HD For Indies

UPDATED WEDNESDAY: see video at bottom, just so that I'm not the only one with that stuck in my head. Bonus round to whomever takes the time to make that a ringtone using the below methodology and emailing it to me - you'll get, umm, something cool for your trouble.

: )

How To: Create Custom iPhone Ringtones the Free and Apple Way

Won't work with your purchased music, but will from all your MP3s of ripped CDs.

Fun and FREE - I find it HIGHLY vexing that Apple/AT&T want you to pay to make a ringtone out of music you already own...

MORE IPHONE FUN:

Plus this handy other iPhone tip from The Editblog � OT: A nice iPhone discovery

"double click the home button from sleep mode and you will get an iPod controller at the top of the screen. It’s a controller complete with play/pause button, skip track buttons that can be held down for fast forward and rewind, a volume slider and the track title."


Schweet find, Scott!

-mike

BONUS: Most brainsticky song of late:



Hit me if you want me baby
I'll be on my iPhone...

Labels: iPhone, OT

This afternoon is a great example of the distinction between RELEASED and AVAILABLE. The new iPhone software has been released, and OK, is technically available as of this writing (1:35pm CST), but is not ACCESSIBLE at the moment - Apple's servers are apparently beswarmed with folks trying to get the new update. If it lasts the afternoon, understandable, but if is still the case tomorrow, utterly unacceptable.

In theory, the new iPhone update is available immediately, but Apple may be a victim of its own success...and not planning their IT infrastructure for the hit.

When the movie rentals are available, they better not have this problem....

-mike

UPDATE: Here we go...


Got it installed, and of course immediately wanted to see how well the Locations feature worked. Sitting in my house, I hit the button and the circle (indicating "You're in this circle...somewhere") looked to be something like 1/2 mile wide...encompassing my entire neighborhood. Walked outside on the porch, hit it again, and it narrowed it down to about 3 blocks, almost centered on my actual location (across the street and up the short block). Pretty good! Not as good as GPS, but certainly a boon for "Where the hell am I?" when travelling with no GPS.

Ooops - then again, hitting it again inside and the Circle of Confusion is a mile or more wide - not terribly helpful. So Step One is to go outside - it DEFINITELY works better outside than in.

-mike

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Apple - Support - AppleCare Protection Plan for iPhone

Attention fellow iPhoners - you can buy AppleCare that will cover out to the end of your 2 year AT&T contract for an additional $69. Two years from date of purchase I think, or activation. In any case, ends when the contract does, NOT an extra year beyond from when you purchase it.

For more info, see the AppleCare FAQ, which makes frequent mention of the iPhone.

At one point, accidental damage was most definitely going to be in there as well, but it got yanked from the plan late in the game. Booooooooo, Apple.

Also, Bluetooth headsets are starting to ship out to customers.

Labels: iPhone, OT

Apple: No BS iPhone Review - Gizmodo

Wow. I was going to write something like this, and this is exactly along the lines I was thinking.

Except theirs is better, longer, more in depth, and (especially deep sigh) funnier than what I would have written.

I acquiesce to Jason Chen/Brian Lam. I am depressed and humbled about it, but I do so.

: (

I seek to write this well, this long, this funny, this right.

I at least hope it took them a really, really long time to write. And something got cramped. SOME suffering for their Craft.

>: )

(Using smilies is probably not supporting my case for good writing, but they amuse me anyway this late at night. They stay for now.)

Seriously, this is the best read on iPhone to date - 13,500 words on it.

And funny - with references to iPhone=teenager's first Playboy and AT&T=Yeti vagina in the first 5 minutes of reading how can I NOT keep reading? (And I'm still reading at 2:42:17 AM CST no less!)

Respect.

Props.

I'm going to go keep reading...

-mike

UPDATE - I've searched to find they address the ringtone issue (you can't load your own, even from your own song library - LAME!), but I thought of this today - you can't use it as a modem, neither via Bluetooth or USB connection. I figured this would be one of the many v1.1 software updates....but then it occurred to me....maybe that was a deal cut with AT&T, and NOT Apple's shortcoming - what if AT&T said DON'T let them do it, because our data plan is unlimited $20/month? If Apple lets you use it as a modem for general purpose computing, the usage would skyrocket (unlimited enhanced EDGE speed Internet access on my trusty Blackbook whenever/wherever I wanted? AND it could pick up WiFi on-the-fly as available too? I'd use it LOTS. And I could see AT&T fearing that, that it'd hose their usage/pricing expectations (a valid business consideration on their part), and MIGHT have therefore mandated Don't You Dare.

a.) If so, BOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! I know it'd require they boost their infrastructure capability above and beyond phone user profile usage, but still, as a consumer.....feels sucky and bullshitty.

b.) From a valid business perspective, they could offer that modem capability as a pay-to-unlock or a monthly fee....

c.) ...but again, that'd feel cheap/lame, considering I'm ALREADY paying $20/month for "unlimited" (Right? Their word!) data access - and I'm supposed to pay again, to check the same email and surf the same web pages, just over a cable (or Bluetooth) to my other device I own? Super lame. Like, false-pretenses-for-war caliber lame.

IF (and remember, this and the ringtone issue are IF not fixed or will be fixable via Software Update within a few months) I'd have to agree with the writer's assertion about AT&T=..........

....but if these two features are unlocked/enabled and all works as hoped for, then AT&T would smell like, um, roses...

So if he covered this, oops apologies I just haven't gotten that far in the article. If not, hey, at least I had ONE original thought on the subject.....

