Apple’s iPad – It’s all about the apps.

I’ve had some time to digest Apple’s announcement of the iPad this Wednesday, and despite being confused and unsure at first I think I’ve come around on it.  Is the iPad perfect?  No.  Is it a device you need?  No more than you “need” an Amazon Kindle.  It’s a luxury device that’ll fill some use cases for you and probably make your life a little more convenient, but certainly not a necessity.

There has been a lot of commotion about the iPad being “just a big iPod Touch.”  I disagree with that sentiment completely, for a couple of reasons.  First, it’s about the user experience.  What’s the most-obvious difference between the iPod Touch and iPad?  The display size, of course.  Because the display for these touch devices doubles as the user input interface, it means developers can do a hell of a lot more with the software they create on the iPad.  I think it’ll be the first device to truly recognize the full potential and yes, I’ll admit it, “cool factor” of multitouch.  Sure I can do some multitouch functions on my iPhone, but usually only to zoom in or zoom out on an object.  Imagine the possibilities of the iPad’s nearly 10″ of screen real estate, particularly when you can set it down on the table or in your lap and have two free hands with which to manipulate the on-screen information.

The second major difference is the horsepower.  My current smartphone is the iPhone 3GS, which has a ARM processor clocked at 600mhz by default and only 256MB of memory.  The iPad on the other hand, has a 1ghz processor and rumored 1GB of RAM.  That means that the applications that are being developed for it will have a much wider range of capabilities and a richer user experience.  While watching Apple’s keynote it wasn’t until Scott Forstall brought developers up on stage to show their iPad apps, not to mention when Phil Schiller did the iWork demonstration, that I began to truly understand the amazing amount of potential this device has.  Compare the iPad right now to where the iPhone was when it launched: there are very few native applications and those that do exist were created by Apple.  The one thing that the iPad has going for it over the iPhone though, is that we already have an SDK for the device before it’s even released.  How long did it take Apple to get the iPhone SDK out there?

I’ll be the first to admit that I think the way they’ve chosen to integrate iPhone apps into the iPad is a little cheesy.  You can either run them in a native mode, which displays them in a tiny black box in the middle of your 9.5″ display, or you can use “pixel-double” to expand them to fit the screen.  Pixel-double might be good for apps that are predominantly text or image-based, but I have a feeling that there’s going to be significant graphical degradation with video playback and games.  With all that said though, iPhone apps on the iPad are not what users should be excited for.  Software developed with the iPad in mind will truly make the device sing, and I think it’ll be the best media-consumption device we’ve seen so far.

Plus you can’t read ibooks on your iPod Touch, you illiterate brigand!

Pocket BLU

So I popped Inglourious Basterds into my PS3 the other day, and was delighted to see a quick ad for a new, free iPhone application called Pocket BLU.  Basically, Pocket BLU will find your blu-ray player on your network over wifi and let you control the movie’s playback from your phone.  As I mentioned my blu-ray player is my PS3, and I hate using the PS3’s controller to playback movies, so this is an awesome app for me.

The main UI does everything you’d expect, you can navigate the blu-ray’s menu, play/pause, rewind/fast forward and so on.  There are some other cool features though – for instance a “Now Playing” button that will provide you with information about the movie you’re watching.  Like the movie’s soundtrack?  The app will give you access to the iTunes store so you can purchase it.  Pretty cool!

When you flip the phone on its side you get some information about the movie’s playtime and can even “scrub” through the movie as though it were a song.

The only problem with the app is that it only works with movies that are Pocket BLU-enabled, but I assume that’ll be come a standard feature here on in.  Like I said, it’s totally free so if you are an iPhone or iPod Touch user you can grab it at the link below!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-blu/id334746192?mt=8

Google Voice

I was fortunate enough to get invites to both Google Voice and Google Wave this week, but for now I’m going to stick with discussing Google Voice. This is mostly because nobody I know has Google Wave yet and, for a product that’s about collaboration with other people, it makes it hard to form an educated opinion about its usefulness.

