Come for the Ride…

I’ve read a multitude of blogs out there in the last day about how people were incredibly disappointed in what was actually shown at the 2008 WWDC yesterday. Whereas I can understand the disappointment for things like dual cameras for conferencing on the phone, I also understand that most wireless networks do not yet have the infrastructure to handle this sort of bandwidth. Let’s say you start selling 5-10MM more iPhones around the world and these people start to take advantage of this feature on a daily basis, whereas in the US we might be able to ramp up the necessary bandwidth, I hardly believe Denmark, Malta, Peru or Madagascar could handle this out of the box. Out of the box, everything works is Apple’s bread and butter. They understand that people will suffer with a few less features for a user experience not plagued with slow of buggy features (the Windows Mobile Task Manager is a perfect example of the sort of hack Apple has a knack for avoiding).

With all that said, what was shown was absolutely mind blowing. The developers who demoed their products simply blew me out of the water. I recall developing games in Microsoft’s MFC development environment in high school and simply being stonewalled at the obscurity and limiting nature of a development environment. I then look at a combination of what’s in the SDK (I downloaded it shortly after watching the Keynote video) and what was shown and I’m almost ready to delve into trying to create an iPhone app TODAY. The 3D game shown was nothing short of astonishing. The music app, Band, sold me when they got to the “Blues Music Keyboard” and seeing all the Modality Apps made me want to become a doctor. It may sound dumb to you, but this device is more than Apple’s next big money making scheme, this device really can enable the dreams of others (to quote Randy Pausch) by allowing greater flexibility in their day to day life. From presenting information never available to the public in such a rich manner (again, Modality apps) to keeping track of all your information in a centralized location with no fear of losing the data (MobileMe) to sharing your life  and everyday adventures with the easy of taking pictures and blogging through the iPhone 3G, I’m floored and almost ready to be one of the idiots in line on day one for these phones.

This phone is right now for the bleeding edge customer. The power user. We know what we’re doing and we use all features of the iPhone on a daily basis. However, the average user like my Mom, my Dad, my Fiancee and my Brother are simply going to be overwhelmed by a phone with many more features than it has. Apple is slowly allowing people to test and try the iPhone and get used to a PDA that works for the average person. Society as a whole is still getting used to the mobile enabled citizen and if they’re going to release a product that lives up to what we expect from Apple (ie. Perfection), they’re going to need more time to ensure that both the product works flawlessly and people are able to use this in such a way that their cited 90% satisfaction rate isn’t tarnished.

But that’s just my take on it, and though I always want more, I also want time to learn some of these features from a developer’s perspective before some more of these great jumps in mobile awesomeness.

I know I usually write about entrepreneurial stuff and in this case, the fact the new iPhone 2.0 software will support enterprise mail will be something very useful for startups and corporate users - Not to mention the iPhone in itself is pretty innovative which is why I’m a fan. However, somethings felt like they were missing from yesterday’s WWDC announcements… somethings that left me leaving unimpressed. Here are the top 4 things that should have been included.

1. Camera upgrade/Front facing camera. A number of people have mentioned that other phones in the industry carry a 5 mega pixel camera as the standard for their phones. If the iPhone 3G is supposed to the be the new standard, and if Reuters is adding an app that lets you submit news directly to them - then why are we still stuck with a toy camera? Maybe the pre-event hype got to me, but having two cameras on the phone, one for pics and the other for video chat should be the new standard. Having two cameras is not even something that’s really new, but allowing people to video chat over their phone would be a huge WOW factor. Also, most cameras have a mini mirror for people who like to take self portraits. Can we at least get the convexed Apple logo put on or something?

2. More storage! If various iPods are already hitting the 80+ gig mark and if the iPod Touch already has one at 32 gigs, why are we still stuck with a 16gig model as the top end model? If this truly is supposed to be a phone that will last us between now and the end of the Apple Care warranty, wouldn’t you want to offer a larger option especially if we’re now supposed to be installing apps, GPS stuff, possibly record video through apps, etc? Why make the mistake that Microsoft did with the Xbox 360 by only putting out 20gig harddrives to start? It just doesn’t make any sense.

