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	<title>johnwilker.com &#187; Apple</title>
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	<link>http://johnwilker.com</link>
	<description>John Wilker: Community, Code, Randomness</description>
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		<title>iApp Review &#8211; Popular Mechanics Does it Right</title>
		<link>http://johnwilker.com/2010/07/iapp-review-popular-mechanics-does-it-right/</link>
		<comments>http://johnwilker.com/2010/07/iapp-review-popular-mechanics-does-it-right/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:33:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Wilker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[I am a Consumer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eBooks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apple]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Books]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iPad]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://johnwilker.com/?p=1146</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I'm a sucker for giving publishing a chance. I don't know why, they fail more often than not. Just look at Wired (iTunes Link), and Men's Health (iTunes Link).

Popular Mechanics (iTunes Link), might be the exception for many reasons.

1. They priced the app right. 1.99. It's a beta, so I hope they see that the price is a huge deal and keep it at something reasonable, and below the dead tree edition.

2. They don't go rich media crazy like Wired did. There's plenty of pages of simple text for reading. Maybe a nice transition of a graphic element sliding in slightly after the page transition finishes, but every page isn't a multimedia orgy.

3. They started slow. Both Men's Health and Wired, dove right in with high priced, "billed as complete" as far as I know offerings. It's nice to see Pop. Mech. admit they're testing the waters. ]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_0009.png"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-1147" title="IMG_0009" src="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_0009-225x300.png" alt="" width="225" height="300" /></a>I&#8217;m a sucker for giving publishing a chance. I don&#8217;t know why, they fail more often than not. Just look at <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=T*EZjCprqmc&amp;subid=&amp;offerid=146261.1&amp;type=10&amp;tmpid=3909&amp;RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fapp%2Fwired-magazine%2Fid373903654%3Fmt%3D8" target="_blank">Wired</a> (iTunes Link), and <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=T*EZjCprqmc&amp;subid=&amp;offerid=146261.1&amp;type=10&amp;tmpid=3909&amp;RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fapp%2Fmens-health-magazine%2Fid359950995%3Fmt%3D8" target="_blank">Men&#8217;s Health</a> (iTunes Link).</p>
<p><a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=T*EZjCprqmc&amp;subid=&amp;offerid=146261.1&amp;type=10&amp;tmpid=3909&amp;RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fapp%2Fpopular-mechanics-interactive%2Fid378868851%3Fmt%3D8" target="_blank">Popular Mechanics</a> (iTunes Link), might be the exception for many reasons.</p>
<p>1. They priced the app right. 1.99. It&#8217;s a beta, so I hope they see that the price is a huge deal and keep it at something reasonable, and below the dead tree edition.</p>
<p>2. They don&#8217;t go rich media crazy like Wired did. There&#8217;s plenty of pages of simple text for reading. Maybe a nice transition of a graphic element sliding in slightly after the page transition finishes, but every page isn&#8217;t a multimedia orgy.</p>
<p>3. They started slow. Both Men&#8217;s Health and Wired, dove right in with high priced, &#8220;billed as complete&#8221; as far as I know offerings. It&#8217;s nice to see Pop. Mech. admit they&#8217;re testing the waters.</p>
<p>4. They valued consumer feedback. The app asks you (sadly it doesn&#8217;t seem to know that I&#8217;ve already done the survey, which is a might annoying) to fill out a survey about your experience with the app. The content, the ads, etc. Neither Wired nor MH, seem to care. In fact I had trouble with the MH app (It ate my $5 issue) and it took me hours to find an email to ask for help, and the email bounced. The support site, is only for subscribers. FAIL on so many levels, the app is deleted from my iPad.</p>
<p><a href="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_0013.png"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1149" title="IMG_0013" src="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_0013-225x300.png" alt="" width="225" height="300" /></a>5. don&#8217;t waste space. Honestly I&#8217;m not sure how big the PM app is, but I don&#8217;t think it was as big as Wired. I don&#8217;t want my magazines to take up so much space I&#8217;m debating what to sync and not sync, video or magazine. etc. Bloat is overrated.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m really digging the Pop. Mech. issue so far. As always great content, but also a pleasing experience. I&#8217;m not taping, swiping, and pinching every element to see if there&#8217;s something hidden like in other magazine apps. I&#8217;m very hopeful that they learn the right lessons from this beta, and create a digital magazine worth subscribing too.</p>
<p>For me that would be.</p>
<ol>
<li>Not $5 an issue. between $2 and $3 i think is the sweet spot. I don&#8217;t want to pay as much or more than the dead tree edition costs.</li>
<li>Subscription price that makes sense. Not more than the dead tree, and not (digital) cover price X 12</li>
<li>Leave the multi media orgy for others. Every issue should be just interactive enough to make sure I don&#8217;t think they simply uploaded a PDF of the print issue. I don&#8217;t need that much interactivity, it takes away from the content.</li>
</ol>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>How does iThoughtsHD have this and Apple doesn&#8217;t?</title>
		<link>http://johnwilker.com/2010/07/how-does-ithoughtshd-have-this-and-apple-doesnt/</link>
		<comments>http://johnwilker.com/2010/07/how-does-ithoughtshd-have-this-and-apple-doesnt/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:04:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Wilker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[I am a Creator]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Random]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Work]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apple]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Ignite Denver]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iPad]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://johnwilker.com/?p=1141</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I caved, and paid $10 for pages. Complete waste of money. I edit a lot of pages files. Sponsor packets,etc. All the time. I'd love to pull one up on my iPad, edit, and without having to think about plugging into iTunes, copying the files out of iTunes back to my iDisk where they live, overwriting the old one.

Pages, and most apps, come kinda close, you can access the file, pull it in locally, make edits, but then you're stuck, the document is trapped in the iPad and iTunes. 

