As the organizer of a conference for iPhone developers, I can’t wait to see what they do with the iPad. I can’t wait for panels on the differences, etc.

This post isn’t about that. This post is about me as a techy, power user consumer. The exact person the iPad isn’t for.

Alex Payne captures my thoughts on this really well. From a Flex Developer standpoint (Yeah that’s right hater, Flash!) I think Doug sums it up well.

I’m not gonna lie I let the rumor mill wind my expectations up more than I should have.

I was expecting

• iPhone OS – Got it
• Cellular plan of some sort – Got it
• affordable – sorta got it. based on features it’s murky but it’s not $2000, so that’s something.
• Ability to run more than one iApp at it’s native size in a window – Nope didn’t get that
• A USB Port or two – Nope
• Some type of awesome MobileMe integration that would allow me to download files on my iSlate straight to mobileme where I could consume them on my real computer. – Nope, not even close, and MobileMe still sucks, not even an upgrade to it.
• Flash – nope. Though I wasn’t surprised. Apple controls the playground, and in true bully fashion has no reason to stop.

That’s it. The camera everyone wants might be fun, but i don’t use the one on my Macbook, so…

I can survive without the USB ports, since clearly apple doesn’t like us to have access to the guts, that’s livable.

No multitasking is a deal breaker. Let’s be clear, I have an iPhone, I have a Macbook. If I want the “Real web” I can look at it on my macbook which is nice and light. If I want the Apple version of the web, I can use my iPhone.

Assuming I got the device I wanted, I never in a million years Imagined I’d leave my Macbook at home. Clearly I wouldn’t leave my iPhone at home either. I’d cary the tablet for when I walk around, or just need to do some lightweight work. I’d carry with me at conferences for note taking and controlling the mac mini’s on site if they need it. etc. it’d be a utility device. I could stream music, and work on my keynote for Wednesday, I could fire up IM and not be away from it, ditto for twitter. I’d basically be free to roam and not be tied to my laptop at the registration desk.

When I was going out and didn’t need my laptop, i figured my iSlate would be with me. Heck I could toss it in Nicole’s purse, or just hold it.

It’s not (yet) the device I want.

I admit, my hopes were pie in the sky. From the vitriol flowing out of twitter the last few days, I’m not alone. It’s almost like the Jets vs. sharks scene in West Side Story. The die hard fanbois are rushing to the defense of Apple and the iPad and those dissappointed and even angry are rushing to call it names, and shout how Apple has failed them. I say them because while I’m sad it’s not the device I want, I have no doubt it will sell like mad and people will love it. Fanbois will love it because it’s in their contract. Normal consumers will love it because it’s simple, doesn’t do anything but surf the web and send email, etc. My mom truly is the perfect candidate for this device.

I agree with Alex that it seems that Apple is turning down a path, where hackers and power users aren’t welcome, and aren’t their core business. They’re truly turning consumer. This is good, great, but also bad.

Good because I want Apple to succeed, I truly love their products and industrial design (though I hope they ditch shiny backs on ipods. Clearly Steve jobs has had his finger prints burnt off to not see the smudges the rest of us see, or he has a Eunuch to operate his iPod and iPhone for him). Bad because as Alex says, they’re turning their attention away from what (I think) they’re all about. Apple was founded by hackers, Apple survived a long time on hackers, and tinkerers and power users.

Lately all their devices are less and less hacker, tinkerer, power user friendly. I’m sure plenty of self proclaimed power users will say otherwise, running Photoshop all day, with other apps open, does not a power user make in my mind. Open Terminal, hack your shit! Change settings via bash, etc. That to me is a power user.

That’s not possible on the iPad.

Hope in the Jailbreakers

I think the iPad has huge, huge potential. I think those folks that are angry have forgotten one key thing, the first version of most Apple gear is just meh. the first iPod, not so hot, awesome by the standards of the day of course, but compared to what iPods can do now. no.

The iPhone 2g when it was released had no apps but those Apple provided. Had no MMS, had no (long list of things, some still on it)

the OS wasn’t that great, the features weren’t that great, etc. the iPhone 3GS is quite a different machine. More powerful, more feature rich. I bought my 2G iPhone when the 3G was released, on Ebay. i didn’t fully jump on the bandwagon of iPhone until the 3GS. That was when it was a device I could use and like, outside of my fanboiism.

The Macbook Air had issues with it’s CPU cores, etc. Macbook pros mooo’d. There’s plenty of history of first gen issues. nothing major and Apple fixes them, but it’s common that the first run is to get the bugs out. Apple will make the iPad better. Perfect? no, but I hope it is eventually something I’ll want as a consumer.