Google Voice is a new service from Google which lets you link multiple phone numbers (home phone, work phone, mobile, etc.) to one new number of your choosing, as long as it’s available.  You can search for numbers via keyword (for example your name), area code or zip code.  Once you’ve chosen your new number all you have to do is link your pre-existing numbers to that one and you’ll have access to the host of cool features that Google Voice provides.

The most obvious feature Google Voice provides is call forwarding.  Using the site’s settings you can set Google Voice to forward calls and messages to one of your various phones automatically.  For example, you could set your work phone to only receive Google Voice calls between 9 and 5 on weekdays, or your home phone to only receive calls on weekends.  You can even setup and manage certain groups of contacts and set the default phone for each – for example, if you want to direct work calls to your mobile phone you can do that.

The next feature I like is getting Google into some hot water with carriers – free SMS messaging.  From the Google Voice website you can send text messages to any phone, for free.  Many people have presumed that this feature alone is why the Google Voice application was denied from Apple’s App Store.  You can be sure that AT&T wasn’t too excited about the idea.

One of the best features you get with Google Voice is the purest form of free visual voicemail I’ve ever seen.  Voicemails sent to your Google Voice account are automatically transcribed to text and forwarded to the Google Voice website where you have an inbox for all incoming messages.  The transcriptions are surprisingly accurate, but you can also playback the message from the website if there are a few missed words.  As you would expect, from your Google Voice inbox you can read incoming messages as though you were reading email from your Gmail inbox.  You can search for messages, leave notes to yourself and even add stars to important messages so you can come back to them later.

All said I think Google Voice is an excellent service.  I can only hope that someone at Apple or AT&T decides to let the application through to the App Store.  If not, you can bet that Google will work on a mobile web version of Google Voice like they’ve done with most of their other services, and we’ll get access to it anyways.

Snow Leopard – Impressions after 24 hours

So I’ve had 24 hours to use Snow Leopard on my iMac, and I have some thoughts. First, some background.

Though my original intent was to do a fresh install, I decided to go ahead and try an upgrade from Leopard instead. I have all of my data backed up but being that this week has been a busy one I didn’t really have the time to restore it (especically because my iPhone is connected to the iMac). So, I went ahead and upgraded. It took about a half hour which is bit longer than expected, but not altogether bad.

On the first boot of Snow Leopard I had two reactions:

1. Oooooh, pretty wallpaper
2. Okay, what else changed?

Snow Leopard has been getting more negative attention than a lot of people expected because the changes are so minute.  Sure there’s dock expose, the 6-7GB of extra space after install, and scrolling stacks but most changes will go unnoticed.  For example the entire Finder has been rewritten, but it works 98.8% identically to how it did in previous versions.  It’s a bit faster but other than that there are no noticeable changes.

To be honest, Snow Leopard does feel like sort of a service pack for Leopard.  In fact, to an average user, the changes might be completely non-existant.  Things are a bit snappier and most of the animations look a lot better but otherwise there isn’t much to say.  Here are the few features I’ve noticed and liked so far:

• Improved Text-To Speech - I use the mac’s text-to-speech to alert me of the time every half hour.  The new version is noticeably less robotic and overall sounds much better.
• Animations – When flipping between spaces or opening a stack the animation is much more fluid and cooler-looking
• All New Stacks - Stacks basically work like they should have worked from the beginning.  You can scroll through stacks, and most importantly you can navigate folders in stacks without having to open up the Finder
• Selectively Snappier - Though I haven’t noticed much of a boost in speed in all-around computing I do notice that the Finder, Spaces and Stacks respond much snappier in Snow Leopard
• New Wallpapers
• More HD Space – Freed up about 6GB of space after my upgrade, kind of negligible on a 500GB hard drive but it’s better than losing space I suppose

So is Snow Leopard worth it?  Honestly, maybe not.  The changes aren’t all that impressive to me yet.  Maybe over the next couple weeks I’ll really begin to appreciate the new upgrade but right now it’s a slight improvement at best.  I think this weekend I’m going to go ahead and do a fresh install and if that improves the experience at all I’ll make sure to do a follow-up post.

