So my mother asked me the other day to give her three reasons she should buy an iPhone and three reasons she shouldn’t.
Reasons For
1. it is made by apple
Apple make some of the best products in their market and are always pushing the envelope.
2. Apple has been good about adding features to the iPhone. They just released an update the other day which added GPS like functionality to Google maps, the ability to rearrange your icons, add bookmarks to your springboard (the iPhone’s desktop), and the ability to send a text message to multiple recipients.
3. It is fun to play with. Flicking through and zooming in and out of pictures, browsing the web when you need a quick answer to some trivia, listening to your favorite tunes, watching movies on a plane, and text messaging with a full keyboard while the whole conversation is displayed on one page.
Reasons Against
1. it is made by apple
Apple is always pushing the envelope so it will be outdated within a year.
2. Apple’s updates are a bit behind the third party applications that require you to “hack” your iPhone. Apple will be opening up their developer platform for the iPhone in February. Some of the functionality will likely be crippled so some the third party apps won’t be as robust as their “hacked” counterparts.
3. It is fun to play with. Meaning that when your playtime may be cut short when your battery dies (only has happened to me 3 or 4 times) or you may get frustrated when you are away from a wi-fi hot spot and have to search the web on AT&T’s slow edge network.
My mother also asked me another very important question which should be answered the same way throughout time.
“So and So wants to get a new (insert apple product), should he/she wait until after Macworld?”
Always wait until Macworld is over if the product you want hasn’t been updated in the last 6-9 months!
Lately I have been rewriting most of the code behind http://1stat.us to accommodate the inclusion of Pownce. In this rewrite I have been shrinking the size of the scripts and cleaning up the code to open it to other features I want to incorporate.
With the new Pownce support you can view your friends public notes and replies inline with your Twitter and Facebook friends status updates. The biggest update is the ability to post to Pownce which until I have more time will only be public notes. Not only can you post to Pownce but you have the option to post the same message to twitter if you like or choose to post only to twitter. (posting your facebook status is a bit far off yet)
Currently If you want to reply to a pownce post it will redirect you to either the Pownce website or Pownce mobile depending on if you are on an iPhone or not. (Again I will change this when I have time).
I have also added a cache so that you can let 1stat.us run it’s auto refresh in the background and it will hold up to 100 of the newest tweets, notes, and statuses until you come back to it. You can do what I do and leave it open in your docked iPhone so you can see if there is any thing new.
Along with the new features I gave 1stat.us a new look. Each site is represented by it’s own color border and links so you can tell where it is coming from.
A lot more is in store for the site so bear with me as I’m doing this in my spare time.
I’m one to hold off to the last minute and by chance a few ideas came to mind when I read what others are doing (on pownce). Somehow I am usually good at keeping them so I’m about to give myself a bunch of work to do.
so here it goes
1. Blog more
2. Start a Video Podcast (need some actors)
3. Get back into Yoga
4. Get back into rock climbing
(ever since my sis moved to Seattle I’ve been slacking)
5. record an album with my band
So I finally redesigned my site. Still have some work to do, but was tired of the old design. The navigation is better and I finally unified all the deferent sections so the podcast, blog, and homepage are all the same. I stripped out all of my social web presence, though it will be back at a later time, I just want to make it fit in a little better.
I now have a site that I’m not ashamed of, being that the sites I create for other people are looking better that my personal site. This also leaves me in the position to finally leave my old blogspot blog behind. I might keep posting there since I’m using flock and it would be easy to repost but if I drop of the face of the internet you might want to check my site or add the new rss feed..
So I am writting this new post from the comfort of a new browser called Flock. If you are used to Firefox or Mozilla you will be right at home for it is built on top of the same source code though it is a bit more forward thinking. The development team over at flock has built in some nice features into this browser including many social networking tools.
For instance if you login to your Flickr, Facebook, Blogger, YouTube, or Twitter account it will ask you if you want to integrate that account into the browser. For the photo and video sharing sites (i.e. flickr, Facebook, & YouTube) the browser has a media bar built in to navigate through the pictures and videos. There is also a person sidebar built in that will display your friend’s updates to twitter, facebook, flickr, and YouTube. de.licio.us bookmarking is also built into the browser so that you can save your bookmarks to the browser and to the de.licio.us web site at the same time.
