We’ve just finished going thru the submissions for my iOS Developer conference, 360|iDev. While we had some great submissions from women in the field, the showing wasn’t large. somewhere around 4%. Of the total line up for the conference, those women make up barely 10%

We even went against our long standing policy and invited a few people to speak. We rarely invite anyone to speak. We sometimes have to remind people to submit, but we almost never solicit someone to submit whom we’ve never had speak before. We won’t be doing it again, for the record. Matt Gemmell has an awesome list of women in tech, and Mike Lee has been very vocal in advocating more women be involved in Tech Conferences. We’re glad both are so engaged, now if more women were too. The one thing we disagree with both of them on is this. It’s not our job to pull anyone, male or female onto the stage. We want people who want to be there. Women fought for rights to vote, work, etc, but somehow as event organizers it’s our job to gift-wrap speaking spots for them, and when there aren’t women at our events, it’s our fault. Bullshit.

We pinged two people off Matt’s list. We didn’t pick randomly we asked around for recommendations. We got no reply from one, and the other said “I’m not a very good speaker”. We only did two because frankly we think it’s a waste of my time going through lists of women in tech to solicit submissions from them, especially if they then demure or don’t reply (please see #2a). We don’t want people at our conferences, that don’t want to be there. That’s why we can’t pay airfare, speaker fees, etc (please see #3).

Back to the point, ladies…. you can’t write blog posts about sausage-fests, and too many dicks on the dance floor at tech conferences, and then never show up. You can’t wait for people to include you. That never works. It doesn’t work for men, and it doesn’t work for you. The only way the programming world will get to a better gender mix is for women to stop hiding, waiting for us to stop what we’re doing and invite them in.

If you don’t attend conferences “because there’s not enough women” you’re part of the problem.

You know who’s part of the solution?

• Mollie Rusher
• Andrea Jensen
• Jaimee Newberry
• Justine Pratt
• Dee Sadler
• Michelle Yaiser
• Huyen Tue Dao

They didn’t wait for an invite to speak. The submitted awesome topics, that would be accepted no matter who submitted them (please see #2b). We’re pleased to have each of them presenting at my conference.

The door is open. we’re holding it open, but I’ll be damned if we’re gonna grab you and pull you through the door or try to coax you through it. WALK THROUGH THE DOOR.

(UPATE)

I wanted to add a few things. I’m super glad so many great discussions sprung up, even the ones that attacked my credibility and motivations. If this post had no reaction, I’d be worried about us all :)

1. I shouldn’t have made it about me. I used “I” a lot and really it was about the conferences and the company, which is 50% run by my wife. I think that helped me look even more douchy and ass-hole-ish. I think it made my point harder to see and talk about, which bums me out. I’ve edited the post to be more “we” so if you didn’t see the original, sorry, just assume this one makes me look less like a bad guy… I hope.

2. I got a lot of complaints of being sexist. I’ll be honest I don’t know how that could be inferred from my post, but if expecting women to submit talks is sexist, i’m ok with that. We encourage women to be as active as possible at 360|iDev and 360|Stack. Along with Mollie Rusher host a women’s breakfast to 1. offer women attendees a break from us men, but 2. and most importantly to get feedback on the conference, how to involve more women, etc.

2a. Our sample wasn’t 2. This post has been 5 years coming. Those two were just the latest. I’m sorry I made it seem like an attack on them.

2b. To be clear on our process for speaker selection. The first pass is done without looking at the name on the submission. We do that to help from doing two things. Picking people we know without regard to what they proposed, and taking gender and race ( as much as that can be assumed from a name) into account.

3. Despite Aral’s claims to the contrary we do cover 3 nights hotel for our speakers and this year are trying to an honorarium. From the beginning our aim has been to do as much as we can to ease the burden of speaking. We don’t charge a lot, and we have a lot of sessions, that’s a lot of speakers. That means it’s a lot of money that we often don’t have. We’re hoping the honorarium becomes a standard part of being a speaker at 360 conferences.

