The Great iPhone Kerfuffle of 2010

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past week and a half-ish, you’ve no doubt heard about Gizmodo getting their hands on a prototype iPhone. Not just any prototype iPhone, but almost certainly the next iPhone. I’ve held off on writing about it for a couple reasons:

1. My tongue was hanging out for a long time on the floor.
2. I wanted to see how this played out for a little while.

I’m not going to waste too many pixels of typography discussing the circumstances of how Gizmodo acquired the iPhone or what the legal ramifications of all that may be, other than to say that I was genuinely disappointed for how Gizmodo outed the name of the Apple engineer who misplaced the iPhone. That was a tasteless act that had no relevancy to the overall story. All we needed to know was that an Apple engineer misplaced, not the name and face of the actual person. It disturbs me how Gizmodo can take such sociopathic glee in attaching that man’s name to this story for the rest of his career via search engine.

There, I am finished ranting and chastising.

Now, onto the meat of the story — the prototype iPhone. This was by far the biggest tech/gadget scoop I’ve ever seen. It may be the biggest tech/gadget scoop ever. It is so strange that we’ve actually seen the next iPhone before Steve Jobs has shown it to us.

Much to the dismay of iPhone case manufacturers, who last year were given a reprieve of redesigning their products due to the 3GS having the same body as the 3G, the next iPhone has a brand new design. I think it is safe to say the design of the prototype is close to what will be in customer’s hands. To quote John Gruber:

According to Gizmodo, one of the barcodes attached to the unit read “N90_DVT_GE4X_0493”. According to several sources (of mine) familiar with the project, “N90” is Apple’s codename for the fourth-generation GSM iPhone, slated for release this June or July. “DVT” stands for “design verification test”, an Apple production milestone. The DVT milestone is very late in the game; based on this, I now believe that this unit very closely, if not exactly, resembles what Apple plans to release.

So, given what Gizmodo showed us, I want to weigh in on the hardware.

I love my iPhone 3G overall, but one thing that is an overall flaw is the plastic shell. It feels cheap. My iPhone 3G doesn’t feel like it is constructed nearly as well as my wife’s iPod touch or my iPad. But more than anything, the plastic back isn’t very durable. A few days ago I had my iPhone replaced under warranty. I took it in to have the screen replaced, as I had dust built up between the glass and LCD. But the Genius pointed out that I had many stress fractures around the headphone jack and dock connector. She replaced the whole unit on that basis. Let’s face it, the iPhone should suffer from stress fractures on the only two ports, which are meant to be used often.

So that brings me to the point of the next iPhone’s case. It appears to be two pieces of glass with a band of aluminum sandwiched in between. The band of aluminum surrounds and supports the headphone and dock connectors — that’s a good thing. The really interesting part is the back of the iPhone. Gizmodo said it felt like glass, like the front. But Apple holds a patent for making a case out of ceramic. Polished ceramic would definitely have the feel of glass. It’s also very durable and completely RF transparent, which is very important for a mobile phone. To put durability into perspective, the M1 Abrams tank used by the United States military uses ceramic in its armor. Tough stuff.

Next is cameras. Yes, plural. Let’s start with the rear camera we know and love. It was noted that the lens itself is larger than what is found on the 3GS, alluding to the possibility of a 5 megapixel camera. This would be a wise move as many competing phones sport 5 megapixel cameras. There is also a little LED flash. This will probably be the only kind of “flash” to be on an iPhone. Yes, that was a dig at Adobe.

New to the next iteration of the iPhone is a front camera, presumably for video chat. I’m not exactly sure how much I would use this. The idea seems awkward to me as it requires holding the iPhone out in front of your face. We’ll see.

Lastly, Gizmodo thought the screen looked as if it had a higher pixel density. 960x640 would be a good assumption. It’s exactly double the current pixel count. If Apple couples that with the IPS technology they’ve put in the latest iMacs and the iPad, that will be a great looking screen. (IPS allows the image to remain fairly free of color distortion at extreme angles.)

