1. User Experience and Fatigue

Top on my wish list is of course just the fact that it will be the ultimate gadget from a user experience perspective.  Specifically what I mean by that is comfortable to use in many different situations, easy to carry and store, something that can be tossed around and not get scratched, and something that naturally becomes just as much as appendage as the iPhone has.  I expect nothing less from Apple.

My wife’s been experiencing some arm pain, similar to a carpel tunnel type injury, because of her use of the iPhone touch screen.  In the past I’ve suffered some from playing too many Xbox 360 games.  More recently I was getting sore from playing a game on the Wii.  Any new user input device can come with use-related injuries.  I hope that the new Tablet OS is comfortable to use and doesn’t create too much fatigue.

Example: I actually painfully wrote my first draft of this post in the notes app of my iPhone, in bed, while my wife was asleep beside me. Hopefully I haven’t painted a creepy picture, but night is often when I get inspiration to write and a laptop is simply too large and bulky to take to bed. I always sleep with my iPhone near by.  And lately I’ve been wondering if a 10 inch tablet would be more or less conducive to bedtime work (and typing) than the iPhone.  Ease of typing is a huge concern when considering how one would (or will) use touch screen tablets in the real world.

2. Power Cords / Interface Cable

As silly as it might seem I would love to see the tablet use the same interface connector as the iPhone / iPod touch. I already have so many of these laying around. Already have them in my cars, next to my bed, at my office, and at home.  I don’t want to all the sudden need a new set of cables. Sony kills me wih all their different batteries and power adaptors. Recently I spent 3 hours trying to find a lost power cable for my video camera which is why I did a writen review of the webstation instead of a video review. I did find 3 other Sony power cable and 2 other Sony battery chargers. But they’re all slightly different and incompatible.  Annoying!  So please Apple – keep to your own standard.

3. Powerful Processor.

I felt the iPhone 3gs was a significant improvement over the original iPhone in terms of speed. I hope the tablet will be MacBook pro fast. If it’s going to be more costly than a well equipted netbook it should be more powerful as well.

4. Real Flash Support.

Come on, mobile safari is fine for the iPhone but this thing needs to support hulu, the real YouTube, and flash gaming.  I know that Apple’s MO is to try to ‘encourage’ media buying from and for the device, but I hope it’s not at the expense of blocking hulu or any other media that I might want to play on it.

5. My Cloud / Mobile Me

I’m crossing my fingers for a killer remote desktop / screen sharing app.  Get this concept: if you could use the mac tablet with a mobile me / back to my mac account to access and control your main home mac from anywhere, in a way it would be like being able to take your home computer with you everywhere you go.  In a way it would be just as good (or maybe better) than having the tablet run the full Mac OSX.

I read someone online mention that if the tablet ran the full os it could take sales away from the desktop computer business.  I think it’s safe to say that it won’t “run” the full OS X.  But I think if the tablet acts as a controller or a window to your desktop computer, it actually promotes desktop computer sales.

It also opens up a new possible business for Apple: renting virtual (cloud) Mac OSX computer desktops to tablet users.  Rather than purchasing a $5000 mac pro, purchase a tablet and rent the power of a mac pro that you access via your tablet.  I believe that improvements could be made to the concept of remote desktop that would enable it to be more like actually having that computer inside your tablet.  Things like how files and data are shared between the two devices, and how input data could be recorded at a higher frequency – could make it possible to even use photoshop remotely.  But in this concept the remote computer is in a farm somewhere in the cloud.

6. Remote for Apple TV

The Remote app on the iPhone is one of my favorite apps.  Think of this app but bigger, better and stronger and for Apple TV.  The convergence between the computer and the TV could be solved by using the tablet as an input device for a computer that sits on your TV.  About 4 months ago I saw this (http://www.vimeo.com/6712657) interesting video of the 10/GUI user interface concept.  The basic idea is that the screen is duplicated down to a touch screen where your keyboard would be.  Watch the video.  This concept would work great as an interface for your TV as a computer.  Right now web surfing on a TV is a horrible experience.  Using this MO it could become second nature.  The Apple TV could become a device to visualize your tablet’s screen to your TV and conversely the tablet could be the ultimate remote for the Apple TV.  This marriage could honestly be a game changer.

7. Tablet as a Phone

Ok, I think this is a stretch but it’s possible.  So of course I don’t want to pay for both iPhone connectivity and tablet connectivity.  It’s possible that the tablet could be a ‘phone’ and inlcude a small handset or headset that wirelessly connects to the tablet.  Not bluetooth please but something with a much longer range like wifi.  And the handset would need a small touch screen so you could dial with it and search contacts (like an iPhone Nano).  But all the real work would happen in the tablet.  It’s probably impractical but it’s still made my list.  Another option in this same vein would be for the tablet to get it’s 3G from your iPhone, which is more of a traditional tethering concept.

8. eBook eMag reader – NOT eInk

I’m not much of a book or magazine reader, but this video (http://vimeo.com/8217311) got me excited about what electronic magazines could become.  Still eInk does me no good.  eInk doesn’t emit light except for backlighting models which look about as good as my Newton.  I think if you want an eInk reader that’s easy on the eyes go buy a Kindle or a Nook.  Maybe Apple can have an ebook mode which changes the lighting on the display and makes it easier on the eyes.  Still, it needs to have a beautiful screen for watching movies.  That’s more of a priority for me.

9. Front facing camera

Please.  Everyone knows why and everyone wants this.  And we don’t want to wait for the 4th hardware version.  Just give it to us.  Thanks!

Conclusion

My overall hope for this tablet is that it will have many many real uses.  Not just be a big iPod Touch or another gadget that I’ll buy and carry around and surf the web with.  But be the one device that basically does it all – an honest game changer.  Apple has a huge opportunity to change the way we use computers here.  I just hope that they don’t disappoint us all on Wednesday and just announce a new iLife.

First let me do the whole reviewer disclaimer thing… On what can only be described as a moment of weak ignorance, I ordered a Camangi WebStation.  That was December 4th and I paid full price.  Normally I wouldn’t plop down almost $400 for a product that no one has seen or tested yet, one that in the early videos looked quite questionable, and one from a company that I’ve never heard of before.  But I did.  Against all common sense I hoped that it would be a decent solution to use until Apple gets theirs out.

