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Why I bought an iPhone 3GS

I’ve got my 3GS (no space any more in the name) now. It’s great.

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.

Tags: Apple, Conferences, iPhone, Technology

How John Birmingham lost a reader

I stumbled across John Birmingham’s “Axis of Time series” because book 1 was free in the Kindle store (Great idea, Amazon or John or his publisher).

After thoroughly enjoying ‘Weapons of Choice’ at the gym and while folding clothes in the Kindle’s robot voice, at the car wash, etc. I bought book 2, and added 3 to my Universal Wishlist.

Sunday morning I was getting ready to fold some clothes, so I grabbed my Kindle, went into the menu for ‘Designated Targets’ and what do I see? Start Text to Speach, is grayed out.

WTF?

Sure enough, someone; John or his publisher has decided I’m not allowed to use the book I legitimately purchased in any way I please. The decision was made that I couldn’t listen to the book while I did something else.

I won’t be reading future books in the series, nor will I be finishing ‘Designated Targets’, and I hope no one else does. As a consumer and someone who believes that technology is not a tool for abusing consumers, I can’t support an author that thinks I’m not trustworthy, or thinks he can milk me for more money with an audible.com version of the book or whatever shitty logic is applied to the “Disable text to speach in my books mentallity”

I really hope that publishing wakes up sooner than (have they yet?) the RIAA/MPAA. I can’t stress this enough, this time in history for publishing is the same as the launch of iTunes, napster before it, etc for music and movies. So far publishing seems to be going down a similar path.

I also hope that Amazon makes it clear on product pages, which Kindle editions have been crippled, so that I can avoid those books. It’s a bummer for sure, but I won’t support such practices.

Tags: Business, Kindle, Writing

Why eContent should NEVER cost the same as printed

(I’ll preface this post with, A lot of publishers seem to get it, based on most prices found on Amazon’s Kindle store. This post is really derived from an interesting question i was asked over twitter.)

Beyond the ridiculously obvious “you get nothing physical” there’s a lot of reasons why an eBook shouldn’t cost as much as any printed version of the same book.

Let’s look at what goes into the price of a printed book vs. an eBook.

So given that several important factors in price (setting a price that when discounted due to depreciation is still profitable for example) don’t apply to eBooks, why should we as consumers be expected to pay a price similar to that of a hardback book, for an eBook?

While the cheap consumer part of me wants eBooks to be $.99 i acknowledge that it’s a bit unrealistic, since a great deal goes into writing a book, and while a single song is $.99 an entire book, shouldn’t be. Should a book be over $10 for the eBook version? No.

I feel a certain amount of pity for the publishing industry. While the music and movie industry got their heads kicked in, and alienated customers by the thousands, the book industry (rather than learn) watched from a far (i presume) assuming they were immune. Then Amazon came and fucked it all up for them.

Now they’re doing the same thing those other two industries did (killing speach to text on the Kindle, charging $15 for an eBook, etc), and not surprisingly the same type of backlash is being felt.

Publishing at least seems to have learned a little from their cousins in movies and music, but not enough I think.

Tags: Books, Business, eBooks, Kindle, Publishing, Technology, Writing

WWDC from a first timers perspective

Tom and I went to WWDC to meet our 360|iDev speakers again, make new contacts, pimp the upcoming show in Denver and make some noise about InsideMobile. On those two fronts I think WWDC was a big success for us. The USB  Drive Scavenger hunt was really popular and each drive was found really fast.

From a conference attendee perspective, it’s too big, and seems to be all about Apple making us feel like we don’t matter. I’ll break my thoughts down below.

Keynote line: Tom and I got up early and waited in it. We’d never done it before so wanted to see what it was all about. We didn’t get up crazy early, but still waited outside for I think 2 hours, we were numbers 404 and 405 or something. About an hour before the keynote the line moves inside, where they’ve put out coffee and donuts and stuff. Then the line essentially breaks down into mayhem to get up the 4 escalators then mad rush into the keynote room. Why we waited in line to be ran past I don’t know. Why we waited in line when Apple could have let us get in and get seated earlier, I don’t know. Other than it’s a nice way for Apple to show everyone who’s in control.

Sessions: with 5200 people in attendance and only like 12 or so sessions at a time, do the math, each session was a mini keynote. Complete with having to wait in line to get into the room. Why wait in line? No discernible reason, other than (to me) to further make sure everyone knew it was Apple’s show we waited in line at their leisure.

Each session had at least 400-500 people, some filled to capacity, around 1500. How do you present a topic to 1500 people? just like a keynote, you talk at the crowd. Each session ended with “go see these sessions to get more info” pitches then a little Q&A where you have to go stand at a mic, ask your question, take the answer and sit down.