P.S. Fanbois, please refrain from commenting on why I’m dumb for expecting something other than what I got. I’m sure you got exactly what you expected, you’re buying 4 of them the moment the site allows it, and you and Steve are on the same wavelength and this device is 100% the most awesome revolution in computing. I’ve heard it all before and it doesn’t add to the discussion. You have a blog, use it.

I would like to know what everyone thinks about the iPad in the least fanboish ways possible, what will you use it for, what do you think it’s strength is, other than, of course being Magical

Decade first:

in 2000 I worked for a company that was basically an IT Staffing firm that decided to get into software. I worked internally on a web app that would (in their terms) revolutionize staffing. I bailed, they failed, it was 2000, that happened a lot to a lot of people and companies.

I spent most of the 2000’s as a programmer, first doing ColdFusion, then moving to Flex. It never occurred to me to try out M$ tools, or any other. I liked Macromedia (Now Adobe) offerings and stuck with them.

I was my own boss several times as an Indie contractor, and was a cube monkey several times. Each (except one) was a good experience, a ton of fun, and formed lasting personal and business friendships.

I bought my first house in Perris CA, and my second in Riverside CA. Both were awesome in their own ways, despite being an hour or more from where I worked.

Most importantly, I met my wife Nicole.

We met thru a mutual friend whom I used to work with years past, and she was currently working with (Props to Scott Dunn for the intr0)

We moved to Denver. We were supposed to move a few months after meeting. Before I proposed, even. She had an opportunity to come out to Denver, and I had no major ties to CA. That opportunity dried up, and re-emerged 6 months later, and here we are.

We bought a house in Highlands Ranch, before we realized what Highlands Ranch was. 2 years after that, we moved to downtown Denver.

I started a conference that was supposed to be a one off, just for kicks event. It’s grown to be 3 distinct events, a few one off events around the world here and there, and my full time job (more in 2009)

2009

I’ve gone full time, totally dependent on 360|Conferences for income, lost a business partner, brought Nicole into the business, learned how to use Quickbooks, stopped writing code, just to name the big ones.

Going full time with the conference business wasn’t part of the plan, not in 2009 anyway. I was at EffectiveUI as the Community Evangelist, sadly a position, not enough of the company was on board with. When i left, I decided, well if the conferences are going to support me ever, they might as well start now. Since taking the job at EUI, i had stopped writing code, well I wrote a little, building small apps for internal/sales use, but by and large, i had stopped being a full time developer.

So I jumped. Eyes wide open.

All in all it’s been what I expected, stressful, awesome, a struggle, the best decision (Next to marrying Nicole) I’ve ever made.

Tom leaving was a shock in many ways, though I suspected we wouldn’t stay partners thru 2010, I just wasn’t sure how it would come down.

Our approaches to business are too different. When we’re “on”, we’re “ON” a totally creative innovative powerhouse. When we’re “off”, we’re “OFF” sadly we were off more than on.

After dealing with the shock and other feelings associated with going from partnership to “just me” basically, i had to learn to use quickbooks. That ain’t fun. I’m fairly comfortable with book keeping but quickbooks is a kludge IMHO. But oh well it’s what we’ve got. I’ve paid a book keeper to clean the books up, then I’ll take 100% ownership of that.

What am I looking at for 2010?

360|iDev will over take 360|Flex as my biggest event. Short of Adobe being more supportive of it’s third party developer eco system that is. If they figure out how to make third party developers thrive on their platforms, 360|Flex will grow. 360|Flex will and does rock, but there’s a distinct lack of love for third party tools built on and around Flex. That will be HUGE.

Apple may not give them love, but they at least don’t hinder their third parties.

360|Mobile, which was the ill-fated InsideMobile will grow and become it’s own thing. I’ll keep it small, but the non apple mobile space is hot, and quite frankly exciting, I can’t wait to see what’s going on there.

360|Whisperings will reach critical mass. Of the small amount of content on the site right now, it all sells monthly. A few purchased only, but something. The day I write checks to the authors, will be a huge day for me!

I’ll have a reliable, livable income coming from conferences/events. The business will reach an as yet unattained level of stability.

I’ll spend more time with Nicole, we’ll do more fun things, travel more, and enjoy life and each other’s company even more than we already do.

I really want to see The Flex Show grow. jeff and I love doing the show, and I want to see more the Flex Community get involved.

i’d like to do some more Denver community stuff. Ignite Denver is going strong, and I hope 2010 sees it grow and become a staple of the community. I really want to see something eventwise around literacy. A Festival of Books, something.

Wil Wheaton said it best “It’s only a matter of time before the TSA decides that passengers simply will not be permitted to board airplanes. You know, for safety.”

