Shawn Blanc Reviews the HP TouchPad

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Shawn Blanc went out and spent his own money to review the HP TouchPad. This gist of his review:

I could not find one feature or function that was significant or compelling enough to take the TouchPad seriously compared to the iPad.

It's a shame, really. Just like when the Palm Prē came out, I had high hopes webOS would be a worthy contender against iOS. I obviously love iOS, but competition is what keeps the gears moving on all sides. Instead, HP's first major take on their webOS acquisition was a cheap feeling tablet with half-baked software.

If you want to see what I mean, read Shawn's aforelinked review.

OS X Lion Hits Golden Master

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According to 9to5mac, Apple shouldn't have a problem hitting that July release timeframe for OS X Lion. This also makes me wonder if this rumor from Three Guys and a Podcast about a July 6 release holds any water. Personally, my guess is a release in the July 11-15 range, though I wouldn't be upset if a big cat showed up Wednesday.

Designing for the Future

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Guy English, spelling out what Apple's Push Notifications already do and how they relate to iCloud:

The “Push Notification” persistent connection enables:

  • Push Notifications. In badge, sound and text flavours.

  • Find My iPhone. Asks the device for its position and provides for sending a message, locking or remote wiping a device.

  • FaceTime calls. Works with iPhones, iPods (let’s drop the ‘touch’, iPod Classic is dead) and iPads. Oh, and now Macs.

  • iBooks bookmark syncing. Transparent and works across all iOS devices.

  • Enterprise Wireless Configuration. iOS provides a mechanism through which enterprise customers can remotely reconfigure the devices they have in the field. It’s all very boring until you think about how that might work.

So there’s a fair amount of functionality we take for granted in iOS devices that’s already being provided over this one persistent connection. Not all of these features are likely to run entirely over the persistent push connection, but it is the control line that kicks things into action. iOS 5, and the set of services branded as iCloud, seem set to blow this pipeline wide open.

And then Tim Ricchuiti, hitting the nail on the head:

It’s kind of funny, actually. I can’t say whether Apple planned it this way, but the push notification system should be regarded as a failure if it’s purpose was simply for notification. Apple’s implementation of the more Android-style notifications in iOS 5 is an admission of that. But as failures go, it’s pretty good, being that it will be the backbone of what is generally regarded as the most significant development for Apple’s platforms since the announcement of the original iPhone.

I, for one, wouldn't be surprised at all if Apple had a long term plan when they designed Push Notifications. I certainly thought they were kind of a half-baked way to do just notifications, but in the context of iCloud now, it sure makes the whole thing look amazing.

¶ One Year of iPhone 4

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On 24 June 2010, many people stood in line for hours for the iPhone 4. I would have been one of them, but I was fortunate enough to get in on the pre-order, and I even received mine one day early. A year later, the iPhone 4 is still the absolute best piece of technology I have ever owned. As much as I adore my Mac and iPad, my iPhone is by far my most used and most personal device.

And I can't say that there is anything about the iPhone 4 that I find myself wishing it could do better. The display is amazing, the design and construction is spot on, it takes great pictures, and connects me with people I care about through voice, email, tweets, and FaceTime.

FaceTime. I know so many people who never use it and think it's lame. To me, it allows my parents and my in-laws to interact with my son. FaceTime allowed my wife to say goodnight to our son every night while she was on a trip. It is almost unbelievable that we possess these things.

And I'm obviously not the only one who is head over heels for the iPhone 4. In one year, Apple has sold more iPhone 4's than the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS combined. It's a runaway success, despite the dramas of Antennagate, Locationgate, and the — until recently — elusive white iPhone 4.

I know the next iPhone will be even better than the iPhone 4, and the one after that will be really great. Though I have to say where I was able to find many things I wish had been better about the iPhone 3G when I was one year into my ownership of it, I can't find a fault with my iPhone 4.

Transitioning from MobileMe to iCloud

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Nice Q&A today from Apple regarding the changes happening as MobileMe transitions to iCloud. Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, Find My iPhone, & Back to My Mac make the cut. iWeb publishing, Gallery, and iDisk don't.