Content: I’ll admit, a great deal of the content was over my head. I’m still very much a novice iPhone app dev. Be that as it may, it was still very dry and very not deep. A lot of the time, sessions were slides of code, with explanations (i can read the docs myself). Every once in a while a session would get into some live coding,but that wasn’t the norm.

Oh and since each session was a mini keynote, they dimmed the lights, and kept it warm, it was WAY too easy to fall asleep, especially in the more “sales pitch” type sessions.

After Hours: WWDC is like… well I don’t know, I’ve never partied like that before that I recall. THough I barelly recall the partying I did at WWDC, so…

There’s at least 6 or more parties every night. Most are “invite only” or “RSVP and hope you get a ticket” deals, which sucks, and further promotes the crazy superstar nonsense that exists. Sadly most party venues are dive bars around downtown SF, so they’re crowded, noisy, did I mention crowded and noisy? The House of Sheilds is a popular place to end up. Bring a catheter and strap a bag to your calf. The bathroom (used as loosely as possible) is like stepping into the 9th level of hell, which if you’re curious is the sewer for the other 8 levels.

WWDC’s official party is a concert in the Yerba Buena park. We got there just as Cake started their encore (The Distance, w00t!) and as soon as the band finished, the tables were cleared off, the booze stations closed up, and the stage crew went to work. This was all before the folks up front had stopped jumping up and down. Very weird.

As much as I liked the parties, they were completely useless for meeting people. You ended up in a group that migrated place to place and sometimes members would come and go, but meeting new people was tough. If you were in one of the parties the music and voices were so loud, you couldn’t hardly talk.

I much prefer the 1 party to rule them all approach that Tom and I do. Sure the people who need their own party to feel special, are denied that, but hey, they can still throw a party elsewhere. Cynergy did it in Seattle. But at least you can meet people, talk, and not be running from place to place trying to catch up to the “in crowd”

Overall: WWDC is just like MAX. It’s the place to go to be seen, it’s the place where you’re assured to be in the presence of people like Wil Shipley and Brent Simmons (though, Brent will be at 360|iDev) and the rest of the luminary Mac/iPhone guys. Oh and of course Gruber, who probly will never be at one of our events.

It’s not the place to get a ton of new knowledge. It’s not the place to try and meet new people, forge new relationships, etc.

It is the place to get new NDA goodies you can’t talk to anyone about, and of course be in the room, when a new laptop is announced.

It’s definitely the place for Apple to assert their dominance over us all, and make sure we know our place in the order of things,which is pretty low.

Tags: WWDC

Kindle Owner Meetup June 6th

So this will either be a really cool meetup like I used to go to with my B5, or it’ll be a mug fest for an enterprising theif. I came across this on the latest Kindle Chronicles.

You can get more info here from Kindleboards.
Sounds like the Denver one is going to be the Starbucks on 16th at Blake. Very convenient since that’s the one I work from when I need to get out of the house. So be there at 10am this Saturday.

I haven’t seen too many other Kindles in the wild (and haven’t been showing mine off either mind you) so it’ll be interesting to see how Denver turns out on the Kindle front.

I’m hoping to meet other folks who are doing more than just reading on the Kindle, that could be a cool thing for 360|Whisperings (which by the way has 2 articles up on the Amazon store now! Mate Review and Cairngorm write up.)

If you’re local, hope to see you there!

Tags: Books, community, Kindle, Writing

The Kindle needs an iTunes app

Amazon quietly roled out kindle.amazon.com the other day. It’s a pretty cool but only slightly useful idea.

It’s a cool idea, you login with your amazon account and can see your Kindle content, mostly.

I’ve been thinking on this for a while and I think (I hope) that kindle.amazon.com is Amazon’s first step in ‘killing it’ as the kids say.

A lot of people have said, myself included, that the iPod alone wasn’t the winning solution, iTunes was a huge part the success. library management that works flawlessly with the device. The Kindle needs this, like yesterday.

The Kindle UI is craptastic, and there’s no way to manage content. iTunes is the secret sauce for the iPod/iPhone. you don’t need to keep all your stuff on the device, or manage it from the device. There’s an easy to use, clean interface on the desktop to manage all your media, then you sync what you want. It’s all contained and orderly and easy to manage.

The Kindle has nothing like that. You manage your media on the Kindle itself with basic “Remove from device” functionality, which puts (purchased) content into the archive, which Amazon stores in the cloud. You can pull archived content back into the Kindle, but that’s it. It’s on or off the device.

What about stuff you put on the Kindle yourself? You’re SOL. User created content can’t be archived, it can only be deleted. Sure you can keep it on the computer in a folder somewhere and when you plug the Kindle in you can copy it over again, but that’s janky to say the least.

kindle.amazon.com comes close, allowing you to manage your Kindle library (except you can only see it, not control/change anything) and see your annotations… on purchased content only. Content you’ve put on the device is notably missing. Meaning annotations you’ve placed on ebooks you loaded yourself are still tricky to retrieve/make use of and only available on the Kindle itself.