3a. If anyone is curious how the money works, since it was claimed I was getting rich at the expense of pro speakers. We do a session on the state of the conference including a full breakdown of income and expenses. You can buy the video here. Email me if $5 is too much to sate any curiosity on my intentions, regarding money. This year was the first time it’s been made publicly available, but we thought sharing it was valuable.

;

That stuff aside, I got some great and bluntly honest feedback. One of which I’ll implement this weekend. We’re going to post a anti harassment policy for all the events. Some will say that’s kind of obvious but it was pointed out that if things happen at our events, we might not hear about it. This is a sad sad list, and I’m ashamed of most of it from the perspective of a guy and a conference organizer. Frankly that kind of crap is whack. If a speaker did that at our events they wouldn’t be welcomed back, end of story. But it was also pointed out that we should be explicit in that stance and encourage anyone who feels harassed to let us know. I will say, I’m happy our events weren’t on that list that I could see.

I’ll post the policy on the company site and link to it from the conferences. So look for that, and let me know what you think of it, what I can fix or be more clear about.

I’ve railed about this before, but wanted to bring it back to the top. It’s simple, I have money, and I want to spend it. BUT I want to spend it on what I want, not a bundle of shit with a few nuggets of goodness in it. That means I don’t want ESPN, I don’t want MTV or Nicktoons and I certainly don’t want Lifetime, but I do want HBO, USA, the main networks, FX, etc. I’d pay per network or per show. But I’m not against paying people who make content for that content. I’m also not against suffering through ads in exchange for it (within reason)

I’ve been paying for Hulu+ since it went live. Many networks were onboard and I want to pay them for their content….  Except… The only way Hulu is usable is if you use the desktop app, because of licensing bullshit, the mobile apps can’t show certain shows, some are web only, etc. The desktop client skirted that shit and we could watch whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, on our TV via a Macbook running the desktop app.

Too bad Hulu’s desktop app is a red-headed step child and hasn’t been updated in years. Not only is it not updated, but now it’s so old that if you update your Flash player, the app breaks. So you have to choose, new flash or hulu.

Ok fine, the PS3 has a hulu client and is HD with surround vs. our Macbook that is simply stereo. Except… The PS3 client is hamstrung with all those stupid licensing rules. Some ABC shows are ‘web only’ All USA and Sci Fi shows are too. So now I’m paying for shows I basically can’t watch. Why can I watch Castle on the  PS3, but not (it’s for my wife) The Bachelor?

So what’s the solution? Torrents. I was already torrenting CBS programming because they won’t be a part of Hulu and have even said they believe “cord cutting” is a fad that will pass and are willing to wait it out rather than offer streaming options.

The downside of torrenting TV programming is that the network doesn’t know I’m watching. The advertising don’t get my attention, and the net effect can be canceled shows, etc. It’s a trade off, be treated like shit, or risk not being counted as a viewer. I choose to not be treated like I don’t matter.

All that said, Dear CBS, ABC, Fox, HBO and the rest. Figure it out, it’s 2012. We don’t fax things anymore, we don’t gather round to watch TV when it airs, and we don’t want to pay for things we don’t want. Adjusting is up to you, not us the consumers. We’ve moved into the 21st century, and we’re waiting for you to join us.

I’ve been a Kindle owner since the K2 came out, and I paid almost $400 for it. I dropped it one morning and busted the screen, and bought a K3 for 1/3 the price of my K2, and I love it. It’s light, easy to use and great at the one thing it does, display words on a readable screen.

Enter the Kindle Fire.

I’ve been using the Fire since I got it, and like it, mostly. We’ve drafted it into service at Uncubed as a digital lending library, loading up PragProg books and the Magazine on it for any member that wants to check it out.

But I’ve been using it as well for various things.

Reading.

I’m very much anti reading on backlit screens. I’ve tried it on the iPad and end up staring at my eyeballs and falling asleep. Same with my Xoom, even when both had screen covers to make them less mirror-like. I tried on my iPhone, nope, same issue.

The screen on the Fire is definitely shiny but the default look of the Book reading app is a pinkish tinted background with black text (I dunno if it’s me, but the text seems to change color randomly in places, which helps focus my eyes). That color/contrast actually is quite readable. I’ve been using the Fire to read at night or at my desk. Both use cases work great.

