The Apple iPad?

Apple's newest product had more hype behind it than anything i can remember to date. so many expectations and hopes for a product that frankly was inevitable. for the most part i am satisfied with the product. i am not disappointed and i am not excited. just satisfied. i feel as though they filled that gap between smartphone and laptop rather well with this product. granted i am only making this opinion on what i have read and seen online. the product is still 60 days from shipping but i am waiting anxiously to hold one.

my main concern with a product like this was how am i going to type on it? apparently the on screen keyboard is fantastic. the keyboard dock is an awesome idea and will make the tablet style much more tolerable.

honestly i was totally unimpressed by the product until steve announced the pricing. i was floored. this device starting at $499. the kindle DX is the same price and is crap compared to this. nothing even comes close to this product, although technically apple just created a whole new class of device. it makes everything that just came out at CES look like junk. which makes this whole thing even better. time will tell if they will get any stiff competition (but they undoubtably will).

Whenever anyone buys a new product the one thing that should always be going through their minds is "is there going to be support for this product?". for instance, a game console is whether or not their will be games. or a music player on whether or not their will be music for it. whats really cool about the iPad is that their is already 140,000 things to do immediately out of the box. the inclusion of the ability to run apps from the app store is essential.

The potential for the iPad is immense. for instance the medical field. if a company were to write and app that allows for monitoring and diagnosing patients for this 10 inch multi-touch screen, it would be a godsend for the industry. the iPad is just the right size to be carried around and with a 10 hour battery life it is plenty to make it through a shift. plus they start at $499 so they are extremely affordable for the medical industry that already spends millions on computing devices.

Apple has succeeded in my opinion of creating a whole new class of product here. one with unlimited potential abroad a dozen different spectrums. once these things get out into the real world i'm sure people are going to fall in love with them.

iPhone OS 4.0 List

Some of the things i would like to see in the next iPhone and its OS.

Send MMS messages over wifi.

i work at a hospital. most of my time i am either walking through lead walled hallways or i am in the basement with no service. however they do have wifi. so allow me to send MMS over the wifi. i do not see the problem with it. right now if i want to send a text to someone i have to use google voice. since it requires me to have a new number it gets messy, so just fix this AT&T.

Built in photo tools such as sepia, black & white, frames, ext.

on even the most basic of phones the ability to take a photo in sepia or black and white is available. i mean even on the ipod nano now they allow filters during video recording. why not bring that technology to the iphone.

Ability to listen to ipod music in background regardless of the app.

i cant tell you how many times i have started up fieldrunners to find my music stop playing. i end up just not playing that game simply because i cant listen to my own music during it. make ipod music a background option across the board please.

View faces within contact app and messages app

this one seems like a no brainer. allow me to see the image of the contact within the contact app and also the messages app.

Take messages app information off the phone

their are MMS sessions i would love to have copies of off of my phone. to show what someone said, or give someone a reference point of a convo.

Allow for Disk mode an Bluetooth information transfer

its a hard drive with a screen. they allow it on the ipod classics, so why not allow the iphone and ipod touches disk mode. also since bluetooth is so fast why not allow for quick bluetooth transfers of information between devices or between itunes.

New map types like overlays

Apple just recently purchased a maps company called Placebase. mainly because Apple and google are becoming rivals in almost every industry the two companies participate in. so it is only natural that they part ways. since the iphone uses google maps they needed a new source. hopefully the new maps company will allow for a new kind of mapping on a device. such as overlays like weather or traffic. even weird custom ones like 3G coverage or killer bee migration.

iCal location search

when i sync ical information to my iphone sometimes i will have location information within an event. yet when i click on the location nothing happens. i feel like it should jump into the maps app and show me directions.

Stream content from itunes to iphone

there is an app that allows an iphone to control an itunes library which is nice. but i want to be able to stream content from my itunes library to my device. for instance i want to watch a TV show in bed on my iphone and done feel like going and sitting in my chair to enjoy it. why not have an app that streams the content so i can enjoy it anywhere in the house.

Queue up texts

i would really like to queue up texts so when my phone gets service it automatically sends them. instead of playing the game were i stare at my phone until i see the little ...searching to go away.