-mike

PS - and hey, whatever happened to Cisco's iPhone, and the possible deal for VOIP off theirs (or better yet anybody's) WiFi networking stuff? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Thursday AM update - And another thing, don't know if covered in theirs - Jobs called this the "best iPod ever" - it may be the best looking/functioning iPod ever (although see Jonah's Comment about video playlists), but it the iPhone is the least accessory compatible iPod ever as far as I can tell.

Item: power chargers from previous dock compatibility display a warning about compatibility and audio quality - you're supposed to buy yet another car charger with dock connection.

Related Item: My existing Belkin unit that has a headphone jack in the car charger part, so that audio from the dock connection can go to the car...doesn't work right - I get a huge clicking/thumping sound every second or so - totally a no go. I'm guessing has to do with the headphone speaker/switch.

Item: the headphone jack is so tiny, most existing cables can't fit in there.

Item: That doesn't matter, because it is a special three connector zone plug anyway to accomodate the microphone/switch. Speaking of which, mine is constructed such that when the right headphone is in the ear, the microphone hole is always facing AWAY from my face. Is this correct/as designed? Seems backwards and audio quality reducing at first blush - or is it on purpose to minimize breath harshness pickup?

Item: for the "best iPod ever," considering that the video iPods can run s-video and audio out of a cable or dock...where is this capability for the iPhone? It appears we've actually LOST an existing capability - there's no way to play video on a TV out of the iPhone. And for a portable media player, you'd THINK that'd be a gimme. It would appear the dock connector pinouts are different than existing video iPods in multiple ways then. Did we sacrifice that for some other feature? If so, what feature? It better be reallllllly good. (Bitch/moan/whine.)

Labels: iPhone

iPhone will soon support Adobe Flash - iPod/iTunes - Macworld UK

"Apple will introduce built-in support for Adobe Flash on the iPhone in the 'next couple of months', according to a leading technology pundit.

The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg believes support for Adobe's ubiquitous online standard will be introduced into the iPhone in the form of a future software update."


Just because a pundit says it doesn't make it so. I've heard both sides - that they need to add it, and also that they never will, due to a burgeoning format war in the mobile content delivery format space. Adobe's Flash Lite vs. hardware accelerated H.264 and MPEG-4 on iPods and iPhones. The mobile market is VERY fractured - if Apple comes out with more phones at affordable prices in the future, they could do to phones what they did to MP3 players. And price matters, but not indefinitely - people know quality when they touch it, and they want it. Whether they can afford it is another matter.

-mike

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Apple Developer Connection - iPhone for Web Developers - Optimizing Web Applications and Content for iPhone

Thanks to commenter Evan for sending this link in. Digging around, found this bit of direct bit of specs goodness from the Ensure a Great Audio and Video Experience section:

Encode Video for Wi-Fi and EDGE

You can use the QuickTime Player Pro Export command and the following exporters to prepare video content for iPhone:
The Movie to MPEG-4 exporter with the following settings prepares movies for Wi-Fi.
In the H.264 video options, make sure you restrict the encoder to use the Baseline profile, and select "Faster encode (Single-pass)" encoding in the Video Options dialog.
Video settings: 900 kbit/sec, H.264, 480 x 360; frame rate: current; preserve aspect ratio using: Fit within size
Audio settings: 128 kbit, AAC-LC
.mp4 file
The Movie to 3G exporter with the following settings prepares movies for EDGE.
Video settings: 64 kbit, H.264, 176 x 144; frame rate: 10 or 15; preserve aspect ratio using: Letterbox or Crop
Audio settings: 16 kbit, AAC-LC
.3gp file
In each exporter, turn off streaming; iPhone does not stream media using RTP/RTSP.

Size Movies Appropriately

In landscape orientation, iPhone screen is 480 x 320 pixels. Users can easily switch the view mode between scaled-to-fit (letterboxed) and full-screen (centered and cropped). You should use a size that preserves the aspect ratio of your content and fits within a 480 x 360 rectangle.

Don’t Let Bit Rate Stall Your Movie

When viewing media over the network, bit rate makes a crucial difference to the playback experience. If the network cannot keep up with the media bit rate, playback stalls.

Use Supported Movie Formats

The following movie formats are supported:
H.264 Baseline Profile Level 3.0 video, up to 640 x 480 at 30 fps. Note that B frames are not supported in the Baseline profile.
MPEG-4 Part 2 video (Simple Profile)
AAC-LC audio, up to 48 kHz
.mov, .mp4, .m4v, .3gp file formats
Any movies or audio files that can play on an iPod.


Note that 2 pass VBR is NOT supported for H.264, darn it.


Create a Reference Movie

A reference movie contains a list of movie URLs, each of which has a list of tests. When opening the reference movie, a playback device or computer chooses one of the movie URLs by finding the last one that passes all its tests. Tests can check the capabilities of the device or computer, and the speed of the network connection.

For more details on reference movies and instructions on how to set them up see Applications and Examples in HTML Scripting Guide for QuickTime.



You can download the MakeRefMovie tool from:
http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/quicktimeintro/tools/index.html


The article goes on to explain how to set up your code to get that full screen playback action luv like on the Apple Trailers site (if you have an iPhone and visit that page, you'd know what I'm talking about - clicking movie link makes it play fullscreen, but only on iPhone).

Compressor 3.0.1 has some presets mentioning iPhone, but they aren't REALLY optimized for iPhone. I didn't realize EDGE versions of movies (on YouTube and Apple trailer site) were different bandwidth than WiFi versions, but that makes total sense.

