I think most of you have seen the animation where someone comes into a store to buy and iphone and salesman offers the HTC EVO only to hear ‘I dont care’ about the better features.
So now we have a response. Now that the person bought the EVO, they try to go into an Apple store to get it fixed because ‘its a lot like the iphone but better’. This second video is not as good as the first but very close. Cant wait for the 3rd. So here are both for you to enjoy. And remember both of these videos are not safe for work (NSFW) or home if you have kids… or you just temperamental. Videos below..
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animation, cartoon, comic, fan boys, htc evo, humor, iphone
When the iphone 4 was announced, Steve made a big point about the higher resolution capability of iphone 4 with the new ‘Retina’ display. Now there is a bit of marketing hype there. Dissecting this would be a whole other post, but the upside is now there is a value proposition in putting high resolution images in an iphone app and thus, you only need to create a set of images for both the iphone and the iPad! Nice eh? Of course, the size of the application will go up 2:1 perhaps, but that is another issue to solve.
graphics, iPad, iphone, shared resources
So the iPad has been out for just over a week now and after using it a few time and talking with and watching how others use it; I’ve observed that although the iPad is just a big iPod touch, its also complete different just because of the screen size.
Yes, yes, the CPU is more powerful, its running 3.2 and soon 4.0, and yes it has better battery life.. All true, but that’s not what makes it different. Well, I should say, that’s not the main reason.
The main reason is HOW people are using the iPad. The iPad is really about media consumption, a next generation media appliance if you will. Watching videos, playing games and surfing the web, although not much deep reading (like you would see on the kindle) but more magazine consumption. The lack of Flash has been a limitation that I have seen users come across again and again, but either a flash player will sneak out via jailbreak (oh please please please) or major web publishers and applications creators will start providing dual video support. (I’m I the only one who see parallels between the betaMax and VCR struggle? And if you do not know what I’m talking about, ask your parents. ‘course, I think I was 8 at the time, but I still kinda remember. ) Anyway… The ipad as an appliance makes quite a bit of sense, and people who are not interested in having a ‘slate’ computer are finding the iPad to be perfect. Add to this a completely seamless experience with the App store and you have something that takes around the same learning curve as an espresso machine.
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device use cases, iPad, iphone
image by Rob Jackson
Last week I talked about how near 30% of current ebook owners would have bought the iPad if it had been available. Well, another study from arstechnica states that %4o of blackberry users will go to a smart phone when their contract is up.. Many of them going to the iphone. Its pretty clear that the iphone/android offering is the future of the sophisticated hand-held market, but what is really of interest here is the massive rate of adoption. And since neither Palm, or as far as I can tell, Microsoft is going to make a significant dent in the migration, we can see the two most dominate players the phone, tablet, non-PC device already shaping up.
So what does the mean to you?
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Android, BlackBerry, iphone
So let me count how many people are surprised by this… Show of hands?? Hmmm just you in the back? Work for Microsoft? Yea, ok figured. Just a quick look around San Francisco and you can see the number of Android phones are starting to make enough of an impression that they are starting to be as common as seeing people mucking around with their iPhones.
Graph from Gizmodo
Yet Apple still wants to stay with AT&T. Not sure I fully get that, but I have a feeling the next iPhone, not the OS upgrade but the new hardware, will allow users to use other carriers. But they might have waited too long if this data is any indication. Boy, it would be something if iphone OS4 would allow connecting to T-mobile!! Ah wishful thinking.
Yes, I know Apple is going to release OS 4, but its not going to move the needle at all, so lets not count that as a mean of stopping this trend. Palm?? They are fighting for their lives at the moment. A little sidebar here; whomever approved there first ‘scary girl’ campaign should be fired. You one shot to make a good impression on the market and boy that was not it. They have now moved to a ‘value’ campaign, but it might be too late.