What strikes me the most is that since 9/11 the TSA has put us (You know, the American People, voters, etc) through all sorts of shit. Making us miss our flights, being rude to us in line, destroying personal property, and more all without any recourse on our part. How many complaint boxes have you ever seen? I’ve only ever seen one in New Orleans. Ever tried to complain on site and been told “Talk to the TSA it’s not our fault.” Which TSA? The guy behind the x-ray machine, the three patting people down? There’s no clear “I’m in charge complain to me” person anywhere. I’m sure trying to find said person would result in:

1. you missing your flight.

2. you being permenantly on the shit list

3. (and almost guaranteed) you not getting an answer or speaking to anyone who can give you an answer. :(

The TSA is making air travel a miserable experience, and in the end, not stopping the guy with explosives in his underpants.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Transparency? Nope, not in the TSA, DHS dictionary. Accountability? Nope, not in the book either.

As a fairly frequent air traveler (about 20k miles a year) I don’t feel any safer about air travel now, than I did on 9/10. It seems most terrorist attempts since 9/11 have been thwarted by other travelers.

From http://stat-computing.org/dataexpo/2009/posters/

I’d feel more safe if I knew there was an Air Marshal, on every flight. Since there are so many fewer flights (Remember when missing a flight was ok, because there was another in an hour or so. Sidenote: Data to the right shows fewer delays post 9/11. Think that’s efficiency, or just fewer flights?) than the pre 9/11 days, it shouldn’t be a budget buster to have Air Marshals, if we ditch some of the extraneous costs we’ve added to the pre flight portion of travel.

Of course in light of the recent incidents, the TSA is knee jerking and banning things that (as far as I can tell) have yet to ever actually be used in terrorist attempts. I’ve heard no reports of laptops, iPod, PSPs, etc being in any way used by terrorists. Box cutters, yes. ACME shoe bombs, yes. underwear bombs, sadly yes.

There’s plenty of reading on the subject,

Will TSA rules affect inflight gaming?

TSA Directive begs serious questions (I completely agree with the questions by the way. Especially “How far will the TSA go?” If you say as far as it has to to protect us. News flash it was a passenger who stopped underwear bomb guy, and if I recall, the same for ACME shoe bomb idiot. We’re protecting ourselves better than the TSA is)

Next time you fly prepare to be patted down

For the next 360|Flex in San Jose, I’m planning (unless things change) in looking at Amtrak. It’s (Another blog post) more expensive, by almost 100%, but at this point I’m feeling like as a consumer my only recourse is to punish (stronger term than I’d prefer) the airlines, since I can’t punish or even speak to the TSA. Hopefully more people will follow suit and the airlines will put pressure on the TSA/administration because they’re the ones suffering the TSA’s ridiculous policies (except United who reaps $5 per traveler the TSA screws over)

Thankfully, what I assumed was just a natural state of affairs, I had no control over, turns out to be a completely manageable process, thanks to Network Location. I would have never known this app existed, if not for twitter. Someone (I don’t recall who) pointed out the One Finger Discount site, and after looking over the offerings, I was clicking purchase.

It was especially good timing. I was leaving for a trip to San Jose, so I’d get to test the app out. Set up is really straight forward. You define your locations (Home, Office, Travel, Starbucks, etc)

The things that get me, are printers, Time Machine, etc. When I’m traveling for work, I almost always have my portable HP printer, so I’d like to not have to remember to change printers.

I hate having Time Machine try to run when I’m not home, sitting there spinning wasting cycles, and bandwidth looking for the drobo that isn’t there.

Defining my locations, solves those.

The nice thing is, while yeah it will pop up a nice little widget asking me where I am, it can also auto sense, and take action, based on geolocation, and Access Point name. So now, whenever I’m at home and connect to my home AP, it’ll mount the drives I want mounted all the time.

This past weekend it’s been so nice, knowing my Default printer was what it needed to be.

If you’re a road warrior, that has to constantly fuss with settings between location, this app is for you!!

360|iDev

This was our second iPhone developer conference and it was a HUGE hit! We saw a 30% increase in attendance, which was awesome! 6 months, 30%, that’s just great! Denver didn’t let us down at all! this city is a treasure trove of iPhone developers. I’m seriously thinking 360|iDev might have a perm home here.

We had a great time! Got lots of incredible feedback, met tons of interesting people. One of the most awesome blog posts (Of the many, many) written about the event, was from David Whatley, who volunteered to speak at the conference at the last minute, completely on his own dime. We also wrangled him into hosting a panel, which was mind blowing!