And that’s about all we know or could reasonably assume from Gizmodo’s observations, as the iPhone’s software had been remotely wiped.

What else would I like to see? Well, I’d like to see the iPhone gain storage up to at least 64 GB. I’d also like to see Apple use a custom chip like their A4 chip that resides in the iPad. And if they can swing it, 512 MB of RAM would be great, especially with all the multitasking apps in the background in iPhone OS 4. (I was surprised that the iPad only has 256 MB RAM. I thought 512 MB was a shoe-in.)

Since that camera is thought to contain more resolution, I’d love it if the iPhone shoots 720p HD video instead of the current 640x480. Then I could get rid of my Kodak Zx1, which doesn’t see a great deal of use since I rarely carry it with me. I carry my iPhone with me at all times.

Overall, the physical design of the new iPhone is very appealing to me. It looks more in line with the machined aluminum bodies of the MacBook Pro, iMac, and iPad. The iPhone 3G/3GS really stick out as odd compared to many of Apple’s other products. 

I really can’t wait to get the next iPhone. After all, I bought the iPhone 3G on day one. I’m due for a new one.

The Future, Unveiled

Apple today took the wraps off iPhone OS 4. My first reaction — what’s left for the haters to complain about? Who am I kidding, they’ll always find something.

The laundry list of improvements is staggering and downright impressive. Apple highlighted seven of over 100 new user features, and noted that developers will have over 1500 new APIs at their disposal for creating apps.

The seven “tentpole” (their word, not mine) features are:

1. Multitasking
2. Folders
3. Improved Mail
4. iBooks on iPhone & iPod touch
5. New Enterprise Features
6. Game Center
7. iAd

My thoughts on these:

Multitasking

As many folks are probably saying right now: Finally. I, for one, understood Apple’s stance in the past on multitasking, how running apps in the background would significantly drain the battery and slow responsiveness of the device. After all, the iPhone is a communication device, and what’s the point of background processing if the thing will be dead in an hour? 

As it was with copy & paste, Apple may not be the first to implement multitasking, but they are doing it better. Their idea is to multithread via seven different services available in the API.

• Background audio
• Voice over IP
• Background location
• Push notifications
• Local notifications
• Task completion
• Fast app switching

Examples: Pandora can stream it’s audio and use the pop-up screen controls normally reserved for the iPod app while the rest of the app basically falls asleep. Skype can continue a voice call or monitor for incoming calls. TomTom can continue to give directions while you switch to the iPod app. Push notifications as they are now can continue to be used. Local notifications allow for apps to post reminders or other events without using an Apple server. Task completion allows Flickr to finish uploading a picture while you move on to something else. And fast app switching essentially freezes an app while the user handles another task in another app. 

This method of using services cuts down on a lot of processing overhead while allowing the user to move on with their digital lives.

Folders

Folders allow you further organization of the home screen. Currently, with the limitation on how many home screens are available, only 180 apps can be seen on the device maximum. With folders, 180 folders can be present, containing a maximum total of 2,160 apps!

I can already tell I can consolidate my 5 home screens down to one or two, since I already use those screens as a rudimentary folder system (only two of them are chock full).

I consider this a very welcome feature.

Improved Mail

By far, this one stands out as a gigantic improvement for me personally. With the addition of Universal Inbox, I may actually put more than my MobileMe account on my phone. Apple is also adding the ability to thread conversations, which is something I have desired more than a universal inbox. There is also fast inbox switching, which I haven’t yet seen the details of how that works.

iBooks on iPhone & iPod touch

Since getting the iPad, I have really been enjoying the iBooks app. So far I’ve only gone through the included copy of Winnie-the-Pooh with my son over the past couple nights, and it has been great. Well, Apple is bringing the same reading experience to the iPhone and iPod touch, along with the iBookstore. Thankfully, purchases and the place you last left off in a book will wirelessly sync between all your iPhone OS devices. Kind of like Kindle’s WhisperSync. I’m thrilled about this.

New Enterprise Features

Now with faster warp speed! Wait, no, not that Enterprise.