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Android, iphone, sales
Om Malik from GigaOm started a rumor (and I only say rumor to be safe) that Mozilla is planning something for the iphone. Now the first thought is; “Hey! Firefox on the iphone! ” Yeah. As sweet as that would be, and you bet it would be sweet because the browsing experience on the iphone could use an update, I don’t think its going to happen. We already know how protective Apple is about any functionality that comes close to what Apple considers ‘native’ functionality. So if there is not going to be a replacement for safari, then would could it be? Well, what if it was an overlay of safari that brought Firefox functionality? And what if that functionality was Weave and the AwesomeBar? Sure, I can see that. But lets go one step further. What if we had access to Xmarks? NOW were talking! If Mozilla came out with just those 3 features; Weave, AwesomeBar and Xmarks, I would love it! That still does not address other issues I have with the browser, like forcing a page refresh when I switch between pages, but I will call it an upgrade non the less.
Note: Does anyone out there know why sometime when switching between webpages on safari, it sometimes refreshes that page, and sometimes not?
firefox, iphone, rumor control
I wrote this as a companion piece for an article that may show up in the next issue of iphoneLife, but I thought I would include it here and now since AR is getting more relevant. Also, one of the things I said NEEDS to part of the AR toolkit for iphone (mobile) got a write up today in RRW.
This is still in draft form, so I’ll edit it again at some point..
Augmented reality for the iphone
A description/definition of Augmented Reality
According to WikiPedia – Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live
direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose
elements are merged with-, or augmented by virtual computer-generated
imagery – creating a mixed reality. The funny thing is, we have had a
simple example of AR on the iphone already. Consider this application
iHUD. In a way, this could be considered an AR application. We have
virtual information overlaid on top of reality. As our position
changes in the real world it is reflected in the virtual information
overlaid. However, for this article, lets refine the definition of AR
just a bit more to require that virtual information must contain a
spatial component that is dependent upon the view in question. In
other words, as the reality changes based on what we see on the iphone
screen, the information should change accordingly. Now, this makes AR
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AR, augmented reality, iphone, other smart phones
My nephew Jared turned me on to this app. DriveSafe.ly is still in Alpha and only on jailbreak at the moment. At some point they will release it via the app store, but without backgrounder, I’m not sure how useful it is. The app is simple enough; every 5sec or 1min it checks for new SMS messages. If a new message is found, it converts the sender’s name and message to voice and plays it on the iphone. Natch! The app is still a touch buggy and it does not always work for me, but in the one ‘real’ use case, it proved useful. I normally do not ride with earphones unless it a long ride and if that long ride is mostly freeway. However, I agreed to meet a friend at a Thai restaurant in the Palo Alto after work. I work in San Francisco. So I turned drivesafe.ly on, set it on background, pulled up my ‘ipod’ and took off. BTW, I only use 1 ear plug when I ride, its the law in California. So 2/3 the way down, I got an SMS asking ‘are you here?’ Seems I miscalced my riding time and had to pull over to SMS back that I would be 15 min late. Perfect! That is EXACTLY what a SMS to voice app is great for.
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app review, iphone, jailbreak, sms to voice, text message, text to voice
This is great news, and WAY faster then I expected it. Right now, there is not a solution for real time collaboration for mobile devices, and given limitations of screen real estate , memory and CPU power, its not surprising. The great part about flash, is how easy it is to build modules and swap between them. Now, not everything was included in this version, nor should it be (We are talking about a mobile device here), but the only things I really need is view of the desktop (or whatever is shared) and a means to communicate. Right now, text seem to be the only option, while the shared view is visible, but I would love to see voice support during the presentation. You can share voice and video as a separate tab. That’s not a big deal, but I can see that being annoying after awhile.
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adobe connect, Android, app review, BlackBerry, collaboration, iphone, other smart phones, Palm
Just showed up today, at least I noticed it today. When you do a google search on the iphone, you now get options like on the desktop. Its not full featured, meaning we still do not have an advanced option, but still, bit by bit, google is providing a rich experience through the mobile web browser. I did a quick look on the interwebs and so far no sign on Blackberry or Android, but that is only a question of time.
app review, google search, iphone