Why not make the iPad apps (at least the Apple ones) more connected to Oh I dunno, say Apple's own cloud services. iWork.com and mobileMe. Some of us (still) pay for mobileMe hoping it'll mature and actually be useful. I have no idea what iWork.com is for, but it seems like it'd make perfect sense to tie the iWork iPad apps (maybe the new iLife ones too) to Apple's own (though dropbox, et. al. would be nice too) services to extend their usefulness.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>One of my biggest complaints with the iPad is it&#8217;s complete lack of usefulness for content creators. I understand, creators are not Apple&#8217;s biggest market, or even a group the ever seem to care about, Shoot, they make &#8220;Consumer electronics&#8221; LOL.</p>
<p>Still there&#8217;s so little that would have to be done to make the iPad SO incredibly awesome for creators, and open doors left and right. I know it&#8217;s possible, <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=T*EZjCprqmc&amp;subid=&amp;offerid=146261.1&amp;type=10&amp;tmpid=3909&amp;RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fapp%2Fithoughtshd-mindmapping%2Fid369020033%3Fmt%3D8" target="_blank">iThoughtsHD</a> (iTunes Link), a great mind mapping app has already done it!</p>
<p><a href="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_0008.png"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-1142" title="IMG_0008" src="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_0008-300x225.png" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>When building a mind map, like many tools on the iPad, you can save off to the cloud somewhere, box.net, dropbox,etc. Unlike many apps, and all Apple apps. You can load from cloud.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s that easy. They did why didn&#8217;t/hasn&#8217;t Apple?</p>
<p>I caved, and paid $10 for <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=T*EZjCprqmc&amp;subid=&amp;offerid=146261.1&amp;type=10&amp;tmpid=3909&amp;RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fapp%2Fpages%2Fid361309726%3Fmt%3D8" target="_blank">Pages</a>. Complete waste of money. I edit a lot of pages files. Sponsor packets,etc. All the time. I&#8217;d love to pull one up on my iPad, edit, and without having to think about plugging into iTunes, copying the files out of iTunes back to my iDisk where they live, overwriting the old one.</p>
<p>Pages, and most apps, come kinda close, you can access the file, pull it in locally, make edits, but then you&#8217;re stuck, the document is trapped in the iPad and iTunes.</p>
<p>Why not make the iPad apps (at least the Apple ones) more connected to Oh I dunno, say Apple&#8217;s own cloud services. iWork.com and mobileMe. Some of us (still) pay for mobileMe hoping it&#8217;ll mature and actually be useful. I have no idea what iWork.com is for, but it seems like it&#8217;d make perfect sense to tie the iWork iPad apps (maybe the new iLife ones too) to Apple&#8217;s own (though dropbox, et. al. would be nice too) services to extend their usefulness.</p>
<p>Please Apple here my plea! The iPad is great for games and consumer shit, hook those of us who create up! It can&#8217;t be hard, a third party did it! You can too!</p>
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		<title>iApp Review &#8211; Landformer</title>
		<link>http://johnwilker.com/2010/07/iapp-review-landformer/</link>
		<comments>http://johnwilker.com/2010/07/iapp-review-landformer/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:23:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Wilker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[360|iDev]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[community]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iPhone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apple]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://johnwilker.com/?p=1131</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I met Owen Goss at the first 360&#124;iDev I organized, and instantly liked him. If nothing else he takes my polar bear jokes in stride, that&#8217;s pretty big :) He&#8217;s an awesome developer, great speaker, and his latest game LandFormer (iTunes Link) is an awesome time suck! That&#8217;s a good thing :) Owen&#8217;s not new [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_0003.png"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1132" title="IMG_0003" src="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_0003.png" alt="" width="480" height="320" /></a>I met Owen Goss at the first <a href="http://360idev.com" target="_blank">360|iDev</a> I organized, and instantly liked him. If nothing else he takes my polar bear jokes in stride, that&#8217;s pretty big :)</p>
<p>He&#8217;s an awesome developer, great speaker, and his latest game <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/landformer/id350807495?mt=8" target="_blank">LandFormer</a> (iTunes Link) is an awesome time suck! That&#8217;s a good thing :)</p>
<p><a href="http://streamingcolour.com/" target="_blank">Owen&#8217;s not new to games</a>, but I think this latest release is his coming out game. This is the game that&#8217;s the start of truly awesome things for Owen.</p>
<p>Ok enough gushing!</p>
<p>LandFormer is a straightforward puzzle game, you don&#8217;t really need instructions or tutorials, pick it up, try it out and away you go.</p>
<p>The objective is to make the ground perfectly flat; raising and lowering the terrain in patterns to accomplish your goal.</p>
<p>You&#8217;ve got 6 patterns and 2 choices of terraforming; Up or down. Each level has a  number of moves it should take to clear the level. Some are pretty straightforward, but the game quickly moves into, &#8220;hmm well maybe this, then this&#8230; nope, undo!&#8221; Which is good. I&#8217;m usually pretty quickly turned off by games that start too hard, or don&#8217;t progress past easy.</p>
<p><a href="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_0006.png"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1134" title="IMG_0006" src="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_0006-300x200.png" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a>It&#8217;s very addictive, sitting there staring at the terrain, thinking through permutations.</p>
<p>Graphics wise the game is stunning, a perfect match to the game play. Ditto on the sound, the effects and background music are incredible and all blend together for a calming, tho sometimes frustrating brain game.</p>
<p>As if all that wasn&#8217;t enough, Owen has not just made the game expandable with In App Purchase, but also for free, you can exchange levels. You can email a level, heck you can tweet a level. People can follow your URL and add the level to their game to play. It&#8217;s easy to create levels, it&#8217;s basically solving a map, backwards :) just start arranging the terrain, when you&#8217;re done, save and share.</p>
<p><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1135" title="IMG_0007" src="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_0007-300x200.png" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></p>
<p>The IAP is awesome, I&#8217;m really glad he went this route. I think IAP is one of the best features for game devs, to make money with their hard work.</p>
<p>Don&#8217;t get me wrong, I don&#8217;t want useless crapware that I can&#8217;t use without purchasing something. Quite the contrary with LandFormer, you can go (I assume) forever without ever buying any of Owen&#8217;s premium content, getting levels from friends and the internet, but why? Sure that&#8217;s fun and I hope we&#8217;ll see more and more tweets with levels in them, but Owen has put together a shit ton of levels for purchase, why not get those and test your abilities. And test them they will!</p>
<p>Oh and the game itself is skinnable, how awesome is that!?</p>
<p>If you haven&#8217;t already grabbed LandFormer, go get it! Heck even Apple likes it.</p>
<p><a href="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Screen-shot-2010-07-01-at-3.20.28-PM.png"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-1138" title="Screen shot 2010-07-01 at 3.20.28 PM" src="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Screen-shot-2010-07-01-at-3.20.28-PM.png" alt="" width="240" height="298" /></a>My only complaint (and I know Owen started this before the iPad was announced, at least I think so) is that it&#8217;d kick ass on the iPad. Either more complex patterns, or larger maps, etc. I think it&#8217;d be awesome. I&#8217;d suggest that be his next project, but he owe me bacon farmer!</p>
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		<title>So the ATT caps don&#8217;t affect you huh?</title>
		<link>http://johnwilker.com/2010/06/so-the-att-caps-dont-affect-you-huh/</link>
		<comments>http://johnwilker.com/2010/06/so-the-att-caps-dont-affect-you-huh/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jun 2010 18:16:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Wilker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[360|iDev]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[I am a Consumer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Random]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Steve Jobs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://johnwilker.com/?p=1118</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was watching all the tweets about &#8220;looks like I only use 400mb so AT&#38;T&#8217;s new caps won&#8217;t affect me.&#8221; earlier this week, and got to thinking. I&#8217;m wondering how much all these folks are considering the future. Not 2044 when we have iPhones in our heads, but a 2 months from now, maybe 3. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I was watching all the tweets about &#8220;looks like I only use 400mb so AT&amp;T&#8217;s new caps won&#8217;t affect me.&#8221; earlier this week, and got to thinking.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m wondering how much all these folks are considering the future. Not 2044 when we have iPhones in our heads, but a 2 months from now, maybe 3. Clearly AT&amp;T had a plan beyond &#8220;Making data plans more affordable and available for all. 98% of our users don&#8217;t even use close to 2g&#8221; and all. I mean we&#8217;ve met AT&amp;T right? When have they done something for their customers, beyond send <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/02/atandt-warns-customer-that-emailing-the-ceo-will-result-in-a-cease/" target="_blank">cease and desist letters when we email them</a>.</p>
<p>So here&#8217;s what I&#8217;m wondering..</p>
<p>Skype on 3G&#8230; how much are we gonna use that? How much will that impact data use? I can see 2gb going fast with a couple business calls a week.</p>
<p>Front facing camera and some sort of iChat for iPhone&#8230; Will we get it? Who knows, rumors (again) say yes. How much will video chatting use up your data use?</p>
<p>Backgrounding of Pandora? How much data do you think you&#8217;ll use streaming pandora at work every day? On your jog? at the gym? at your desk?</p>
<p>There&#8217;s a lot (possibly) coming soon that will hugely impact data usage. Surprised AT&amp;T pre-empted all that with a change in rates?</p>
<p>A change that by next week we&#8217;ll have mostly forgotten in the euphoria of a steve-note, new devices, and mac pros, and robot unicorns. AT&amp;T for their cluelessness in dealing with customers, isn&#8217;t stupid, and they just roped a ton of schmoes into very restrictive plans.</p>
<p>Take a long the view&#8230; it&#8217;s a different picture. I&#8217;ll be keeping my unlimited plan thank you.</p>
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		<title>Dropbox as Anecdotal evidence of Mobile platform strength?</title>
		<link>http://johnwilker.com/2010/05/dropbox-as-anecdotal-evidence-of-mobile-platform-strength/</link>
		<comments>http://johnwilker.com/2010/05/dropbox-as-anecdotal-evidence-of-mobile-platform-strength/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 28 May 2010 14:23:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Wilker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[I am a Consumer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://johnwilker.com/?p=1114</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was cruising around the dropbox blog and saw that they have a public voting site for feature requests. As I scrolled through the list, I noticed the mobile device requests.