At the same time I also contacted Camangi in an attempt to get an early “review unit.”  We did correspond back and forth a bit but ultimately they decided to not supply me with a “free” unit but rather promised to simply ship my purchased unit to me via a faster method than everyone else’s – so that I could review it (hopefully) before they start arriving to the 1000′s of people who ordered them. Therefore the unit I reviewed here is the one I paid full price for, and my buyer’s remorse is certainly adding to the sting here a bit.  But then again most things I discuss on this site are items that I’ve purchased.  So take that bias in to account if you feel it’s relevant.

My Couch Computing Concept

Our previous current couch computer is the hacintoshed Dell Mini 9.  It works well, is fairly fast (for an atom processor running OS X), it’s fully a mac, and cost about $300-$400 retail.  And it’s small.  We mostly use it for quick imdb lookups while watching tv and movies, and my daughter plays flash games on it.  So in my perfect world, the ultimate couch computer would be a smallish tablet, no keyboard to get in the way, easy to stow between couch cushions, but would be as fast and responsive as the dell or as an iPhone.  It needs to have full web capabilities, support flash video (unlike the iPhone), hulu, youtube, and all that.  It should also act as a PMP so that my daughter can watch videos on it in the car or wherever.  It needs to be multi-useful.

So I’ve been excited about getting this unit in – and I spent all Christmas watching the DHL tracking reports to see when it would arrive.  But on the other hand I didn’t have high expectations for it.  It has very little RAM and a tiny processor.  In my correspondence with Camangi I asked over and over about it’s capabilities, specifically with regard to playing video – but they would not answer those questions.  This made me begin to think that the reason they were avoiding my questions (and didn’t want to send me a review unit) was because they didn’t like the true answers.

The Missing Video Review

This was going to be a video review and I will post a video as soon as I can.  Last night was one of the most frustrating evenings I’ve had in a while and I was unable to get much video shot.  To really see this thing on video would prove what I’m saying here, so I want to get some kind of video posted. But in the mean time I did mess around with the WebStation long enough to know what it really is, and wanted to get this review out as soon as I could.  So let’s get started…

What’s in the box

The package arrived via DHL in a small brown paper box, inside which was the retail box.  The box contains the WebStation, a carry sleeve/pouch, a pair of cheap earphones that appear to have a microphone attached, a cloth to wipe the screen, a quick start guide, another booklet containing legal disclaimers, the power supply, and the stand to use it as a picture frame, which is basically a suction cup on a stick.

My first impressions were that the WebStation hardware seemed sturdy enough. It has 3 physical buttons on the front: home, quick menu, and return.  On the right side there are ports for headphones, mini usb, a reset button, a normal sized usb, and DC in.  On the left side are physical volume buttons, on the top is a power button, and on the top back is a micro SD card slot preloaded with an 8GB stick.

(same side from the back…)

On major thing lacking in the box is a real user manual.  The quickstart guide does tell you how to unlock the device, something you’d probably never figure out on your own.  But it’s very slim on details and instructions.  For example, I still have no idea how to load music on the device.  I assume that I need to add a “Music” folder to the memory stick, but that is a complete guess.  Another example is that I was surprised to discover that it would charge off the USB cable when it’s plugged in to my mac.  But also debaffled by the meaning of the “beep-beep-beep” when the screen went to sleep while plugged in to my mac.

Powering it on

When you first press the power button at the top, it takes about 7 seconds before you see the word “ANDROID…”  Total boot time is 54 seconds.  You are then presented with a lock screen that shows the time/date.  Unlocking it takes you to the Launcher, which is a menu of app icons.

Speed and Responsiveness

You have to admit that we’re all used to the way the iPhone works and in a way it is the standard upon which all other touch based gadgets are measured. Since the loss of my 3GS iPhone I’ve been back to using my old original edge phone and have been struggling with the comparitive slowness of that old thing. But the old edge phone screams in comparison to the WebStation.  Actions like touching and dragging to scroll windows are taken for granted on the iPhone, and the WebStation does do that touch scrolling thing, but seems to skip along the action.  One way to describe it is if the iPhone operates at 30 frames per second, the WebStation probably runs at about 5 to 10.  I also found myself accidentally triggering buttons when trying to scroll.  Something that DOES happen on the iPhone occasionally, but was happening A LOT on the WebStation.  And with the overall slowness of the unit, getting into the wrong menu is a pain because then you have to slowly navigate out of it as well.

Here are some speed/usage comparison examples between the WebStation and my old first gen iPhone:

Photos – First off, it’s not a multi-touch display, it is a resistive single touch screen.  So zooming in and out is done via on-screen zoom icons, not multi-touch pinch actions.  The fair comparison here is the responsiveness of touch-dragging scroll around on a photo.  When you first touch and start to drag it takes several seconds before the unit seems to know that you’re dragging.  Then it catches up and does it’s best to keep up with your finger, updating the screen about 5 to 10 times per second.  This sluggishness is generally felt everywhere in the UI.

Typing – When you click on a field where text can be entered, a virtual touch keyboard appears on the bottom of the screen.  Typing is best done one letter at a time, making sure that the UI has got your letter before moving on to the next.  If you type too fast sometimes the keyboard will just go away.  It seems to not be able to keep track of touches faster than about 5 per second either.  Of course this kills my couch computer concept as it’s sort of frustrating to even enter text.

I’ll cover web browsing and video playback in their own sections..

But first I have to say that I was excited about the WebStation being Google Android based.  I don’t even mind it NOT being multi-touch.  I think the overall interface is good, but the processor just can’t keep up with a real user.  If this was powered with the Atom processor from my Dell Mini 9 it would be a completely different story.  But the way it is now the sluggishness is just too much of a factor.