Apple is beefing up security and services for business users, such as:

• Data protection
• Mobile device management
• Wireless app distrubution
• Improved Mail & Exchange Support
• SSL VPN support

 And that’s about all I care to cover on that.

Game Center

Apple is forming a social gaming network that will allow developers to have their games invite friends, matchmaking for multiplayer, leaderboards, and game achievements. Think Xbox Live for portable games.

iAd

Apple is breaking into the mobile advertising space. Why? This is what Jobs had to say on the matter:

“Developers [who create free apps] need to find a way to start making their money,” Jobs said. “A lot of developers turn to advertising - and we think these current advertisements really suck.”

His reasoning for this is the current situation of ad interaction within apps. When an ad is tapped, the user is yanked out of the app entirely and dropped into Safari. Apple is betting that if ads interact with a user within the app, more ads might get clicked. I say it’s a gamble. I personally am not an ad clicker, except on accident. That’s also why I opt for paid versions of apps over ad-supported versions.

I don’t know how much the average developer gets from ads that they place in their apps right now, but with iAd, Apple does all the work. They sell and host the ad, and the developer gets the larger slice of the revenue — 60%.

Other Features

Other features that were either mentioned or just shown on the screen :

• File & delete Mail search results
• Search SMS/MMS messages
• Web search suggestions
• Choose image size in Mail messages
• Bluetooth keyboards
• CalDav invitations
• Larger fonts for Mail, SMS & alerts
• Cell data only setting
• Spell check 
• Persistent Wi-Fi
• Gift Apps
• Birthday calendar
• Recent Web searches
• Create Playlists
• Top Hit in search
• 5x digital zoom
• Nested Playlists
• CardDav
• Tap to focus video
• Upload workouts to Nike+
• Places in Photos
• iPod Out
• Home screen wallpaper
• Search SMS/MMS messages
• Wake on wireless

Items in that list I am interested in are home screen wallpaper (loving this on my iPad), upload to Nike+ (no need to let iTunes handle it), and Birthday calendar (currently the only calendar that I have to sync via iTunes, because MobileMe doesn’t handle it). Another is nested playlists (I think that means folders in the iPod app).

Things Missing

An overhaul of the notification window system would have been nice, and so would a status summary of notifications and events on the lock screen. Also, no word on when AT&T will support tethering on the iPhone. This one is seriously beginning to bother me. It’s been over a year since tethering was announced and in two months it will have been a year since the feature has been available in the rest of the world. AT&T needs to get with the program, or Apple needs to make an iPhone for Verizon, which says it can handle the traffic. 

Final Thoughts

Apple says that OS 4 is slated for release to iPhones and iPod touches this summer, and iPads this fall. 

This is also the first OS release that won’t cover all devices. First generation iPhones and iPod touches won’t receive the update.

And like last year with the original iPhone not supporting MMS, the iPhone 3G and the second generation (late 2008) iPod touch will not have multitasking. I suspect this is because both devices have 128 MB of memory, versus 256 on the iPhone 3GS, third generation (late 2009) iPod touch, and the iPad.

I would be a little miffed since I own an iPhone 3G, but I had already planned on upgrading this summer as soon as a new model is released. 

Overall, this looks like a great step for the iPhone OS platform. People who have downloaded and installed the beta OS have said it is the most stable beta 1 release they’ve seen from Apple for iPhones. All things considered, this looks to be a maturing step for iPhone OS.

I highly encourage watching Apple’s video of the event.

Predicting the Future of iPhone OS

In a few hours time, Apple will pull back the curtain on iPhone OS 4. As you’ll recall, Apple’s invitation stated that invitees would “get a sneak peek into the future of iPhone OS.”

Prior to Apple events, I tend to throw in my predictions. Last time I was wildly wrong. So this time I am going to keep things conservative. The usual suspects have spoken, and I am going to ride their coattails. There are three things I think will be added to iPhone OS:

• Multitasking of some sort for third party apps
• An advertising platform for free apps, and
• Support for higher screen resolutions.