3. Gimme some more for the $10 data plan hike! Okay, so it has been whispered that despite the cheaper purchase price for the iPhone 3G, people will end up paying for it through other means, like the mandatory 3G data plan which costs $30/month instead of $20/month. Seriously, yikes! First off, now that I think about it, I’m not even sure why I’m paying $20 for the existing data plan. EDGE is painfully slow which means I probably transmit all of less than 2mb a month on the at&t network. The majority of my browsing has been under the wifi umbrella which I already pay for through other means. So now that we may actually tramsmit data through the at&t network, we have to pay another $10 a month? If you want your users to pay for the network upgrades you’ve been working on, at least throw in unlimited texting into the plan or something to wow us. While we’re all fans of Apple, a lot of people are still holding out because the phone is tied to at&t. Maybe this change of heart will turn some people around - I know it’ll make me feel better about signing another 2 year contract.

4. More colors? Alright, I know this item is pretty weak. In all honesty, the iPhone 3G is pretty great and if certain features are missing, I’m sure a lot of it can be made up through software updates and applications. However, instead of treating the iPhone 3G as a computer and limiting it to the Mac black and white, why not treat it like the rest of the iPod’s and give users choices in colors? Again, not a huge change, but just enough to wow.

Even if we don’t get any of the upgrades mentioned above for another year or more, I’m hoping someone who has a lot of clout will at least push for a petition to get unlimited texting in the new data plan. While I am certainly not one close to hitting the texting limit, I just don’t like to feel like I’m being taxed every time I use it.

Ever since the iPhone, I’ve been on a mission to use more Mac products. I wouldn’t say I’ve turned into a fan boy but the electronics just work THAT well together.

Now that I’m working from home full time, I’ve moved most of my work stuff to the back room. While I get more work done than sitting at the dining room table, one unfortunate side effect is that the MBP drops the Internet connection from time to time. To be fair, any laptop sitting back here drops the connection from time to time.

To make the long story short, I debated on getting an Airport Express but with the timing of Time Capsule coming out, I opted to get a 500 gb Time Capsule instead hoping it would kill two birds with one stone. (Increased range + backup)

Here are my first impressions:

1. Setup was easy - Plug it in. Insert the CD. Pop on the Airport Utilities and within a few seconds the TC picked up an IP and the MacBook Pro saw the drive on the existing network. Had I wanted to backup then, it’d start within 15 seconds.

2. While that is good and all, I didn’t want another client on the existing network. I really wanted TC to help extend the range of the existing network so that my signal wouldn’t drop as much. So I unplugged TC, took it to the front of the house, found a network cable and put it all together. I restarted the TC, input the existing network password and within 2 minutes I extended the signal of the existing network AND added a 500 gb drive to our network.

With Time Machine flipped on, I started the backup… life is good. This sure beats me having to manually highlight directories (when I can remember to do it), and copy and paste it onto the existing network drive. Yeah, I’m lazy, what can I say?

3. Overall, Time Capsule seems to offer all the options I would want in the hardware. You can add an external hard drive and add more capacity for backups, you can add a printer or you can add a USB hub and go crazy.

Some things that troubled me:

1. I can’t tell if I’m on the old g network or the new n network. Since I’m extending the old network, does this mean I’m still on wireless g or does the network also have wireless n that is also available for me to connect to? So far my connection hasn’t dropped today so that’s a good sign - but I think my 4 month old laptop can utilize the n; I’m just not sure that it is.

2. With TC doing the initial 90 gig backup, my left palm/wrist has been burning up with the hard drive being accessed all day. Hopefully this isn’t a permanent problem.

3. My laptop apparently fell asleep while I went out for a meeting. Upon my return, the backup process had crashed and didn’t resume at full speed. Hopefully by adjusting some settings on the MBP, this backup will finish within the next day but I had to kill the initial backup file and start over to get it to copy files at the faster speed.