It pretty much supports my assumptions on the mobile platform space right now.



iPhone, iPad, and Android are all already supported, WinMo (unclear, but I assume phone 7, but it was 6 months ago) is the next highest demanded platform, by a large margin. Pre and Crackberry bring up the final two spots. 

Sure it's anecdotal, but I can't help but wonder if dropbox doesn't serve as a microcosm of the mobile space? Clearly with their business on the line dropbox is pursuing the most demanded platforms first, sorry Pre folks, I know you love your phones, but you bet a lame horse.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Screen-shot-2010-05-28-at-7.35.39-AM.png"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1115" title="Screen shot 2010-05-28 at 7.35.39 AM" src="http://johnwilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Screen-shot-2010-05-28-at-7.35.39-AM-300x245.png" alt="" width="300" height="245" /></a>I was cruising around the <a href="http://blog.dropbox.com/" target="_blank">dropbox blog</a> and saw that they have a public <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/votebox" target="_blank">voting site</a> for feature requests. As I scrolled through the list, I noticed the mobile device requests.</p>
<p>It pretty much supports my assumptions on the mobile platform space right now.</p>
<p>iPhone, iPad, and Android are all already supported, WinMo (unclear, but I assume phone 7, but it was 6 months ago) is the next highest demanded platform, by a large margin. Pre and Crackberry bring up the final two spots.</p>
<p>Sure it&#8217;s anecdotal, but I can&#8217;t help but wonder if dropbox doesn&#8217;t serve as a microcosm of the mobile space? Clearly with their business on the line dropbox is pursuing the most demanded platforms first, sorry Pre folks, I know you love your phones, but you bet a lame horse.</p>
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		<title>Open Letter to Apple? Come on</title>
		<link>http://johnwilker.com/2010/04/open-letter-to-apple-come-on/</link>
		<comments>http://johnwilker.com/2010/04/open-letter-to-apple-come-on/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:31:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Wilker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[360|iDev]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://johnwilker.com/?p=1099</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Rather than see Apple go to an exclusive event for executives who don't want to touch the unwashed masses, I'd love to see Apple support the developer community. Hey Steve, Phil, et. al. Come to the next 360&#124;iDev. Meet the people writing the apps, meet the developers who bought 4 iPads. After all, they (IMHO) more than any one in attendance at Web 2.0 Summit, are the people important to Apple. The Developer community is buying iPads like their going out of style, buying each other's apps/games, etc. They're the early adopters, the strongest pro-Apple voices, etc.