The page turning is a bit sensitive, I’ve accidentally changed pages a few times, the lightest touch in the wrong place and it’s a new page. That’s something you get used to though.

Where it doesn’t work is the gym. The Fire is heavy. I don’t know if there’s lead shot in there somewhere or what, but it weighs A LOT. so the gym is out, I don’t want my reader to be my resistance training.

Amazon Experience.

From the moment the rumors started to fly about a Kindle Tablet, I said they were the only ones who had a snowballs chance to compete (maybe not beat, maybe, who knows) with Apple. They have the closed system with lots of lock in. My books were immediate available on the fire, I just had to re-download them. If you have an Amazon Prime account (you really should get one) then you can stream all kinds of video content, You can borrow books, you can upload music. The Amazon eco system is really a strong player. I immediately had music, books and video content at my finger tips and it was easy to access.

The other thing I think Amazon has going for it is, they can take the opposite approach Motorola and HP took to compete with the iPad. You can’t be the same price or worse yet more money, than the iPad. But if you’re half the price, and can offer an awesome foundation of apps, video, music and more, then there’s very few

Apps.

The app store is, meh. Everything I’ve bought from the Amazon App store that was compatible with the Fire was there and ready to be re-downloaded, which is nice. A lot still isn’t Fire friendly, but can be side loaded which works ok. But in general the app store is as much a mess as the Google one, with shit quality apps mixed in with really great ones. That’s likely to fix itself tho. My favorite news reader isn’t on the Fire but I found one that is ok. It’s good enough considering reading RSS feeds on the Fire is likely to be a not very often thing.

Video.

Vide on the Fire seems ok to me. I tried out hulu and Netflix, both were great. Dear Hulu, the Fire can run your app by my Xoom can’t? that’s craptastic, just sayin’. I also tried out the Amazon Prime streaming video and that was fine, it wasn’t HD and that was clear, but much of (that I’ve seen) the Prime video library right now is older TV shows and movies.  Overall It’s a great little movie watcher. The lame amount of internal storage precludes you from loading your own movies on it. You can, but only 1-2 movies are likely to fit. But if you’re in the net, stream away and enjoy.

OS.

To the casual user, I doubt they’d ever know it was Android, it’s so heavily skinned and modified. To someone like me that’s annoying. I want to tweak settings, etc. and Amazon has taken a very Apple-like stance in that you can change the most basic of settings, and that’s it. The rest is locked down.

The carrousel thing SUCKS. I’m guessing it’ll be gone in the next major OS revision. it’s retarded. It’s a running history of everything you do on the Fire, apps, movies, books, etc in one big ass list. And it takes up most of the screen in portrait and all of it in Landscape. It’s terrible. Amazon find a better UX for the home screen.

There’s things Apple just gets, that others need to shamelessly copy. Changing screen orientation is one of them. Rotating your iPhone you see a nice animation of the screen kind reshaping and fitting into the new size. Rotating the Fire and you see the old orientation, a blink of nothing, and the new orientation. like the damn Matrix redrawing when something is changed. It’s really terrible. Not OMG I can’t use the device, but OMG how did no one flip out about this before launch?

Magazines and Comics.

I was really excited about comics. I’ve tried every reader made for the iPad and Xoom, they all blow. Amazon secured some awesome exclusives so I assumed the comic reading experience despite smaller screen would be great. I was wrong. I’m glad I sampled the comics first before buying. It’s close, I’ll grant you, but having to double tap the panel you want to zoom into, and then again double tapping to get back to regular page view is terrible. Why not once zoomed in, allow me to swipe panel to panel, in the proper order? Reading comics was the pits.

The magazine experience wasn’t much better. Mostly because of the screen size. Zinio is a great app, I can see why it isn’t on the Fire, but that’s a loss for users. It might blow on a tiny screen too, who knows, but the amazon magazine viewer is useless. Bummed I didn’t sample the magazine I bought.

Hardware.

I already mentioned that the Fire is heavy, like small dog heavy. Really the hardware is probably my largest complaint, even beyond the stupid carousel UI. Where to start?