Aluminum case

i love the aluminum casing on the 1st gen iphone. i have always felt that the 3G and the 3GS plastic casings felt a little cheap for an apple product. so it would be really nice if they could find a way to get back to the anadized aluminum look. i know that the reason they dont is simply due to thermal considerations, but if they could make it work i would be uber excited.

Lock screen change

the lock screen is just not good enough. it should have way more customization on what can be viewed. more details of texts and emails, and even widgets like weather or stocks.

App navigation

i have 8 screens of apps. it is quite a hassle getting to the 8th screen. their should be some kind of expose of the screens or something. much like what Ocean Observations came up with.

FLASH

it has been done to death, but seriously apple. you and adobe have a great relationship together make this work!

Remove apple apps or at least hide them like nike plus

Stocks, weather, compass, and voice memos are all apps i do not use. and even if i did i would download a much better app on the app store to do the job. make them hide able just like nike plus is.

Flash for the camera

Apple was recently quoted buying a ton of LED flash bulbs. so they will probably be putting flash into the next phone. i'm hoping the logo is what flashes. would be so sweet!

5 MP camera with HD video Recording

i want the camera to be amazing. the processor can handle the HD it is just a matter of fitting a sensor into the phone and making it affordable.

Multi-tasking

the palm pre does it and still manages to have mediocre battery life. it sure would be nice.Ocean Observation came also came up with a cool multi-tasking view.

TV Dinner Scalding Suit?

Why do microwavable dinner companies insist on putting the instructions for cooking their "meals" on the bottom of the containers? almost all "meals" consist of two cooking periods. so the 2 choices the consumer has is either memorize the instructions beforehand, or run the risk of spilling scalding hot food on their face because they had to lift the dinner above their heads to read them.

Serious iPhoto Flaw

Here is the problem i have. when i import videos into iphoto from a camera and/or my iphone. they are labeled as img_1809 or MVI_3406. no problem for iphoto because in that app filenames are unimportant because titles are used. i edit all the titles of my photos/videos for my own organization and for my windows family members within iphoto. the problem is when i want to stream those videos to my TV or i want to convert the .AVI to MP4. when i drag those videos into itunes so they will sync to my TV, the filenames show up and because IMG_1809 does not chronologically fit with 2009-01-150, which is my labeling system the videos are all out of order. i tried exporting them so the titles would now be the filenames, but by doing that i lose all the metadata. because iphoto doesn't know how to permanently tag mete-data to video files. so i cant do that if i want to keep the info on when the video was taken. there is a batch re-namer within iphoto but it does not batch change the filenames, only the titles. so now i have 2 years of videos that i can not watch on my TV or anywhere else actually because i cant change the filenames without loosing the metadata. why doesn't TV read the title information of these files, not the filenames. that would at least give me a temporary fix. i think the only option left is to call an apple genius and see what they have to say. or drive to the nearest store because this is frustrating and is virtually impossible to google search.

Possible Fixes

• Allow batch filename changes within iphoto
• conserve metadata while exporting videos from iphoto
• TV read titles instead of filenames

Smoking Ban

Michigan is going Smoke Free may 1st, 2010. meaning that no longer will people be allowed to smoke in public places. personally i hate smoking. it is one of those things that i simply do not understand. let me breath smoke into my lungs so it makes me happy? doesn't make any sense to me. but i digress, so i am happy the ban is going into affect. however if we look at this from another direction it is really dumb. it is just another case of government taking rights away from people. if anything now it will cause that rebellious behavior and push the use of tobacco up. it boggles my mind that people cant smoke a cigarette outside of their house now but yet drinking is still allowed just about anywhere. even though smoking only effects the person ingesting it, but drinking can cause horrible destruction when people under the influence decide to go get some TB.

iPhone App List?

Facebook - Free - Essential app.

Twitterrific - Free - My favorite FREE twitter app.

Tweetie 2 - $2.99 - My Favorite Twitter app.

Tweetmusic - $.99 - Tweet current song playing on the device.

Slacker Radio - Free - Free internet radio, type in any song or artist.

Pandora - Free - Free internet radio, type in any song or artist.