SOMEBODY should alter/build a preset to the above specs for Compressor, save and post them, hint hint hint...I'll host'em. EDIT - wellllllll....I just tried, and it isn't that easy - the settings don't match, can't get there from here to get fully optimized settings, can't set datarate low enough in the Apple Devices preset, etc. - looks like doing it manually in QT Pro is the way to go until Compressor 3.0.2 comes down the Software Update pipe. Poop - no batch processing for you. But wait - somewhere, somewhen, I recall an app that let you batch process with QT Player Pro - anybody remember what that was or where it came from? Somebody search versiontracker.com and look it up and test. Consider this the "Tag, you're it!" moment - I got us this far, somebody else figure out the rest and I'll post it up here.

Gentlemen, start your optimized en/coding engines...

-mike

Labels: iPhone, software

OK, I've been obsessed with the iPhone all weekend, my intern Geoff helped organize a bunch of links of possible interest:

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 iPhone applications - Lifehacker While developers and users alike aren't thrilled that third-party iPhone apps are limited to the web, you might be surprised at the impressive offerings that have already been developed for new iPhone users. Today's top 10 features the best iPhone applications that should be ready for your iPhone as soon as you pull the shiny monnolith from its coveted black box.

Get Back In Line: 2-Year Agreement NOT Required for iPhone - Gizmodo

iPhone processor found: 620MHz ARM CPU - Engadget Looks like today's morning's firmware leak turned up some well hidden details about the iPhone's hardware engine -- and also confirming some reports we'd previously received. From what we can tell, it looks like the iPhone's got a 620MHz ARM chip running under the hood.

iPhones loved despite flaws - Yahoo! News

Apple sold 525,000 iPhones since launch: report - Yahoo! News

Macworld: News: Amaphone lets you browse Amazon.com from iPhone Karelia Software, makers of the popular Sandvox visual Web page editing software for Mac OS X, have launched Amaphone, an Amazon.com browser Web application specifically designed for the iPhone. It’s being launched as a free beta version.

MacNN | iPhone fastest selling Apple product ever?

Slashdot | MacBooks to Feature iPhone's Multi-Touch?

Sales of iPhones beat analysts' expectations - International Herald Tribune

AppleInsider | How to port 'ineligible' mobile numbers to AT&T and iPhone Some iPhone customers trying to port their mobile numbers from carriers such as Verizon are being told by the iTunes software and AT&T customer service reps that their current mobile number 'cannot be transfered,' is 'ineligible' for a port, or 'isn't being released' from its existing carrier. Fortunately, we've figured out a workaround to this issue.

Apple explains iPhone Battery Replacement Program | MacMinute News

Wired News - AP News While blogs continue to simmer with complaints from people who waited months to buy an iPhone and now are experiencing problems activating it, AT&T Inc. said Sunday that the situation has improved.

MacNN | Griffin ships PowerJolt charger for iPhone

TubeSock 2.0.2 - Mac OS X - VersionTracker TubeSock grabs YouTube videos from the web and copies them to your video iPod, Mac, or PlayStation Portable. You can preview the videos in TubeSock directly. TubeSock knows how to convert video using the codecs and bitrates best for each device. It can even add the video to iTunes for you. Includes easy integration with Safari and Firefox. Until you register, converted videos are limited to 30 seconds.

Macworld: First Look: How the iPhone service plan measures up Cool little chart comparing AT&T iPhone services to other phone companies.


=================

Links from previous post:

Some pics from the iPhone camera: iPhoned

This is similar to what I got but flatter since no cable management:
The Apple Store (U.S.) - Incase Molded Rubber Case for iPhone (Black)

Static cling cover, protects from scratches etc. - this sounds like a good idea since almost all cases leave the front vulnerable. But these are guaranteed to still work w/multi-touch.
The Apple Store (U.S.) - Power Support Crystal Film Set for iPhone

The Apple Bluetooth thing looks sleek and nice (and black not white!) but is absurdly expensive at $129. The Apple Store (U.S.) - Apple iPhone Bluetooth Headset

STRESS TEST - KEY SCRATCHING AND SIDEWALK DROPPING - YouTube - iPhone's first scratch/crash test ever! -iPhone Stress Test

AppleInsider | Apple planning host of iPhone updates before Leopard release - report: "A true instant messaging client described as a mobile version of iChat, will arrive 'very, very soon' and certainly before Leopard, the designer says. Customized ringtones were also set to appear within the same timeframe.

But fall 2007 is when the iPhone's features are set to expand in earnest, he adds. The iPhone will not only gain a disk mode for transferring computer files but should also receive a full-fledged file browser that lets users store and open documents."

HD video: iPhone interface complete walkthrough - Engadget

Apple - iPhone - Tech Specs

Video Apple - iPhone - Tech Specs: "Video formats supported: H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 768 Kbps, 320 by 240 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats"

Gallery: iPhone Take-apart - they pry apart an iPrecious...the horror....the horror....

BareFeats analysis - Apple iPhone

Macworld: First Look: Up close with the iPhone, Page 1

For those without, simulate the messiness - Bram.us � My iSmudginator 0.2

iPhone Central: iPhone news, reviews, opinions and more from Macworld's Apple experts - MacWorld's dedicated iPhone blog - quite nice actually! They point out and expand on a lot of the tidbits I found over the weekend - the iPhone specific version of the Apple movie trailers page, the Bluetooth pros & cons (I paired my GPS to iPhone, so I can answer hands free in TWO different ways now)

Also, the Apple Bluetooth doohickey is NOT in stores yet, but is $130 and does come with a dual cable and dual dock (meaning you can charge iPod and headset simultaneously) and it DOES "MagSafe" click in to its charger, which is nice.

