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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

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

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

This is why Journalists suck

I’m writing this on my personal blog because it’s my view not Tom’s and not 360Conferences. (I really hate that disclaimer)

We just got back from a really successful 360|iDev, it rocked! iPhone developers are a really cool group of folks. I’ll be writing up my thoughts on the conference in another blog post, but wanted to rail on journalists for a second. I won’t lie, my irritation is self serving.

I wrote to TUAW and iLounge a good month and some change about our iPhone developer conference, no reply. No biggy, we were unknown, they could care less. Done.

Then we got an email from a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, asking for a press pass to 360|iDev. She was interested in talking to Jay Freeman about Cydia. We extended our warm welcome, hoping that as “Beat reporter for iPhone” an iPhone developer conference (first of it’s kind since O’Reilly pulled the plug), put on by developers would be interesting. Turns out no, that’s not an interesting story.

As far as we know the reporter never showed at the conference (We work the reg booth, we’d know).

Jay announced that the Cydia store was coming at 360|iDev, it’d be here Friday after the conference (3/6). What really irks me, is that TUAW, Engadget, iLounge, and the WSJ can’t be bothered to mention where the announcement was first made, just that it was made.

Don’t get me wrong, Jay is the rock star! I’m this much closer to jailbreaking because of his work. Like I said my annoyance is purely self serving, but it is part of the story. “At a developer conference in San Jose, Jay Freeman announced the imminent launch of the Cydia Store.”  Props to Jay, keep up the good work, making the iPhone better!

Update: Tom’s Guide at least got it.

Tags: Conferences, iPhone, Journalism

iapp review – Arcade Bowl from Skyworks

This is a first for me, I gotta admit. Some one actually wanted me to review their iPhone app! How cool is that!!

SkyWorks Arcade Bowl (iTunes Link), is pretty fun, I must admit!!!

I really wish the iTunes store allowed trial ware. I might not have bought this cool game without knowing it was cool up front. There’s just too much risk, however since the developer gave me a code, that problem was solved.

That said, I actually would rather have reviewed the app without being given a code, but the iTunes store experience is not designed that way. Which really sucks, offering scant room for a description, and only a few screen shots it’s hard to determine if an app or game will be worth the money.

The game play is pretty straight forward, place finger to get ball, swipe upwards. The angle and force dictate where your ball will end up, very straight forward.

The graphics are really crisp, after playing tower defense, I was really impressed by the level of detail, the band on the ball, the shadows, etc are very well done.

It took me a while to figure out how to turn the sound off, the settings are not as clear as I’d like. I’m used to there being an ‘options’ button, when you launch the game. It took me a while to spot the i even though it’s normal on many apps, I guess I’ve just gotten used to the more game like ‘options’ button.

Options are light, which makes sense, it’s not a very complicated game, two music tracks, two volume sliders. Done.

When you start the game (where I expected the ‘options’ button, you’re presented with 4 buttons. normal game, progressive game, and two high score buttons, one for each game time. Oh and the aforementioned i, that’s it, very simple and clean UI.

The one thing I found a bit annoying, was the large add for the other games on from the developer, I mean I (in theory) paid for the game, so seeing ads, even ads for the same game maker is kinda weak, IMO. Show ads, make game free. Charge for game, show ads. I love Tower Defense, it was free and shows an ad at the end of each level, and even requires you to click the ad to save your game, genius!

I’m not sure now which of those John are me, let’s just assume it’s the one in the number three spot :)

Arcade bowling is definitely worth the 1.99 the developer is asking. Having now played the game for several long stretches at a time, including the progressive game, it’s worth it! Fun game!

Tags: iPhone, Review

Apps with silly physical gestures, STOP IT!

Ok it’s getting silly now. Yes the iPhone can be shaken to select a restaurant, etc, etc. But does that mean every damn app some one writes, needs to support being shaken, blown into, etc?

First it was stupid wag my phone at yours to trade contacts, now it’s stupid tones to transmit a contact?

Maybe next someone will use the camera to sync like the Timex watches used to. 8 bit screen strobing, ftw!

I mean aside of the fact that the beepty booping like an old modem would get old fast, what happens in a busy restaurant or at a conference?

“Everyone! Please be quiet, I’d like to send Steve here my contact info, but my gimmicky eCard app needs to warble at his iPhone a bit. It’ll just take a minute.”

I think if someone said that at 360|Flex or 360|iDev, I’d throw my shoe at them, and ban them from ever attending again.

I mean really? That’s the solution? I’m not sure what’s worse, warbling or shaking phones at each other.

Tags: iPhone

iPhone App Review HP iPrint

I stumbled across HP iPrint (iTunes Link), and thought it was pretty cool. I don’t have much need to print pics from my iPhone, but it’s nice to have the option.

The two things I don’t like are that; it defaults to 4×6, it’d be nice if I could pick what size I want. Also it doesn’t seem to detect my 2600n, the iTunes description says it will detect Bonjour printers on the network, but that doesn’t seem to apply to my 2600n.