Overall, I would recommend the purchase. It’s probably a better idea for extreme mission critical data to use additional backup options but for the daily users who worry about lost documents or bad iterations, the basic Time Machine software should help alleviate those minor headaches. Most of my stuff are also backed up on our dev server, live servers and google apps so I don’t think I will lose anything too important (knock on wood) since they’re all over the place.

I won’t lie… this does provide me a peace of mind and I wish this technology were around a few years ago when I had major drive crashes and had lost data. Better late than never though.

KISS it. Keep It Simple Stupid. We’ve all heard this before. The phrase can apply to many things including website development, business ideas, and so on. When an entrepreneur has too many ideas, they become an inventor with no real path. When a website or a program launches with too many options, users who don’t like bloatware scatter.

Such is the case yesterday when I tried to play a DVD on my Macbook Pro. Being a new Mac owner who is still discovering programs and features on my laptop, I assumed that this process “would just work” as many other things have over the past few months. However, it was not the case. (Disclaimer: some may say I was in a unique situation by having VM Ware installed and running both Windows and OSX)

So I popped a movie into my drive and nothing happened. (I found out later my instance of Windows on VM Ware had hijacked the drive.) Like most computer users, when things aren’t brought to me on a silver platter, I start hunting.

The first thing I tried were programs that were on my dock. I pulled up iDVD which turned out not to be a DVD viewing program at all. (Odd) The next one I tried was iMovie - again, not a DVD viewing program. Apparently there are more people making movies on these computers than people watching movies.

Frustrated, I then turned to Quicktime… unfortunately that did not yield the right player. Confused and frustrated, I opened up iTunes which completely ignored the DVD drive. That’s 0 for 4.

Although my situation here is a bit different than regular Mac users who don’t have multiple OS’s installed on their system. It does show how interfaces and naming conventions that were designed to be intuitive can still be confusing.

Ultimately after consulting with a friend, I learned there’s a DVD Player program that goes by the same name on the Mac which plays DVDs. Imagine that…

If nothing else, this experience has taught me to not name a number of different features with similar names. Of course the bigger lesson is to keep things simple. Instead of getting your users to figure out how to use your system, make sure they can use it effortlessly to do the tasks they need to do.

Jobs just announced some additional features for Apple TV 2. $229 for the box, various prices between $3 - $5 for movie and HD rentals. Granted, the display looks as great as any other Apple product, but why introduce yet another mediocre service that doesn’t provide anything new?

The images here were captured by Engadget, who provided the live keynote coverage for MacWorld 2008. What these pictures show is just another service competing for our movie business, but not necessarily all that well.

As a consumer, what I want is a Netflix pricing model with the convenience of HD quality and instant downloads. As far as I can tell, the technology for everything I want is all here, what is missing is some cooperative work between the companies to come out with a platform that can make them all more money.

Let’s face it:

Netflix - Thanks for your unlimited movies online, but I want HD quality on my TV instantly if you can provide it.

Blockbuster - You had some competitive advantages before… but your lack of connection with reality has priced yourselves out of the game. Thanks for alienating your customers.

Xbox Live - I like the service but your selection for movies that appeals to everyone is weak. If it didn’t take 12 hours to download a HD movie onto my tiny 20gig hard drive, I may use your movie service more.

TiVo - Can you offer faster downloads? What’s the difference of waiting a day for a movie download vs. waiting a day for Netflix to deliver the same movie in the mail?

Comcast - I guess it’s true… he who controls the bandwidth can decide on the speed at which everything is connected. You guys have a great on demand network and the movies actually come within minutes… but the pricing structure really has to change. I would rather wait on Netflix rather than paying $20+ for 5 movies.

Apple TV - Thanks for coming up with something that doesn’t offer much more from the list above. It’s great I can transfer movies between my Apple products, but how about a different pricing model that actually makes the service appealing? I already have a number of choices above that does pretty much the same thing. So what’s urging me to make the switch?

Although this is one industry that requires a lot of the major companies to come together to get the deals to work, I’m still waiting for someone out there to get this right.