Daring Fireball: iPhone First Impressions - actually, this one is particularly nice - his version of this article, breaking down by category his issues with the various attributes of the iPhone.

----------------

Whew! OK, maybe now I can move on with the rest of the week...wait, I'm getting an iCall....

-mike

Labels: iPhone

UPDATED - see bottom

Joined friends in line at 4:30, had by 7, doodling now.

WOW.

I have one.

Are you in California?

You can't get one yet as of this writing.

As BJ says,

"Suck it!"

No time, must PLAY!

MAYBE a Blogwad.....tomorrow....

UPDATE at 11pm - my articulate self earlier was a wee bit excited, to say the least. Waiting in line w/two geeky friends (BJ Heinley and Charlie Wood), he hung out for a couple of hours, ran over to Whole Foods across the street for sushi & beer, and enjoyed ourselves catching up on a warm but shady afternoon. We all got the phones we wanted (I got 8 GB model), we immediately went back to BJ's house nearby and hooked up, set up, sync'd up, and started to doodle. The UI is extremely elegant and cool, the screen looks good, we just hung out and geek revelled. As one of their wives put it - "You can go hang with your geek friends and beep."

Beep On!

-mike

Saturday Morning Update

OK, NOW that I'm sober and having passed through the giddy Day Zero Hype Factor, it is still cool.

A few things I'm noticing:

1.) They say you have to give the keyboard some time to get used to it. Clearly so - I'm hunting and pecking and missing a bit. Won't be routinely blogging from this sucker.

2.) Had trouble joining my home WiFi network - entered the password a zillion times that I've entered a zillion times before. I'd been on the WiFi at BJ's house no problem. Hmmm. Went in and changed the WEP from 128 down to 40 bit - then it worked. CRAP. This means I have to run my home network in a less secure fashion for the iPhone to work. Hopefully they'll fix that in a future release.

3.) Camera has no video capabilities. Seems like it should be able to shoot videos - would be so Apple. Drat, it doesn't. Maybe next version will have 2nd camera on front for video conferencing. : )

4.) Ringtones - YOU CANNOT LOAD YOUR OWN - there is no mechanism provided. LAAAAAAAAAAAAAME - clearly AT&T holding out for ringtone sales. This is lame beyond all recognitiion - you should be able to use a sound snippet from your iTunes library to do this. SO incredibly lame and frustrating.

5.) The camera - takes surprisingly decent pictures for a camera phone - 2 megapixels even! It doesn't rival my Canon S450, but it beats the snot out of my T616's camera (and what do I do with that inert little brick now?)

6.) The peeps turn out - as we're all waiting in line (I saw 2 other people I knew - my boss from 8-10 years ago (creative director at frogdesign) who had been waiting since 1pm, and Leah, who was an intern at T3 when I worked there in 1995 - fun to see all the geeky folks come out. And those two represent the target demographic - geeky guys and busy Moms (Leah gets double demographic points - she's a busy mom and works in marketing - I ran into her at MacWorld '05 repping my friend Patrick's game Stubbs the Zombie).

7.) iPhone snobbery is an evil, but fun, thing - as we're waiting in line (all 100+ of us at a small AT&T outlet) - somebody walks past the store minding their own business on a sleek little cell, like a Razr or something, and somebody says in a silly taunting voice - "Look at him, he's on a REGULAR cellphone!" and everybody busts out laughing. We're evil nurds.

8.) the unit itself - a beautiful little thing, and MAN you don't want it to get scratched! I thought I'd wait to figure out accessories like cases, but saw a DLO (Digital Lifestyle Outfitters) silicon rubber black sleeve, so I got that for $20. BJ got three different ones to try out since he can return them (he lives about 8 blocks from the store, so no biggie). He got the same rubberized sleeve I did, a clear plastic hard case with a belt clip, and a leather belt clip that completely encloses/encases/protects the unit. He said he has a friend with a Treo or Blackberry that leaves it in a case that has a flip-open top, and it never leaves that - the thing is sealed and protected when not in use. Not a bad idea. As is, the little rubberized sleeve I have leaves the glass front totally exposed - it basically just protects it from a drop (hopefully) but leaves all buttons and ports accessible. But this phone pretty much guarantees I'm wearing cargo type pants. When we discussed this in line, we realized we were ALL wearing khaki cargo pants, t-shirts, and sandals/Tevas. Yep - we're geeks, confirmed. Anyway, my lifestyle is pretty accomodating of large pocket pants, but come colder weather or Client Time, this is kind of a big thing to lug around.

Oh, more on the DLO case - it has a thing on the back to wrap up the headphones (the special iPhone ones with a microphone and call/answer/pause/play button) and it will tidily stash the earphones and the plug for toting around in "normal" phone mode - nice.

9.) The web - yep, it really, really works. Just small and slow. But hdforindies.com works! Just get ready to squint. You can do the pinchy/squeezy zoom in/out thing, and that helps. Turning it sideways for wide view helps too. Flash doesn't work though.

10.) Email - yep - pictures work. Haven't tried QuickTime yet, but I need to.

OK, somebody's coming over to work, more later...

Some pics from the iPhone camera: iPhoned

Notice BJ's pic looks not bad in terms of tonal range. Mine is taken in front of a glaring daytime window, and Charlie's was taken at night in the dark by parking lot lights.

Best cameraphone quality I've seen.

More details:

- you can't read email sideways - drat.

-calendar - NO TO DO ITEMS - EEK!

