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illicit iPhone application development!

I read somewhere that this journalist wanted to do a story on iPhone
app developers and whether they had the balls to exhibit at
macworld… and well it turns out that at least one of them does!

pretty cool stuff they make, too.
check them out at polarbearfarm.com

unfortunately you still have to be using iPhone software version 1.1.1
to install these illicit apps but I'll be looking to these guys when
apple officially supports them in February.

until then, know that you CAN get search on your iPhone and even a video capture program… wild!

oh, the joy of the iPhone…

If you’re reading this, it’s because I know you to be either an iPhone owner, and iPhone desire-er, or an iPhone resist-er-soon-to-be-owner.


Here’s an excerpt of Stephen Fry’s new blog/column about technology. If you guys don’t know, Stephen Fry is a great British comedian who is also a tech head and writes a column for The Guardian.  I love his stuff and thought I would share this one… which pretty much echoes my own sentiments with my new favorite gadget, the iPhone…

Beauty. Charm. Delight. Excitement. Ooh. Aah. Wow! Let me at it.

In the end the iPhone is like some glorious early-60s sports car. Not as practical, reliable, economical, sensible or roomy as a family saloon but oh, the joy. The jouissance as Roland Barthes liked to say. What it does, it does supremely well, that what it does not do seems laughably irrelevant.

The iPhone is a digital experience in the literal sense of the word. The user’s digits roam, stroke, tweak, tweeze, pinch, probe, slide, swipe and tap across the glass screen forging a relationship with the device that is like no other.

It’s so true. Ask anybody who has one. Or get one. Or just read this article by Stephen Fry:



yours truly, 
justin bradshaw

PS: in addition to being an email BCCd to 62 people I know who might be interested, this is a blog post. If you’re reading it as an email, you might want to check out the maccog blog where it will live forever alongside lots of other neat things i’ve posted…
(one of those aforementioned posts is my iPhone wishlist!)

my iPhone wishlist

I originally composed this list for my own edification and never thought it would do anything other than allow me to check off the list as time goes on and Apple puts in my desired features…. assuming they take my sage advice.

Here’s hoping that releasing my grip on this list somehow leads to someone on Apple’s iPhone team reading it…
(I already sent a version of this to their development team but it never hurts to try again, right?)
This list is basically in order of importance and obviousness:

To-Do Application.
WTF??? Is the only thing I can say about this one. So simple, so necessary and so NOT THERE! Oh, and while you’re at it, don’t forget to make this program sync with iCal/Mail’s to-do list. Good, just thought I’d remind you.

t-mobile-like VOIP/cell combo HOTSPOT at HOME
This request, unlike a To-Do list, is non-trivial. Allowing the iPhone to make free-over-wi-fi voice calls would require a hefty programming addition and more importantly an okay from AT&T… grrr.
For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, this is the single feature that came out just a few days after the iPhone release and got completely overshadowed. But the reality is that it’s almost as cool and just about equally as game-changing. I ALMOST wished I was back on T-mobile so I could sign up for “Hotspot@Home”.
…. and then I picked up my iPhone and kept playing footsie with it and forgot all about it.

Grand Central widget or at least flash in safari
The irony of this situation is not as funny as it used to be. It’s now over 6 months after the iPhone release and I can’t visually check my Grand Central voicemail from my iPhone
Grand Central, (www.grandcentral.com) if you haven’t heard me rave about it yet, is the voicemail box I use for 90% of my calls because it had visual voicemail on the web WAY before the iPhone came out. It’s an amazing life-changing (free!) service that I recommend to just about everyone BUT they have yet to deliver an iPhone interface that works. I’ve emailed them at least 4 times asking when and how they’ll do it and not heard a peep… which is strange because usually they’re johnny on the spot with my comments. weird.
It’s not all Grand Central’s fault, though. Apple has not delivered Flash support on iPhone’s Safari and it’s really not clear why.
This gets another big WTF???