The power button. Clearly someone who’s never seen a kindle and never unplugged a device one handed did the design work on the Fire. Every Kindle since the beginning of time has had a slider for sleep/wake. the K3 it lights up all pretty etc. The Fire has a button, like most other tablets, but it’s right next to the USB connector. I can’t be the only person who unplugs devices with one hand, grasping the cable and pushing against the device on both sides of the plug. Doing that withe the Fire presses the power button. LAME.

Speakers, not including speakers might have been better. The Xoom has them on the back of the device, which blows. The Fire has them on the side, on the same side! Watching a video or listening to music, it’s very clear the sound is coming at you from only one direction. It’s a little off-putting.

Did i mention that is’a heavy device?

So, second tablet? For me a Tablet is a news reader, email browser, and web client… mostly, sure I game little, and other stuff. I’ll remote into a laptop once in a while, manage my torrents, write notes in Evernote, etc, but for the most part it’s browsing and reading content. The Fire is just not right for that. Too small screen makes reading more than books, a pain. I love the size, it fits in my back pocket and the pockets of my coats, which earns it some serious points. Of course it’s weight pulls my pants down, so…

I think the next version of the Kindle Fire, both Hardware and OS will kick ass. This one is very much a “let’s get it out and see what people love and hate, and make the Fire2 (forest fire? Blaze?) the best Kindle Tablet possible”

Hulu. No.

Lots of devices including the Nexus one. Really? the Nexus One has the hardware but the xoom doesn’t?

Ok not lots. Far from lots. Hundreds of handsets and tablets on the market now, and 6 can run hulu. I retract “lots”

I like my Xoom  a lot, i’ve invested good sizes bits of my $ to buying apps to make the device my go to tablet. I like the size, I like the form factor, I like the OS. But traveling with the Xoom (as I did to WWDC this year) is kind of the pits, unless I make sure to pre-load the device with downloaded content.

Netflix. No.

My understanding is that it’s largely to do with the encryption/DRM capabilities of the device. OK that makes sense.

What doesn’t make sense to me, as a prosumer techy with a $600 device on my desk… How did Motorola not build the Xoom with these two apps in mind?

Better yet, how was Moto (for that matter, Google too) NOT working with both companies from the get go, to ensure that the Flagship tablet of the Android Army, the first device to ship with Honeycomb, wasn’t at the top of the compatible devices list?

It was one thing when neither service had an app for android, it made using the Xoom, not a “This or that” decision with my iPad. But now, now two of the main use cases for my iPad (other than games and Omnifocus) are available for android… just not my android.

Gruber sums it up pretty well in “Fragmentation, I don’t see any fragmentation”

It’s funny, there’s plenty I don’t  like about the way apple does things, but for the most part they don’t seem as determined as Google and Motorola do, to drive me away from their platform. :(

The rumor mills are going nuts over the iPhone 4s-5-superDuper, so who knows, and I’m not gonna bother speculating there.

But what about Apps for AppleTV? We know it’s running some type of iOS, why not a subset of the full app catalog for media apps? Hulu? CBS? HBO GO, etc. How awesome to integrate an app store model into the AppleTV. Heck, with a magic trackpad paired, even iOS games could be viable.

Or maybe iPod Nano Touch 2nd Gen? I love my iWatch, and I’d love even more for it to do more, though I hope a camera is not one of those things. Cameras are like netflix apps, every device has 2 or 3.

Maybe take a queue from the metawatch movement? If anyone could make it a clean user experience it’s Apple. Why not have my watch show me the SMS that just came in, or my most recent push notifications? I’d love to glance down and see where certain friends are without pulling my phone out of my pocket.

Maybe even an SDK for basic apps? watch faces? etc. That’d be awesome.

This is a bit out there, at least this year. But, SSD only laptops. No optical drive, either 2 drives used separately, boot to the SSD, store data on the HDD, or 2 SSD’s in a RAID array. I’m running the former configuration right now in my Macbook and love it. Booting into Lion…erp Rawrdacted sorry, is cake. Certain features in that OS really really benefit from having an SSD as boot drive, and with the Mac App Store, who needs DVD drives anymore? Even OS X is distributed through it, and new machines can have the OS recovery on a USB drive like the Macbook Air. So why not use that space for something else? Something better.