“To be blunt, the conference was not dominated by stuffed suits, not dominated by nonsense, not dominated by people hawking stuff… there wasn’t even a single prima donna in sight!  People were there to learn from each other, help each other, and band together to achieve their ambitions.  The sense of community, which I feel the whole game industry lost so long ago, was a constant at this conference.  It was, I realized by the second day, home.“

He captures, why I do events. David wasn’t the only person to say something along those lines.

I’m really excited to already be working on the next 360|iDev, in San Jose! Not to mention the next 360|Flex! I can’t wait to see all my new friends, as well as the new people who have heard about the conference and will attend next time.

360|MAX

Adobe MAX is the annual “geek out” for those of us doing anything with Adobe technologies. It’s a huge event, costs a metric buttload, and is usually pretty over the top. It’s also hugely fun, and a great way to see folks who don’t come out for other events typically. It’s also nice to attend an event that I’m not organizing, or at least not organizing much of.

360|Conferences does an unconference at MAX, to bring some community to the event. It’s always a good time, we get some great speakers to give us some time and share what they know. It was really cool this time that we had some more interesting topics; Arduino/Flex interaction, How a rock band uses Flex/AIR and even iPhone in their performances, etc.

It was a good time.

Next time, we’ll limit talks to 30 minutes. It’s about double the sessions, but I think 30 minutes is a good time slot, we can get more great topics going.

The funnest part of my job (If I can call it that) is doing different types of events. They’re not just always the same event over and over. Even 360|Flex and 360|iDev, while super similar, and based on the same ideals, are vastly different. Then throw in Ignite, 360|FlexPress, and hopefully a Festival of Books, and it’s just a great time bringing people together!

Palm has doomed themselves. They came so close, they had success in their reach, and I’m calling it now, Palm won’t Palm in a year. The Pre won’t be around, WebOS might, just might, but I’m not holding my breath.

This tale spans the last few months, starting just before the Pre was announced.

So let’s look at the announcement. The weekend before Apple’s WWDC conference. No doubt in an attempt to steal some eyeballs from Apple. FAIL.

1. You can’t beat apple at hype. Let them have the week, then announce. There’s less incentive for people to go BACK to talking about Apple if you announce the week after WWDC.
2. You should have something compelling. “The Pre is out. there’s no apps, and the SDK is still a ways away” is pretty lame. Way to shoot your wad early.

Ok so the SDK is a ways away, there’s only 13 apps on the app store, the Pre isn’t flying off the shelves, GIVE THEM AWAY. You had a party at WWDC, it was semi invite only. About 50 people showed up, 50 people interested enough in the Pre to not be at any of the other parties. Give them all a Pre! Send them home as evangelists, and hackers.

Alas, what did Palm do? Had 1 Pre with a drained battery, that never seemed to leave their head of Developer Relations’ side. I’m not going to name names, but as head of Developer Relations, FAIL!

So we’ll skip forward a little bit now to InsideMobile. Don’t worry in that time, all that’s happened is the App store or whatever Palm calls it made it to like 100 apps or something. We started talking to Palm (same Developer Relations guy) fairly early, about making the Pre the centerpiece of the conference, with hands on training the Sunday before. We invited them to keynote on the evolution of the smartphone from the Palm perspective.

Well the SDK (despite being leaked) wasn’t out of private beta. the first plan was to make us cap the sign up a week and a half before the conference in order to pass on the list to Palm, for approval in the beta program. Then there was talk about opening the SDK to the public.. and more talk, and some more, and finally I think 5 days before the conference (counting weekends, LOL) the SDK was public.

We asked if we could get some Palm support, maybe the Developer Relations guy (local to the conference) could come out, maybe sponsor some lunch for the Sunday training, maybe just special Pre’s with DVI output for use with projectors.

We got, Nada. Not a thing. Well we did get lets of  hemming and hawing, and finally a “sorry we can’t, not interested, pass”

InsideMobile was the first ever, in the world, hands on Palm Pre, Mojo SDK training. We had about 60 people come for it. Was Palm there to see how many people were interested in spending a Sunday learning Mojo SDK, nope?

So that long and drawn out story, is the crux of why Palm is likely to not be around next year. The Pre certainly won’t be. You can’t dick developers around and show them no love, and expect them to flock to your platform. You can’t air creepy ass commercials and sponsor Burn Notice, and hope that makes your device compelling.

You can’t follow Apple’s lead and hope somehow it works for you. Palm should have looked back over the iPhone’s life, at every complaint, and shortcoming, and the Pre should have delivered every single one right out of the gate. Did they? No.

