This Is Your Solution Apple?

Really apple this is what you came up with when asked to write an app for media streaming from iTunes. i am so irritated by the craptastic state of this app it is hard for me to form sentences.

so i have an iPad and i have a mac with iTunes that has all my media in it. i can not fit all of that media on my iPad so the obvious solution is to stream it from my mac to my iPad so i can view it in comfort at my leisure. i use Airvideo because it is easy and a very well written app. when iOS 4.3 was released i was super excited because they had said there would be iTunes library sharing for all iOS devices. i was hoping it would be a sleeker version of what Airvideo does built into the video app on the iPad. however i have never been more disappointed in an apple written product in my life.

first of all when you open it the library looks like this.

Please explain to me the organizational paradigm where season 3 of Seinfeld goes next to freaks and geeks and also season 5 of scrubs? i have never seen anything like this. it is quite possibly the biggest clusterfuck of nonsense i have ever seen. how does this code exist. this is how i assume the code is written:

<(are you sure, that seems kind of silly)>

i honestly have no idea who wrote this code but they need to get slapped in the face......really hard.

so it gets worse...much much worse. once you finally find the season of the show you want to watch it opens up to let you view the episodes. logical except this is what you get.

I do not know if anyone knows that much about the office, but Branch Wars most certainly does not come before Fun Run. who the fuck is in charge of this seriously. so not only are the seasons and shows out of order but the episodes are a clusterfuck as well. moving on, one would just think they could muster through and just find the episode they want, knowing of course exactly what order the season goes in. but no.......it seriously gets worse. not only are the episodes jumbled but the app does not even load all the episodes you have in your library. from my experience it shows a maximum of 16 episodes from a show. also it does not pick the first 16 episodes, it just picks 16 random episodes and displays them in a random order. 

this is what you get at the bottom.

so given no choice because the episode i want is for some stupid reason not being displayed i touch get more episodes, maybe that will just load the rest of them. maybe it is a cache issue and it only loads a certain amount. so lets touch that and see what happens. you are seriously not going to believe where it takes you.

Yep, thats right, it takes you out of the app and into the iTunes store to view episodes one can buy. this is such a pathetically designed app am having trouble finding adjectives severe enough to accurately portray how i feel about it. honestly it makes me want to find the human who programmed this and shove something pointy into his left eyeball. i do not understand how this can exist. i honestly can not understand how it has not been patched yet. i really do not understand how there is not a larger uproar over this steaming pile of feces that is this application.

in conclusion all i want to say is FUCKING FIX THIS SHIT. i am tired of this existing in the state it is. 

ok i feel moderately better. :D

WWDC?

Some words on WWDC 2010. As I sit back and reflect on the keynote this past Monday, I begin to realize just how disappointed I am. Granted the new iPhone 4 looks fantastic, and the technology they added to this new phone is really quite impressive. However there are a few things I have on my mind that I think should have happened but did not.



10.7?
Apples next big cat should have made at least a Preview or a mention. This is the developers conference after all. In the past it has almost always been the event that apple uses to show a sneak peek of the new Mac os. I was a little disappointment their wasn't even a slide hinting at them working on it.

MobileMe?
I have recently posted about my opinions of the current MobileMe set of functions. So really all I have to say is that it is still way over priced for the limited functionality it gives it's prescribers. I really had hoped for any kind of iTunes streaming, cheaper price....really anything would have been nice.



AppleTV?
Apparently it is still a hobby, how unfortunate. Apple concedes victory to google.



Mac Pro?
From what I understand the new i7 chips would seriously upgrade the performance in those machines. I may be wrong, but they have not made a very big deal about their top of the line Mac in a while.


MacBook Air?
Still a joke of a product in my opinion, but it would have been nice to see something about it this year. It was quietly updated earlier this year, but it doesn't seem like that was enough. Even though I have had countless conversations with my cousin about how they should just remove that laptop all together, it is over priced and under powered.

