Archive | October, 2011

iCloud

16 Oct

One thing about Apple that amazes me is how often they hit a new product out of the park — iPod, iPhone, iPad; all phenomenally well-received — but with Internet services consistently no matter how hard they try, they fall down. When he announced iCloud Jobs joked: why should you trust us? We’re the ones that brought you MobileMe.

iCloud shows early signs of being a MobileMe. Which is unfortunate. It’s not the hands-down launch disaster MobileMe was, and sitting through more MMO launches that I’d care to remember, I know bad things happen several million people hit a service at once. In Apple’s case, it was a couple-hundred million.

The Mail Issue

Nothing puts a public face on a service issue like email going down. I’m not likely to notice if an iCloud backup failed, or my bookmarks don’t sync. I may not notice, or care, that Photo Stream didn’t sync. An error message that pops up on my Mac or iOS device that says it can’t connect to the mail servers is very in your face.

Mail went down for 3-4 hours Thursday and about an hour today. It’s not the end of the world. Other than the pop ups, no mail was delayed getting to me. The problem is, while my me.com address sees very low volume, that volume is very high priority. It’s an e-mail address I only give out to very close and personal friends. When I see that e-mail light up with an unread message, I know it’s important to me.

Again, the MobileMe problems were greater. However, because back then MobileMe was a paid service I wasn’t using it didn’t affect me. I started subscribing about a year ago and use it a lot now. So, the load issues are troublesome.

Documents in the Cloud

When I complain about Documents in the Cloud I have to take a step back and remember that with this Apple has build the framing of a house. It’s not quite ready for you to move into yet, but you can see it take shape and let different trades to their work. Documents in the Cloud does a fantastic job at syncing data across my iOS devices. The problem is needing to use a web app to upload and download my documents to my Mac seems like totally the wrong solution to the problem.

Apple not having iWork apps on the OS X ready to go on day one is a big letdown. I have a feeling that getting an OS X app to work with iCloud’s sandbox is a bit of a hurdle. Given the nature of Apple’s inter-department security, I’m not sure the iWork team knew much about iCloud before WWDC. That’s speculation on my part, though. My belief right now is that since Apple is mum on this, and at no point during any of the WWDC or iPhone 4 announcement is there even a glimpse of iWork on OS X working with iCloud I think this is a long time coming.

The big problem I see is being able to group a mishmash of documents. Many times a project will have PDFs, Word and Excel files. With each app having its own sandbox, there’s no way I can just look through all of them at once.

Backups and PC-Free

I’m lumping this into the same header because to me, they are the same. iOS 5 lets you never attach your iOS device to a computer. This is a life-saver. I set my girl friend up with it and it’s nice to know whenever she plugs her iPad in overnight it’s gonna get backed up. Hell, it’s nice knowing when I plug it in it’s getting backed up.

The bad part is, right now the only way to restore is to reset the device. I’m not sure if this is something Apple will eventually let you grab selective bits, but I doubt it. iCloud backups are for when you need to restore the entire system when you get a new device or you need to start over. I’m ok with this.

PC-free is, well, interesting.

I think for most people, this is true. If I got my Mom an iPad for Christmas I’d take it out of the box, set it up with her email account already, and then when I hand it to her, add it to her home network and get her set up with apps. She’ll never, ever need to sync the device. When I know an important software update has been released either see or I can take care of it. She’ll never know iTunes exists.

For my iPad, it’s likely it won’t sync to iTunes, or at least often. My iPhone will due to my music library on there. Maybe after iTunes Match comes out I will, but until I can manage playlists on my iPhone and have them get beamed to my iPad, it’s of limited value. I don’t often sync music to my iPad, but when I do, I want my playlists to follow.

Documents is likely to be where my iPad gets connected. I side load books to my Kindle and Kindle.app and I need to use a cord to do that. I don’t do that often, since its mostly legacy ebooks I’m side loading; future Amazon purchases will be synced via Whispersync.

Do I like it?

Overall, yeah. The Documents in the Cloud thing is a major pain right now, but it’s rare I need to round a trip a file with any regularity. It’ll be great when I can sync in the background, but for now it’s inconvenient rather than aggravating. That said, I do see myself using Dropbox more, since I can set up sync folders in Goodreader. I’m doing a contract negotiation for some personal stuff and I just dumped the folder of documents on Dropbox if I need them.

Unfortunately, that day has come

5 Oct

The beginning of the video of yesterday’s event lingered on an empty reserved seat in the front row. I thought then, “oh. shit.” I knew it was intentional. I knew it was a sign. A missing man formation had been flown. Steve’s time was limited.

There are two people who greatly influenced the path my life took: Steve Jobs and my father. Both died this year of pancreatic cancer.

In the 90s, I had just finished a failed attempt through architecture school. The day I walked out of Wentworth, the building industry collapsed. I would never work in the field I spent five years learning. Around six years earlier my Dad had bought me a Macintosh. As the desktop publishing industry was growing out of nothing, I was there in the early days. I helped steer two print shops into the digital age. One of them with my dad. Had Jobs not created that industry, I would have likely enlisted in the Marines.

When I looked back on the last months of Dad’s life, I remembered there was a point where he could no longer do the things he loved to do: cook and photography. When he died in February, the new camera he had bought in December had less than ten photos on it.

