Month: May 2010

Another Next-Gen iPhone Ripped Apart

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Engadget:

The kids at Taoviet have really outdone themselves. From the looks of these images, the Vietnamese site has nabbed an honest to goodness 4th generation iPhone — a 16GB model to be exact. It’s clearly pre-production judging by the XXX placeholders on the backside stamp and likely lacks any OS other than a “Bonfire” test routine. Nevertheless, it looks authentic enough that we expect Apple’s henchmen to be busting down the guy’s door before he pries it open to reveal Apple’s chipset of choice.

Taoviet is rumored to have paid $4,000 for the device.

Traveling With the iPad

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While all of my thoughts contained in my iPad review still hold true, I’d like to expand that review in a very specific direction — what traveling with an iPad is like.

Since buying an iPad on launch day, I’ve used it at home and at work, but not many places in-between. In those environments, the iPad shines as a quick-and-easy way to handle email and other specific tasks in my workday.

In the last three weeks, I’ve been out of town twice — once for work, once for personal reasons. Both times, I left my 15-inch MacBook Pro behind in favor of carrying my iPad.

Work Trip to Idaho

Two weeks ago, I flew to Idaho with several staff members to visit a Salvation Army location that will be a lot like what we are opening here in Memphis next year. It was a three day trip that included 2 flights each way and a 45-minute drive from the Spokane, WA airport to our hotel in Idaho.

My main tech needs were entertainment on the flights and note-taking while in meetings at their facility.

The TSA announced a few weeks ago that travelers wouldn’t have to remove their iPad from their bags as they do with laptops, I didn’t find this to be the case. Both times I went through airport security, they scanned my bag twice and then pulled me aside to open it. While that drew unwanted attention my way, I guess I can understand why they wanted to double-check. Still, it was annoying.

The iPad is great on flights. It takes up far less space than on a MacBook Pro, so even on a crowded flight, I felt comfortable using my tray table to sit my iPad on. I made it through a few TV episodes and part of a movie easily without eye strain. The battery life is simply incredible — there is no way I could have watched that much media on my laptop — which is a Mid–2009 MacBook Pro.

I took almost 200 pictures while touring their facility, and it would have been really nice to edit some of those and share them using the iPad. My Camera Connection Kit just shipped from Apple yesterday, so I had to wait until I got back to Memphis to process the photos.

As far at note taking, Evernote once again got the job done. I’m not in love with Evernote by any means, but at the time, Simplenote hadn’t released their iPad app. I’m still moving back to Simplenote, albeit slowly.

The iPad had no issue joining the hotel wireless or the wireless on the planes (2 of my flights offered in-flight wifi, two didn’t). I’ve had issues connecting to networks with odd security measures in place, though. (St. Jude, I’m looking at you. Please fix it.)

I got several questions and looks from people when I took the iPad out of my bag, both on the plane and at the Salvation Army facility. That’s to be expected when you carry a new hot piece of tech, I suppose. Not a big deal, as long as no one is creepy about it.

All in all, the iPad served as a moderately useful laptop-replacement on this trip. It really shined in the areas of battery life and portability. The weight difference alone in my carry-on made carrying the iPad instead of my MacBook Pro worth it.

Personal Trip to Fayetteville, Arkansas

This past weekend, a childhood friend got married in Fayetteville, which is about a 5 hour drive from Memphis.

I really only used the iPad to catch up on email, news and Twitter each evening at the hotel. It didn’t leave the hotel room once I got there.

This trip did mark the first time I wished I had opted for the 3G-equipped model. I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. The hotel I stayed at made people pay for Wi-Fi, which is crazy to me. It’s 2010, people. It wasn’t that big of a deal to tether it via Wi-Fi to my Palm Pre Plus, but if I hadn’t have had my phone (or a good 3G signal on Verizon) I would have been without an internet connection for my iPad.

(Granted, if I had taken my MacBook Pro, I would be in the same position.)

Again, the battery life of the iPad shone on this trip. I didn’t charge it a single time while I was gone — even with an hour of use each night for three nights, it had plenty of juice when I got home Sunday night.

In Conclusion

In conclusion, I was very impressed with how well I faired with “just” the iPad when out of town. The size and weight of the iPad makes it far more attractive than a laptop in many situations.

My biggest complaint — about working with photos — will be addressed on Friday when FedEx delivers my Camera Connection Kit.

Color me impressed.

MobileMe to be Free, Ad-Supported Service?

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Boy Genius Report’s Michael Bettiol on MacDailyNews’ report that MobileMe may soon become a free service:

The question is: if MobileMe becomes free, will Apple dole out refunds to those who paid for the service within the past year, and will Apple generate revenue off the free service with iAds?

That is the question, without a doubt. This model would look a lot like Google’s — free syncing for calendar and contact information and email access, with ads served to members using the browser-based apps.