 Multitasking and screen resolution are the things Apple has been getting slammed on since the Motorola Droid and the HTC Nexus One Android phones came a-knockin’. Now, I’m sure Apple will have many more things to trumpet about. I’m just not sure what those will be.

I do, however, have my own little wish list.

Mail

• Unified inbox
• Threaded messages

iPod

• Folder support
• A freaking quick-scroll bar in the Playlist section
• Get rid of cover flow

Lock Screen

• Status summary of notifications/upcoming events/weather/etc.

Notifications

• New system for presenting these. The blue grey pop up box just doesn’t cut it.

Tethering

• I’d like to see AT&T actually support this here in the US. But, I’d actually like to see this taken one step further. I’d like to see the iPhone gain support for mobile hotspot. Some new smartphones are featuring this ability to take the phone’s 3G signal and then turn the phone into a WiFi hot spot for other devices. I’d love to see this feature, but I have doubts as that would cut into sales of 3G+WiFi iPads. 

Those are a few things I’d like to see happen with the iPhone. Some, like mobile hotspot, would likely require new hardware. Support for higher screen resolutions could be in advance of new iPhone/iPod hardware and/or taking a step toward unifying the versions of iPhone OS that iPhone/iPod run on versus the iPad’s flavor.

All will be revealed soon. Any last minute comments from the peanut gallery?

Apple Sends Invites to iPhone OS 4 Event

Moments ago Apple sent out invitations to an event demonstrating iPhone OS 4. The invitation shows a partial 3D model of a number 4 casting a shadow  onto a blue background. The text on the invitation reads “Get a sneak peek into the future of iPhone OS.”

The event will take place at 10 AM PDT on 8 April, 2010 at Apple’s Cupertino Campus. Let the wild speculation begin.

Addendum: It just clicked after the initial jaw drop that this is in 3 days. THREE. DAYS. Color me officially shocked.

Magical

I awoke this morning with the scheme in my mind of running out and buying a wifi-only iPad. The Best Buy in Fargo, ND (where I am visiting family for the holiday) would surely have some in stock, and it opens at 9 am. At 8:50, I sat in my hotel room, telling myself to let it pass. So at 9:40, I assumed the store would be sold out, but have display models available. So I went to play with a demo unit, just to say I had touched an iPad.

Well, Best Buy had received 30 of each capacity, instead of the rumored 15 total. I called my wife. She said, “It’s up to you.”

iHave an iPad.

Thoughts:

Regarding the Keyboard

The portrait style keyboard is small. Whereas on the iPhone I prefer the portrait style keyboard, the landscape keyboard is superior. The portrait keyboard is too small to treat like a normal keyboard, but the iPad itself is too wide in portrait to hold and thumb-type at the same time.

The landscape keyboard darn near perfect for those of us used to the MacBook family’s keyboard or the Apple Wireless Keyboard. I can nearly touch type.

(Speaking of wireless keyboards, you can connect them via Bluetooth to the iPad. I haven’t tested this as my wireless keyboard is several hundred miles away.)

Regarding iPad Apps

Astonishing. Sure, many that I have tried have slight bugs, but considering nearly all of them were built on a simulator and not actual hardware, I’m amazed. Twitterrific for iPad is fantastic, but you can definitely tell that it was rewritten from the ground up in 60 days. Delivery Status Touch is eye-catching. The Kindle app for iPad is far superior than the Kindle hardware itself! All of this is amazing. It’s inspiring to see how many iPhone apps were made more functional just by allowing a larger canvas on which to paint.

Regarding iPhone Apps on iPad

Garbage. The only pixel-doubled app that looks good is Canabalt, and that’s because it’s intentionally pixely to begin with. Everything else looks like garbage. iPhone apps need to be given a facelift to compete on iPad.

Heck, you can tell the iPhone apps are pretty much running in a simulator on iPad, (akin Rosetta on the Mac) because when you go to enter text you get a pixelated iPhone keyboard instead of the iPad’s keyboard.
Regarding Browsing

Joy. Browsing the web is a fantastic joy. The Facebook app (which hasn’t been redone for iPad) has been all but obsoleted by the fact that Facebook.com works great on the iPad! Except for chat.

