iPhone SDK

I have downloaded the iPhone SDK and am going to start writing programs like “hello world” any day now.

yay

There’s also a learning caves meeting this afternoon that I have to prepare for.

yay

Lots going on today

I have a strategic planning team meeting here in a few minutes so I’ll be as brief as possible.  There are a lot of very interesting stories that hit last night and I want to get to them all.

First, there’s a very detailed instructional on how to turn the iPod Touch into an “iPhone” using a touchmod microphone and SIP-VoIP.  Right now, you have to use one of the other VoIP services since Skype’s not using SIP.  But really?  Come on.  That’s not that big of a dealbreaker is it?

So, first you just jailbreak the iTouch, then you install this software, set up an account with a VoIP service, and plug in the microphone and you’re off.

Reportedly, sound quality isn’t where it could be but, I have faith that it will get there eventually.

And if you want to fee old?  Here’s a video of a fetus who’s turned his iTouch into an iPhone.  If he can do it…

Speaking of kids…

People are getting sick and tired of Facebook’s viral apps.  You know, the ones that force you to invite all your friends before you can waste time using them?  It’s funny, people seem to clamor for extensibility, until the reality of it hits them.

Over in the art department, there’s a VERY cool set of 16 Aviary tutorials which teach you how to do all kinds of cool tricks with photo manipulation.  And before you ask, yes, this is applicable to Photoshop with just a little know how.

The above trick has to be my favorite.

Before you go clicking on there, beware, there may be some content that is not suitable for children or work.

Finally, on the Western Front of net neutrality, researchers at our very own University of Washington have developed a software tool that proves that ISPs are dicking around with web traffic. As it turns out, a few ISPs are already injecting advertising into your datastream.  Lets hope the big boys don’t get wind of this, or they’ll all be doing it.

OK, well, that’s it, see you tomorrow!

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Movies on your cellphone

AT&T has announced today that they are going to offer a new service to some of their cell phone subscribers: movies on their cell phones.

This is obviously a pilot project, designed to get the early adopters to test out the feasibility and demand for this new service, but it intrigues me none-the-less.  Before you run out and try to get on board, this program will only be available to a handful of people who have AT&T contracts, who have either a Vu phone or Samsung Access phone, and who are willing to pay extra for the service.

And what’s the service?  Uhh, only a handful of movies that have been run on TV and that are run on a schedule and that have commercials.

What is this 1986?

So, I can pay probably $20 a month to see Ghostbusters with commercial breaks?  Have they not heard of iTunes?  I can go right now to the iTunes store, RENT a movie for $2.99 and watch it on my iPod touch or my iPhone.  In the time it took to write this blog, I downloaded Drugstore Cowboy and it’s in pretty decent quality.  Good enough to watch on my regular TV, without commercials, whenever I want.  And there’s hundreds more movies like that.

Obviously, they just want to test this out.

Sorry, I’m not buying.

More iPhone Flap

It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas.  If Santa Claus was an evil dude who promised to bring you your favorite toys and instead when you woke up on Christmas morning you found all the toys were hermetically sealed and required your parent’s credit card to open.  And to top it off only some of the toys were fully functional.

That’s right, kids, Apple has done it again!  First, announce the new SDK (software developer’s kit) and then?  Lock the SDK with a combination of odious user agreements and the fact that any application Apple doesn’t like they don’t have to deliver over their iTunes store.  This means that voip (Voice Over IP — skype, etc.), Java, Ruby, Python, Perl, Quake, and pretty much any actually extensible system is blocked from being delivered.

Way to take a great device and completely screw it up by emulating Microsoft’s business model.  Think Different, indeed.

This puts me solidly in the camp of “people who want a third party device that delivers on the promises of the iPhone.”  I still see the promise of these devices but they need to be open, I’m sorry but people are just used to it now.

iPhone, uPhone, weallPhone

Good morning dedicated reader.

I happened across this great article on the ingenious design of the iPhone by the inimitable Edward Tufte.  There’s a great little video there in which he lays out his ideas in an interesting and engaging way and some examples of interfaces he has created that are similar.

A bunch of concepts in there really turned me on: content is the interface, information is the interface, that sometimes to clarify we need to add detail, and he ends with The Big Watusi:

Clutter and overload are not attributes of information, they are failures of design.  If the information is in chaos, don’t start throwing out information, instead fix the design.  And that is exactly what the iPhone platform has done.

E.T. can be difficult to read, but listening to him speak is a revelation.  I think reading his words will be a bit easier now.  Anyway there’s an RSS feed for his “Ask E.T” section and I have to say there’s some pretty darned good data in there.

That’s it for today, so far.

ow, me back…

Before you get too worried, I am here and Jessica will be here today too (10-4) but me back is killing me!  Actually it feels 1000 times better than last week and this is just normal muscle fatigue from a rather strenuous workout yesterday (my first outdoor football practice.)   Still, I’m going to the doctor and I’ll be seeing my massage therapist this after noon as well.  It’s not as fun as you might think, he’s a rolfer and last time he left me all bruised up.  Also I have a really cool bruise on the top of my foot from a daring tackle that I made on some punk kid last night…  ehh…  yeah…

Anyway there’s a couple of really cool technology things that I wanted to talk about today.  This first item is a blurb I heard on KUOW last night and followed to SlashDot this morning about an article by the Wall Street Journal on Microsoft’s announced plans to beef up their assault on VMware (see how the new media works — how many “hops” did I have to go over to get to the article?).  Anyway, what Microsoft wants to do is basically go back to the days of X-terms.  Suzanne, remember those?  Basically, they want to host a virtual operating system on a server that would get pushed down to whatever computers I would choose to put the OS on.  This is great in theory from MY standpoint, because if 100 machines are hosting the same OS all I have to do to change a part of that OS or upgrade software is do one install.  This is bad in theory from YOUR standpoint in that we will have things like concurrent user problems (if I have 8 licenses for Dreamweaver then only 8 people would be able to “check out” that software at any one time), increased network traffic, and the age old problem of not really owning anything and just paying for upgrades and the like.  However, then your data will be more secure, an.. oh I think you get the point.  It’s complicated and nothing is coming out quite yet but I suspect this will be the model for the future.

Also, if Microsoft does it, you know the implementation will be seamless and bug free!  One of the very first computer systems I ever worked on was a server-terminal system in a hospital back in 1989.  And when I took the job here as a Tech II the library only had a few “x-terms” which were essentially the same thing.  Isn’t it a bit odd that Microsoft is looking back to the 1980s for inspiration in the OS realm?  I do.

Meanwhile, Apple is perfecting miniaturization.  Great.  It’s a laptop.  It’s really light.  WHEEE!  How about an iPhone that’s not tethered to some odious monthly contract, that’s more extensible (why aren’t these devices powered with a Linux OS?), that works on more networks (including and especially Wi-Fi), that has a bigger screen, plays movies, plays music, has GPS, and I can put Skype on it?  A few competitors are emerging, the HTC Touch is a Windows based item, Samsung has something they think rivals the iPhone, LG is trying but they’re all just not quite there.  I have to say, though, this is an exciting time for technology in Information Sharing.  I am certain we’ll see my dream item in the next year or so.

Anyway, that’s your lot.  Later!