iChat (duh)… or even better, Adium
Since I’m over-using the WTF thing, I might as well keep going… WTF? No iChat? only SMS? And you even make SMS LOOK like iChat so we’ll be lulled into forgetting that we’ve only got 200 of them PER MONTH? Oh and did you say “incoming AND OUTGOING?” I smell a scam… or a rat… or whatever you can think of to describe this corporate greed.
The problem isn’t just Apple leaving an IM client off this device, it’s the added insult to the injury my pocketbook would feel if I used the SMS client like I do my IM client.

copy/paste
I don’t miss this very often, but when I do, I REALLY do. The device is a bit crippled without this very basic of tools. Get with it Apple, it needs to be a full screen shap that we swipe. THAT would be cool!

Spotlight… especially with addressbook
For people like me with less than 1000 contacts, the lack of Spotlight is a mere annoyance when we’re looking for that specific email, but for people (many of my clients) that have upwards of 4,000 contacts, the lack of a quick search is devastating to the usability of this as a phone. How do you find someone’s number easily when there are 400 names under S?

selecting and dragging text
Right there with copy/paste. Absolutely essential for a handheld computer, but granted not so much for a phone, but c’mon, let’s live up to our potential, shall we?

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi syncing
I don’t see any big technical reason Apple hasn’t done this yet. The ability to be able to sync your computer (especially Address Book and iCal) with your iPhone without having to plug it in… (and perhaps even automatically whenever they’re in range of each other) would be amaaazing and I really look forward to that day, yessireee.

Address Book and iTunes integration
My trusty Sony Ericcson 610 (I think that was the model) could connect to my Addres Book and do some pretty cool stuff: I could dial the cell phone just by clicking on a number in Address Book and choosing “Dial with Justin’s Cell Phone”… It was awesome. It would even pause iTunes when I got a call. Why, oh why doesn’t the iPhone do this???? An ominous sign for this feature came when, in Leopard, the button to connect to a cell phone in this way was removed from the program.
Apple, say it isn’t so… say you’re gonna bring back this cool AND useful trick… oh and while you’re at it, why not build support for controlling my computer’s iTunes directly from the iPhone. Sure you can do that very nicely with Remote Buddy (which I love) but c’mon that stuff should be BUILT IN!

.Mac wireless sync
A very close friend of mine who is a huge mac geek and REALLY needs an iPhone more than he knows refuses to get one because it won’t sync the Address Book over the internet with his .Mac account (which by the way he doesn’t have. Apparently he’ll buy .Mac AND an iPhone when this feature goes prime time. Are you listening Apple???)
This is a fancier (and even more useful) version of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi syncing. But just think of the possibilities here! Small businesses could rejoice in the ability to deploy iPhones all over the company and keep a central list of contacts no matter where any of them are on the globe! ah, one day people, one day….

More Storage
I haven’t been too terribly crippled by only 8 gigs but… aw who am I kidding, I can’t fit all my stuff on there! Constant compromising? Not interested! I used to have a 60 gigger folks! It held ALL of my stuff. What can I say, I’m spoiled.
Macworld will most certainly bring a 16gb iPhone. My out-on-a-limb-prediction.

notes syncing with Yojimbo
It doesn’t have to be Yojimbo and I suspect this will be cured by the developer SDK coming out in February, but oh for the love of all things holy, let us access our iPhone notes by some other means than emailing them to ourselves.

voice activated dialing (duh)
A really weird and glaring omission, too. Not something I personally use a lot so it’s not high on my list, but who knows, maybe if it was on my iPhone I would use it…. well of course i would!
Voice Notes would be great, too. For those looking for a great way to take voice notes using any phone, try Jott.com, it’s very cool.