I do agree with the letter in so far as the Apple of Today isn't the Apple I fell in love with. It's not the Apple of the Powerbook, the Newton, the Performa. Times change, and (as many do) if you argue bank accounts as an indicator, Apple is doing something right. I'm tickled pink (I'd be more tickled if I owned Apple stock) that Apple isn't $8/share. I remember when it was. As a kid in school, I checked the price daily in the paper before I left the house. I saved and saved and bought a Newton, I bought a powerbook 510 for College (ok well my folks did). But I'd love to see that Apple (tempered by age, fine) come back. The Apple of "Think Different", the Apple of Ellen Feiss.
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>So I just finished reading the &#8220;<a href="http://battellemedia.com/archives/2010/04/_an_open_letter_to_apple_regarding_the_companys_approach_to_conversation_with_its_peers_and_its_community.php" target="_blank">Open Letter to Apple</a>&#8221; penned by John Battelle and Tim O&#8217;Reilly. The self serving nature is a bit over the top for my tastes. &#8220;Please come to our exclusive, invite only, outrageously expensive summit, that has been seeing lower and lower (I assume) attendance. You&#8217;d be a really big draw.&#8221;</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s my thoughts on the whole thing (the open letter, Flash, Apple Culture)</p>
<p>1. It&#8217;s Apple&#8217;s phone. I don&#8217;t want Flash on the iPhone because it often has trouble enough running native apps. I haven&#8217;t missed flash once on my iPhone. i DO want Flash on the iPad. I think it makes way more sense. The CPU is faster, the screen is bigger. I&#8217;d watch hulu, CBS, NBC, etc on my iPad. I love Adobe, I love Flex and Flash (like any programming language, the shitty apps, are written by shitty developers. To say there aren&#8217;t stinkers in the app store would be an outright lie), but it&#8217;s Apple&#8217;s toy.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m glad Adobe finally decided to move on!</p>
<p>Rather than see Apple go to an exclusive event for executives who don&#8217;t want to touch the unwashed masses, I&#8217;d love to see Apple support the developer community. Hey Steve, Phil, et. al. Come to the next <a href="http://360idev.com">360|iDev</a>. Meet the people writing the apps, meet the developers who bought 4 iPads. After all, they (IMHO) more than any one in attendance at Web 2.0 Summit, are the people important to Apple. The Developer community is buying iPads like their going out of style, buying each other&#8217;s apps/games, etc. They&#8217;re the early adopters, the strongest pro-Apple voices, etc.</p>
<p>I do agree with the letter in so far as the Apple of Today isn&#8217;t the Apple I fell in love with. It&#8217;s not the Apple of the Powerbook, the Newton, the Performa. Times change, and (as many do) if you argue bank accounts as an indicator, Apple is doing something right. I&#8217;m tickled pink (I&#8217;d be more tickled if I owned Apple stock) that Apple isn&#8217;t $8/share. I remember when it was. As a kid in school, I checked the price daily in the paper before I left the house. I saved and saved and bought a Newton, I bought a powerbook 510 for College (ok well my folks did). But I&#8217;d love to see that Apple (tempered by age, fine) come back. The Apple of &#8220;Think Different&#8221;, the Apple of Ellen Feiss.</p>
<p>Embrace the community that loves and supports you. Embrace the community that was there before the iPhone, before Unibody macs, etc. Embrace the community writing the apps that make the devices awesome.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s the future hold for Apple, who knows. I&#8217;d love to see them take a more active, supportive role in the community that exists around them though.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<title>Adobe needs to buy Palm.</title>
		<link>http://johnwilker.com/2010/04/adobe-needs-to-buy-palm/</link>
		<comments>http://johnwilker.com/2010/04/adobe-needs-to-buy-palm/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:18:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Wilker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adobe Flex]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://johnwilker.com/?p=1101</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Picture this.

Adobe buys Palm. Retools WebOS (or goes android, but I think that's a bad idea) to be more Flash focused. Basically create a "Flash Phone" Build out a marketplace, somewhere between Draconian Apple, and Hippy-free-for-all Google, for Flash devs to build and sell their apps. SELL. Adobe, you build the market, and back out. Don't start building your own things and giving them away for free. That screws your community over, cut it out!

Flash Devs have been denied a reliable, useful marketplace... well pretty much forever. Companies like Litl are working on devices to show how awesome Flash apps (Channels) can be, and hopefully help developers make money too. Adobe could easily kill some of their soon-to-be-dead-but-no-one-knows-it-yet projects, and focus on a mobile SDK for Devs to build stand alone "apps" that the "Flash Phone" could run. 

Apps that exist as good citizens, outside a browser, as a standalone executable/process. They kill when closed, and don't burn through the CPU. This is totally possible!