Web Browsing

I think the biggest test should be basic web browsing.  After all, the product is called the WEB station, and therefore should be optimized at surfing the web. The first test was to simultaneously launched both the WebStation and my old first gen iPhone to the home page of this website (tomorrowland.com).  Both devices were on my home wifi network.  The iphone loaded the page about 20 seconds quicker than the WebStation.  Then trying to test scrolling on the WebStation I touched and dragged the screen and instead of it scrolling it launched a link.  In order to ensure that you’re going to scroll you have to touch and hold until you see that it’s scrolling, then drag your finger.  Something that I would find hard to do when going back and forth between using my iPhone and this thing.

The next test is what sites work and what doesn’t.  Well, just like the iPhone, FLASH does not work.  This wipes out hulu and youtube and even my own tomorrowland.com/podcast page, and unlike the iPhone there is no youtube application.  This also wipes out all flash games, which was one of my desired uses for the WebStation.

I’ve already complained about the typing and the scrolling.  But one other thing I noticed is that most apps are web apps.  The ebook reader, and the app marketplace both use the web browser to do their thing.  So if one is slow they all are.

Video

All my hopes and dreams are crushed when it comes to video playback.  It’s no wonder the people at Camangi completely skirted all of my questions about video playback.  My big question to them was can it play full screen video at 30fps.  The answer is a big fat no way!  Not even close.  With the lack of a user manual to detail the specifications for the most compatible video formats I guessed and loaded a couple of samples.  The unit did come preloaded with the promo video from this page, but looks atrocious when playing back.  It seems a shame to not make use of that 800 x 480 pixel screen with movie watching.

The first video I tried was a 3 minute, 22 MB H.264 video running at about 1 Mbps.  Frame size was 480 x 324 at 30fps.  I suppose it was encoded to work on an iPod.  The audio played fine but the picture lagged very far behind, causing it to be grossly out of sync.  The video frames that played did so at about 5 or 10 fps.  Skipping to the middle of the video did catch it up, but it’s clear the device is not powerful enough to play video.

The second video I tried was a movie that was encoded to play on a PSP.  It also played very slow visually while the audio played normally.  It was also very much out of sync right from the beginning.  Very disappointing.

Harsh Conclusion

My suspicion is that the unit is basically a digital picture frame loaded with a cell phone version Google Android with a touch screen.  It came with a phone headset complete with a mic and answer button.  All through the menus there are mentions of things like “baseband” and “ringtones” but it’s not a phone.  And the weird thing is that I don’t think the processor in it is even powerful enough to run a phone.  Had they marketed it as a touch screen digital photo frame with a web browser and sold it for about $100 it would be somewhat reasonable.  And before you think about complaining about how hard I’m being on it, consider this: The WebStation is $390.  For $199 you can get an iPod Touch.  If mac made a 7 inch iPod touch it would blow this thing out of the water.  Completely.  Or for about the same price you could get a Dell Mini 9, or an Archos 7 – which are completely different products, but still something to consider.  Or you could save your money and wait for Apple to release the iSlate and I suspect that will be THE CE product of 2010.

Of course there is more to the WebStation that I didn’t have time to cover, but to be honest the rest really doesn’t matter.  The weather app is nice and works well.  So far I haven’t figured out how to load music on it and so haven’t been able to try out it’s ‘cover flow’ mode.  But essentially it’s about as powerful as a digital picture frame, and that’s very sad. Basically my plan at this point is to call American Express and find out what I can do to return and refund.  In my opinion the Camangi WebStation is a total fail and I can’t recommend it to anyone at any price.

I will update this post with some videos as soon as I get a chance.

Also – Thanks to gizmodo for ‘reprinting’ this review on their site.  It’s always nice to get a link for a hard night’s work.

OCTOBER, 2009

Imagine you’re on vacation enjoying a day at Disneyland with your family.  You get your iPhone out of your pocket and it’s in your hand.  You set it down on the seat next to you for a second to help your 4 year old, then a few seconds later you suddenly realize that it’s gone.  You think “Wait a minute… where’s my iphone?”  Then you question yourself “where did I set it down and why would I set it down?” and then you re-step your path, ask around if anyone saw it, check all your pockets like 10 times, look in the stroller and all around.  It’s gone!  Now what?

What would you do?  “I have mobile me” you say?  Well, so do I – but there are some harsh realities to that.  If you’re an iPhone owner I suggest that you read on, find out what is and isn’t possible, and think about what you would do, because it could happen to you.

[Author's Note - Please forgive my seemingly random use of Blade Runner quotes.  I put them in to lighten up a rather long article and hoped that readers would just get it.  I've decided to point them out because I realized that without being in the know, they come across as me being overly dramatic.  So watch for them, and enjoy...]

Reaction time is a factor in this so please pay attention…

My first instinct was to assume that it was stolen.  Why?  Because it happened so fast.  I didn’t just misplace it.  I literally had it in my hand one minute and then about 30 seconds later realized it was gone.  In comparison, several times during our visit to the happiest place on earth one of us saw another guest drop something and we immediately picked it up and said “Sir, you forgot your bikini calendar.”  Ok, that particular thing only happened once, but my point is this is what normal honest people do.  Had some honest person witnessed me turn my back on my $700 pocket computer, they would have alerted me to the dreaded mistake.  Instead someone saw an opportunity and lifted it.  And it only took a few seconds.

But a part of me still didn’t want to believe it, and the people enjoying the day with me encouraged me to hope for the best.  Maybe it’s here in the stroller somewhere.  Maybe it was picked up and taken to lost and found.  We looked over and over the same places.  We texted it a message “Please call xxx-xxx-xxxx and return for a reward.”  We called the phone several times.  But within about 30 minutes calls went straight to voicemail.  The phone was turned off.

#1. Acceptance. Is it lost or is it stolen?  This probably effects how you should react.  If it’s truly just lost and an honest person finds it, calling it and texting it about a reward would probably work.  But if it’s stolen, that tactic will likely just alert the thief that you’re looking for it and cause them to turn the phone off.  And while it’s turned off you can’t track it.

What if I go north?  Disappear?  Would you come after me?  Hunt me?