Snow Leopard on Friday

After a bunch of speculation the release date for Apple’s OS X Snow Leopard is confirmed – August 28th, this Friday. That had been the rumor going around and yet again it proved to be true.

There really isn’t much else to be said. If you have Leopard on your machine and you’re looking to upgrade, you can get your copy of Snow Leopard for $29. Even better, if you’ve bought a Mac anytime between now and last June, you can get your upgrade copy for just $9.95.

Because I bought my Macbook Pro in June I preordered my copy way back then, so I should have it on Friday. Expect a post about how the update goes.

My Second Geocache

The iPhone is a wonderful device.  I can honestly say that without it I probably wouldn’t have gotten into geocaching.  Actually, without the Totally Rad Show’s segment on geocaching (embedded below) I probably wouldn’t have picked up on it in the first place, but that’s a whole different story.  Using the iPhone I’m able to locate geocaches via GPS and track them down using Google Maps, even using a compass as I get closer and closer to the cache to narrow the search.  From there I can log my visit, and see any other caches that are around me via a list sorted by distance (another handy reason to have GPS on your phone).

Anyways, I might start logging caches as I find them.  To be honest I’ve only found two to date, but whenever I find one from now on I’ll post pictures here (again, using the iPhone).  The first is below.  Before that though, I want to sing the praises of an application called, surprisingly enough, Geocaching.  It’s the most expensive application I’ve purchased weighing in at $9.99, but it’s been worth it so far.  The simple fact that it’s a cheap entry point to a fun hobby that will pay off in entertainment value alone is enough to garner my recommendation.

However, it’s the first app that has truly impressed me with the wide-range of functionality included with it.  As I mentioned you can search for nearby geocaches and navigate to them via Google Maps using the iPhone’s included GPS.  You can use a compass to point you in the right direction if the map isn’t sufficient.  On top of that it interfaces with Geocaching.com, a website which features a database of geocaches for finders and hiders alike.  The site has a ton of information (descriptions of caches, hints if you’re stuck, and user comments – and that’s just the beginning).  All of this is accessible with the Geocaching application.  I’ll include an iTunes link to it at the bottom.

So, here’s my latest (second) find.  Yes, it was attached to a ceramic dalmatian.  Yes, it’s a dalmatian because it’s part of a 101 Dalmatians-themed series of caches.  Come on people, I’m new to this! =)  I signed the log included in a tube container on the dog’s collar and was on my way (Signed “Dave Kemick 8/16/2009 – TRS” in case you’re in the area).

iTunes – Geocaching

DOOM Resurrection only $2.99!

Doom Resurrection is a first person shooter from the folks at id Software, makers of the Doom, Wolfenstein, Quake and now Rage series of games.  It takes its cues from Doom 3 in particular, which was best-known for being a graphical revolution when it debuted on the PC back in 2004.  Resurrection uses assets from that same game but, as you would expect of the iPhone, doesn’t look quite as good.

The fact that it’s an FPS has been misleading to some, because it’s one of the multiple “on-rails” games that have found their way to the iPhone.  That being said it’s a full-featured experience that doesn’t borrow levels from its previous PC counterpart, and even though it doesn’t look as good as that game in particular, it’s one of the most impressive visual showcases on the platform.

Doom Resurrection was previously priced at $9.99, but at $2.99 it’s a steal.  Hurry though, this is a QuakeCon exclusive deal that will end at noon tomorrow (August 16th).  It’s worth noting that id’s iPhone version of Wolfenstein 3D is also on sale for only $0.99.  Links to both can be found below.

iTunes – Doom Resurrection

iTunes – Wolfenstein 3D

Subscribe to Jason Calacanis’s Newsletter

The headline pretty much says it all.  Jason Calacanis, founder of Mahalo.com, puts out an extremely intriguing newsletter every now and again that’s totally free.  Who is Jason?  Well, he’s basically a successful tech entrepreneur who is business-minded but doesn’t neglect the inner geek.  You might have seen or heard him on the This Week In Tech podcast, which he participates in from time to time.