Overall this years WWDC was all about the iOS and the new iPhone. I had just hoped for a lot more. However I always want a 4 hour keynote anyway, and they always keep it under 2. I just hope they quietly release some stuff over the next few months, or even have a special keynote for some of the stuff I mentioned. Either way this years WWDC was just meh. There is always next year.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Magazine Prices?

So reading on this ipad is amazing. However the price I have to pay is not. I really want to get popular science and time. But both cost $4.99 an issue. AN ISSUE. I mean come on. Give me a years subscription for 30 or something. $4.99 is way to expensive for a magazine issue in my opinion. I was really hoping to be able to read magazines and comics on this device, but now I find myself realizing just how poor I am, lol. Even comics are around 5 dollars. I guess this is how much these things would cost in the real world so it makes sense. However most magazines like popsci have a yearly subscription service for a drastically lower price then it would cost to purchase each in the store. I really hope they bring that kind of service to the app store, because then I will actualy start buying magazines. As for comics, I really want marvel to bring their online service price of $59.99 yearly price to view thousands of comics online. Why don't they bring that to the iPad? Clearly it is because people will buy the comics regardless. Overall the whole comic and magazine trend on the iPad is disappointing to me. Hopefully things change in the future.

Update: wired came out and said today that they would be releasing a subscription service in the fall. Let's hope the rest of the magazine companies follow their example.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Some Thoughts on MobileMe

Now that I have an iPad, iPhone, and two macs I am realizing just how difficult it is to keep all of my data synced together and accurate across all the devices. For instance if I change a calendar date on my iPhone in order to get everything synced to that change, I need to sync my iPhone to my MacBook, then sync it to my iPad and then send the info to the iMac. It might not seem like a big deal, but over time it starts to get really monotonous having to sync and re-sync all these devices manually. This is where MobileMe comes into the picture, it automatically syncs data across all of my devices. Plus the find me feature for the iPhone is really cool. Almost is reason enough to get the service alone. The only bad thing is it cost $99 per year. Kind of a ridiculous price for convenience. I did have the service a while back because I was opted in for a cheaper rate for some reason by apple. So I had it for a year, and I did like it I just really had no use for it at the time. The only real big issue I remember having was the photo sync feature in iPhoto. It almost never worked and when it did it usually resulted in corruption of my files. Now this might be because my iPhoto is continually acting up( I think I may have corrupted a library file or something). But the online viewing experience was phenomenal. I used to put my college photos on the web so my family could view them. But overall I was happy with the service.

It just seems like MobileMe is kind a simple solution to some of the issues that arise while having multiple mobile apple products. It is a good attempt but the service needs to become way more extensive in order to compete with the new droid syncing and streaming services and the new Microsoft kin project. I have hope for the service improving in the future because since apple is selling more ipads then they are selling macs, I think this service is going to become extremely vital to their product line.

Speculation part: rumors have it that apple is planning on releasing a streaming function for iTunes. Now if they add this to MobileMe then that is reason enough for me to buy the service.

Update: i am just going to wait until WWDC to see if they improve the service. i am assuming they are going to since they pretty much need to in order to stay relevant. than i might buy it.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Old Google Searches?

one of the more frustrating things about searching for information on the internet is when for instance a piece of information is widely excepted and therefore is the only thing one can find. am example of this is today i wanted to try and figure out a way to stream music from my itunes to my iphone(should already work, but doesn't for some dumb reason). almost everyone says to try SimplifyMedia. well thats fantastic except for the fact that the company has removed the app from the appstore and stopped supporting the app for their servers. the public announcement goes like this,

"After developing the technology behind Simplify Media for over 4 years, it is time for us to take it in a new direction. In order to focus on this transition, we will no longer be offering the current software to new users. Today we are removing the Simplify iPhone applications from the App Store, and new account creation will be disabled shortly after that. However, existing Simplify accounts and clients will continue to work fine."

so since most of the internets say that i should use an app that no longer exists, there is no other viable option available, since everyone agreed that was the best way. its not like someone is going to go around the web and inform everyone to update their 3 year old blog posts that the app doesn't exist any longer. so now the giant series of tubes that is the internet are all clogged with inaccurate data leading me to just give up on yet another technology adventure.

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.

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

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.