I know I'd buy a Flash Phone (assuming it's the Pre aka nice hardware) in a heartbeat. I'd want to support the community, but I also think it's a huge untapped market. Look at the flash content out there on the web! So much could easily become apps. ]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>And here&#8217;s why.</p>
<p>To screw Apple. It&#8217;s clear that no matter how much, begging, suing (this is a bad idea anyways), cajoling, &#8220;I&#8217;m with Adobe&#8221;ing, etc, takes place, Apple has given the one finger salute to Adobe. That&#8217;s that. It&#8217;s their phone, there&#8217;s lots of other handsets for Adobe to play with.</p>
<p>Frankly, as much as I&#8217;d love to have Flash on my iPad (not my iPhone though) it&#8217;s Apple&#8217;s call. I don&#8217;t agree, but since they don&#8217;t call me to ask my opinion, I assume they don&#8217;t care.</p>
<p><strong>Palm is for sale</strong>. The Pre is a nice phone, it&#8217;s actually frakkin sexy, I dig it. WebOS, isn&#8217;t that bad either. If Palm had 1. not gone with Verizon, and 2. listenned to their developer community, and 3. not been retards about brand/marketing/and reach, the Pre would be a huge hit. Instead, <strong>Palm is for sale</strong>.</p>
<p>Picture this.</p>
<p>Adobe buys Palm. Retools WebOS (or goes android, but I think that&#8217;s a bad idea) to be more Flash focused. Basically create a &#8220;Flash Phone&#8221; Build out a marketplace, somewhere between Draconian Apple, and Hippy-free-for-all Google, for Flash devs to build and sell their apps. SELL. Adobe, you build the market, and back out. Don&#8217;t start building your own things and giving them away for free. That screws your community over, cut it out!</p>
<p>Flash Devs have been denied a reliable, useful marketplace&#8230; well pretty much forever. Companies like <a href="http://litl.com/" target="_blank">Litl</a> are working on devices to show how awesome Flash apps (Channels) can be, and hopefully help developers make money too. Adobe could easily kill some of their soon-to-be-dead-but-no-one-knows-it-yet projects, and focus on a mobile SDK for Devs to build stand alone &#8220;apps&#8221; that the &#8220;Flash Phone&#8221; could run.</p>
<p>Apps that exist as good citizens, outside a browser, as a standalone executable/process. They kill when closed, and don&#8217;t burn through the CPU. This is totally possible!</p>
<p>I know I&#8217;d buy a Flash Phone (assuming it&#8217;s the Pre aka nice hardware) in a heartbeat. I&#8217;d want to support the community, but I also think it&#8217;s a huge untapped market. Look at the flash content out there on the web! So much could easily become apps.</p>
<p><strong>Flash Devs need to stop giving everything away in the hope of attracting consulting business! Build things people will pay for, and sell them! You guys are your own worst enemy! You&#8217;re not helping the community!</strong></p>
<p>So Adobe, if you&#8217;re reading this, I know hardware isn&#8217;t your thing, but hey, consumer electronics wasn&#8217;t Apple&#8217;s when they launched the iPod (hardware still was, I know, it&#8217;s an imperfect comparison), and they&#8217;ve pretty much crushed that market now. You need to give up on the iPhone, yeah I know it&#8217;s the pits, but rather than waste time suing, being snarky on stage at MAX, and building hacky work arounds in Flash Pro, move on. You&#8217;re bigger than this &#8220;Let me in! Let me in!&#8221; nonsense. I want Adobe to shine, and rock the house! I want Adobe to do what it does best! Innovate! Build tools that let developers do mind blowing things! Now&#8230; Provide hardware for those mind blowing things to live on!</p>
<p>Ok that&#8217;s it! What do you think?</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>10</slash:comments>
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		<title>iPad&#8230;.. nice but not magical, yet (my Review)</title>
		<link>http://johnwilker.com/2010/04/ipad-nice-but-not-magical-yet-my-review/</link>
		<comments>http://johnwilker.com/2010/04/ipad-nice-but-not-magical-yet-my-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Apr 2010 04:03:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Wilker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[360|iDev]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://johnwilker.com/?p=1095</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[So I'm writing this on my iPad. I'm not feeling the magic. (update, i had to save it so I could edit on my Macbook, else this post take would've taken 40 years to write)

Don't get me wrong, it's pretty, but not useful. Yet.

And before you decide I'm just an Apple hater, let me lay out my credentials for those that don't know me.

I own:

Unibody Macbook, 2 Minis, 3 iPods (including an iPod Photo), 2 iPhones, 1 iPad, 2 Airport Express, 1 Airport Extreme, my wife has a white plastic macbook.

I've Previously owned:

a Macbook Pro, Newton 110, Powerbook 510, Performa.  I think it's safe to say my fanboi-ness is secure.

That out of the way.

The iPad is a very pretty device, and if your life (as some do) revolves around reading websites, watching videos, and .... well that's it. Checking email I suppose too. Then the iPad is the perfect toy for you (albeit, for those simple tasks, the price IMO is a bit steep).

I tried. I didn't write this review the night i got my iPad, I didn't write it Sunday night, I waited and actually tried to do things I'd normally grab my Macbook for.