I’m not convinced Apple would go this route. While it could be used to show the world that the iAd platform is viable, I’m not sure how many people would choose MobileMe over Google’s services. There’s a sense of value associated with a $100/year service that isn’t present with one that is ad-supported. If you take that away, MobileMe definitely doesn’t hold up when compared with Gmail and Gmail-related services offered by Google. So why not go with Gmail?

Of course, some MobileMe fans people argue that Google spies on people’s information to serve relevant ads. Serving ads on MobileMe would render that argument pretty moot in my opinion.

‘Stories Worth Telling’

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Bob Sellers for the Huffington Post:

Yes, terrorism is a threat. But nobody died with the bomb that didn’t go off in Times Square. Twenty-three people lost their lives in the flood, and roughly twenty-thousand individuals so far have applied for federal aid to get them back on their feet. And while the oil leak in the gulf allowed cable networks to fill hours of programming by calling upon their usual political guests inside the Beltway to talk about the blessings and curses of drilling offshore, the reality is that the debate over drilling will not end with this spill — or the next.

We know from experience that when it rains in New York, the whole country gets wet. When it snows there, the Ice Age is upon us. But news goes on outside of New York and Washington. There’s a whole country out there. And stories worth telling.

I couldn’t agree more, and not just because I love Tennessee. In a world of 24-hour news, there is more than enough time to cover news from across the country. Especially when that news is about life and death situations.

2012

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Engadget’s lawyer-turned-blogger, Nilay Patel, on the AT&T iPhone exclusivity deal:

The term of Apple and AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity deal has long been a mystery — although USA Today reported a five-year arrangement when the original iPhone came out in 2007, that number has never been independently confirmed, and it’s been looking suspect in recent weeks as Verizon iPhone chatter has gotten louder. But we’ve been doing some digging and we can now confirm that Apple and AT&T entered into a five-year iPhone exclusive in 2007, based on court documents filed by Apple in California.

Here’s the deal: an ongoing California class-action lawsuit filed in 2007 claims that Apple and AT&T illegally exerted a monopoly over iPhone service by telling customers the iPhone’s required service contract was two years long when the Apple / AT&T exclusivity deal was actually for five years — thus requiring buyers to re-up with AT&T for three years (and not, say, T-Mobile) if they wanted to keep using the iPhone.

Just because the exclusivity contract may end in 2012 doesn’t mean they’ll be a Verizon-powered iPhone in 2013.

Jakob Nielsen on the iPad

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Nielsen:

The iPad etched-screen aesthetic does look good. No visual distractions or nerdy buttons. The penalty for this beauty is the re-emergence of a usability problem we haven’t seen since the mid-1990s: Users don’t know where they can click.

It’s a good read, but in the real world, the device is a breeze to use. I think the days of this type of thinking are limited.

iPad in Nine More Countries May 28

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Apple PR:

Apple today announced that iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK on Friday, May 28. Customers can pre-order all iPad models from Apple’s online store in all nine countries beginning on Monday, May 10. In the US, Apple has already sold over one million iPads and customers have downloaded over 12 million apps from the App Store, as well as over 1.5 million ebooks from the new iBookstore.

Google’s New Design

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Jon Wiley, Senior User Experience Designer at Google, on the search giant’s revamped design:

During our process we focused on people’s rising expectations for search. As the web has evolved over the past decade, people have been typing more sophisticated searches and seeking out specialized search tools to match. To keep pace with rapid change online, we have teams of engineers working across Google to develop new ways to present and refine search results. Our central challenge with our latest redesign was to figure out how to squeeze all these tools and technologies into a single page.

I think they nailed it.

On Newspapers, Social Media and Content

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Lindsey Turner:

If we keep monkeying with the way we treat content (blurring lines between advertising and news, cutting newshole way down, burying important yet unsexy stories, etc.) because we think the content is responsible for the lack of money made in our industry, we are dooming ourselves. I am not saying that the way we do content is perfect or doesn’t need work. I am saying that it’s possible — nay, likely — that in a better economy (that didn’t also hit at the same time as a total paradigm shift in information transmission), we would not appear to be in the throes of death. Because people would be advertising as robustly as ever, people would have extra cash to spend on internet experimentation, our space wouldn’t be shrinking and therefore making it look like we don’t have things to put into the paper, etc. etc. etc.

Looking to social media and its cheerleaders to make up for and fix what we have lost AND take us forward to a better place? Absolute madness. And, mind you, this is coming from a person who is all over the social web and has actively campaigned for greater newsroom attention to and interaction with the useful parts of social media. But let’s keep some perspective and not treat social media or its mavens as the publishing panacea, okay?

She’s right. Journalists need to focus on journalism. And that can’t happen in a measly 140 characters. Newspapers need to figure out how to survive in a world with iPads and email news alerts. Whatever they put in place, in-depth content has to be at the heart of it — not a flimsy social media plan.

Content and social media don’t have to mutually exclusive, but sadly they often are at newspapers where budgets — and staff — are shrinking rapidly. And content isn’t winning.