Midomi - $4.99 - Detects any audio it hears from the speaker. identify songs with iphone speaker. There are other cheaper and possibly free versions of this but this is my favorite.

Urbanspoon - Free - Locates restaurants surrounding the devices location according to price and type of food.

Sketches - $4.99 - Drawing app.

Snaptell - Free - Identifies books, movies, video games, and so on with just a picture of their covers, and finds prices on amazon. great for school books.

Bump - Free - Great device-to-device transfer app.

The Weather Channel - Free - Best weather application.

IMDB - Free - Internet Movie Database. search for anything video related.

Games

Fieldrunners - $2.99 - Simply the best iphone/ipod touch tower defense game.

Blocks Classic - Free trial $.99 Full Version - My favorite block breaker game.

Line Rider - $1.99 - Classic line rider flash game ported onto the iphone/ipod touch. very well done.

Lux Touch - Free - Mobile version of the classic board game Risk. also there is a $4.99 version of the game.

Blocked - $.99 - Mobile version of the board game Traffic.

Peggle - $4.99 - Peg-busting game.

Doodle jump - $.99 - move the phone to guide a jumping doodle upwards.

Minigore - $1.99 - Fun time waster. kill as many enemies as possible for an infinite amount of time.

Earthworm Jim - Free Trial $4.99 Full Version - Classic SNES video game ported.

Mega Man 2 - Free Trial $4.99 Full Version - Classic Mega Man game ported.

Simcity - $2.99 - Basically the game Simcity 2000.

CES 2010

So did anyone besides me think CES sucked this year. I was not able to go because of obvious reasons, however i did follow Engadgets feed of information. all that i kept seeing every time i checked their iphone app was another company releasing an Ebook, or another TV with 3D playback ability. first off, ebook readers are nice but seriously does every single company have to release one. the electronics market is officially flooded with these products now. i would not be surprised if Cnet has to add a whole new section to their review site just for ebook readers. and 3D televisions....rly? until we have holograms i am sticking with two dimensions.

Apple has their event on the 27th of this month. the rumor is that they will also be releasing some kind of tablet. being Apple i hope they come out and blow everyone away. i hope they release a product that radically changes how we interact with computers. much like what they did with the iphone in 2007.

How hot is 8?

Why don't stoves have a temperature display? I asked this about toasters a while back to my dad on why they have numbers ranging from 1-10 instead of a temperature gage. He responded “it is because the filament wears out over time so what used to be 6 is now 8”. It makes sense, however on a stove it does not. The part of the stove that heats up shouldn't wear out like a toaster filament. Even if it does wear out over time that still doesn't explain why they don't put a thermometer of some sort in the unit that heats up and will read the temperature back. So instead of deciding whether 6 is hot enough to boil water, one can actually punch in the number 100. Showers suffer from the same problem. I spend the first 2 minutes of any shower just trying to figure out the right temperature. Why not put in some kind of system so when I turn on the shower I turn it to 55 degrees, or whatever temperature I want. Instead of having to figure out how much of the cold handle should be on and how much of the hot handle should be on.

Transfer Rates

In a world where we have hard drives that can hold up to 4 TB’s. We have SSD drives that are reaching equivalent capacities. We have transfer rates in I/O coming out next year of up to 5 GB/S with USB 3.0, and up to 10 GB/S with the new Light Peak cable designed by apple and intel. SDHC cards transfer at 6 MByte/s right now. It is not very fast but next year the SDXC has potential of reaching 300 MByte/s. But it is still nearly impossible to send a file larger than 100 MB file to anyone over the internet. Outside of owning a server or knowing someone that can host a large file it is nearly impossible to send “large” files to people. For instance if I take a 2 minute video of christmas. I struggle trying to find ways to send the video to my grandma and grandpa. I would think I could email the file but most email clients don't even support emailing files as large as 100 MB and even if they do it takes 2 hours just to send the file. What about sending it over aim? It takes 25 minutes to transfer 100 MB’s. Why are transfer rates so insanely low on the internet. Why is email not able to be used as a method for sending files such as my christmas video.

Back again maybe?

I am not a very consistent blogger. going to try and get back in the blogging vibe.