3G network
Yeah, yeah yeah. everybody complains about this one. I think EDGE is reasonable. I mean I rarely find myself waiting for it. Yeah, browsing on espn.com over edge is ridiculous, but that kinda sucks on a desktop with DSL too. So yeah, it would be nice to have the faster 3G network, but I’m not sweating it. The Japanese on the other hand, will have nothing to do with a device that doesn’t do the 3-to-the-G and I don’t blame them. They’ve got so many cool phones that we’ve only dreamt about it’s not even funny. But the iPhone will rock their world when it comes out in 3G (and in their native GSM frequency)

laptop connections through EDGE/bluetooth
Oh yeah, another thing I could do with my trusty Sony Ericsson (albeit slowly and unreliably) was use my laptop to connect THROUGH my phone to the internet with the cell data network. THAT was really cool and I think to be the endgame for connectivity. I suppose Apple wants to wait for 3G and an okay from AT&T for this, but it’s a BIG one on my list (don’t be fooled by it’s proximity to the end of the list)

flickr integration
Sigh, back when I had 1.1.1 on my iPhone and I was downloading tons of stuff with “Installer” I found a program that would upload pictures from my iPhone to flickr. It was not very good actually but got me enticed. I would LOVE to see Apple’s relationship with Yahoo! climax in a dedicated Flickr app for uploading to and viewing of this amazing network of pictures and photographers!

skype
This goes along with, but is not the same as, my request for Wi-Fi based VOIP as provided by the carrier. But Skype is going to produce an iPhone client with the SDK coming in February…. I just hope that Apple or AT&T – or both – don’t try to squash this one for some stupid corporate agenda.
gps
The more I use the amazing Google Maps the more I want to know where I am and which direction I’m going. Having a GPS in the iPhone, while not being essential to me, would be insanely cool… I mean “insanely great”!

better wifi reception
the range for my iPhone is woefully behind that of my MacBook. Sure, the MacBook has the best reception of any laptop (apple’s or otherwise) that I’ve ever seen and it’s probably unfair to compare a phone to this, but I’m doing it anyway… give us better reception so we can sign onto more wireless nodes and buy more songs on iTunes!

Multi-media messaging
Filed in the category of absurd ironies like my Grand Central/Visual Voicemail dillema, getting a text message that says I must go to a website and use a cryptic and complicated username and password to retrieve a MMS someone sent me from their crappy flip phone… seems insane when one considers that this thing is capable of holding over 3000 of my pictures and geting new ones vial email all day…. but text messaging? no way. weird.

File-level browsing
the geek in me really wants to get in there and explore the guts of this mobile OSX. I used “Mobile Finder” when I was in iPhone app-bliss but want it to be official and supported.

I want my m-p-3-tooones
iToner does this for me, but that stuff seems to keep getting randomly deleted from the phone. An annoyance for me and for the developer caused by Apple. Stop being boneheads! We should be able to make our own ringtones and legally put them on our phones! geeeeez.

iTunes purchasing power (delivered)
Of course, the one thing on my list that they’ve already handled… is a way for them to make more money.
Don’t get me wrong, I love apple, but sometimes it’s a tough love 🙂
If you agree, disagree, or want to burn me in effigy, please comment on this post and share your thoughts….
thanks,
justin


iPhone tops windows mobile in web browsing

This is truly impressive… that a single device that has been on the market for less than a half-year has overtaken an entire platform… windows mobile… in the number of users who actually use it for web browsing! Amazing, and proof that people really want a true and full web browsing experience with their mobile device:

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=10&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=106&qpmr=14&qpdt=1&qpct=0&sample=4


justin

Market share for browsers, operating systems and search engines

So apple is officially at 6.81% marketshare. Not sure why this particular place is the end-all authority, but these are some interesting numbers….