The print quality is nice, but that’s more printer than app, and my officeJet 7580 ain’t a photo printer.

It’s a nice tool to have should be out somewhere (parents house, etc) and want to zip off a print out of a photo.  Plus it’s not just pics from the camera, you could take a screen shot and print it out to make notes on, stuff like that. Anything that’s in your camera roll, is printable.

It’s free so it’s worth a price, just in case you have a need.

Tags: iPhone

iPhone App Review – i Heart Radio

Nicole told me about iHeart Radio (iTunes link), so I figured I’d try it out. From what I gather, radio stations all around the country are teaming up to provide radio over the internet. I’m guessing it’s to combat the likes of Pandora, though I can’t imagine the RIAA likes the idea, but since two apps can’t run on the iPhone at the some time (yet), there’s little risk of the dreaded piracy.

The app is pretty straight forward, the app presents you with a list of local cities, all cities, your favorites, etc.

There’s four buttons at the bottom; Stations, Favorites, Tagged Songs, and Shake it.

One nice thing is the tagging of songs, you’re listening to the radio and can tag the song to buy in iTunes, pretty handy.

The app is a bit crashy, if you’re listening to a station, and go back to the stations list or the favorites, it’s as likely as not to kill the app. It’s very much a versions one app, but still pretty well made. The UI is pretty clean, although the playing button, looks like a checkbox, so it took me a while to figure out I could stop playplack.

I know it’s cool that the iPhone has the accelerometers but really, every app does not need to be shake friendly. UrbanSpoon, ok maybe, but really, do I need to shake my iPhone to pick a radio station? Is anyone that bored or starved for content that they’ll explore the radio freqs from across the US? Even if you find a kick ass station out of Boca Raton, it’s not like you can listen to it in the car or at the house. But oh well the fad will hopefully pass.

It’s a cute gimmick, but like I said, really? The Utility of the thing, just not seeing.

Overall, great app. It’s nice to have my favorite local stations, I’m hoping 100.3 shows up as well, but 93.3 will hold me over.

Tags: iPhone

Solution: iCal, gCal, and iPhone. A happy threesome

If you followed my previous post about wanting to trade my Kingdom for a way to sync my iPhone, iCal, and gCal, you know that the current situation for an iPhone owner, with a gCal account is pretty much W.E.A.K.

the blackberry definitely one ups the iPhone in this category.

While I’m not 100% happy with my current solution (Thanks commenter Toby), it’s the best solution I’ve come up with so far. My environment is convoluted for sure, but can’t be unique.

Toby pointed me to nuevaSync, which let’s you sync a gCal account through an exchange gateway, which you can then sync to the iPhone. Unfortunately the iPhone can only handle one exchange sync, no idea why.

So I’ve got 2 way Sync from gCal to the iPhone through nuevaSync. Then since I like using iCal when on my mac, or not connected, i use Google’s new calDav support to have 2 way communication between iCal and gCal.

ok mostly there. gCal is my hub, and iCal and the iPhone can talk to it, and get updates back and forth.

Unfortunately since I’m using my single exchange connection for nuevaSync, I had to disconnect from my EUI account. Solution, just as convoluted.

I connected my iPhone directly to the mail server via IMAP, and have entourage (blech) syncing to iCal in an Entourage, which then, mostly, sometimes, will make it up to the cloud that is MobileMe.

I can only imagine what kind of trouble I’d have if I was trying to sync contacts across all these services.

So there we have it. A mostly good solution, to a really stupid problem to have. Thanks Apple, this kind of stuff reinforces why RIM is the business choice still.

Tags: Google, iPhone, Mac

My Kingdom for a calendaring solution!!

I can’t be the only person in this situation.

I’ve got an iPhone, googleCalendar, and iCal/MobileMe.ANd a headache the size of Denver, maybe Los Angeles. The easy solution between iCal and gCal, is easy now that gCal supports calDav. However mobileMe doesn’t sync calDav calendars, so my iPhone has no calendars.

I’ve been using busySync, but that requires me to run it on a machine, which is ok, but then the failure point is that machine, and if I’m traveling with a different machine, well unless I leave it running, no sync-y. That’s a no go.

I found an Applescript, that comes pretty close. It takes my calDav calendar and copies it to “John Wilker iPhone”. Two problems; 1. it doesn’t sync recurring events, and, 2. it doesn’t allow me to add events to my iPhone cal, to be copied back, it’s a one way deal. So that’s kinda whack. But that could be livable.
I won’t even go into Entourage (EffectiveUI’s calendaring). I’m resigned to manually copying my work appts over. So Be it.

So what’s everyone else doing? Surely I can’t be alone! What’s everyone using to make gCal and an iPhone talk? Why does it suck so bad!?

Help me please!

Tags: iCal, iPhone