iPad Naysayers

I find it interesting the amount of disappointent many people have expressed about the forthcoming iPad digital tablet. The interesting part is the people expressing the disappointment, not the disappointment itself. Let me explain.

There are and always will be technophobes and Luddites who will have nothing good to say about any new technological widget. You know the ones, they tell how much they hate technology because they don't have phones or computers to send you their concern. These aren't the people who surprised me.

I'm talking about the people such as Bill Gates. He should know better. His concern is that the iPad does not have a physical keyboard or stylus input. This is from the guy who helped change computing from an enterprise to a personal activity. Bill, you are dating yourself. You're becoming a modern day Luddite. You and Steve Ballmer--iPod what's it good for; iTunes who is going to buy music at $.99 a song; and iPhone, no keys, no success. You guys just don't get it.

iPad is going to be a success for the simple reason that people don't know what it's good for. It is the rebirth of the hobbiest home computer. People will play with it and start using it for things that were never envisioned. Just look at the App Store. Who envisioned the iPhone as an important geology repository and reference tool? Who envisioned it as a news reporting tool completed with video editing capabilities?

Getting away from Apple for a moment, look at Twitter: Who envisioned it as a political tool for change? Who envisioned it as a live stream news feed?

Take YouTube. Who envisioned it as a stand-alone video entertainment service rather than an amateur video posting service? Who envisioned it as a political messaging tool? Who envisioned it as an important video news source?

Needless to say, the iPad will be hugely successful and it will be successful for reasons other than those Steve Jobs and his imagination shop originally intended. As Om Malik noted, the iPad is a blank slate limited only by our imaginations.

What say you?

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

What's on My iPhone

It's been awhile since I've written about applications on the iPhone. The last time I discussed a number of jailbreak apps that I had tried out or used heavily. However, since upgrading to the iPhone 3G, I have been running strictly legit apps. (I still have jailbroken apps on my original iPhone, but nothing really impressive.)

So what do I have on my iPhone? Here goes:

Page One/Line One:
- SMS
- Calendar
- Photos
- Camera
All standard Apple apps and in their original locations.

Page One/Line Two:
- YouTube
- Bloomberg
- Maps
- Weather
YouTube and Maps are the standard Apple apps. I have substituted the Bloomberg app for the standard Apple Stocks app because it is so much better; stores and provides more information; and is free. I don't use Apple's Stocks application. Weather is a Safari shortcut for the Weather Underground site (http://i.wund.com) and I have it set to my local weather. Weather Underground provides in-depth seven-day forecasts as well as local weather radar on the same page. I don't use Apple's Weather app.

Page One/Line Three:
- Mobile News
- Calculator
- Evernote
- Reader
Only the Calculator is an original Apple app. I have an HP-21-like financial calculator on the phone also, but find the Apple Calculator simple and reliable for most day-to-day uses. Mobile News is the Associated Press' free news application and I find it simple, and provides a great overview of world, US, political, and business news. While I still use Apple's notes app, it has been relegated to page two. Evernote is a free application that provides easy notetaking, allows voice recording, allows snapshot notes, and syncs all these in the cloud. Evernote also has Web access as well as an app that runs on the Mac. The result is information can be accessed virtually anywhere (unlike Apple's Notes app). Finally, Reader is a Safari shortcut to Google's iPhone-optimized reader page. This fills the bill for information not provided by Mobile News.

Page One/Line Four:
- Contacts
- Settings
- Twitterific
- Jott
Contacts and Setting are the standard Apple apps. Twitterific is my primary Twitter client and is used quite often. Jott is my preferred ToDo list application because it allows voice transcription of notes and ToDos. This makes it great when driving and something comes to mind that I wamt to remember.

The Dock:
- Phone
- Mail
- Safari
- iPod
These are all standard iPhone apps and in their original position.

With a few exceptions, these are the workhorse applications I use. I have a total of nine pages of apps and shortcuts, some used quite often and others that are there if I need them. Others of note include:

- 1Password for keeping track of various user IDs, passwords, and related Web site addresses.

- AppStore for keeping applications updated and installing new ones.

-AirSharing for keeping various Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files that
I need to reference on the iPhone.

- Wikipanion for looking up those quick items that don't require an in-depth Google search. It's a free app.

- Google Search with the voice recognition capability. I find that I use this app a lot more since they added the voice recognition.

- New York Times application. This fills the holes left by Mobile News and Google Reader, but the application is prone to frequent crashes.

- SportsTap, a comprehensive sports tracking application.

- iBlogger which I use to write most of my blog entries. I paid for this application and it has been worth every penny.

- i.TV for tracking what's on TV as well as finding what's playing at local theatres.

There are other applications that I use from time to time, but not nearly as frequently as the ones mentioned. I will cover some of them at a later time.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

iPhone: Two Month Check-up--Part III

iPhone: Two Month Check-up--Part III

In my last post, I finished my impression after two month's use of the iPhone's first row applications, specifically the Photos and Camera applications. This post will look at the first two applications on the second row: YouTube and Stocks.

YouTube: Prior to geing the iPhone, I had only been an occasional user of YouTube, but I will have to admit that I have become a much more regular user since getting the iPhone. Part of the reason is it's blocked at work, so the iPhone has given me access. However, YouTube doesn't work that well on EDGE unless you have a very good signal.

With a summer of reruns and only a few really good cable series worth watching, YouTube has stepped in to fill the entertainment void. "Search" works well enough to usually find what I want. "Featured" is always good for viewing although the selection does not seem to change frequently enough. The same seems true of Most Viewed--update the index more often.

The controls for pausing, starting, sliding fast-forward or backwards, and volume are all easily accessible by tapping the screen while a video is playing. This is a very nice touch and I found the "buttons" large enough to easily manipulate.

If there is one critique of the application itself (rather than YouTube content), allow the landscape image to rotate to the left or right. Currently, the iPhone only allows YouTube viewing rotated to the left. While this might seem like a nit, I often view videos without earphones. Actually, I almost always view videos without earphones. Therefore, placement of the phone's speakers can become critical and the speakers facing to the right is not always optimal.

Stocks: For the most part, the Stocks application is simple, effective, and adequate. If I need more information, I can easily go to Yahoo! Finance. This brings me to my first critique: When I press the "Y!" button in the bottom left of the screen, I would much rather go to Yahoo! Finance than wherever the hell I'm linked now. The current link appears to be a general Yahoo! mobile phone site that has information on the stock I'm seeking and a whole bunch of information on goings on in New York City that I have no interest in. If someone is looking at a stock and they press the "Y!" button, there is a high probability that the individual is seeking detail on that stock symbol period. They are most probably not interested in other general headlines or what's going on in the greater New York area. I personally like Yahoo! Finance better than Google Finance. However, at present it is simpler to launch Safari and enter a ticker symbol to get to Google Finance than it is to use the "Y!" button in stocks and not get the information I'm looking for.

The other critique is it would be nice to be able to reorder the sequence of stocks in the listing. You can do it with Safari bookmarks and the Clocks, so I know the code and capability are there. You will see this critique as a recurring theme in other applications as well.

I will be publishing my thoughts on the remaining two applications in the second row in the near future. In the meantime, if you have comments or suggestions for Apple, please let me know.

Walter W. Casey, Ph.D.
Sent from my iPhone