I have to admit, at first glance Mr. Calacanis might rub people the wrong way.  His brash manner and uninhibited honesty is a departure from the norm, but that’s also the reason he’s garnered my respect.  That’s what inspired me to subscribe to his newsletter when I first heard about it a few months ago.  That being said I tended to ignore it when it landed in my inbox for the first few times.  That has changed.

A couple weeks ago Jason sent out his now famous email about the Microsoft/Yahoo partnership.  I won’t go into details because they’re readily available online, most notably at his blog, but it was the first newsletter that I took the time to read.  He presented a well-written argument which, if nothing else, inspired me to think a lot more about the matter.  He’s since followed up with emails about Apple and their flight from openness in regards to the iPhone, each equally if not more thought-provoking than the “seppuku” note.  Calacanis provides the perfect mixture of equal parts experience and opinion that stimulates great discussion, and he doesn’t shy away from readers replying to his comments (in fact he has shared some of them in follow-up newsletters).

So, with that said, hit up http://tinyurl.com/jasonslist and subscribe right away.  Even if you don’t agree with everything he writes about it’s a great way to keep in the loop and stimulate thinking.  In the meantime I’ll steadfastly await that next [Jason] subject line to drop into my inbox.

Google’s Eric Schmidt Resigns from Apple Board of Directors

This is a very interesting development given very recent conflicts between Google and Apple/AT&T.  Sure, Steve Jobs has stated that Eric’s resignation was a mutual decision made by both companies because Google’s encroachment on familiar territory is becoming a conflict of interest.  Still, Android has been out for some time, so why now?

One of the biggest stories last week was Apple’s denial of the Google Voice application on the iTunes app store.  The dispute has since been consumed by the gaze of the FCC to determine if this choice was made by AT&T moreso than Apple, or if AT&T in any way influences the content found on the App Store.  If that’s the case, as it may very well be, the ruling could be important for a couple reasons.

1. Consumers have one more reason to detest AT&T
2. It gives no logical support for the claim that the denial of Google applications has anything to do with Schmidt’s descent from the board
3. Consumers have one more reason to dete….oh, I already said that one

Honestly though it doesn’t sound like Apple’s style to bend to the will of AT&T.  They love their products enough to say something to the affect of “Listen, we have a product that has made you millions, you think this app conflicts with your service then tough cookies – we’re working on a Verizon version of the iPhone anyways.”  I’m getting off-track here.

Does this departure setup a feud between Apple and Google?  The two companies have seemed almost philosophically aligned for some time now, and most pundits don’t really consider Android or what we know of Chrome OS as major threats in their individual markets (phone and PC operating systems).  All this time it has been Microsoft who has been desperately trying to compete with the big G, and just when it seems that they’re making a solid go of it the focus might be shifting towards an Apple/Google main event instead.

There is one area in which the philosophies of Apple and Google conflict, however.  Openness.  It’s been proclaimed that this might be the achilles heel of Apple.  Google always happily opens up their projects to developers while Apple severely shies away from such behavior.  Sure, the iTunes App Store is extremely successful, but the only complaint we seem to hear about weekly is that certain apps get shot down for seemingly silly reasons, and of course Apple’s proprietary take on their hardware and software is always criticized.  If Apple had the market share Windows does, they’d have one of the worst monopolies we’ve ever seen.

The only thing we could possibly say Google has a monopoly on is the search engine market, but with Bing approaching 10%+ market share that’s not as much of a compelling case.

iPhone 3GS – The “S” is for speed!

Apple has announced a new version of the iPhone that looks like the 3G, but packs faster hardware and a new 3 megapixel camera that captures video.  They’ve also integrated voice commands, but not just dialing.  You can interact with the phone’s music as well.  For example, from anywhere in the phone you could say “Play Silversun Pickups” and it automatically starts playing.  Last but not least are a new built-in digital compass and text-to-speech.

My favorite feature is that, despite these hardware updates, the battery life has received much-needed boost and it all comes at the same price of $199 for a 16GB version and $299 for 32GB.  Still too expensive for you?  You’ll also be able to get the original iPhone 3G for just $99.   Available June 19th.