-calendar events can't be separated by type - you have to see ALL calendar events

-mail - a little funky to figure out what accounts you're reading/sending from - gotta study a bit

-calendar setup stuff - you pick which calendar events are to have been created on your iPhone from in iTunes - a pop-up shows the list. It defaults to Home, I tried to change to Work, but now it only defaults to the third choice, Work Sched, which is the one I least want it to use.

NO SIDEWAYS KEYBOARD IN MAIL! You can do sideways keyboard for URLs (or something, I remember noting wide keyboard mode somewhere), so the code is i there and working, but mail is strictly portrait not landscape at this point in time - that'll be a big 1.1 update feature I hope.

-pictures are scaled down to be about 2x res of the screen - so you CAN zoom in, some, for more detail. But not full rez pics, and that is probably a good thing 95% of the time - would chew up all your space! I look forward to 16, 32, 64, adn 128GB iPhones in the years to come.

-Many, many little details and lack of choices look like they were made in order to cut corners and get it out the door. Not much that feels overtly broken, just not as refined as I'd like. Very few things that seem like they might be unfixable in software (such as can the camera do video), but clearly when they bumped Leopard to October, they STILL crunched to get this out the door and stable, so they cut features instead.

MORE THOUGHTS SATURDAY NIGHT, AFTER USING IT TODAY:

-no copy/paste is a hassle - I had just written there is no easy way to share a link, but WRONG! There is a very nice feature - if you're looking at a web page, click up in the URL field then a "Share" button appears at top left - nice!

ACCESSORY COMPATIBILITY: I already had an iPhone dock charger and a tape cassette adaptor in my car - when I plug in the power adaptor, it puts up a message on iPhone that says something about this accessory not designed for iPhone, do you want to use Airplane Mode, Y/N? (no WiFi/Bluetooth/cellphone/EDGE functionality). Bleck. Worse still, the cassette adaptor in my car makes a horrible clicking/thumping noise about once a second when plugged into the iPhone headphone jack - UGH! Is this some signal that the microphone/pause/answer phone is supposed to respond to? Do I need to plug in a different way, such as through the headphone jack on the car power adaptor? I'd guess so, I haven't tried that.

And as long as we're talking about the headphone jack - it is so far recessed on the iPhone that MANY headphone cables don't go in far enough - such was the case with the one in my bathroom that I have hooked up to some speakers (what can I say, I geek that way - don't YOU crank tunes in the shower? Or at least listen to NPR podcasts, depending on the mood? I'm either childing, a geek, and/or old fogie - take your pick!)

AS A PHONE, THIS IS MISSING SOME EXPECTED FEATURES - my cynical friend David gleefully pointed out that most any decent cellphone over $200 has GPS these days. I don't track the market, but that sounds somewhat viable. No GPS on iPhone, even though we have Google Maps...dammit.

Also, BIG CRITICAL MISSING FEATURE - there is no Profile or Modes, uh, mode on this phone - I'm so used to two-button-press to get silent mode on my phone, and there is no equivalent here - I want Meeting Mode - vibrate only, no "beep" during button presses. I want Movie Mode - total silence at all times, dim screen. I want Outdoors Mode - vibrate AND loud ring from the get-go. There is NO WAY AFAIK to set these things in bulk - you've got to laboriously dig through the prefs and set them one at a time. This is bad Bad BAD!!! EDIT - just RTFM, Mike - the physical switch on the side is ring/silent - nice! But the modality question still lives on.

So...teething pains. The lack of some software features seems eminently fixable with upgrades, the accessory imcompatiblities is annoying, considering this is now my FOURTH iPod I've bought (original iPod (Dad has now), Mini (recently recovered from stolen, hallelujah), Shuffle (died..dammit), and Nano (still going strong jogging w/Nike+iPod widget). Now this one (which I went ahead and got because I heard that engraving wasn't going to be available any time soon). Distraction - point being, I have a bunch of existing iPod accessories, be nice to have good interoperability with iPhone to leverage that investment - I don't want to buy a new car charger, stereo adaptor, etc.

Also, a note on power usage - now of COURSE I am doodling with this thing constantly, but I went through an alarming amount of the battery percentage today.

QuickTime playback from websites - NICE! you get a little blue "play me" icon on any QT movie, and if you click on it, it plays back full screen (or at least, this was how it worked looking at QT's on Apple's on site). You can turn the iPhone sideways for fullscreen playback. This is SUPER elegant and slick and nice and WOW, everything cool about iPhone the way it is supposed to be. That said, some display pixel glitches watching one of Apple's own videos. Confirming on my laptop - is the iPhone playback, NOT the source file - probably a hardware H.264 decoder? I should make a test page to see what kinds of QT files this device can play back - betcha H.264 and not a whole lot else. More testing to be done....

...learning as I go - Apple is, of course, ready for iPhone, and has iPhone specific pages on its site, such as movie trailers - VERY nice! A great demo. Looking at some other pages with quicktime movies, if it is outside of spec, it won't play. Durn. So iPhone optimized pages and QT content matters. Doesn't play Flash video, predictably, either.

SOME ACCESSORIES:

This is similar to what I got but flatter since no cable management:

The Apple Store (U.S.) - Incase Molded Rubber Case for iPhone (Black)


Static cling cover, protects from scratches etc. - this sounds like a good idea since almost all cases leave the front vulnerable. But these are guaranteed to still work w/multi-touch.