If Amazon really wants to nail the eBook reader market, they need to realize what Apple did, a device alone, while awesome, isn’t the solution. The desktop client that makes it easy to manage your library is a must. It might be too much to ask, but it’d be nice if the me@free.kindle.com functionality was built into the desktop app so I could convert my PDFs etc on my own and sync over USB.

I think the first company to launch a nice and easy to use eBook reader (the Kindle MOSTLY fits the bill) AND desktop library management application will be the winner. Until then, the race isn’t won and I hope Amazon doesn’t drop the ball at this important point in the eBook race.

Tags: Books, Business, iPhone, iTunes, Kindle, Technology

Guess we’re lucky we have cars and electricity

In perusing my kindlefeeder report this morning I came across two very interesting blog posts, about the same topic. Apparently the New York Times (not dead yet?) had an article about the Kindle and essentially literary snobbery. Here’s Joe’s thoughts, and CJ’s.

I hereby put not only the NYT, which is fighting against time for it’s own life, but the author (JOANNE KAUFMAN) of yet another (basically) ‘progress is ruining it!’ article on blast. GET OVER YOURSELVES.

I’m the first to admit, I have very strong elitist tendencies, and my mac snobbery knows few bounds. That said though, I don’t care who sees me with what book, and I carry my Mac as proudly (though with only one arm, not two) as I did my Dell.

The Kindle is, as I’ce said before, a game changer for publishing. The wall of books, to impress your friends, will be gone in another 20 years or less. Just like the enormous display of CDs and (largely) DVDs on display near your TV and home entertainment center is already gone. That’s just how it works. There’s also not a stable in my back yard, not a store room of candles, or a cellar with huge blocks of ice.

Tom mentioned this when we got our Kindle’s and you can see it on this snapshot, The Kindle it letting people read crap they’d probably be too embarrassed to read otherwise.

Sara Nelson is clearly to entrenched in her own world to really appreciate what consumers want, this quote clearly illustrates that.

“It’s really expensive,” she said of the Kindle 2, which Amazon sells for $359. “If you’re going to pay that, you’re giving a statement to the world that you like to read — and you’re probably not using it to read a mass market paperback.”

So let’s think about this from two perspectives; 1. the best selling list from Amazon. While not yet Mass Market Paperbacks the teen vampire series is clearly (no offense) not Tolkien or Dostoevsky or even King, and while I’m sure the NeoCons are loving their manifesto, it’s certainly not going to be a classic. 2. let’s look at my my Kindle. Two mass Market Paperbacks, a business book, KindleFeeder report, and the collected works of Poe, oh and the Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (cuz you know, I’m a kid at heart, and my girl Beatrix rocked). So while I’m sure Ms. Nelson only has the classics from the most famous writers on her Kindle, the rest of us are either putting what we’d normally carry, or putting what we’d be embarrassed to carry on ours.

Oh and don’t worry Anne Fadiman, your book won’t be requested on the Kindle, good luck with the sales and making your royalty back.

TO some book lovers and editors, there are myriad reasons to deplore the Kindle. Publishers will no longer get the bump that comes when travelers see someone reading, say, the latest James Patterson and say to themselves: “I’ve been meaning to get that. I think I’ll buy a copy at Hudson News before I hop on the train.”

Joe poked fun at this line and I’m going to too. It’s retarded! Who does that? Who is so simple minded and forgetful, that while waiting for a train (something they do every day) they see a book in someone’s hand and it flips a switch in their brain that today is the day they need to buy that book?

How’s this scenario, which is enabled by the kindle. You’re at that same train station and realize you finished your book last night on the way home. You either a, have other books ready to be read, already on your Kindle, or b, you fire up the Kindle store (conveniently on the Kindle) and browse and purchase a new book, that is on your device in a minute or two.

There have have been plenty of times I’ve been at an airport (coming or going) and realized that the book I brought I was almost finished with, or I finish it my first night in the hotel. Books are awesome but heavy so packing spares and back ups is not something I enjoy doing, in the off chance I’ll finish the one I’m reading. Schlepping dead tree around sucks.

In reading the article it reinforces for me the (as with the music industry) fucked up nature of publishing. Publishers and Authors alike, can’t stop being reactionary and freaking out for one minute, to realize that (just like the iPod) the Kindle is going to reinvigorate people to read, and boost sales.

And services like KindleFeeder and (to pimp my own stuff) 360Whisperings, will be the wave of the future, offering just what you want in a portable format that doesn’t waste paper!