You’ve probably read of success stories where people used Mobile Me to track and recover a stolen computer or iPhone.  Well, Mobile Me failed me.  In case you’re not in the know, Mobile Me (or dot mac) is a paid subscription service ($99/yr) from Apple that, among other things, comes with the back to my mac and the find my iPhone services.  The idea behind find my iphone is that it will track a lost phone.  You log in with a computer and can see on a map where your phone currently is.  You can also remote lock it, send it a message with a sound, or you can remote wipe it.  From experimenting with it and from reading those success stories, it seems like it would be THE way to get your iPhone back.  But there are some significant limitations.

#2. No app for that. I was traveling with several other people who also have iPhones, so I immediately borrowed one and tried to log in to me.com using Mobile Safari.  Remember how the iPhone has the REAL internet in your pocket?  Well that’s not exactly true.  You can not access the REAL Mobile Me service from Mobile Safari.  You can only access it via your mail, contacts, calendar and photo applications.

It was the most frustrating thing in the world to know that someone was getting away with my iPhone, and it’s trackable, but I can’t track it because there’s no app for that.  Here’s a quick petition to Apple: If someone is out and about and their phone goes missing they’re not going to have a laptop and an internet connection with them.  But they might have another iPhone around because people with iPhones are friends with other people with iPhones.  So there needs to be an easy way to track the phone from another phone.  Had I been able to react faster, promptly track it before it was turned off, I could have possibly gotten the local disneyland/anaheim police to help me right away.

Of course I thought of calling a friend who might be at home or near a real computer to have them track the phone.  But guess what?  All my contacts are in my phone.  How many phone numbers do you have memorized?  It was about 2 hours before I finally reached someone who could log in and try to track the phone.  But by then it was turned off.

#3. Find my iPhone only gives the current location and only if it’s turned on. Ok, now this is probably obvious but a turned off phone can’t be tracked while it’s turned off.  So, when my friend logged in to Mobile Me there was no location available.  But it had been turned on all day – why not show where it was right before they turned it off?  Well, here’s the part that you might not think of: it does not constantly poll every iPhone on the planet for it’s location, waiting for people to log in and request it.  It only shows the last known location and only AFTER you log in and ask for it.  In other words, if your phone is stolen and immediately turned off, when you log in to Find my iPhone it won’t have any data collected because it only collects data (or starts to collect data) when you’re logged into the Find my iPhone screen.

And even after you’ve ‘activated’ the feature, it doesn’t store any historical data.  So you can’t see the path that the phone traveled or see where it was an hour ago, or even see how long it was turned on or off.  It only shows where it was the last time it knew where it was, and if it’s currently on or off.  So if your phone is stolen take lots of screenshots of the Mobile Me page.  It’s the only ‘proof’ you’ll have of where it was.

Eventually my iPhone popped up for a minute – clear across the park near the Small World ride.  Once you know it’s traveling and you know that it’s in the hands of a thief, what do you do now?

#4. Choose one: Protect the data or try to recover the iPhone. Cold hard reality: Apple’s not really providing a CSI-style ‘track my stolen iPhone’ feature.  They are providing a find my lost iPhone feature.  And as much as they might be ‘selling’ it as a theft recovery feature, it’s missing some key options to really make it such.  I’ll get to those suggestions later.  In the mean time, Mobile Me does some decent tools to help protect your data in the case of a theft, and a few tricks up Apple’s sleeves.  See the overall options in the image below…

Yes you can Remote Wipe it, but that will permanently delete all media and data on your iPhone, restoring it to factory settings.  Once you do that it can no longer be tracked, locked, or display messages.  In other words, this option basically gives the thief a shiny new clean iPhone, ready to be activated.  Just like they bought it on ebay.  This choice is a complete acceptance that your iPhone is gone and you’ll never get it back.  And realize that the longer you wait to remote wipe it, the less likely it will remain on option.  I did not make this choice.

We’re so happy you found us.

There is some good news.  As popular as the iPhone is, most people really don’t know that much about it.  A common thief who would steal an iPhone probably doesn’t really know what all it can do – or they wouldn’t steal it.  Because who knowingly steals a tracking device?  And this means that they will eventually turn it back on – and if you’re on it, you can see where they are, capture it as a screenshot, and deal with it.  So let’s get to some of the positive realities, because Apple does have some nice features in Mobile Me that make it worth the $99 a year.

#5. Remote Lock is a good thing, do it as soon as you can. Even if the phone is turned off, remote lock it and the moment it’s turned on it will be locked with a 4 digit code.  This probably isn’t as hacker proof as a remote wipe, but it’s good enough for the average dumb theif.  After 6 incorrect codes the phone forces a 1 minute time out before they can try again.  Enter an incorrect code again and it forces a 5 minute time out during which the phone is completely unusable.  The next incorrect code is a 15 minute time out and so on.  This should do a good job of preventing a brute force trial and error hack of the code.

Another good feature is that barring any jailbreaking tools iTunes will not let you into a phone that is locked.  You have to enter the unlock passcode before you can do anything with it in iTunes.  So your data should be fairly secure, unless of course the thief is savvy enough to get around the lock.  I suspect there is a way to completely reset the phone to factory conditions, but doing that would hopefully also result in wiping your data. Not to mention that they’d have to turn it on to do this – and then they’d probably be giving up their location.

#6. You can also send messages to the phone along with a sound – albeit a fairly soothing sound.  I guess I was expecting the iPhones buzzing ‘Alarm’ sound but instead it sounds the submarine ring.  If the phone is in a time out phase, the message will stay up until the phone is unlocked, but the sound can be easily stopped.

Of course the phone has to be turned on for the message to be delivered.  But sending a message does a very cool thing: it queue’s the message and will deliver it as soon as the phone is turned on.  And it will send you an email telling you what time the message was delivered.  This is the way that all of these features work, including remote lock and remote wipe.  They all report back via email when the action has been completed.  So by sending a message to a turned off phone, you will have an e-paper trail of when the phone was turned back on.  And if you’re keeping an eye on your email, this will also alert you to log in and check the location of the phone.

#7. Removing the SIM card does not necessarily disable the Mobile Me features. This is somewhat good news but also a mixed bag.  The phone CAN report back to Mobile Me using Edge, 3G or WiFi.  So if the SIM card is pulled it can still display messages and report back it’s location, as long as it’s connected to the internet via WiFi.  However, unfortunately the iPhone probably won’t automatically connect to the thief’s home wifi network.  Still, it is a cool edge over the thief because it makes it very risky for them to EVER turn the phone on.