The Apple Store (U.S.) - Power Support Crystal Film Set for iPhone

The Apple Bluetooth thing looks sleek and nice (and black not white!) but is absurdly expensive at $129. The Apple Store (U.S.) - Apple iPhone Bluetooth Headset


STRESS TEST - KEY SCRATCHING AND SIDEWALK DROPPING - YouTube - iPhone's first scratch/crash test ever! -iPhone Stress Test

Some of the features may be fixed sooner than we think according to one rumor site:

AppleInsider | Apple planning host of iPhone updates before Leopard release - report: "A true instant messaging client described as a mobile version of iChat, will arrive 'very, very soon' and certainly before Leopard, the designer says. Customized ringtones were also set to appear within the same timeframe.

But fall 2007 is when the iPhone's features are set to expand in earnest, he adds. The iPhone will not only gain a disk mode for transferring computer files but should also receive a full-fledged file browser that lets users store and open documents."

HD video: iPhone interface complete walkthrough - Engadget

Apple - iPhone - Tech Specs

Video Apple - iPhone - Tech Specs: "Video formats supported: H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 768 Kbps, 320 by 240 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats"

Gallery: iPhone Take-apart - they pry apart an iPrecious...the horror....the horror....

BareFeats analysis - Apple iPhone

Macworld: First Look: Up close with the iPhone, Page 1

For those without, simulate the messiness - Bram.us � My iSmudginator 0.2

iPhone Central: iPhone news, reviews, opinions and more from Macworld's Apple experts - MacWorld's dedicated iPhone blog - quite nice actually! They point out and expand on a lot of the tidbits I found over the weekend - the iPhone specific version of the Apple movie trailers page, the Bluetooth pros & cons (I paired my GPS to iPhone, so I can answer hands free in TWO different ways now)

Also, the Apple Bluetooth doohickey is NOT in stores yet, but is $130 and does come with a dual cable and dual dock (meaning you can charge iPod and headset simultaneously) and it DOES "MagSafe" click in to its charger, which is nice.

Daring Fireball: iPhone First Impressions - actually, this one is particularly nice - his version of this article, breaking down by category his issues with the various attributes of the iPhone.

Just checked - the Nike+iPod transponder does NOT work with the iPhone - you get a message to the effect that this device doesn't work with this accessory or somesuch - no go. But this could be a fixable thing in the future - just a software update. And of course, software updates are likely to occur via iTunes...which you'll be connecting to regularly anyway.

I had a couple of syncs take a looooooong time, and I've "crashed" the web browser a few times where it suddenly goes back to the Home screen. So a little bit of bugginess. But hey - 1.0, first weekend, could be addressed in 1.0.1.

OK, here's one for everybody - if the iPhone is supposed to be the best ever iPod for playing back video...where/how do we play back back video from it on a TV? Where's the cable, etc. to do this?

-mike

Thursday update:

Other notes on iPhone - there is no way to Bluetooth beam or even email your contact info to someone. Feh.

You can't Bluetooth to use the iPhone as a modem for your computer. Double feh.

On the Go playlists either forget themselves entirely or I'm doing it wrong - twice I've spent time putting together playlists, and it is gone later. Grr.

Apple iPhone - Missing Pieces

Some complaints about missing features.

Tops on my list for iPhone 2.0: GPS, 3G, & video.

I'm hoping iChat, Bluetooth modeming, Bluetooth contact beaming, and a host of other issues can be resolved with software updates.

Protective Cover For iPhone : Incase Products - another good protective cover that leaves the front face open, but no cord management like the DLO one I got (Digital Lifestyle Outfitter's Jam Jacket for iPhone, can't find a web page on it as of a few days ago).

Griffin Technology: Headphone Adapter - Use your headphones with iPhone - looks way handy

Optimizing Web Applications and Content for iPhone - thanks to commenter Evan for pointing this out.

Ready for iPhone 1.0.1 update. Can has pleez?

-mike

Labels: iPhone

Short version for the attention span impaired:

1.) Get your name and home phone and/or email address engraved on any expensive iGadget you buy
2.) If lost, makes for an easy way to find you
3.) If stolen, makes it tougher to sell as easier to identify the true/original owner
4.) I wrote a fun little story that you might enjoy reading if you enjoy some of my sillier asides on the blog.

Long version:

So the other day I commented down in the bottom of the blogwad that somebody went into my garage (set back 50 feet from the street in a quiet neighborhood) and stole my mountain bike and then went into my car and stole an iPod.

The bike I fear is a goner (an indestructible 1991 Bridgestone MB-2 with lots of customizations and great memories, dammit), but I got a call from a stranger saying she'd found my iPod. Since I'd gone to the trouble to order it with my name and phone number engraved on the back, she called the number, met me at a gas station on her way home, and handed it over with a thanks and God Bless. Well, Big Thanks to Andrea for taking the time to do the right thing and call me - MUCH appreciated.

Secondly, that right there is why I won't be walking out of the Apple Store with an iPhone on Friday. YES, I'll almost certainly be ordering one, but I'm going to sit out First Geek To Touch week of doodling with it (and probably starting a related blog, and yes I reserved iphonehacker.com but will probably hold back doing anything with it). That alone will vastly increase my productivity that week.

But I'm going to order one with my name, email and home phone number engraved on it* - because if I hadn't done so, there's no way in hell I'd be holding my silver iPod Mini right now - I figure the bum who stole it either didn't have headphones, the battery ran out and they didn't have a way to charge, and/or they saw the name and number on the back and figured that'd be a hindrance to selling it at a pawn shop. Same thing likely to apply with the iPhone - there will be a zillion units virtually identical to look at. YES, there will be a database of serial numbers, but if the SIM is replaceable, no one will probably ever know. It'd be great if Apple & AT&T had some clever anti-theft detection network going, such that any phone reported stolen could be remotely shut down at a serial number level. But I haven't heard of such yet to date.