In August, when Steve sent out his note saying he was no longer able to function as CEO, I thought that was one of his turning points. He wasn’t able to do what he loved: Run Apple. I knew then he didn’t long have to live. Writing that letter must have been one of the hardest things he had to do. Today is a hard day. I can’t help but think of my Dad and the influence they had on my life. Thank you, both of you, I wouldn’t not the man I am today without either of you.

I love this bit from his Stanford commencement address:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Go and live your own life.

Reflections on today’s Apple presser

5 Oct

At the beginning of the keynote, the camera panned to an empty reserved seat at the end of the row. One imagines this was left open for Steve Jobs, who decided against attending the event. It could be due to his health or wanting Tim Cook to have the entire spotlight. I also wonder if was intentionally left open — and in a prominent position — as kind of a “missing man” formation. A seat left in memory.

Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs. Tim’s presentation style is akin to a Southern Gentleman. Steve had a bit of snake-oil salesmanship. Both are effective, but I could also see where the first 30 minutes may have caused a few people to nod off. Thirty of the 90 minutes were given to sales updates and ego stroking. I need to remember these presentations are not geared towards the same crowd at WWDC. Apple is setting expectations for their quarterly results in a few weeks. I wasn’t feeling well and following the live blogs reminded me it’s not a waste of time to have take out delivered right before the event starts. The problem with skipping the statistics is people will think Apple is hiding something. Tim Cook is very much a numbers game and I think talking about these let him ease into the rest of the talk.

iOS 5

Cards was subject to much derision and sarcasm by me until I remembered that iPhoto does the same thing already. I still think it was in a curious place in the presentation; App-type stuff is usually handled by Phil Schiller. For Scott Forestall to lead off with it made me think they needed to show something new. I’ve written about Cards here, but I can see myself using it. Taking a picture with my iPhone on vacation and sending it to friends and family as a card will be something I do, albeit once or twice a year.

Other than that and a few more details about the Camera app, the iOS 5 portion sounded like the sports highlights at 10pm. It’s all stuff we’ve seen before. The new notifications will be awesome and I hope there is an easy way for me to move my Zinio subscriptions into Newstand.

iCloud

It’s a First World problem, but getting data to and from my iPad is a frustration point. I use Pages across the board, but right now editing documents across devices is a mess. With iCloud, finally all my devices will have the current version of the document without me doing a damn thing. Apps will auto-download between devices. It’s not part of iCloud, but the new wireless sync means a recently-added PDF to iTunes will end up in iBooks.

The PC-free component is going to be nice. I keep a variety of 30-pin cables around the house so I can sync my data. Now, I won’t have to. Find my Friends has uses and seems a logical extension of Find my iPhone. I expect its use to be mainly between parents and their kids, and suspecting spouses.

iPhone 4S

It sharing the same form factor and name as the iPhone 4 didn’t surprise me. Apparently it did for some other people. Betting on Apple doing anything like they have in the past is a fools game (see: no iPhone in June), but I think Apple has been happy with the iPhone 4 design and seem to like to keep big form-factor upgrades to every two years. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple finally has enough of this naming thing and throws the iPhone into the Mac naming convention: iPhone, late 2011. People bitching because it’s not the iPhone 4 will get old.

The camera is amazing. As a semi-pro photographer, it’s appealing to me. The iPhone 4S camera isn’t as good as my DSLR, but it’s getting better than most point and shoots. Shooting at 1080p video will be amazing.

Siri was the star of the show. If that Apple video isn’t a gigantic smoke and mirrors trick, we’re at the point of Tony Stark in Iron Man talking to his computerized assistant about what to do with his schedule. I can’t wait to see what the reviews say about this. Sadly, I can’t upgrade for a while so I’ll probably hold out until the true iPhone 5 next year.

 

Hands on with the Kindle 4

3 Oct

I’m going to open this with a disclaimer: I have never owned a Kindle . With my iPad and iPhone I felt my ereading needs were met with the iOS Kindle app. The recent power outage made me reconsider this. The iPad’s battery life is fantastic, but when it lasts 10 hours as opposed to the month-plus of a Kindle, I started thinking of a Kindle a little more seriously. As an added bonus, I can read outside with the Kindle. At $130 plus in this economy a Kindle was a tough sell. I had told myself if a Kindle was under a hundred bucks, I’d buy it. Once it hit $80, it was an instant sell.

The version I got has the d-pad and no 3g. The lack of a keyboard doesn’t bother me. The only time I’ve used it is to set up a few collections and add it to a couple of WiFi networks. The 3g I might miss more. It would be nice to be able to buy a book and download it whenever I want. However, if I’m that hard-pressed for something to read, I can use my iPhone to purchase and read the book.

Having never used an e-ink device I’m very happy with the screen. Reading on this device is very easy on the eyes. For most of my daily reading, I expect the Kindle to be my preferred reading device. I’d rather save my iPad’s battery for reading Twitter, Instapaper, playing games and writing.

One of biggest adjustments was getting used to the non-touch interface, especially the buttons. I still think the right button brings me to the next page and the left is for the previous. Instead the large button on the each side is for the next page, and the smaller button above it for the previous. After a few days of using the Kindle, I still haven’t fully trained my fingers. Entering text with the d-pad is a pain in the ass, but most of my Kindle purchases have been made via the web; not via the apps.

What I love about the device is the small size and low cost. I can throw it in a jacket pocket or in my iPad case, and it’s cheap enough that if something happens to it I’m not out the $800 it would cost me to replace my iPad. It’s close to a disposable reading device.

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