Milk and cookies kept you awake, eh Sebastian?

Resuming my story, later that day my phone was turned on in the Disney parking lot and after that I didn’t expect it would ever pop up again.  I had locked the phone and sent messages to it claiming that I could track it.  So I never expected the thief to be stupid enough to turn on the phone at his house… but the next afternoon it was turned on in a residential neighborhood in La Verne.  And Mobile Me located it twice in approximately the same location about 20 minutes apart.  So now what to do?

Nothing is worse than having an itch you can never scratch.

When I found the location of the phone I was only about 20 minutes away from it.  But I’m not quite brave enough to go knocking on the doors of thieves.  So I called the police.  At first they were uninterested, stating that 100′s of items are stolen from the park every day.  But when I told them that I had tracked it to a house, they asked me to fill out an online police report and gave me the number of a detective to call.

#8. I’ll probably never get it back. It’s back to the harsh realities and this is the main one we just have to accept.  I’ve given the detective all the data I collected.  He’s being quite responsive, called me several times with follow up questions and seems interested in the case.  Because of the $700 cost of the iPhone it is considered grand theft and could carry a serious penalty.  However, as you can see the tracking data returned a fairly large circle which probably encompasses 10 houses.  The detective isn’t going to go door to door searching for the phone.  He might hit the main two houses at the corner of Peyton Rd and 9th steet.  But who’s to say if the culprit even still has the phone.  After getting messages like “we tracked this phone to your house and are calling the police” they might have freaked out and tossed it in a dumpster.

UPDATE – Under the heading “You know the score pal.  If you’re not cop, you’re little people.”  I did hear back from the detective who said that they actually went to city of La Verne looking for my iPhone.  They contacted the residents in the grid of the tracking area but they were not able to locate the phone.  No one admitted to being at Disneyland on the day of the theft.  He suggested that I contact AT&T and report it stolen – which I had already done.  He also entered the serial number into a national database of stolen property.  I greatly appreciate his efforts.  He took it seriously and did more than I expected him to do.  But it does go to show that these Mobile Me features are not enough to actually recover a stolen phone.

Did you get your precious photos?

Let me take this moment to stress just how shitty is it to steal a phone or a camera at an amusement park.  I was from out of state, on vacation with my wife and daughter, taking memorable photos and videos of my family with that phone.  Those are now lost forever.  The video of my daughter talking about her first roller coaster ride – gone.  (Insert your favorite Blade Runner quote here)  Then there’s the fact that I needed that phone to communicate with my family while on vacation.  All my numbers are in it.  How many phone numbers do you have memorized these days?  People couldn’t reach me, and my wife and I couldn’t easily separate at the park.  And finally, how much vacation time and energy got wasted trying to figure out what happened and take care of it?  Not to mention the $700 loss.  It cast a dark cloud on the rest of the trip.  So in the words of Kurt Russell in Big Trouble in Little China, ‘son of a bitch must pay.’  But that’s not the movie I’ve been quoting – and the son of a bitch probably won’t pay.

Ooh, that’s no way to treat a friend.

Oh yeah, I still have 2 remaining harsh realities to get to…

#9. AT&T is no help. If you call AT&T and report your iPhone as stolen, they’ll disable your SIM card and your Mobile Me features will be disabled as well.  This is similar to the #4 Choose one above.  Because reporting it stolen might actually prevent you from remote locking it and all that.  The harsh reality here is that AT&T is not concerned with recovering your lost or stolen device.  They only care to prevent an unauthorized user from making or taking calls on your phone, and racking up a big phone bill.  Stick with the Mobile Me features because Remote lock takes care of preventing outbound calls, (but allows inbound calls), but still gives you time to try to track it.

Eventually you will need AT&T to activate another other phone anyway, which will deactivate the SIM card in your missing phone.  I waited as long as I could stand it to do this, and by the time I did Mobile Me had shown Location Not Available for over a day.  And without a charge, my battery would be long dead by now anyway.

I spoke with an AT&T rep and asked if there was any way to put the iPhone’s IMEI on a ‘stolen’ list to prevent it from being re-activated by another person.  She basically told me that this can not be done and that my iPhone can be re-activated by anyone using a new SIM card.  She had a few other iPhone facts wrong, so I’d love to hear an official word from AT&T on this.

#10. Replacement cost is a full $699. I pre-ordered my 3GS from Apple and got it the day it was released.  That means that I’m not eligible for a new subsidized phone until Feb 2011.  But there is a trick to getting a new $299 iPhone today.  Since I’m already on a family plan, I can add a new line for $10 a month.  That new line is eligible for a subsidized phone if you sign a 2 year contract.  If you do all of this at an AT&T store they can make a switch-a-roo and activate your new iPhone on your current number and give you a cheap phone (or no phone) on the new number.  You’ll have to pay the $10 a month for 24 months, which is $240.  But $240 + $299 is only $539 – which is $160 less, and you get to pay it off slowly.  Still, I’m going to try to hold out as long as I can and wait to see what’s announced next year.  (we’ll see how long I last).

Can the maker repair what he makes

Even though (so far) Mobile Me has not helped me get my phone back, I do have some improvement suggestions that could aid theft recovery.  The detective who is working on my case kept asking for the most current tracking information, and a narrower circle.  If I could track it to an individual house, and show that it is currently there, he’d probably go knock on their door.  But realize that it took 3 or 4 days to even be able to discuss it with a detective.  And by the time I did I had already re-activated a new phone on my old number.