If you are a blogger then you can take advantage of the blogging feature which brings up a window with an editor similar to what most blogging sites use. You can type in text in the editor section (basic WYSIWYG), fix up your html in the source section, and see what it will look like in the preview section. It also allows editing previous posts making for a quicker experience in getting your job done.
And if you are worried about leaving your favorite Firefox extensions behind you are in luck because most of them will work in Flock.
Overall it is a great browser and I can see there is potential for it to grow. I have switched over fairly successfully in the past few days. It imported all of my cookies, bookmarks, and passwords that I had saved in Firefox though I don’t think that the people sidebar it quite up to snuff when it comes to twitter, as It had a hard time keeping up with tweetr.
So I posted a poem I had written the other day. Today I decided to turn it into a song and use it as my first seesmic video. Now To teach it to my band :-)
Now if you are wondering what seesmic is, it is the video version of twitter. People post short videos (5 min limit) and others respond creating an online conversation. You can also hook seesmic up to twitter so when you post a new video your twitter followers will know. Currently it is in its alpha release so an invite is hard to come by, keep your eyes out for one.
Sitting in a starbucks with itunes ads all over the place I am reminded of the last apple event announcing the online store coming to the iPhone & iPod touch. Theoretically I could buy that Marvin Gaye song I’m listening to, but one thing stands in my way … Apple.
They released the update with the music store for the iPhone but I’m not upgrading. Why? Well I’m on another turn of this rollorcoaster ride of being an iPhone owner.
The anticipation of this ride was the best part. We heard rumors for months before hand stocked with patent filings, fake ads on youtube, and the leaked announcement on diggnation.
Then there was the line to get on this ride, people were lifecasting, the news was all over it, and people were calling it the launch of the century.
Of course we early adopters will never forget the $200 price drop & $100 credit.
The next high I got was when I found my way through jailbreak and started installing third party apps. I could now play games, keep track of my checking, and draw on my iPhone.
Now apple has come out with a new update that will kill all those apps if I install it. So I like so many iPhone owners are holding out on the install. Who is the biggest loser in this situation? I say it is apple. Now they won’t have their music store on these phones for impulse buys and they also have a core group of users making awsome apps that make this phone more appealing to potential buyers. Sure people like the photo capabilities and coverflow but I get more ohhs and ahhs with ttr (iPhone Guitar Hero) and sketch (high tech etch-a-sketch).
I would like to think someone at apple will read this and have an epiphany but I’m thinking I have a better chance of mutating into a superhero.
Me.dium has been pushing the boundaries of the web ever since it started its beta release earlier this year. I first found it through the podcast Tiki Bar Tv when Dr. Tiki sent an invitation through the tiki bar facebook group to come and hang out and chat during the next episode premiere. Now they are hosting RockMe which they are dubbing the online mosh pit.
Me.dium is unlike other social networks. It exists in the sidebar of your browser (firefox or internet explorer). There you can see a visualization of where you friends are on the web and chat with any number of users. While you go from site to site a link below your name changes letting people know where you are and likewise you can see what site your friends are on. By clicking on your friends you go to the site they are looking at. It makes sharing new sites more interactive.
This is where Tiki Bar Tv excels because fans of the show can chat with other fans and stars of the show while everybody watches together.
I can see RockMe accomplishing a similar task by music fans sharing their favorite music and videos along with talking to musicians. The whole thing is hosted by Rose Hill Drive and features the Willowz, Gosling, Jeffrey Lewis, the Fiery Furnaces, and last but not least J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. will be showing up on the 22nd. It lasts from Sept. 18 – 24 so go on over to Me.dium and check it out.
Apple did it to us once when they first announced the iPhone, they left out the youTube button only to announce it at a later time. Now they have announced that they will be adding the iTunes store to the iPhone, but there are still three spots left on the homepage. Will we be seeing a games button there soon? What else could they be plotting to add. It does look out of place, that new little button there on the bottom of the screen, a little lonely.
Will there be the addition of sanctioned third party apps in this void at the bottom of the screen? With the abundance of iPhone hacks out there that prove this can be done, will Apple give in? There is already a hack that allows multiple homepages on the iPhone and one that allows you to scroll this page so the possibilities are endless. It is doubtful that Apple will implement these hacks but they still have a little over three months till Christmas to entice those who haven’t given in already.