First I went up on my deck, to get some sun, and enjoy working outside. Since I was just gonna reply to a few emails, I grabbed the iPad.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>So I&#8217;m writing this on my iPad. I&#8217;m not feeling the magic. (update, i had to save it so I could edit on my Macbook, else this post take would&#8217;ve taken 40 years to write)</p>
<p>Don&#8217;t get me wrong, it&#8217;s pretty, but not useful. Yet.</p>
<p>And before you decide I&#8217;m just an Apple hater, let me lay out my credentials for those that don&#8217;t know me.</p>
<p><strong>I own:</strong></p>
<p>Unibody Macbook, 2 Minis, 3 iPods (including an iPod Photo), 2 iPhones, 1 iPad, 2 Airport Express, 1 Airport Extreme, my wife has a white plastic macbook.</p>
<p><strong>I&#8217;ve Previously owned:</strong></p>
<p>a Macbook Pro, Newton 110, Powerbook 510, Performa.  I think it&#8217;s safe to say my fanboi-ness is secure.</p>
<p><strong>That out of the way.</strong></p>
<p>The iPad is a very pretty device, and if your life (as some do) revolves around reading websites, watching videos, and &#8230;. well that&#8217;s it. Checking email I suppose too. Then the iPad is the perfect toy for you (albeit, for those simple tasks, the price IMO is a bit steep).</p>
<p>I tried. I didn&#8217;t write this review the night i got my iPad, I didn&#8217;t write it Sunday night, I waited and actually tried to do things I&#8217;d normally grab my Macbook for.</p>
<p>First I went up on my deck, to get some sun, and enjoy working outside. Since I was just gonna reply to a few emails, I grabbed the iPad.</p>
<ul>
<li>While I enjoy seeing myself, i don&#8217;t want to watch my face as I type emails. That&#8217;s easily fixable though, so it&#8217;s not a knock. Why Apple is obsessed with uselessly glossy screens is beyond me.</li>
<li>First I tried holding it and typing with my thumbs. I prefer landscape mode, and have locked it in that orientation. I have big hands, so it&#8217;s quite possible, but not a long term thing. Then I set it in my lap, as many have proclaimed is the perfect use case&#8230; I got a sore neck. By this time I&#8217;d responded (lengthy responses sure) to two emails. Perhaps if I invested in a $40 (?) case from Apple that i could sit on our patio table, and use? Or buy a Bluetooth keyboard?</li>
<li>One email I needed to send an export of attendee data to. I couldn&#8217;t. The export is .xls of CSV. kudos to Mobile Safari for opening the .xls and showing me, but I needed to send it to some one. Sure the iPhone doesn&#8217;t support this, but if the iPad is a revolutionary bridge device between my iPhone and a laptop, I expect a few laptop like things to be there.</li>
<li>Of course since I can&#8217;t run two things at once, I had to close out mail.app mid compose to look up a discount code for a sponsor. Close mail, open safari, go to eventbrite, copy the code, close safari, open mail.app</li>
<li>Then I thought I&#8217;d take a break, check on my <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/we-rule-for-ipad/id361536763?mt=8" target="_blank">Kingdom</a> and my <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/godfinger-for-ipad/id361431917?mt=8" target="_blank">weird little people on Planet Wilker</a>. Thankfully the display is so crisp and bright, it overpowers (mostly) the sun, so i could actually enjoy those games.</li>
</ul>
<p>Last night I went to a user group meeting, taking only my Mifi and my iPad.</p>
<ul>
<li>The auto brightness doesn&#8217;t seem very responsive, so I was routinely blinded when loading something with a white screen in the darkened room. No biggy really, annoying a little, sure, but not a &#8220;Damn you Apple&#8221;</li>
<li>I had two tasks I was hoping to get done, or at least get started, while listening to the presentation. Write an email to attendees of 360|iDev (thru eventbrite.com&#8217;s email feature), and compose the last speaker email to speakers at 360|iDev using mailchimp. The result. FAIL. Both websites use HTML based text editors, apparently not the html web that Apple supports. Kinda crappy. Can&#8217;t use Flash, can&#8217;t use some HTML&#8230;</li>
<li>So I spent the UG meeting, not using my iPad except to occasionally tweet, and that was only because my iPhone was in my pocket</li>
</ul>
<p>I&#8217;ve tried to replace some of the things I do on my iPhone and my laptop</p>
<ul>
<li>I completely understand why Apple made the iPad support iPhone apps. It&#8217;s nice to launch and crow about 100k + apps. I have yet to use an iPhone app on the iPad that wasn&#8217;t completely and utterly fail. Why use it in 1x mode? I&#8217;ll just fire up my iPhone. In 2x mode, no app escapes the ugly tree. I understand the logic, but think Apple should have given developers more time to get their apps ready. I mean really, no facebook app? Hell, the mobileMe app&#8230; uh Apple. I know you want me to shell out $30 for the iWorks, but I&#8217;d love to be able to access my mobileMe account in a native iPad app, how about that?</li>
<li>I think the iPad will be much more interesting 3 months from now. Now that developers have an actual device to test with, those that (I can&#8217;t blame them) waited to actually use the device before building apps for it, will begin releasing apps. Right now the iPad app store is woe-fully anemic&#8230; well maybe not if you&#8217;re independently wealthy, and can afford every $9.99 app, LOL. Even then, there&#8217;s only a small list of apps I&#8217;m buying later, as I feel richer. Most of the apps I want, aren&#8217;t there.</li>
</ul>
<p>Yeah Apple is about the experience, I agree, and sure surfing the web is very nice, if you only want to surf the web and consume. If you actually want to create&#8230; well so far the iPad hasn&#8217;t done much to support creation. I read one review that gushed and gushed about how awesome surfing the web is. OK sure, but I don&#8217;t spend my day complaining about surfing the web now.</p>
<p><strong>So what do I like?</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>The feel of it. It&#8217;s a nice piece of equipment. The screen (once covered in a smudge/glare free cover) is awesome. Sure I&#8217;d like to not have letterboxing when I watch a movie but whatever, that&#8217;s a first world problem, and not that important to me.</li>
<li>The OS, it&#8217;s the iPhone OS, which while I wish wasn&#8217;t so closed off, and anti-hacker (Pro user), it&#8217;s an easy OS to understand.</li>
<li>The Apps. iPad apps, are nice. They use the screen really well. Those that will shine are the ones that didn&#8217;t simply recompile for the larger device.</li>
<li>The future potential. The iPad right now, for me is a cute toy that gets attention, and let&#8217;s me play a few games, and waste time. The iPad in 6 months, could seriously kick ass. There will be more apps that are useful, there will be (Please Apple, it&#8217;s kinda obvious) some way for me to work on files in mobileMe (or Googledocs) over the cloud. Screw this dragging files into iTunes, and back and forth. It&#8217;s 2010 Apple, you have a cloud storage service, that people are paying money for now. Tie that in to your devices!</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>What don&#8217;t I like?</strong> (and please, you don&#8217;t have to agree, I welcome your opinion, but if Apple makes you happy with what they deliver, don&#8217;t try to tell me what I should be happy too)</p>
<ul>
<li>It&#8217;s a bit heavy. Not really a &#8220;Bad mark&#8221; but it&#8217;s not light.</li>
<li>The video app needs an update. Looking at my movies, it&#8217;s fine to see the thumbnail and name. Looking at TV shows. A thumbnail from an episode, isn&#8217;t helpful. I had 6 icons. Some Seinfeld, some Big Bang Theory. No labels. I had to open one up to see that it was the folder for a season of that show. I like the breakdown by season, that&#8217;s nice, but not having any visible clue, it&#8217;s like hunting around to find the show you want to watch.</li>
<li>The single port. This is totally an Apple thing, and I wasn&#8217;t surprised, that they&#8217;d only have a dock connector, and sell $29 things that plug into the dock connector. Doesn&#8217;t mean I think it&#8217;s ok.</li>
<li>The lack of Flash. I don&#8217;t actually miss Flash THAT much, because I&#8217;ve had my iPhone for a while. I think flash on the iPhone isn&#8217;t really a deal breaker. But the iPad is another device entirely. I expect on a media consumption tablet, that I could hit up Hulu, or youtube (fuck having a separate app, that&#8217;s lame), or any of the what? 80% of the web that uses flash to deliver content. It&#8217;s a business play pure and simple, and as a business person, I can&#8217;t find fault. As a consumer, hacker, and person who tries to see thru bull shit, I think it&#8217;s weak sauce. &#8220;Open Web&#8221;, my ass, it&#8217;s the &#8220;Apple Web&#8221;, and them trying to come off like it&#8217;s anything but a power grab, is disingenuous at best.</li>
<li>the iPad of now. If <a href="http://360idev.com">360|iDev</a> wasn&#8217;t the weak after iPadmas, I probably would have waited. It just doesn&#8217;t do anything I can&#8217;t do now with the tools I have. I don&#8217;t need &#8220;an semi-adequate alternative&#8221; I need a &#8220;solid replacement&#8221;&#8230; the iPad isn&#8217;t there.</li>
</ul>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>8</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Why my iPad is coming 4/3 not &#8216;late April&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://johnwilker.com/2010/03/why-my-ipad-is-coming-43-not-late-april/</link>
		<comments>http://johnwilker.com/2010/03/why-my-ipad-is-coming-43-not-late-april/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:29:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Wilker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[360|iDev]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://johnwilker.com/?p=1090</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was reading My friend Steve's post over at TUAW on the subject and most of his reasons (most of them) resonated with me. Enough so that I wanted to go into more details on my own.