• The main suggestion is to have a way of tracking your iPhone from another iPhone.  That is a critical requirement to being able to react quickly.  It should be a core part of the maps app to see all of your other iPhones registered in Mobile Me.
• Mobile Me should assume that if you remote lock your phone, it’s maybe been stolen.  Either that or there should be a separate option to put the iPhone in an ‘I’ve been stolen’ state.  In this mode it could stealthy update it’s location every 15 minutes and Mobile Me could store the last 100 positions (a day’s worth of movement).  In fact, if triggered it could go into a low power mode where the phone pretends to be turned off, ignores the on/off button, keeps the screen black (except for the delivery of messages), and continuously reports it’s location to the system.
• Also when in a ‘theft recovery’ mode it should find a connection by any means possible.  I keep ‘ask to join networks’ turned off.  But once triggered, if that SIM card is removed it could look for any open wifi connections and send back it’s location
• Easy one – Instead of only sending you back an email saying “your phone is now locked,” it should send all kinds of data, including the remaining battery power, information about failed pass code attempts, time turned on or off, and most importantly it’s location information.  It’s crazy that currently you have to take screenshots to keep the location history.  But a data rich email would be very solid evidence.
• And it seems like Apple or AT&T could do IMEI tracking on stolen devices.  If the policy (or law) is that stolen devices can’t be reactivated, or that the original owner has the right to track and location their phone even after it’s been reactivated on a new phone number, I think it would seriously cut down on phone theft.

Let me tell you about my mother…

Well, this has been good therapy.  While I’d love to see the perp caught and the phone returned, in a larger world view it’s not that important.  At some point you have to (#1) accept and let it go.  I try to live my life not allowing my stuff to own me.  Those who don’t know me well might not believe it about me, because I do own a fair amount of stuff.  But it’s true that my philosophy is that I own things, things don’t own me.  It’s an important distinction.  Still, I’m supper bummed to have had it snatched away, and I’m not anxious to spend the larger part of a grand to replace it.  It was an avoidable mistake on my part and therefore regrettable.  And I was being very careful on this trip to keep an eye on our stuff.  But in the end I’m just glad that my DSLR wasn’t taken, or that someone wasn’t hurt.

One friend says that any problem that can be solved with money isn’t really a problem.  Someone with a poverty mentality might take that to mean that money isn’t a problem (to get). Or that only someone who has money would believe that because money comes easy.  But to me it means that problems that can be solved with money are petty and not important.  The important parts of life are people, relationships, health, and faith.  I can buy a new iPhone… or … -gasp- go without.

About 2 months ago I was mocking up my own concept for a mac tablet when real life got in the way of blogging.  Since then I’ve blogged very little.  I’ve also seen (on other sites) a couple of very cool mockups, one that would be completely awesome but is at least a few years off due to it’s flexible OLED design, and another that is extremely close to what I was planning.  Whipping up a fake now would be completely academic.

Being somewhat of a fan boy myself it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish between my wish list and what I expect will really be released.  But here’s my take on WWDC 09…

Steve Jobs

Let me start with the Steve Jobs thing.  I started writing this post a few days before it was announced that Phil Schiller and other executives would be giving the keynote.  I’ll just say that I wish Steve all the best.  I had hoped that SJ would be recovered enough to be present and give the keynote.  Although, as gizmodo.com pointed out, Steve did say that he would be out until the END of July.  And since WWDC is July 9th I should have known.  The fan boy in me would love to see Steve do the “one more thing”-thing one more time.  Still, I strongly believe, and have stated it here in the past, that Apple needs to move beyond Steve as a singular figurehead.  If someone else announces the next big thing it should prove to the financial community that Apple can thrive with or without Steve.

iPhone rev 3

I think there have been enough rumors floating around regarding a new iPhone that at least some of it has to be true.  Not to mention the clues within the 3.0 iPhone OS.  I think a faster processor, larger RAM, 32GB capacity, better camera, video recording and editing functionality are all a given at this point.  The open questions lie in the form factor, the possibility of a front facing camera, and the idea of 3G being bumped up by 2x or even 4x.

While I would love to see another update to the physical design of the iPhone, sadly I expect that it will remain the same.  As far as a front facing camera, it’s a feature that mixed with video chat would be awesome.  However if the form stays the same, I doubt a front-facing camera will be included in this version.  Also, Apple has a tendency to save features for later revisions and without a redesign of the iPhone’s body it’s highly unlikely that they’ll add in a 2nd camera.  I also don’t see a camera flash in this release for the same reason.  I hope that I’m wrong and that it’s all crammed into a new body, but I doubt it.

MacBooks

When Apple announced the MacBook Air I was very disappointed and felt like they missed an opportunity.  The idea that the product was so-named because it was ‘as light as air’ (or whatever the reasoning was) seemed like a waste.  To me the MacBook Air should have been a mac with built in wimax or 3G connectivity – the ‘Air’ then conveying freedom, or getting it’s connectivity from the air.  This time around it seems that 3G MacBooks are a strong possibility.  And I hope there will be a way to add the functionality to current MacBooks.

What about a smaller MacBook Air?  Could it be Apple’s answer to a netbook?  I doubt it.  Not to mention that it wouldn’t have a competitive price point.  No, my money is still on some sort of tablet.  Read on to see what I expect that to be…

Mac Tablet

This concept from MacFormat is about the closest you could get to what I was thinking.  The tablet could dock when at work or at a desk to provide that MacBook feel, attach to a real keyboard, charge the unit, and maybe gain other connectivity.  Undock it to take it on the go and the touch screen would take over working much like an iPhone.

One side note:  It’s easy to miss out on the sense of scale in this render.  Because the designer chose a thicker beveled edge, at first this device doesn’t appear much larger than the current iPhone.  But when you consider the keyboard to be a normal sized mac keyboard (which is the same height as the current iPhone) it means that the tablet would be standing over 10 inches tall.

But what operating system will this tablet use?  For the longest time I always assumed Mac OS because I wanted as much power as possible, and for example, the ability to run photoshop.  Then at some point I was led to believe that this didn’t make sense and the tablet would use the same OS as the iPhone.  Today, I bounce back and forth between the ideas. Will run iPhone OS or Snow Leopard?  It could go either way and there are benefits to each.  Here are the arguments – on both sides:

Number One – When the iPhone was first announced Steve said that it ran OS X.  We’ve since come to realize that this was quite a stretch.  Whether or not it was based on OS X, the iPhone’s OS is in fact it’s own thing.  Last year WWDC’s theme showed two roads.  Apple is good at FUD and good at sweeping things under the carpet.  They can completely change the rules in the middle of the game and their cult followers all say “oh ok.”  (Well, more and more people are complaining – but I digress…) They’ve since renamed the OS to iPhone OS.