Some of the features on the way out are either being replaced or enhanced through some new features: iTunes in the Cloud, Photo Stream, Documents in the Cloud, Automatic downloads and purchase history for apps and books, & Backup and restore.

Another thing making the cut that a lot of folks were unsure about is web access for Mail, Contacts, Calendars, & Find My iPhone. I'm glad to hear that because I do use that access about once or twice a month. Instead of going to me.com for this access you'll go to iCloud.com.

Also on the chopping block are some things that honestly never worked all that well going between one Mac to another: Syncing of Mac Dashboard widgets, keychains, Dock items, and System Preferences.

Relentless

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Tim Ricchuiti gives his take on an Apple that has no problem Sherlocking some third-party developers and implementing other features similarly as competitors have.

But I also don’t think Apple spends a significant amount of time worrying about whether a given move on their part will take a chunk out of someone else’s business.

And here’s the thing: that’s exactly what I want as a consumer of Apple products.

I’ve been tossing around this idea in my head for the past two weeks, and basically, it comes down to this: I’m much more comfortable with an Apple that makes the best improvements to iOS they can, implementing the best features they can think of, than I am with an Apple that avoids good ideas simply because they weren’t the first to get there.

I buy Apple products because of their eye for hardware and software design, their relentless, iterative improvements, and their ruthless competitiveness in the market. Not because they’re nice or charitable.

Does this make Apple evil? No, I don't think so. It makes them competitive. And in any sort of competition, be it a business or a football game, someone is going to be edged out. You may say that it isn't fair for Apple to add things that exist within their own development community. I say if they didn't do that, OS X or iOS would never improve.

Let's take the Safari Reader with Reading List feature that Apple demoed. That hedges in on a bit of Instapaper's turf. But is Marco worried? Nope. Marco thinks it will actually bring him more business.

Back to Tim's thoughts, how about Apple stealing from competitors?

To me, the fact the Apple implemented notitifications so similarly to Android tells me that it really is the best way to do notifications. ‘Cause if Apple could have possible done it any other way, don’t you think they would have? As John Gruber put it on the The Talk Show, kudos to Android: they got it right.

I think Tim hit the nail on the head. Android got it mostly right. Apple took that idea and made a few improvements. And I wouldn't be surprised if we see Google take some of those changes Apple made and roll them back into Android. And hey, for anyone complaining about Apple ripping off Android…well, Android is "open".

Apple’s going to do what they need to in order to continue to expand their platform. If it means a few toes get stubbed along the way (or perhaps even hacked off), then so be it.

Relentless.

Shoot First, Focus Later

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An outfit called Lytro is touting a camera that supposedly captures the entire field of light in an image. The promise of this camera is that you don't have to focus on a subject first (or really even just one subject). Their gallery demo lets you adjust the focal point of a bunch of images on the fly.

This is seriously neat, and it opens up photography to capture images with multiple contexts. A few things I'd like to know are 1) how quickly the camera can capture the image, 2) how much will it cost, and 3) when will Apple be able to drop it in my iPhone?

Passwords Matter

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With Sony getting hacked every other day (or so it seems), and other major players like Sega, Citi, & WordPress also getting hacked, now is a good time to remind everyone to take password security very seriously.

My favorite tool for managing passwords is 1Password. It's available for OS X, Windows, iOS, and Android. By all means, go get this app, or something a heck of a lot like it.

Also, if you have 1Password already, but you're still just using one password within it, it is time to change that. Trust the software, let it make unique passwords for all the sites that you have accounts with. Do it now.

The beauty of 1Password is that I only need to remember one master password. If a site I use becomes compromised, I can rest assured that the password that was scraped cannot be used to log in anywhere else. Then I can just generate a new password for that site.

The only weak link, then, is that master password. Thankfully, AgileBits, the makers of 1Password, handed out some pointers today. It's a long read, and could be a bit difficult to wrap your head around, but if your care about your own online security, you'll give it a read through and apply it to your digital life.