Sierra Kilo

It’s basically just a larger iPod Touch with available 3G cellular data internet.

The Breakdown
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The highs:
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• Larger screen, new UI enhancements
• Runs iPhone apps as well as native apps
• iBooks app that reads Amazon Kindle ebook format (among others)
• VoiceOver screen reader
• Split-screen mail app
• Enhanced calendar app
• Bluetooth for connecting with a wireless keyboard
• Month-to-month 3G cellular data plans (no contracts)

The lows:
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• Month-to-month 3G cellular data plans (no contracts)
• Subsidized price for a cellular contract would have been nice
• Better yet, iPhone tethering would have been even better
• Disappointing mail app
• No word on a unified mail inbox. Have several mail accounts? You’ll need to check each Inbox separately
• No mail rules
• No integration between mail and calendar (e.g. select a date from an email and create a calendar event from it)
• No camera (front-facing or back)
• No multitasking
• No configurable lock screen
• Large bezel on all sides

Summary
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I see this as being a device for people who plop down on the couch, browse the web and check their email. In other words, the $499 model (16GB WiFi only) is perfect for your wife.

The highs are definitely nice and well-suited for a device this size. The UI is familiar to those with an iPhone/iPod Touch and it can run the same applications. You can either keep the app’s original scale or zoom it to fill the screen. While it’s nice to have that app library available, it’s a stopgap until the iPad app library can take off.

The iBooks app and the inclusion of Amazon Kindle books in the iTunes music/video/app/book store basically kills the need for a stand-alone ebook reader device. Unless, that is, you do a ton of reading and prefer the passive e-paper display to reduce eye strain. Having VoiceOver read the book to you is also a great addition (if it is allowed).

Split-screen Mail is nice when reading through several items. The new Calendar looks great for organization-centered people. Unfortunately, they aren’t integrated like their sibling applications on the Mac are.

Connecting a wireless keyboard to the iPad over Bluetooth is PARAMOUNT to the device! That feature solves some of the input problems inherent in touch-screen devices. It also opens the way to having cases with built-in keyboards (like the HTC Advantage). I’d like to see wired keyboards, too, that connect to the dock port so that I don’t have to monitor battery life on a second item. Also, would it be too much to ask to put mouse support in there, too (wireless and wired)?

The month-to-month 3G cellular data plan is a double-edged sword. This form factor does well with an always-on internet connection. The problems are that it eats battery life, and it’s still tied to AT&T. Apple is still under a 3-year contract with AT&T to provide exclusive rights to iPhone sales. Once that is up this summer, I’d be willing to bet that there will be a new iPhone version that supports any carrier. When that happens, the iPad will probably come in Verizon flavor, too. That aside, a 3G subscription would help drive the initial prices of the device down. $829 for the high-end model could go for $499 with a 2-year data plan.

Even better than built-in 3G would be iPhone tethering. AT&T promised this, but STILL hasn’t delivered it. Tethering an iPad and an iPhone would propel sales of the WiFi-only iPad.

No camera? The iPod Nano has a VIDEO camera, yet the iPod Touch and the iPad don’t? Having a rear-facing camera for taking photos on such a large device is forgivable, but having a front-facing camera for video chats and photobooth trickery would be nice.

No multitasking is really disappointing. It’s understandable given the new Apple-built processor, but it keeps the device in the “bigger iPhone” category. They might as well call it the iPod Touch DX. If it had multitasking, it would nearly be a laptop replacement.

Having 9.7 inches of screen that displays nothing but a background image when the device is locked is ridiculous. Show me mail preview, upcoming calendar events, etc. And bring that to the iPhone, too.

There is also an inch-wide bezel around the screen. While I understand the design of that (for gripping the device without touching the screen), it makes it look like an LCD picture frame.

Me? I’ll wait to see how the second version works, just like I did with the iPhone. Of course, I haven’t played with the device, but first impressions are key with gadgets. I usually give a device three tries before actually taking the plunge.

Back in the days when Twitter and Facebook were fledgling social networking sites (2006-ish), I posted on my weblog more often. Like the way my brain sometimes works, it’s a mish-mash of all kinds of thoughts and ideas. Mostly games, gadgets, and other random thoughts. Well, recently I’ve been wanting more than 140 characters to express my thoughts, so I thought I’d throw a few of these thoughts back on here. This will probably be boring for most of you, but if you’re interested, sit back and enjoy the read.

First up is a thought spurred on from a friend’s Twitter post. He mentioned wanting a “cyborg communications tooth”. I think that is totally feasible with today’s technology and can’t understand why someone hasn’t done that yet. My daughter wears cochlear implants, so I’ve seen a few different hearing solutions. Bone Conduction is used in several applications such as SCUBA diving, construction, aviation, military, hearing aids, and even bluetooth hands-free devices. It basically converts sound into mechanical vibrations and sends them to your inner ear by conducting the sound over solid bone. It can also do vice-versa and send your speech to a microphone the same way. Ever notice how your own voice sounds different when you listen to a recording of yourself than it does in your head? Well, why can’t an implanted tooth do the same thing? Power requirements (batteries, charging, etc.) aside, the device components could surely fit into the form factor of a molar or two. Were it not for the batteries, Eleanor’s implant processors could fit on a disc the size of a stack of 3-4 quarters. I’d gladly trade a crown for a bluetooth.

Buy stock now. Apple sent out press invitations to an event on January 27th. The rumor is that they’re announcing a new device. Speculations are that it’ll be a tablet form-factor with a 10″ touch-screen, like a large iPhone (whose screen is 3.5″). The majority of the rumors are saying that it’ll fit in the market between a netbook and a smart phone. They’re saying the OS will be a scaled-up version of iPhone OSX, but not a full-blown version of Mac OSX. That’s very disappointing to me, if true. I have a MacBook Pro and an iPhone: full-feature and some-feature. I can’t see having a mid-feature device that fits a niche in my computing needs desires. If, however, it was a full-featured OSX device, I would probably carry it around like a purse man-bag organizer! Here are my biggest problems with the idea, though: Typing full emails, weblog posts, or documents on my iPhone is like shaving with tweezers. Your goal is to spell a word, maybe write a sentence, but not a full paragraph. Touch-screen smart phones have catapulted the success of the microblog (Twitter/Facebook) due to that fact. I can type fast on a keyboard, enough to write this post (complete with HTML tags). I wouldn’t attempt to do this on my iPhone. If an Apple tablet makes writing something like this easy, then it’ll do well. Another rumor is that it will have Ink-based input. Mac OSX has had Ink-based input available for a while. If that’s built-in, it could go a long way toward easy input. I’ve always wanted an Apple Newton MessagePad (nearly bought one in High School with my meager funds), so a true tablet with a stylus piques my interest.

On the gaming front, I’ve been playing a ton of Modern Warfare 2 on XBox. It’s a mind-numbing, frustration release, much like those squeeze dolls where the eyes pop out. It has a fun leveling mechanic and different challenges for when simply eliminating other players gets boring. My favorite is the “Cruelty” challenge, where you have to kill a player, pick up his weapon, then kill him again with it. It sounds easy, but most of the other players are significantly better than me, so it’s pretty difficult. Plus, you can’t just track down individual players very easy, so finding them the second time is difficult. The challenge mechanic is one that I seem to enjoy in several games, including those on iPhone. I’ve recently looked into the OpenFeint framework for iPhone games. It’s supposed to be like XBox Live for the iPhone with friends, chat, and challenges. Sounds like very fun stuff. The problem with the iPhone platform is that it’s not very good at heavy processing, so things seem a bit slow at times.