Well, why call it iPhone OS if it is also going to support a whole new category of personal computing devices – devices that are not phones?  One simple answer is that the iPod Touch is not a phone, yet it runs under iPhone OS.  Does it make sense?  No.  But hey, it’s Apple.  Another answer could be that the tablet might actually be a phone and come with a decent range handset to go along with it.  An interesting idea – not sure how practical.

Number Two – Snow Leopard now has touch support, and patents, patents, patents.  These are of course arguments for the tablet being a ‘real’ mac, which as a consumer I might prefer.  Gizmodo did a nice write up yesterday on “Apple’s Tablet” which used some of these arguments to favor the tablet running Snow Leopard.  Check it out.  And as I said above, I would like a tablet with enough power to run MacBook Pro apps.  But the other side of this argument is that Apple tends to remove functionality that they think no one needs.  I could see Apple releasing a tablet as more of an appliance, initially providing only the core functionality that they think most users will want in such a device.

Number Three – As I write this my laptop is sitting, well, on my lap – and it’s HOT!  To keep battery life longer and the tablet running cooler they could use a different processor that runs cooler and uses energy more efficiently.  And let’s not forget about ARM and Apple’s purchase of P.A. Semi.  Of course a non-intel processor isn’t going to run Snow Leopard without a major port of the OS.  It would however be much less work to port the iPhone OS to such a platform.

Number Four – The gizmodo.com article I mention above argues that the iPhone OS wouldn’t work in a larger device because it would be more trouble than it’s worth to reconfigure the core interface for a 10″ screen.  Ahhh, don’t put it past Apple to figure that one out.  I doubt we’ll see a 10″ screen filled with tiny little iphone app icons, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t just create a totally different summerboard launcher similar to the Leopard dock.  They could also allow multiple apps to run at the same time on different spaces.

Giz also argues that current apps wouldn’t work refitted to a 10 inch screen.  Well again, that’s not thinking it all the way through. You have to consider that the iPhone OS always had support for multiple screen sizes.  The first thing you do in every program is check the screen size and fill your window to that size.  If an 10 inch iPhone OS device were on the market tomorrow developers could start writing apps for it tomorrow with no further extensions.  All Apple would have to do is give us a simulator for that device and if it has a different processor, a compiler for it.

Also let’s consider that not all current apps work on both iPhones and iPod Touches.  Just because an app is developed for iPhone OS doesn’t mean that it has to run on all iPhone OS hardware platforms OR even on the same microprocessor.

So no, as is Trism isn’t going to work on a larger tablet.  But it could easily be modified to run on it.  The concept of an iPhone OS tablet would give developers a new platform to develop on, more screen real estate to work with, and an opportunity to make more money off of current apps simply by modifying existing code.  It really could be a win-win.

Number Five – The App Store worked so well on the iPhone and is making Apple (and developers) so much money that they’ll likely want to repeat it.  And as I said, the current app store has apps for iPod Touches and iPhones.  It’s completely capable of supporting another device and distinguishing between them all.  One way or another Apple will eventually extend the app store to other devices – because it’s a cash cow.

Where does this leave us?

It leaves us waiting for WWDC.  Looking over my own arguements above I think I’m leaning toward the tablet being iPhone OS.  That app store arguement is hard to ignore.

Well, I hope Apple does announce a tablet in four weeks. And no matter if it’s Snow Leopard or iPhone OS, I believe that Apple will re-invent it enough to make it the next big thing – and hopefully revolutionize personal computing again.

To my point, a similar thing has certainly happened to the makers of the iPhone app Bang!Bang! and Boom!BOOM! Shotgun Free (iTunes links).  They had what they thought was an original idea. They set out to make it professional, using realistic graphics and hollywood sound effects, and they worked it through the iPhone app approval process.  Only to find out that Apple was approving several ‘gun’ apps all around the same time.  No proof of this of course, but I suspect that Apple might have held theirs back to time the releases closer together. I believe theirs did hit the store first, but others soon followed, including what can only be described as an extremely cheap knock off called Shotgun Pro.  But plagiarism is the best form of compliment, right?  And competition is what makes this country great.

But still, the idea that Shotgun Pro had made it to #2 on the Entertainment charts got under their skin a bit.  And to be honest it also makes me scratch my head as it is a somewhat un-inspired soundboard app.  So to combat it they too set out on a mission, to ‘pop a cap in the arse’ of the competition.  Take the jump to read on and see the video…

Here’s what seems to happen in the app store: When someone comes up with a decent idea and makes an app, others follow and make a bunch of copy-apps.  In the interest of good competition, you would expect the copies to raise the bar, thus forcing the original apps to also add features and get better.  But instead it seems that the copies are often cheap imitations with a little less going for them.

There’s also the whole bogusness (that’s a word) of the review process.  A fairly cheap campaign is to hire a few hundred of your friends to buy your app and praise it, and/or buy the competition and slam it.  As a side note, it’s the same problem that DIGG has. I could DIGG an article with exclusive photos of a meteor hitting a school bus, but unless I have 100′s of friends to dig it for me it will get buried in about 45 seconds.  Similar problem exists with the app store.  Unless you’re willing to play this game and also exploit the system your app will be rated fairly low (from the competition).  Normal average honest app purchasers rarely rate apps, so until your app has 10′s of 1000′s of buyers the bogus ratings will weigh down your overall score.

Check out the ratings for Shotgun Pro (as of March 27th 2009)…

How is it possible in the real world to have 129 people who just LOVE the app, and 112 people who hate it?  Those ratings are clearly ‘fixed’ by people buying the app just to rate it.  Probably on both extremes of the scale, the high side by them and low side by their competition.  By the way, I don’t blame Apple too much for this nor do I have a suggested solution.  Any system that can be exploited will be exploited.  It seems to me that if you really want to know if an app is good or not talk to a friend who has it, or look at an app review site like toucharcade.com.  I also suspect that iPhone OS 3.0 might help – as it should allow free versions that are upgradable to pay versions.