Simple timing. 360&#124;iDev starts 4/11. I think it makes sense to have an iPad and play with one before and during the conference. To not would be like running an iPhone conference and not having an iPhone (or iPod touch). So it just made sense not to wait. 
wifi. Before I had my iPhone I had my iPod touch and carried it everywhere. Unlike Steve I travel in places with either no free wifi, or shitty free wifi. BUT, i have an iPhone now. So my iPad doesn't need that constant connection to the net. It'd be nice, of course, I want every device I own connected to the net. But for what I imagine my main use case to be (reading email on the couch, playing a game, or something else domestic like that) I'll be at home on my home internet. Plus But when that connection is thru AT&#038;T.... See 3. Then 4.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I was reading My friend Steve&#8217;s <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/03/25/4-reasons-im-not-waiting-for-a-3g-ipad/" target="_blank">post over at TUAW</a> on the subject and most of his reasons (most of them) resonated with me. Enough so that I wanted to go into more details on my own.</p>
<ol>
<li>Simple timing. <a href="http://360idev.com" target="_blank">360|iDev</a> starts 4/11. I think it makes sense to have an iPad and play with one before and during the conference. To not would be like running an iPhone conference and not having an iPhone (or iPod touch). So it just made sense not to wait.</li>
<li>wifi. Before I had my iPhone I had my iPod touch and carried it everywhere. Unlike Steve I travel in places with either no free wifi, or shitty free wifi. BUT, i have an iPhone now. So my iPad doesn&#8217;t need that constant connection to the net. It&#8217;d be nice, of course, I want every device I own connected to the net. But for what I imagine my main use case to be (reading email on the couch, playing a game, or something else domestic like that) I&#8217;ll be at home on my home internet. Plus But when that connection is thru AT&amp;T&#8230;. See 3. Then 4.</li>
<li>AT&amp;T. I truly hate AT&amp;T. I&#8217;m sure they know it, I&#8217;m equally sure I&#8217;m not alone. I can&#8217;t think of another company that has worked so hard at being teh suck. I mean you have millions of customers essentially gifted to you. You didn&#8217;t earn them, or even have to market to them to lure them to you. Steve Jobs handed you millions of new users. And you failed. AT&amp;Ts network is the suck, it&#8217;s terrible. I live in Denver, and now that Spring is coming, and the Rockies home opener is only 3 weeks away, I&#8217;m planning to have a useless iPhone. Every home game saturates what I assume is the single tower in LoDo, and while I have full bars, I have no network. So why would I want another device on such a craptastic network? Makes no sense.</li>
<li>Sprint MiFi. I love having a 5 user portable hotspot in my pocket (that&#8217;s what she said?) that essentially gives me AT&amp;T immunity. I can use my iPhone, soon (I think) I&#8217;ll be able to make skype calls if I really need to, etc. So when there&#8217;s no wifi for my iPad, and when the Rockies are in town, I&#8217;m still able to function like an affluent american in 2010. Fuck you AT&amp;T. (Note to sprint, the connection speeds on my Mifi suck! 3g? at .57 Mbits I don&#8217;t agree)</li>
<li>Ok with moo&#8217;ing. If you owned a first gen MacBook Pro, you know what I mean. Thankfully mine never moo&#8217;ed, and my MacBook AIR&#8217;s weird CPU throttling was handled by a hack until Apple released a fix. I know what I&#8217;m getting into and am ok with that. iPad V1 will be a vastly different creature than the 3GS equivalent (the model 3 years from now). That&#8217;s fine, I can live with that because 6.</li>
<li>I&#8217;m gonna jailbreak that bitch! You heard me! The moment the <a href="http://blog.iphone-dev.org/" target="_blank">dev team</a> (you guys are gonna work on it right?) release the JB, I&#8217;m on it. I love the freedom my iPhone 2G has to be customized, and do what I want it to do (Skype calls now, ha!). The primary reason my 3GS isn&#8217;t JB&#8217;ed is that it experienced a weird battery drain so I put it back in jail, I can&#8217;t have my primary mobile computer/phone be dead batteried in 3 hours. My iPad on the other hand, will never be mission critical, so it&#8217;s getting JB&#8217;ed ASAP. I think the true awesomeness (as usual) will be experienced by iPad owners who break free of Apple.</li>
</ol>
<p>So those are my reasons for ordering an iPad. As a consumer, it&#8217;s not a very interesting device. I&#8217;m not gonna spend whatever Apple asks for iWork, because that&#8217;s stupid. I&#8217;m not gonna work on spread sheets, or keynotes without a keyboard. Sorry I don&#8217;t see that working out well. Maybe I&#8217;m wrong, but I doubt it. As 1. an iDevice conference organizer it makes sense I know what my customers are playing with, and 2. as a hacker wannabe, I can&#8217;t wait to see what it&#8217;s truly capable of.</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s worth waiting an extra month, paying more money (AND then paying $30/month for actual 3G) just to have an always (except that AT&amp;T fails so often it&#8217;s more like 80% of the time) connected device.</p>
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		<title>360Flex San Jose &#8211; Recap</title>
		<link>http://johnwilker.com/2010/03/360flex-san-jose-recap/</link>
		<comments>http://johnwilker.com/2010/03/360flex-san-jose-recap/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:27:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Wilker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[360Conferences]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[360Flex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[360|iDev]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Adobe Flex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conferences]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Work]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[community]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apple]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Frontier Airlines]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://johnwilker.com/?p=1088</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It's been a while since our last 360&#124;Flex. Almost a year in fact. Indianapolis in May.



Since getting back from 360&#124;Flex, I've been full tilt forward on 360&#124;iDev (rest? Decompress time, weak sauce!!), but wanted to take a few minutes to write down my thoughts on this latest 360&#124;Flex.