Also, what are YOUR thoughts as to home # or email address? EDIT - there's room for all, see above. Home phone # is easily reverse lookup-able to find your address online, so can be a security threat there - I've heard never let a criminal find out your address, gives them a specific target. Plus, by definition they know you have substantial disposable income (you just spent 10X going rate for a cellphone, QED). BUT....home phone number is cake and easy for someone honest to call and say they found it. If you do email address, that's a little harder for somebody to go to the trouble to let you know they found it, it couldn't possibly be a long distance call...but they have to have an email address and go to the trouble to do so. (you could always invite them to send you an email on the phone...but no room to explain all that. Then they'd try it and love it and not want to give it back....) ; D

With so many exactly visually identical iPhones about to hit the market, it just strikes me as a really good idea - and don't even TRY to tell me these won't be one of the hottest things to steal this summer.

Oh - I'll betcha you can only get engraving done if you order it directly from Apple online, and not from AT&T (that's a guess).

So yeah, I'll be itching like a heroin addicts while my friends play with theirs and shout "No touchie!" over their crouched shoulders (Hmm, something like this, I wonder? Remember Mmmmm....iPrecious from when iPhone was announced?)

So long as I'm talking Off Topic, I wrote this fun little story about my friend finding her glasses, me finding my iPod, my friend Kitty, God, miracles, and Schrodinger's Cat. It is 97% true. If you like my goofy asides, you'll probably like this one - I had a lot of fun writing it.

* yes, they haven't announced that yet. But I Have My Sources.

Labels: iPhone, OT

I'm bringing back the concept of the Blogwad - everything that I either didn't have time to properly address during the week, or that didn't merit it's own post, or that came in on Friday and therefore gets lumped in with the rest of the blogwad.

I've at least broken it down into categories - post software, post hardware, acquisition, cameras, general...and iPhone, since there's so much going on with that.

POST SOFTWARE

IRIDAS Extends DualStream Stereoscopic Technology across Product Line | Studio Daily - very niche, but good to know

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Click-thru Tutorial: Magic Bullet Looks | Studio Daily

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Click-thru Tutorial: GenArts Sapphire | Studio Daily

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Interview with Automatic Duck's Wes Plate

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Getting Intimate with CineForm Intermediate Part 2 (I trust you can follow the links to part 1)

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Creating Node Trees in Color and the special case of interlaced video (Final Cut Studio 2) -good Ken Stone tutorial, thanks to a sharp eyed reader for sending this in.



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POST HARDWARE

MacNN | MacBook Pro 17" Hi-res: Best LCD yet

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MacNN | Overnight 200GB, 250GB laptop drive upgrades - if you don't want to do it yourself...but what about data backup and data integrity and security?

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Matrox MXO 2.0 review

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ACQUISITION

Codex Digital Announces Portable Field Recorder | Studio Daily

9 pounds, carbon fiber, rubber weather seals, HD to 4K, size of a lunch box, powered by standard batteries, can do dual link 4:4:4, has Infiniband, Ethernet data connections, can do 10 gigabit optical I/O, 8 channels of audio, wireless MP4 video output, Red One RAW output (!!!), this sounds incredibly cool, useful, and improved - I should write more on this later...

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short version - 4K capable S.two to be shown at CineGear

Press release:


S.two Corporation’s DFR4K™ Digital Field Recorder announced at NAB 2007 will premier at Cine Gear Expo 2007.

New 4K capable portable recorder will feature in movie making workflow demonstration with the Dalsa Origin 4K camera.

Reno, NV—June 22nd 2007— S.two announces it will demonstrate for the first time its new 4K recording solution at this week’s Cine Gear Expo. The new DFR4K™ features full integration with Dalsa Origin 4K cameras using InfiniBand Fibre connections. The coupled systems will be shown on the S.two stand #T4 at the Wadsworth Theatre and Grounds June 22-23, 2007.

The DFR4K plays Dalsa 4K images in real time up to the maximum supported frame rate of the Dalsa camera. This closely coupled integration with Dalsa Origin cameras adds all the capabilities of the camera plus all the on set convenience, productivity, efficiency and robustness that S.two has shown on many completed feature films, the most noted of late being David Fincher’s ‘Zodiac’.

An Industry “first”, the 24V DC powered DFR4K™ production units allow the camera to be free of location logistics so that true ‘run and gun’ style movie making can be done in 4K resolution.

This debut showing of the DFR4K™ prototype heralds a complete set of DFR4K™ products for all extended resolution cameras and projects allowing a full choice of palettes for the discerning filmmaker. S.two extended definition workflow will be fully adapted for 4K movie making including offline, archiving and post integration. The DFR4K™ extended definition workflow is added to S.two’s HD, HD RGB, 2K and 3K products supporting other leading cameras.

“As the leading uncompressed digital film recording company, S.two is pleased to be able to provide our field portable, field proven, compact DC powered recording solutions to higher resolution users, bringing our un-rivaled on set experience and reliability to an emerging 4K market” states Steve Roach, Vice President, S.two. “The DFR4K™ provides 4K users a proven end to end workflow with the same benefits S.two has supplied on multiple movie projects around the world.”


