Sierra Kilo

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

The Breakdown
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The highs:
———

• 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:
——–

• 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
——–

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.

With Apple’s recent Mac Mini update, I was finally able to start my new media center setup. With 4GB RAM and a 320GB HDD, it has been able to handle whatever meager tasks I have given it. I set up the web server (Apache with PHP5) with a small web application I’ve been working on. Currently, I can interact with my Transmission BitTorrent client, alter my network settings, and view a live webcam stream (via EvoCam).

I set up a sensor in EvoCam to detect motion in one section that acts like an additional security system. If a “Motion-On” file exists in my Dropbox folder, it captures a snapshot. If a “Twitter-On” file exists, it sends a tweet to my home’s Twitter account with a link to the image. If a “Voice-On” file exists, it says “Motion Detected! The owner has been notified. If you are an unauthorized visitor, please leave immediately.” I need to tweak that script a little so that I can turn the options on/off via the web interface (maybe have the AppleScript read settings from a file updated through PHP?). I’d like to find some software to split my webcam video so that I can use the feed with multiple applications. Anybody know a good one?

I’ve been running the latest Boxee alpha version. I’m very disappointed with how Hulu has been trying to block Boxee users. I love the Hulu service and I am more than willing to sit through the same 15-30-second commercial breaks, but I want to do it through a full-screen 10-ft interface that doesn’t require a mouse for interaction. As far as Boxee goes, I’m not all that impressed. It’s a great way to view web video content, but its main focus is still on home media. It takes several steps to navigate to web video and the “home” screen is near-useless displaying recently-viewed videos, recently-added media, friend recommendations, and friend activity. The social aspect of Boxee is nice, but I usually watch videos so that I can turn my brain off and unless there was some kind of instant-messenger built-in that allowed me to chat while I was watching videos, I really don’t care what everybody else is watching. The iTunes integration works fine for music, but isn’t great for videos. Plus, since I have iTunes on my laptop set to sync my iPod and iPhone and you can’t share an iTunes library on multiple machines, it doesn’t make sense to keep videos in two places. If I could sync music from my laptop and videos from the Mac Mini onto the same device, I would do that. The latest alpha has been crashing Finder, which is very annoying, too.

I haven’t plunged into the home automation project yet. Indigo and an Insteon starter kit is like $400. While that would be very cool in the future, it’s unnecessary right now. I’d really like to set the outside lights on a schedule and hook up the webcam motion sensor to a light. Plus, I’d like to integrate it all with my web interface. Maybe someday.

I’ve found I could really use are a web browser with a 10-ft mouse-less interface. I use Firefox now and sync bookmarks, passwords, etc. with 5 computers using the XMarks extension. The problem with using it on my 50-inch DLP at 720p resolution is that the pages are not easily readable from 10-12 feet. I have to zoom the page, which can make them unreadable sometimes. I’m not sure about a good way to browse using a remote without moving from link to link. I think this might be my next research project. Surely there is some extension, userscript, or wrapper for Firefox to make it easier to use with a remote. Anybody know of something?

I think I totally called this. Maybe I was just way ahead of my time. I never got my setup working completely, though. It was all good in theory, but required too many pieces.

The remote is very cool. Hopefully Logitech will release a Harmony with a slide-out keyboard (and a mouse – think Gyration or Wiimote) one of these days.

So here are a few Macworld Apple rumors and what they mean to me:

• Mac Mini Update – Based on the scuttlebutt, there’s a very good chance that the Mac Mini line will be getting updated. Supposedly, it’ll match the aluminum lineup, possibly with some black plastic accents, and might look a little like the Time Capsule. This means a new purchase for me. With several projects lined up for this device, I’m really looking forward to this.
• MacBook Pro 17″ Update – With the recent “brick” updates to the MacBook and MBP 15″, updating the 17″ model was bound to happen sooner or later. This doesn’t mean much of anything to me since I just got more RAM, a new HDD, and updated to Leopard on my current MBP 17″. If the rumors are true about the non-removable battery, though, that could spell problems for future purchases. While I don’t have extra batteries, it’s nice to know that the system is somewhat modular in case something needs to be swapped easily.
• iLife/iWork 2009 Updates – Another version update for iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, iEtc. After upgrading the HDD and OS, I reinstalled iLife 2007 from my original install disc. I’m pretty content with it and the 2008 update didn’t offer much for me. I’ll definitely look into upgrading iLife if it offers some good iPhoto features (like built-in Flickr uploading).
• iPhone Nano, iPhone OS Update – There was talk of a smaller 2G-only iPhone. It doesn’t matter to me since I already have a 3G, but if it’s offered as part of a pay-as-you-go plan or as an unlocked GSM/EDGE phone, Apple could do well. An iPhone OS update, however, would be nice. I’d love to have copy-and-paste, but most of all, I’d really like the unlock screen to show me more information. Namely, unread email counts for each account, upcoming appointments, tasks, missed calls, voicemails, text messages, and other app notifications (IMs, Tweets, etc). Seeing the time is great, but as a “smart” device, it requires too much user interaction to get to the meat! The Mac OS status bar is nice and succinct…why can’t the iPhone have something like that? Plug-in apps for the unlock screen would be great (looking at you, FuzzyClock and MagiCal).
• iMac Update, Cinema Display Update – Apple typically updates their lineup fairly regularly. Look for LED backlighting, etc. This doesn’t mean much to me, either. Don’t want an iMac and the Cinema Displays are too pricey. Plus, my Mac Mini will get an existing 50″ DLP hookup in the living room

I have been tinkering with my home automation project here and there. The big part is going to be the web control interface, so I have been trying to get the hang of css for the layout. The software that I’ll be using has a web front-end that uses Python scripts to interface with the software and send the signals to the devices. The problem is that I wanted a complete home control panel (see previous post) to do everything. Not quite sure how I’ll do all of the wiring up, but here’s the design I have so far. It shows our Twitter statuses when Twitter is working and has buttons for easy device status toggling.

Here’s what went down last night:

Laura:
what are you doing?

Steven:
reading

Laura:
where?

Steven:
oklahoma

Laura:
i mean, upstairs or downstairs, [smartypants]!

Steven:
down

Laura:
ahh
ok
are you watching tv too?

Steven:
yes

Laura:
ok
i want to watch the office but it recorded down there

Steven:
that’s fine…i’m not really paying attention to it

Laura:
ok
you should update your status

I don’t see anything wrong with communicating via IM. I sometimes chat with coworkers in the next cube over IM (usually because we both have headphones on). I just though it was funny that my wife didn’t just come downstairs to see what I was up to and relies on my Twitter status. Not sure if that reflects badly on her, on me, or on us both

In a related topic, I’m starting to get back into my home automation hobby. I’m hoping that Apple will update the Mac Mini soon (hopefully at MacWorld in January). When they do, here’s what I’d like to do:

• Install Indigo to handle some Insteon components
• Driveway lights
• Front Door lights
• Entry (or Kitchen) light
• Door sensors (later – Front, back, patio, garage)
• Roaming lamp modules (later – for Christmas lights and other stuff)
• Set up some rules for Adium Instant Messenger
• If IM is from trusted source, parse message and execute commands (turn on/off lights, return status, etc)
• If IM is from trusted source and contains a Torrent link, begin downloading (for movies, TV shows, etc)
• Set up webcam to either take snapshots every few seconds or stream live video of downstairs
• Create a mobile-friendly website to view home status (secure, of course)
• View webcam shots/video
• Display light status
• Display current download status
• Display router status
• Display family status (Twitter/Facebook/etc)
• Display family calendar
• Upload/Browse/Download files (web-based FTP?)
• View/Edit a Wiki (I love my slightly-modified version of W2)
• Set up Plex/XBMC/Boxee media server
• Integrate with Indigo
• Integrate with Hulu
• Integrate with Netflix (queue and streaming)
• Integrate with Google Reader
• Integrate with Adium (I wonder if that’s possible with some simple AppleScripts?)

