Old Dog - New Tricks

Defintion of Gamer Changer: iPad

The term "game changer" crept into the technical lexicon some time ago. It seems that every new idea or a rehash of an old idea is declared to be a "game changer". It's gotten so I don't even hear the words when they are used in a pitch or a presentation any longer.

So I offer up this. The Apple iPad is the definition of game changer. I urge you to watch this video presented at the Apple iPad 2 introduction event. And then reflect on how we've had iPad for less than a year.

Apple FaceTime Over Verizion EVDO

While traveling I had the opportunity to try out the iPhone 4 FaceTime video calling over a Verizon MI-FI, which had an EVDO signal at DFW airport. The person I called was on a terrestrial business class network.

It worked seamlessly. No strutter or artifacts. This confirmed what I had suspected - this can be used over a cellular network that isn't overloaded with massive data traffic from the world's most popular smartphone.

iPhone 4 Signal Observations

I'm in Shreveport, LA on business and the one other person I know that has an iPhone 4 is here. We tried to replicate the so-called "death grip" reception issue.At the office location, the 3G signal is 5 bars and we could not replicate the loss of signal.

We later went to dinner a few miles away, so I can't see how we couldn't be on a different tower and at this location, we could both replicate the signal loss; albeit by depending on the signal bars to indicate strength.

Conclusion - none really. It appears that signal strength or tower frequency or something is contributing.

AT&T 3G MicroCell Set for June 6 National Launch

Our sources at AT&T indicate that the national launch of the 3G MicroCell will be June 6. The price is set to be $150. Or at least within Iowa - it's not clear since some markets already have the MicroCell.

In my case, I have an office in the lower-level of our house and the cell reception (doesn't matter which carrier, btw.) is patchy. So if the MicroCell purchase and plan pricing is reasonable, I'm likely to pick one up and then drop my VOIP line. With a fair amount of business travel, the VOIP line doesn't make sense like it did and I'd prefer to manage just one phone number.

UPDATE

I purchased one on June 15 and setup to provide coverage in my home office. Everything about it was simple and it is working great. There appears to be a slight lag on voicecalls, but this may be due to kids at home for the summer doing their online stuff. I will report that the range seems limited. I can sometimes get the MicroCell signal on the second floor, but sometime the ST&T tower signal is stronger. But it works where it matters which is in my office and so VOIP is slated to be canceled this week.

TUAW on the AP News iPad App

Mel Martin thinks it sucks, too.

Jobs Lays Out Objections to Flash

Apparently feeling that it was time to shape the conversation, Apple's Steve Jobs posted an open letter about why Flash is unsuited for use on Apple's mobile devices.

A fairly lengthy missive with six major points. The takeaway is that there isn't going to be Flash on any Apple mobile device, that Apple and Adobe are only cooperating on the Mac OS (and even this comes with a dig at how long Adobe to make the Mac OS applications native) and that HTML5, CSS and Javascript are the base technologies Apple supports.

17" i7 MacBook Pro

I picked up a new MacBook pro last week. Or rather the build-to-order 17" i7 Arrived from China. It came with the faster 7200 rpm hard drive 4 GB or memory and the anti-glare screen. With AppleCare the total was over $3,000. I always try to buy as much computer as I can. I will likely have this MBP as my primary computer for the next 3-4 years.

Thanks to Time Machine, the transfer from working with my June 2007 15" MBP to the new MBP was quick and painless. About 90 minutes for migration assistant to do it's work and we were off and running. The one trick is when you setup your new MBP, create temporary admin account with a different name than the account you are transferring. Otherwise you needlessly wait for ma to examine all the files and then report you cannot import an account with the same name.

In general, everything seems faster. After I put 4GB additional third party memory in, I ramped up the vm ware fusion ram allocation to 2GB per each WIN XP instance and used 2 virtual processors which made that very quick. I have done any video encoding yet or iMovie work, so I can't tell how much speedier the GPU is.

I very much enjoy the larger screen real estate of the 17". I used a late 2009 17" for a week or so earlier this year and while I liked the more vivid colors of the glossy screen, the reflections were very distracting and I never developed the ability to look past them. So this MBP has the anti-glare and I like it fine.

The chassis itself seems much simpler and very rigid. Putting the RAM in was fairly easy although the screws that hold the bottom on are very small and one must be careful to keep the organized and replace them at the slight angle.  

Gizmondo and the Next-Gen iPhone

The blogs and news sites are all covering the the story of prototype iPhone that ended up in Gizmondo's hands. I have nothing new to add to the saga of how it got separated from Apple other than to say if it was really taken from or lost by the Apple employee, it's really too bad for the employee. And how nice was it for Gizmondo to out the employee? Showed some real "journalistic" class, in my opinion. Didn't change my opinion of the tech journalistic ethic after dealing with them for 20+ years.

I've had plenty of employees make poor choices in their professional and personal lives. Some times it's infuriating and some times it's tragic. It's life. I hope the employee gets a fair shake in terms of keeping his job, but it's unlikely he will enjoy the same level of trust and responsibility at least in the near future. A lot of people are speculating that Jobs will be harsh with him. I don't know what to think other than things are usually a lot more complicated than they seem.

Adobe Flash Antangonist Still Not Accepting Comments

More than a week after giving Apple and his employer the middle finger, so-called Evangelist Lee Brimelow is not accepting comments for his infamous blog post. And he still apparently remains an employee. I'm sure Adobe shareholders are being well served, what with the stock down $1.47 to $34.00 since the whole affair broke.

PhoneGap iPhone Apps OK with Apple

A blog post on the Nitobi website seems to indicate that apps based upon the PhoneGap library will not be rejected by Apple simply because they incorporate the library. Why should developers care?

It is my opinion that the platform is well-served by a "lite" approach to building simple apps. For people coming from a web background, apps built with javascript, HTML and CSS offer an opportunity for clients or users that do not require a full-blown xCode app. Some may disagree, but these webapp-derived apps have a place in the ecosystem.