Websites render quickly and, most often, correctly. I expect many of the fraction that doesn’t render correctly soon will. Yes, I’m looking at you, Sites Made in Flash.

Regarding Reading

Reading is so nice on the iPad. Even outside. Outside there is glare, but text is still crisp and readable. The Kindle app is very nice, but iBooks takes the cake. It comes with a complimentary copy of Winnie-the-Pooh, which is nice, as I have a toddler. It’s also a classic.

The interface melts away and allows you to focus on reading. And I actually like the page curl animation, and how the page turns only as fast as you turn it.

It doesn’t feel exactly like a paper book, but it’s not supposed to. It does, however, feel like a digital book should — casual.

Final Thoughts

There is so much more to cover on the iPad than I can possibly handle in the first brain dump. Overall, I am convinced that the iPad is the forerunner to the future of computing. I imagine that at the end of this decade, personal computers will look more like the iPad than a laptop.

The iPad feels less like a large iPhone, but rather a more casual MacBook. When Apple first described it as magical, I thought it was a little corny. I stand corrected — the iPad is a truly magical experience.

One More Thing

This review was written in Pages on the iPad, save for then being edited on my MacBook Pro to insert some links and header formatting, as the Squarespace app hasn’t yet been updated with an iPad interface.

Apple Highlights Sites with HTML5 as iPad-Ready

Earlier today Apple launched a new section on the iPad page detailing popular websites that are iPad ready. There’s quite a few heavy hitters on that list such as CNN, The New York Times, Vimeo, and Time. All of those sites and more are making sure when you, the consumer, visit from an iP.ad, you can see everything without needing Flash.

It isn’t secret that Apple dislikes Flash. Heck, it isn’t a secret that I loathe Flash! Anyway, I thought the fact Apple is giving HTML5 video was worth mentioning.

My ultimate thought: You want your site listed on that site.

It's Officially Crazy Week

The iPad arrives int he hands of users in just a few short days, and it has officially become crazy week. Yes, I have tried to convince myself to run out and try to grab one on Saturday (for review purposes, natch), but honestly, I am waiting until the WiFi+3G version comes out. And I really want to try to hold out for the second generation. So, you won’t be seeing a review on this site until anywhere from a few weeks to a year. That said, I will try to get hands on one to play with for a bit, and give my impressions as soon as I can.

But users aren’t the only ones preparing for the iPad. Our favorite fruit company has been issuing software to us all left and right for days. Aperture was recently updated with iPad compatibility (along with many other fixes in general for the program), Mac OS X 10.6.3 was released, and today iPhoto was given compatibility along with the latest version of iTunes, version 9.1.

Now, I’ve been saying for at least a year now that iTunes needs to be rewritten from the ground up. It’s just been feeling like it is getting more and more bloated. I also think it could benefit from being rewritten into Cocoa from Carbon. OS X has many technologies now that only Cocoa apps can utilize. The Finder, in my opinion, saw a great boost in stability and speed by transitioning to Cocoa in Snow Leopard. Also, there has to be a metric ton of legacy code that is just cruft waiting to be discarded.

I still hope that the next major version of iTunes (iTunes X sounds like a good name, doesn’t it?) will see at minimum a rewrite into Cocoa, and on the more extreme end of the spectrum, a reimagining of the user interface.

But let’s get our heads out of the clouds and discuss the present — iTunes 9.1. Maybe it’s just me and my lofty hopes, but it feels — dare I say — snappier. It’s still definitely a Carbon app, but it seems faster at just about everything. And it throws in some new features such as iPad support, finer control of Genius Mixes, support for ePub books and books purchased from the iBookstore, and a handy checkbox to allow you to compress the music that goes into your iPod or iPhone to 128 kbps on the fly instead of loading the full 256 kbps songs that you get from the iTunes Store. 

All-in-all, iTunes 9.1 is a modest feature update, but performance seems to be enhanced, and to me that is an unsung hero of the feature list.