So, it’s a pretty ambitious project, but I’ve been trying to merge all of this stuff for a while now with different projects and levels of success. I think Mac is a good solution. I only wish .Net was fully compatible with Mac (the IDE and the runtime…yes, I know about Mono, but it’s not a very user-friendly setup) so that I could use and build on what I already know (ASP.net/C#) instead of using what little I know of PHP or having to learn Objective-C. Buffing my HTML/CSS/JavaScript skills will carry over to my professional life, though, so it’s not all bad. Now, if I can only get Laura to use a shared calendar for family stuff that can sync with our phones…

So, it’s day 6 with my iPhone. I thought I’d give my impressions so far.

I’ve talked on it for 20 minutes. As a phone, it’s ok. I think I have a problem with the voicemail. Once I listen to a voicemail and try to listen again, the screen goes black and I have to lock/unlock the phone to get it back. Not sure if that’s a feature or a bug. Reception is better than T-Mobile with AT&T at the office. The earpiece volume is decent and mic seems to pick up well so far (again, only used for 20 minutes). Bluetooth in my Lexus IS250 works just as good as my Wing did.

I tried using it as an audio player once while walking the dog. Once. As an audio player, the iPhone is horrible. Yes, I said it! There is no way to use the iPhone without looking at it to see the controls (play/fwd/rev/etc). You can’t just slide it in your pocket and go for a walk unless you never skip past a song. With my iPod, I can feel the indentation in the case where the wheel is and can click the Forward button to skip a song. The iPhone has no dedicated media player buttons, so unless you’re looking at it, you’re firing blind. On top of it all, touches don’t register through clothing, so even if you knew where the buttons were, you couldn’t touch them.

All of that aside, I never planned on the iPhone replacing my 60GB iPod anyway, so I’m not completely bummed. It’s a shame, though, that as much as it wants to be a convergence device, it fails because of a lack of click-y buttons.

As a video player, however, it’s pretty snazzy. Since you’re looking at the device anyway, you can see the controls. Navigation is basic, but functional. The screen is nice. The built-in speakers are perfect because you can share a video without having to share headphones.

I keep having problems with Mail. It doesn’t seem to like my SMTP server even though it works fine in Mail.app on my Mac and I synched it in order to get those settings. In-line pictures is nice. Viewing attachments is also nice. I haven’t tried any Office docs yet, though. It’s too bad you can’t just copy PDFs over to it, though. I’d love to have my D&D 4e books on there for quick browsing.

Web browsing is good, but not great. It’s a far cry from Pocket IE on WinMo, that’s for sure. Still, if you scroll pretty far, it doesn’t render the whole page (gives a checkerboard background), so you have to wait a second for it to catch up. Also, when you’re zoomed in on a page and navigate to another page, you lose your zoom level. I can see advantages and disadvantages to that, but it just didn’t behave like I was expecting it to. I like placing bookmarks on the launcher, though. For pages that I access often (like Google Reader), it beats having to launch Safari, then navigate to a bookmark.

The apps are a mixed bag. Browsing and downloading are easy (now, at least. At first, I couldn’t get any apps to sync correctly). The content is pretty sparse and the apps are often buggy. I’ve had some apps crash and some apps reboot the phone. I have yet to pay for an app, so maybe you get what you pay for.

The two major complaints of other users are also two of my major complaints. No cut/copy/paste, and no background processing. On several occasions now, I’ve wanted to copy an address from Safari and paste it into Maps. Apps like AIM and Twitterriffic can never reach their full potential without being able to run in the background. On top of that, you have to stop what you’re doing in one app just to open calculator, add a couple of numbers, then open the first app back up and type the result in. I went over my thoughts on this previously, so I will only reiterate that this stinks.

The software keyboard is better than Windows Mobile, but worse than my Wing’s hardware keyboard. The word correction is not horrible, but I still feel like the nanny is there slapping my hand with a ruler.

In the end, I’d give the iPhone 8/10. My Wing would be about 7.5/10. Apple could make this a 9.5 device by adding background processes and system-wide copy/paste. Without hardware buttons, it’ll never replace my iPod, though.

Oh, the 3G features? 3G data is a battery hog and only truly useful when using Safari. Apple should enable it automatically when using data-hungry applications like Safari and leave it disabled for checking email in the background. GPS is a bit of a let-down. Reception is not that great and it takes a while to get a good lock. It’s better than nothing, though. Maybe more location-enabled apps will come along to make it more useful.