That’s it, pretty simple, nothing too pie int he sky. Ok maybe the iWatch part, but I can hope, everything is in the realm of the possible, maybe not this year but next or the one after.

What do you think we’ll see at WWDC in a few weeks?

There’s plenty of “I just use my iPhone, why would i want a watch?” people, and that’s fine, as with all things, it takes all kinds. I have a nice large watch box, full of nice analog and digital watches, and now my iWatch. I’ll probably wear watches forever, or I should say, something on my wrist.

I’ve joked with friends, but from the moment i got my first iPod Touch, I’ve been on the look out for something that would make it wearable on a wrist. iOS doesn’t really lend itself (sadly!) to landscape orientation, but android (mostly) does. I wouldn’t care that I’d invite being beaten up.

I hate talking on my phone, I dread it. I’ve thought, and still do about ditching my iPhone, getting an iPod Touch, and just having a blackberry or android phone. I really want a multi purpose computer, that’s easily accessible, always on me, etc.

A watch, or watch like device is the perfect thing. Easy to type on (though obviously not a replacement for a phone if you’re a lotsa email, texting type of person, but for firing off a quick “Im here” sms, etc.

I think the first step will be a connected watch type thing. As mentioned in the article, a watch that lets you accept/decline phone calls, shows your calendar, etc. Either from a connected device from Bluetooth, or with it’s own connection to the internet.

But I do think eventually we’ll have a device, the size of an iPhone or so, that fits comfortably on a wrist, has a camera for facetiming/skyping, etc. I’ll be glad when that time comes. I’d love to not worry about where I sat my phone down? Did I leave it at the bar, or at home? etc.

A device like this, if it’s where my watch would be, becomes less a gadget and more a part of my life, something I grab when I’m getting dressed.

Can’t wait!

First HP announced their new WebOS line up. In a word, “sexy”. In another, “too late to market” Ok that’s four words, but still.

The current time frame for us to play with a TouchPad or Pre 3. “Summer” not even a hard date, just the season. Here’s why that’s a big ball of fail for a company that should have the resources to push ahead faster than most.

The TouchPad will weigh 1.6lbs. The iPad weighs 1.5lbs. The iPad 2 is rumored to weigh a bit less, My guess 1lb or close to it. So the TouchPad will launch weighing MORE than the PREVIOUS MODEL iPad. If it launched now. a .1lb difference wouldn’t be a thing, but a half pound difference in weight? That’s gonna be noticed. I want a TouchPad like a crackhead needs a fix, but will I wait 6 months? maybe, maybe not. Most won’t.

Gruber speculates that we’ll see an iPad 3 or 2.5around September, so the TouchPad will likely be outmoded twice over within months of launch. Wonder how long it’ll take for the TouchPad 2? a year?

I have no clue what else HP has cooking, but clearly they still think like it’s the 80′s and 90′s and you can take 6 months to a year to roll something out. It’s gonna be a hard lesson to learn.

That brings us to Nokia. I’ve had a few Nokia devices, and liked most of them. Well the earlier ones, at least. The last two, were a confusing mess. I’m not a dummy, and can figure out most OS’s etc, and mobile OS’s shouldn’t require “figuring out” in the first place. I could barely get apps installed on my N97, and Gave up completely on my whatever it was that followed. And really Nokia, stylii? in 2009 when I got my last Nokia device, it still required a stylus. Come on guys!