9 Years of Mac OS X

Today marks the ninth anniversary of the release of Mac OS X. I’ll admit that my knack for early adoption of technology hadn’t bitten me quite yet 9 years ago, so I was still on OS 9 at the time. I actually didn’t jump to OS X until 10.2 Jaguar in 2003, when I bought my first Mac that I could truly call my own when I went to college. 

I remember how much it changed my outlook on how to use a computer. Everything seemed much more simplified and colorful. It was a rich experience that made computing fun. I also remember starting my college experience by ditching Internet Explorer for Mac in favor of the brand new Safari browser from Apple. A browser I still use as my primary window to the Internet every day, whether that is on my Mac or my iPhone.

Two months into my college career, Mac OS X 10.3 Panther was released, bringing with it a lovely feature called Exposé. This little bit of software allowed Mac users to see all open windows at once by tapping the F9 key. F10 would show you all windows within the current application, and F11 would push all windows aside to reveal the desktop. On current Mac keyboards, the F3 key has been assigned the duty of handling Exposé, with control-F3 performing windows within the current app and command-F3 whisking windows aside for desktop viewing.

In April 2005, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger came upon the scene, bringing Dashboard widgets and Spotlight search. Dashboard is a nice way to see little mini-apps that provide a quick burst of specific information such as current weather, stock prices, or what is on your calendar for the day. Spotlight proved to be the shining gem for me, as I much prefer searching for a file rather than digging through Finder. I also quickly learned to use Spotlight as a quick application launcher.

Apple isn’t often credited as having a major OS X release in this fashion, but in January 2006 Apple released Mac OS X 10.4.4, which included support for the latest iMac and the new MacBook Pro, which utilized Intel processors. Even though 10.4.4 is numbered as an incremental release instead of a major release, I think it is fair to say that supporting the same OS on two entirely different architectures is a milestone accomplishment.

October 2007 brought forth Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard after a 6 month delay due to Apple needing to borrow engineers to get the iPhone ready for prime time. 10.5 changed mainly the appearance of OS X. Many of the default apps on the Mac took on the user interface theme, the menubar was given the option of subtle transparency, icons jumped from a size of 128x128 pixels to 512x512 pixels, and the Dock took on a 3D look. Overall, Leopard took steps to bring polish to Mac OS X, but Apple was just getting started with tidiness.

In August 2009 Apple took Leopard and refined it. Mac OS X 10.6 was released, featuring very little in the aspect of marketable features. The big features were tidiness. PowerPC processor support was dropped, and many components of OS X were optimized. This process shaved off 7 GB of the standard install size of OS X. The Finder was rewritten from the ground up from Carbon to Cocoa, and OS X became fully 64-bit. Also, Snow Leopard allows developers to easily optimize their apps for multi-core processors, and to even hand off processing tasks from the central processing unit to the graphical processing unit. The result is a much leaner, faster OS X. I believe Apple took these steps to also put things in place to build upon newer features for future versions.

Out of the 9 years of OS X, I have enjoyed 7 of them as an avid user, usually moving to the latest and greatest version of the OS on the day of release. I can’t wait to see what is next.

iPad! Get Your iPad! Read All About It!

Has your check card melted yet? It should be. At 5:30 a.m. PST today (about 30 minutes from publication of this), the iPad will be available for pre-order in the USA. 

Are you getting one? 

I know I (and my wife) want one, but we’re planning on two new iPhones in a few months. So, sadly, we’re likely waiting for the iPad Mark II (not likely a real product name) sometime in the next year. 

I will say, I am excited to play around with an iPad in the next few weeks, as Apple Stores will surely have them, and a friend of mine is getting one.

Are you excited for the iPad? Why or why not?

Happy Birthday, Steve Jobs!

The fearless leader of our favorite fruit company turned 55 today. Jobs is one of the most influential people in the tech industry, and has revolutionized the way we live with the Apple II, the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, and soon, the future of computing, the iPad.

Whether you love Apple or despise it, no one can argue the impact of Mr. Jobs’ achievements in our day to day lives.

Happy birthday, Steve. I wish you many happy returns.