Tags: Books, Kindle, Technology

twitter pants (and shirts, and watches)

My pals, Jay, Dave and Kristofer have created something that I know you fashionistas (and fashionistos) will love. Coathangr, merges Twitter with fashion, extending the answer to, “What are you doing?” to include, “What are you wearing?” (Update: It’s not Twitter logos on clothes! It’s a social networking site around fashion, just so we’re clear)

Coathangr is a cool new(ish) social networking site, just for those of us who take more than 10 minutes to get dressed (Which isn’t me, but they still let me join).

It’s in public beta, so feel free to sign up and answer the question, “What are you wearing?”

Oh and if you sign up and post a pic in an update, you can win a Slanket!

Tags: friends

Kindle !=Book, just like iPod !=Tape Deck

saw this post and got to thinking, what a bunch of reactionary malarky. Perhaps the write is just trying to get some link love, and that’s fine.

The author makes some basic assertions, that not only don’t really apply or stand up, but seem to be based on strangely romantic, almost anti technology notions.

“Argument one: The Kindle destroys the trace of the author. After the death of the individual author, books continue to live…”

If for no other reason than it’s wasteful, Any book I purchase on the Kindle isn’t likely to go away. Most of my paper books are on my shelves, books are meaningful.  I can’t argue that there’s something special about the feel and heft of a book, but it’s 2009, we don’t play music on magnetic tape, and we don’t need to kill trees to read about over sexed vampire teenagers. So yeah the Kindle isn’t the same, but that’s not a detractor, any more than a tractor not being a vespa doesn’t make one better than the other.

“Argument two: the Kindle destroys the community of readers which books engender. The Kindle has been devised by a society that wants to make profit each time a text is read rather than each time a book is purchased. In the old system, once I bought a book I owned it as an object. I could read it as many times as I liked and give it to friends who may give it to their friends…”

Long before the Kindle arrived, I hadn’t set foot in a Library in years. The only time I went into a book store was the random time I needed a book faster than amazon could deliver it, or was traveling. While I might be alone in this, I almost never loan out books. I’ve purchased a new book and gifted it, several times. Books that meant something special to me, were purchased for people, never gifted. I can count on one hand the books I’ve loaned out. People don’t value other people’s things, they lose them, mistreat them, etc.

The Kindle changes the field, most definitely. Sadly we’re at a stage in technology where long standing industries don’t grasp technology so they try to lock it down. But if you look at the iPod, you’ll see the future of eBooks, unlocked, open to owner to use fairly. Being able to one day trade notes on a shared book, is what I’m hoping the Kindle offers.

“Argument three: the Kindle denies the call to deep, meditative reflection. Books have a magic power in that they can draw us into the world of the author and make time pass quickly while we are immersed in the text. The book is the ideal format for presenting complicated, philosophical arguments that require the reader to pause between paragraphs and reflect. The Kindle is the opposite — it is merely a television for reading text, a computer that will distract us…”

This pretty much clears it up that the author hasn’t ever used a Kindle beyond possibly picking one up off a friends desk and shaking his head and sitting it down. I’m currently reading “Metal Storm: Book 5 (I think) in the Saga of the Seven Suns” and having read the first 4 in paperback, I can say the experience of reading this book on the Kindle compared to the other 4, no different. Not even tin the slightest. I ‘flip’ to the next page and can pause to reflect. The metaphors associated with books, really translate well across the paper to bit divide.

I’d be willing to bet the author hasn’t been in a library any more recently than I have. I don’t know anyone who goes to libraries, I live very near the Denver Metro Library. The few people I know who use libraries do so to rent movies, go figure.

Libraries were great! So were drive-ins, and malt shops. The Kindle destroys libraries and books, the same way the iPod destroys music and recording, that is to say, IT DOESN’T.

I seriously hope that Micah (The author) doesn’t own an iPod, a TiVo, or a DVD or Blue Ray player, as those devices all evolved their respective mediums, not destroyed them.

As much as I hate giving link traffic to places I think don’t deserve it, you’ll have to read the entire article if you want all of Micah’s alarmist, fear mongering style arguments.

Tags: Books, Kindle, Technology

Hacking your Kindle!

I stumbled across this while plugging feeds into my Kindlefeeder account (A Must for Kindle owners!!).

It’s funny too, since I had been wondering if I could add or remove the images it uses as sleep images. They’re ok and all, some are really cool, but they’re getting old.

Was thinking it’d be cool to use my own, greyscale or no.

Low and behold here we are!

The process is crazy easy, and reversible!

I’ve found some images just don’t work, I actually went and took each image I wanted to use, and saved it as 600×800 PNG, but still every once in a while a sleep image is just a blank screen.

Give it a shot! I wish Amazon would open the Kindle up a bit more, I mean really? custom screen images, not very hard Amazon, and definitely makes the device feel more like “me”

Tags: Kindle, Technology