Now they’ve announced they’re partnering with Microsoft. Bad move. Why? It’s becoming more and more clear to me, that the mobile platforms that will win, are the ones where it’s a hardware and software play. Apple, HP (if they can start thinking like a modern company) and RIM. All control their hardware and OS. There’s no AT&T branded crap. Sure there might be AT&T apps, and that sucks, but the UI is the same. There’s no blackberry curve with Motorola sense, etc. The experience is the same across networks (other than carrier specific apps that preload of course, which suck, but whatever, they’re not changing the UI/UX). Google and Microsoft don’t have that control. Well we know Google doesn’t, it’s TBD whether Microsoft does. I’ve seen exactly two WP7 devices in the wild, and both were developer phones. Microsoft has shown that it can’t stay competitive with Mobile OS. They dominated when there wasn’t any serious smartphone competition, but times have changed. Maybe they’ll surprise me, but I doubt it. My play had i somehow found myself in charge of Microsoft. Forget phones. Re-tool Win7 to be touch only tablet OS. Not a bastard “use a stylus” tablet OS, a complete re-tooling, like Apple did with iOS. It’s OS X underneath after all. Focus on tablets, it’s a strong market now thanks to Apple, but it’s gonna get stronger, and there’s a dirth of quality OS’s for tablet devices. Phones are consumer electronics, lost and tossed in a time span that measures months more than years. Tablets, while heading towards commodity, will be everywhere. Households will have as many or more of them than phones.

Apple leads, that doesn’t mean you have to follow.

What do you think? Will Microsoft pull Nokia out of the fires? Will Nokia and M$ fall together? Will HP miss the mark, and slide out of mobile quietly when only 3 TouchPads sell? Will we all be rolling in iCars to our iHouses, wearing iKicks?

Free Fallers (iTunes Link), is a cute game where you direct parachuting animals in to land on bulldozers and other construction equipment.

The premise is simple. Animals drop in from the top of the screen free falling towards the ground. You guide their fall and then when ready you tap to deploy their parachute. You can still guide them once the chute is deployed as well.

The more construction equipment you crush, the higher your score. That’s it. Easy.

This is one of those games that’s great to have on your phone for when you’re waiting in line at Starbucks, or at the store waiting for the lady with 13 items in the 10 item or less line, who’d paying with a check.

Go check it out. It’s worth the $1.99

He’s an awesome developer, great speaker, and his latest game LandFormer (iTunes Link) is an awesome time suck! That’s a good thing :)

Owen’s not new to games, but I think this latest release is his coming out game. This is the game that’s the start of truly awesome things for Owen.

Ok enough gushing!

LandFormer is a straightforward puzzle game, you don’t really need instructions or tutorials, pick it up, try it out and away you go.

The objective is to make the ground perfectly flat; raising and lowering the terrain in patterns to accomplish your goal.

You’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, “hmm well maybe this, then this… nope, undo!” Which is good. I’m usually pretty quickly turned off by games that start too hard, or don’t progress past easy.

It’s very addictive, sitting there staring at the terrain, thinking through permutations.

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.

As if all that wasn’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’s easy to create levels, it’s basically solving a map, backwards :) just start arranging the terrain, when you’re done, save and share.

The IAP is awesome, I’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.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want useless crapware that I can’t use without purchasing something. Quite the contrary with LandFormer, you can go (I assume) forever without ever buying any of Owen’s premium content, getting levels from friends and the internet, but why? Sure that’s fun and I hope we’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!

Oh and the game itself is skinnable, how awesome is that!?

If you haven’t already grabbed LandFormer, go get it! Heck even Apple likes it.

My only complaint (and I know Owen started this before the iPad was announced, at least I think so) is that it’d kick ass on the iPad. Either more complex patterns, or larger maps, etc. I think it’d be awesome. I’d suggest that be his next project, but he owe me bacon farmer!

I’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&T had a plan beyond “Making data plans more affordable and available for all. 98% of our users don’t even use close to 2g” and all. I mean we’ve met AT&T right? When have they done something for their customers, beyond send cease and desist letters when we email them.

So here’s what I’m wondering..

Skype on 3G… 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.

Front facing camera and some sort of iChat for iPhone… Will we get it? Who knows, rumors (again) say yes. How much will video chatting use up your data use?

Backgrounding of Pandora? How much data do you think you’ll use streaming pandora at work every day? On your jog? at the gym? at your desk?

There’s a lot (possibly) coming soon that will hugely impact data usage. Surprised AT&T pre-empted all that with a change in rates?

A change that by next week we’ll have mostly forgotten in the euphoria of a steve-note, new devices, and mac pros, and robot unicorns. AT&T for their cluelessness in dealing with customers, isn’t stupid, and they just roped a ton of schmoes into very restrictive plans.

Take a long the view… it’s a different picture. I’ll be keeping my unlimited plan thank you.