I’m putting it down for all the internet to see, The Pre, and likely Palm aren’t long for this world… I’ll add one caveat. Either get a new Developer Relations guy, or take the lame chains off, and let him do what he wants, how he wants, to get people interested in the Pre, and do it NOW. I know I might as well have said, if Vulcans land and show us Warp drive.

InsideMobile is a 2 day event, starting Sunday July 26th with a full day of hands on training in Palm Pre/Mojo SDK, PhoneGap, and even mobile app design.

Monday is 4 rooms with 18 sessions total talking mobile development from metrics gathering, to business opportunities to Augmented Reality (I really can’t wait for this! We’ve got two sessions back to back)

I can’t wait! San Jose is fun! Our speaker line up is folks I know and love to see, and abunch of new folks I’ve never met and can’t wait to have a beer with!

If you know Tom and I at all, you know this event is going to be big, not  to be all ego, but we try our best, to make sure even events with less turn out are fun and engaging, this will be no different,

Go check it out, it’s gonna be a great event! If you need any incentive, ‘johnismyfriend’ will save you 40% on registration, which of course being a Tom and I event, is already pretty damn reasonable!

I just got it, literally, a day ago. No I didn’t rush out to order one at WWDC after the keynote. I didn’t go wait in line at an Apple store, or any other variation on fan boy-dom. Oh and I could have, because I nver bought a 3G and bought my 2G on ebay, so I’ve been contract free for a while.

No longer.

I wasn’t sold on the 3GS. for one thing, it’s still aesthetically ugly IMO. It’s plastic, which I don’t like. I don’t like it because plastic feels crappy. I don’t like it because when the 2G came out, Apple made a big deal about plastic sucking and the aluminum body being so nice. I agree.

I’m bummed that Apple (in a move very unlike them) didn’t change the outward appearance at all. Typically apple makes new models look a big different (I suspect so that the fanboy, early adopters can feel special, and be visually better/apart from the masses), if you sat a 3G and 3GS next to each other, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference (it’s not impossible).

What sold me, wasn’t the compass, the voice dialing, event the stereo bluetooth. It was the speed.

I read that it was (roughly) 54% faster than the 3G. That’s pretty substantial. It’s also got more system RAM, and more graphics capabilities.

I might have been ok with sticking with 2G and EDGE (or buying a 3G on Ebay), but Apple has made it clear to developers, that supporting iPhone OS 2.2.1 isn’t in the picture, they need to build apps for 3.0, which means apps that will be expecting more system RAM, better graphics, and faster CPUs. Things I didn’t have, and wouldn’t have in the 3G.

Plus as Tom and I do an iPhone developer conference, we figured one of us should be keeping up with the Jone’s, in this case our developer community.

So I own a 3GS, and it’s about what I expected, wicked fast, making the iPhone that much more an actually useful device. I’m sure next summer Apple will roll something out, and I’ll have to skip it or pay through the nose since now I’m back in a 2 year contract, but oh well.

The conference itself was a huge success, we had about 289 people with us in Indy, which you have to admit ain’t bad for “this economy”.

The hotel and conference center was awesome, i mean, an old train station? awesome! I’m not a huge fan of the layout we ended up with, but i kinda knew that going in. I just hate conferences that span floors, and we did that. Lesson learned.

The sessions, well what’s there to say but that we had 45+ sessions from some of the best minds in the community. Open source projects were launching like kites in a tornado. It was awesome, to be able to be the place where that kind of cool stuff was happening.

Oh and then there was Doug

I’m going to pick on conferences for two reasons. 1. it’s my business, and 2. Conferences most definitely should be be telemarketing, other businesses shouldn’t either, but conferences?!

My irritation started with Robo Ted calling about MAX. LAME! Not only was it not really Ted, it wasn’t a real person, it was a recorded message. Whatever that cost, should have been taken off of the price of registration, I’m sure it woulda had a better result on registrations.

Then there was CFUnited just the other day. The worst part (Actually there’s two) was that it was an Indian guy with such a thick accent I barely understood why he was calling and asking me to register. The other worst part, I was already registered! According to Liz

lizign @jwilker telemarketing is just something we gotta do. sucks i know.  don’t know what else to do except make the calls myself?

I call Bull Shit. Not only is it not something you gotta do, but if you took whatever you paid thick accent Indian guy, off the rpice of admission, you wouldn’t need to call and bug people to register.

And that’s the problem with this kind of crap marketing. I went to CFUnited a few years ago. I’m going this year on behalf of the Flex Show, different email address. I can only assume that’s why I got a “Please come to CFUnited” call, when I already was.

Weak Sauce. Tom and I would never in a million years call our attendees. We don’t even like having to send emails, since we feel spammy. Calling, hellz no!