What apps would I like to see?
- Adium (or another multi-protocol IM client, but would require background processing to be truly useful)
- A push-to-talk VoIP program (like a voice IM or Skype, again with background processing)
- This
- ScummVM
- PDF Viewer
- File Manager
- A unique roleplaying game
- PuzzleQuest
- A Flickr uploader

So it’s been a while since I’ve written anything. Life has taken its toll on one of my creative outlets. I’ve found that sometimes it takes too long to write something meaningful and organize my thoughts. Even my Twitter-ing has slowed. Anyway, on to the post.

So the iPhone 3G comes out next week (11th). I won’t be busting the door down, but I plan on purchasing one shortly after the release (probably over that weekend). While I like the customizability of my WinMo T-Mobile Wing, I’ve found that it is a bit slow and cumbersome. I like the fact that I can write .Net applications for it, but I’ve only written a few and hardly use them. Plus, the one I use the most, I’ve basically rewritten as a JavaScript web-app anyway. I’m sure I’ll use the web browser a bit, but I’m curious about how I’ll use the iPod functionality and how quickly the GPS novelty wears off. Geocaching will be fun and I might create a few caches myself initially. Geotagging pictures is an interesting concept, but, honestly, who’s interested in exactly where I take pictures? I’ll probably watch my podcasts on it, maybe audiobooks, but I love my 60GB iPod for carrying my music. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons is on order with Amazon and so far is looking like August for shipping The wife and I played with a coworker of hers and his wife over the weekend and had a good time. I DM’d 2nd Edition for the first time in probably 10 years. My descriptive skills need a little work, but I was able to wing it pretty well with a dungeon I threw together sometime in college (about 10 years ago). For the 4th Edition game, I might put a good interwoven plot together. Laura played a tree-hugging druid, but I think she’d get more out of playing a slightly-evil rogue (my favorite, too). It’s so much fun to cause strife in an imaginary environment when you have to be so good in real-life.

I also installed Vista Ultimate on my “server” box at home. I wanted to play with the Media Center Extender functions with my XBox 360. So far it’s crashed a couple of times and rebooted itself (probably driver issues). I see why the Vista Nanny is getting so much press. As the saying goes, “At least she’s pretty.”

So, after the kid was sick, the wife was sick, I was sick, trying to catch up on work, prepping and stressing for daughter’s upcoming Cochlear Implant surgery, falling behind on mowing the lawn and watering plants, etc. I find that the site’s been down for a week. It looks like everything’s back up and maybe the well-oiled machine will continue to churn after all.

After the iPhone GPS announcement and playing golf with my dad last week, I had an idea for an iPhone application that someone needs to put together (because I don’t have the time). The cart that dad and I had had GPS and hole layouts displayed. We’d pull up to the ball, get the yardage, and select our club accordingly. It was very cool.

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving somewhere and wanted to see a list of restaurants and gas stations that were nearby along my route. My car can display the POI (points of interest) on the map, but can’t list them out.

Both of those features would be very cool to have on the 2nd-generation iPhone with built-in GPS. I got to thinking and had an idea for an application that could handle both features and be Web 2.0-y. There would be 3 parts: a map display on the iPhone, a map display on the web, and a database. The iPhone interface would show your location on Google Maps. An “Add POI” button would ask, “Where is the POI located?” with three options: current location, select location, and enter address. Current location would use your current lat/long, select location would allow you to select a lat/long point on the map, and enter address would get the lat/long from an address (after locating it through Google Maps). Then, you would enter the POI name, a short description, and several searchable tags, then pick an icon and/or snap a picture of the POI. When you save the POI, it would call a webservice on the server and save the POI. When you load the map view, you enter your search criteria to view the nearby POI. When a POI is selected, it would display the distance from your current location (units of measure would be an option: feet, meters, yards, km, miles, etc). You could also view them in a list, ordered by distance.

I’m not sure how to do the POI along a route, though. I guess you could plot the route, then search POI at certain intervals and display them that way.

Anybody got the developer chops to do something like that? Most of the hard work would be on the web server end, since the webservices would handle most of the heavy lifting (searches, uploads, etc). The iPhone application would just be a front-end that leverages the location functions of the device. Or perhaps the web-side is already done somewhere?