Dambia’s first move was to release Boom!BOOM! Shotgun FREE, which works similar to the Bang!BANG app that I premiered a few weeks ago.  But this week they’ve gone a step further and released BoomBOOM Shotgun PRO, which contains 5 different guns, better help pages, and a few surprises.

A company representative had this to say, “We were trying to elevate things above “soundboard” apps by adding motion, decent graphics and incredible sound… you know, because it’s an iPhone.”  But the competition just slapped the word PRO on their versions which didn’t have any pro features, had static images, and sound effects that clipped.  In response they said that they “decided to make it right for the consumer and reset the bar.  Anyone that wants to buy this sort of app shouldn’t be paying for distorted audio, amateur UI’s and clip art.”

For more info you can go to kaisakura.com/firearms/

Rumor has it that it took several tweaks and a change to the App’s rating before being allowed into the iPhone App store. However the first app (of several models) has finally passed through and should be available early next week is available in the app store now.

They have several other guns coming out as well, including an O.G. version that you hold sideways, a Shot Gun, and something along the lines of an AK. Here’s a promo video showing several of the upcoming gun models.

Kai Cherry of RnSK Softronics, part of the team that created the apps in partnership with Damabia, Inc., explained to me that each gun model is carefully crafted – down having a specific look, realistic options, and unique animations. Even the firing mechanisms are individually tuned to that particular firearm. Here’s a preview image of their gangsta O.G. version, due out soon:

There are options for each gun app to be use lefty or righty. And you can disable the intro video to get to the action faster. Even though the app doesn’t officially launch until Monday, it is actually available in the app store now (iTunes Link) for $1.99. For more info you can go to kaisakura.com/firearms/

In the early days Apple didn’t let you do custom ringtones and it was fraking lame. Some tools and hacks emerged to create and install ringtones and other sounds, but somewhere over the past 20 months I sort of lost interest in ringtones. Out of sight and out of mind. That is until today.

So what’s up with creating ring tones now?  I realized that many people are still confused about it and think that you can’t do it. Well you can. It’s easy. And Apple even tells you how to do it. Here I’ve outlined the process a little better than they do and included a few tips on how to get a good ringtone.

First there are some system and software requirements. You’ll need iLife with Garage Band version 4.1.1 or later, iTunes 7.5 or later, and of course an iPhone updated to at least 1.1.2.  All of my software is the latest versions.  Here’s a screenshot of Garage Band with some instructional overlays.  Click it to see a larger version:

How To:

1. Drag your song file into Garage Band’s upper window to create a new track with it. This will need to be a un-protected mp3 or other sound file.  I used the theme from the Mario Bros I downloaded from some random web site.
2. Hit Apple-B to show the Master Volume Track, or you can choose Show Master Track from the Track menu.
3. In the LCD-looking panel at the bottom of GB, switch the view to show time instead of measures. Ringtones are limited to 40 seconds. If you leave the display in measures it will mess you up because 40 measures is much longer than 40 seconds.
4. Click the Cycle button to turn on that mode. This also makes a yellow/orange bar to appear above the timeline.  This region is what will play when you hit the spacebar or the play button. You might want to toggle the cycle off while editing your song, but remember to turn it back on later before you save and export.
5. Edit your song. This is where your skills at music editing can shine. My advice it to think about how it will begin and end. Remember that the end is also a loop point back to the beginning.  You’re creating a ringtone, not a song.  In actual use you normally answer your phone right away, rather than waiting so you can hear the whole song. Another thing to consider is that if you want a second between loops, that time has to be padded to the end and still has to fit into the 40 seconds.  During this edit phase you can also fade out the end of your song if you need to. But you gotta check the Garage Band help on that one. There’s no time to teach GB in this post.
6. Set the volume to be loud as possible without clipping. Most ringtones that I’ve made for the iPhone don’t seem as loud as the default ones. So crank that volume up. This can be done both in the track volume and in the master track volume. But watch that meter at the bottom and avoid getting into the red circles, which indicates a clip.  Also, it’s important to point out that the volume slider at the bottom below the meter is only a listening volume and doesn’t effect the export.  To make your track loud use the other two sliders.
7. Adjust the cycle region by grabbing and sliding the ends of the yellow/orange bar at the top. The length of this will be the length of your ring tone.  If you want a bit of silence in between loops you have to pad the duration.  Once it’s set you can preview the loop by pressing play.  While the Cycle button is turned on it will loop over this region, which is a good preview of what the ringtone will sounds like and how it will loop.
8. Save As… your Garage Band project using the name that you want the ring tone to have.  If you’re going to make more than one ring tone with a Garage Band project, Save As… for each one.
9. Under the Share menu select Send Ringtone to iTunes.  It will do it’s thing.  Note that you can’t choose a name for the ringtone at this step. It will be called whatever your Garage Band project is called, which is why the importance of the previous step.
10. Then go into iTunes and sync the ringtone to your phone.

Tips on making good ringtones

• Longer isn’t always better. Remember that if you answer your phone right away you’ll never hear the end of the tone.
• Looping is important – especially on shorter ringtones.  Good loop points are not harsh. Fade out the end or edit the song so that it ends naturally.
• Pad the end so that the loop isn’t too tight. Add a second or 3 of silence at the end by dragging out the end point of the cycle area.
• Loud but not so loud it clips.  Ringtones should get your attention.  Turn it up but watch the meter.  If all the way up isn’t loud enough you can duplicate the track to double up the sound.
• Some music works better than others.  It’s just a cold hard fact that soft piano might not be a good ringtone.  In the early days we made some ringtones from music like this and started missing phone calls because we didn’t hear the ring.

Sharing the ringtones you make

Um.. are you kidding? That’s probably illegal unless you own the rights to the song.  Hello!

Once you Share > Send Ringtone to iTunes there will be a new .m4r file in your iTunes library under iTunes Music > Ringtones. Of course assuming it’s not illegal, you could give this file to another iphone user.  As long as they also have the proper versions of software, they can double-click it to install it in iTunes and sync it to their phone also.

Personally, I’ll be waiting until June or July and holding out for the next model. But I hope Apple has one planned. I’ve had a 2.5G since day one and this is the longest I’ve ever owned a phone.