For one thing it was a huge success. We made money. Not a metric buttload, and it would have been more if we hadn't carried a ton of debt with us out of 2009. BUt still, we made money, and that's a good sign for the event and the company.

We did a few things (as usual) differently.

We had volunteers to help out. We had I think 8 folks, that got a free pass in exchange for helping out. w had them help assemble SWAG bags, work the reg desk (This was THE first 360&#124;Event where the keynote wasn't delayed, and where I was able to actually hop up on stage, vs have some one go start the keynote.) work our video cameras (more on that), and in general be around to do whatever we needed.
We had Nicole on board officially. As Tom leaves, Nicole joins. It's pretty cool to be working with my wife to make the events even better!
Video. We've wanted to do video since Seattle '07. In fact we had video in Seattle, but marketed them poorly. We had Video in San Jose '09, but it was Adobe TV. This time we decided to go lo-fi to start and see how it works. We used 8 SD Flip Cams, and Camtasia Relay. Volunteers swapped cams out for each session, and set up Relay on speaker laptops. Now that hard part. I've got 40+ sessions to process into usable video. We're not sure what to do yet as far as distribution. Attendees will get the video for free, but I'd love to try and sell access to the video (un-DRM'ed of course) files. I think there's value in the videos, and think it'd be nice if we could support the company between events with video sales.
Panels. Panels are another thing we toyed with for a while, thinking it'd be cool to do, but never really executing. We decided to pull the trigger. 360&#124;Flex had 3 panels, and they all rocked! Panels are here to stay. We also put a panel as the last session on the last day, to bring everyone together at the end of the conference. The panels are a great way to have all attendees in the same place, and get great discussions started! I'm really excited about the Panels, and can't wait to do more.
Official hotel while using Ebay. Normally when we do the SJ event, we don't have an official hotel, or if we do it's just a room block at the Holiday Inn. This time we went downtown San Jose to the Marriott. Who offered a shuttle bus each day. That worked out awesome! Each day the bus brought everyone to Ebay and took them back to the hotel at night. After the evening receptions, folks bussed back to the Marriott, and partied at the bar, out in downtown, etc. it was awesome.
Over all I couldn't be happier with 360&#124;Flex San Jose. We had an almost sell out crowd, at about 365 registrations, not to mention the "I had to register?" Crowd that we printed badges for on the fly. 

Now on to 360&#124;iDev, San Jose! I can't wait to see my Apple crew! We'll all be fresh off iPad euphoria, and ready to talk iPad apps! 
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It&#8217;s been a while since our last 360|Flex. Almost a year in fact. Indianapolis in May.</p>
<p>Since getting back from 360|Flex, I&#8217;ve been full tilt forward on 360|iDev (rest? Decompress time, weak sauce!!), but wanted to take a few minutes to write down my thoughts on this latest 360|Flex.</p>
<p>For one thing it was a huge success. We made money. Not a metric buttload, and it would have been more if we hadn&#8217;t carried a ton of debt with us out of 2009. BUt still, we made money, and that&#8217;s a good sign for the event and the company.</p>
<p>We did a few things (as usual) differently.</p>
<ol>
<li>We had volunteers to help out. We had I think 8 folks, that got a free pass in exchange for helping out. w had them help assemble SWAG bags, work the reg desk (This was THE first 360|Event where the keynote wasn&#8217;t delayed, and where I was able to actually hop up on stage, vs have some one go start the keynote.) work our video cameras (more on that), and in general be around to do whatever we needed.</li>
<li>We had Nicole on board officially. As Tom leaves, Nicole joins. It&#8217;s pretty cool to be working with my wife to make the events even better!</li>
<li>Video. We&#8217;ve wanted to do video since Seattle &#8217;07. In fact we had video in Seattle, but marketed them poorly. We had Video in San Jose &#8217;09, but it was Adobe TV. This time we decided to go lo-fi to start and see how it works. We used 8 SD Flip Cams, and Camtasia Relay. Volunteers swapped cams out for each session, and set up Relay on speaker laptops. Now that hard part. I&#8217;ve got 40+ sessions to process into usable video. We&#8217;re not sure what to do yet as far as distribution. Attendees will get the video for free, but I&#8217;d love to try and sell access to the video (un-DRM&#8217;ed of course) files. I think there&#8217;s value in the videos, and think it&#8217;d be nice if we could support the company between events with video sales.</li>
<li>Panels. Panels are another thing we toyed with for a while, thinking it&#8217;d be cool to do, but never really executing. We decided to pull the trigger. 360|Flex had 3 panels, and they all rocked! Panels are here to stay. We also put a panel as the last session on the last day, to bring everyone together at the end of the conference. The panels are a great way to have all attendees in the same place, and get great discussions started! I&#8217;m really excited about the Panels, and can&#8217;t wait to do more.</li>
<li>Official hotel while using Ebay. Normally when we do the SJ event, we don&#8217;t have an official hotel, or if we do it&#8217;s just a room block at the Holiday Inn. This time we went downtown San Jose to the Marriott. Who offered a shuttle bus each day. That worked out awesome! Each day the bus brought everyone to Ebay and took them back to the hotel at night. After the evening receptions, folks bussed back to the Marriott, and partied at the bar, out in downtown, etc. it was awesome.</li>
</ol>
<p>Over all I couldn&#8217;t be happier with 360|Flex San Jose. We had an almost sell out crowd, at about 365 registrations, not to mention the &#8220;I had to register?&#8221; Crowd that we printed badges for on the fly.</p>
<p>I learned on my flight out, that Frontier won&#8217;t be servicing SJC after mid-May, which means for the most part, my reasons to fly Frontier at all are drastically diminished. I&#8217;ll probably start flying Southwest to test the waters of that airline. Since I never watch the free DirectTV that I get with Ascent level status, I won&#8217;t miss that. Everything else I enjoy about my Ascent level status, I can pay for with Southwest.</p>
<p>Sorry frontier, poor service of late, terrible website, and now leaving SJC&#8230;</p>
<p>Now on to 360|iDev, San Jose! I can&#8217;t wait to see my Apple crew! We&#8217;ll all be fresh off iPad euphoria, and ready to talk iPad apps!</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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