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=10

Windows XP   78.37% 
 View Trend Windows Vista   9.19% 
 View Trend MacIntel   3.59% 
 View Trend Mac OS   3.22% 
 View Trend Windows 2000   2.97% 
 View Trend Windows 98   0.76% 
 View Trend Windows NT   0.63% 
 View Trend Linux   0.57% 
 View Trend Windows ME   0.43% 
 View Trend iPhone   0.09% 
 View Trend Windows CE   0.06% 
 View Trend Hiptop   0.02% 
 View Trend Windows 95   0.02% 
 View Trend Web TV   0.01% 
 View Trend PLAYSTATION 3   0.01% 
 View Trend Unknown   0.01% 
 View Trend PSP   0.01% 
 View Trend iPod   0.01% 
 View Trend SunOS   0.01% 
 View Trend Nintendo Wii   0.01% 

PS: experimenting with a cut-and-past of an online table with some funky leopard/mail embedding thing going on… hopefully the table looks good on your end (i.e. the same as it does in the link)

the “Digital Life” we lead

 I’m starting a new theme for some posts on this maccog blog.  You may have noticed that we call ourselves “Digital Life Coaches”… well it may seem dippy and futuristic, but it is here. Your digital life is here, even if you don’t have a computer.  Your car, your bank, your stereo, your TV, your phones, heck even your refrigerator are becoming digital and there is nothing you can do about it… or is there? 


 Well the first thing I suggest to do is embrace it. Learn about it. Get excited by the little things and revel in the parts that make your life better while getting rid of the ones that complicate or worsen it.

To start off this discussion, I want to quote a post from the British comedian Steven Fry who has a new column in The Guardian which I love already. 

To illustrate my point, this is how he begins the column:

Digital devices rock my world. This might be looked on by some as a tragic admission. Not ballet, opera, the natural world, Stephen? Not literature, theatre or global politics? Even sport would be less mournfully inward and dismally unsociable.

Well, people can be dippy about all things digital and still read books, they can go to the opera and watch a cricket match and apply for Led Zeppelin tickets without splitting themselves asunder. 

Stay tuned for more stuff about my (and your) digital life!

Apple anger v1.1.1

When Apple included a headphone jack on it’s iPhone that would only work with Apple headphones, I was miffed, but I got over it. 

When Apple lowered the price of the iPhones by $200, I just figured that it was inevitable… though a bit fast…. but didn’t mind… especially when they gave me a credit to buy more Apple stuff… so I got over it easily.
When Apple released iPhone firmware 1.1.1 which would “brick” any iPhone that had been “unlocked”, I just felt bad for the poor, brave saps who tried it, even though they knew it was risky… (of course the concept of a company destroying the property you bought from them because you violated the terms of agreement is extremely disturbing) But it didn’t affect me, so I got over it.
But when somehow, mysteriously, my iPhone decided to delete all of my music, podcasts and videos and tell me there wasn’t space on the device for it, I thought it a fluke. A bug, if you will…. and I got over it.
(iTunes seemed to see all of my music files as taking up space, but not being considered “music” by the syncing software… thereby clogging almost 5 gigs of the space on my phone and eliminating all of my music.)
I got over that last one because I could just restore the phone to version 1.02, put my auto-backup back to the phone and maybe re-install the apps that I liked.  I was going to do that… but Apple had yet another surprise for me… iTunes wouldn’t let me restore to 1.02 even though I’d never yet downloaded 1.1.1. it forced me to activate my internet connection, turn on automatic checking for updates, and… the horror… would only allow a restore if it was to the dreaded 1.1.1! 
It was at this point I became stark raving mad.
Can you believe that? It’s a forced upgrade! I was planning on using 1.02 until the hacker guys had figured out how to install apps. I’ve become quite attached to my Apollo chat program, weDict and some fun custom icons and ringtones… which are now ALL GONE because my iPhone was hijacked by the company that made it… damn it.
I don’t know, man. I was going to sit this one out, but now I’m pissed. Shame on you, Apple.  Don’t strong arm your own customers into your dictatorship. You’ll make us angry… and (to quote a mean green guy) you won’t like us when we’re angry.
Sincerely, 
an iPhone lover,
Justin Bradshaw