”
    A) Dale Jackson
    B) Phil Hare
    C) Mo Brooks
    D) Barack Obama
    E) All of the Above

    obamacare_dees