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CAMERAS

Ikegami and Toshiba Provide Details of Advanced New Tapeless ENG Camera, Editing and Production System | Studio Daily

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Press release:

DALSA and the Digital Cinema Society (http://www.digitalcinemasociety.com/) are co-hosting a 4K presentation at the Cine Gear Expo, the industry's premiere film, video and digital media expo. The event which takes place on Saturday, June 23rd will explore 4K for production, post, and projection. Various samples acquired in 4K RAW with the DALSA Origin camera, edited in HD with Apple's Final Cut Pro, then conformed using EDL into the final project for color correction and creation of the DCP will be projected in 4K via the Sony SXRD Projector.

Following the screening, James Mathers, President and Co-founder of the Digital Cinema Society, will moderate a panel made up of Cinematographer David Stump, ASC; DALSA's Rob Hummel; Sony's Andrew Stucker; Denis Leconte of Pacific Title, as well as Directors Anurag Mehta and Joe DiGennaro.  The presentation is a great opportunity to find out the benefits and challenges of Digital Filmmaking at 4K resolution.

The time slot is 10-10:45 AM on Saturday, the 23rd at the Wadsworth Theatre at Cinegear.  Note:  You must be registered for the Cine Gear Expo - Free of Charge Until June 15: For more information on Cinegear, visit http://www.cinegearexpo.com



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Zacuto to offer turnkey HD camera packages with Redrock M2 adaptors

Press Release:

Zacuto and Redrock Micro today announced Zacuto will begin offering turnkey digital camera solutions equipped with the Redrock M2 adapter.

"We've had great success providing camera packages setup for the Redrock M2 and have gotten to know it very well," said Steve Weiss, Marketing Director at Zacuto. "Offering our customers complete packages including Redrock's M2 made perfect sense to us. We are thrilled to be teaming up with another US manufacturer."

"Zacuto is putting together fantastic camera packages for digital cinematographers," added James Hurd, Chief Revolutionary for Redrock. "We're delighted to be working with a company that maintains a strong reputation for quality, expertise, and customer service."

Zacuto targets their cinema bundles to customers requiring a complete camera package and have a budget ranging from $20,000-$30,000. The Zacuto cinema solution bundles will include a Zacuto-branded Redrock adapter kit, Panasonic HVX-200 camera, Zeiss Nikon-mount lenses, tripod, Zacuto support system, fitted Zacuto case, and other needed accessories.

Redrock's M2 35mm lens adapter is always available directly from Redrock's website, available with other Redrock accessories including the award-winning microFollowFocus, microMattebox, and microRemote. Redrock pricing starts at $995 for complete SD solutions, and $1,295 for HD solutions.

Redrock and Zacuto will both be at Cinegear Expo 2007 in Los Angeles June 22nd and 23rd. Redrock will be in Booth 30 (located near Panasonic and JVC booths). Zacuto will be located at Booth 77.


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GENERAL INFO

Proposed Amendment Would Ban All DVD Copying - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

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Cinematical Seven: Tips for the Indie Filmmaker - Cinematical

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Shooting Animation Verit-Style for Surf's Up | Studio Daily

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HD DVD Production - white paper details on HD DVD structure/setup

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Apple`s Safari for Windows offers simple interface, good performance but not essential

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MacNN | Apple patent: power adapters for security

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Mac OS X 10.4.10 Released

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YouTube to Test Software To Ease Licensing Fights - WSJ.com

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CinemaTech: Could new RealPlayer spark legal action?

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SoftRAID 3.6 doesn't work under 10.4.10 - so don't upgrade yet!:

"SoftRaid 3.6 does not recognize 10.4.10, and will not allow access to preferences for changes or statistics. The only option is to close the software. To paraphrase the error message, it says that I don't have the proper OS installed and that I should install 10.4.X.

I sent an inquiry to SoftRaid, LLC about this and I received an answer back in under 5 minutes as follows:
'Either go back to 10.4.9, wait until 3.6.2 is out, or ask to be on the beta list for 3.6.2. This is caused by Apples hack to make a 10.4.10 possible, which violates their naming standards.'"


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IPHONE

iPhone data plans to surface before launch day - Engadget
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AppleInsider | New iMac, iPhone hints turn up in Apple software update

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AppleInsider | AT&T exec: iPhone data plans to be announced June 29th [Updated]

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AppleInsider | Apple retail stores to close, re-open ahead of iPhone

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AppleInsider | AT&T recommending "Crowd Control Devices" for iPhone launch

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AppleInsider | Apple gets new EU extension; iPhone dock; 7.6 percent Mac share

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Apple - iPhone - A Guided Tour - new on Apple's site.

EDIT 9:45PM - I'm watching this right now on my HDTV via my AppleTV (the file is Apple TV compatible, natch). My garage got burgled today - my trusty mountain bike (Bridgestone MB-1, heavily modified over last 16 years) got stolen, and my car pilfered. Drat it - so much for my comfy neighborhood vibe - alarm to be used EVERY time I leave the house from now on. But anyway, feel better sitting home tonight and locking all the windows, etc. Back on topic - the iPhone has more little features I hadn't noticed before, so that's good. A silent ringer dedicated button. Speaker and microphone both on bottom (odd!). Another speaker up by your ear. Sleep/wake button is nice - can still receive calls and listen to music, but the big screen is off to save battery. The speaker on the bottom is for speakerphone mode - nice! Conference calling is nice and easy - I could never figure it out on any other phone system before without going to the manual. Lots of subtle quality UI touches. The cost is starting to not matter as much seeing all this - this is how it ought to work. If they released a phone with no video, no audio, and just the UI in a smaller form factor..it'd sell just fine. can surf multiple simultaneous pages - keep'em open. Email on iPhone can read/view JPEG, PDF, Word, Excel, RTF, HTML, etc. The keyboard is "smart" they say as it catches typos, etc. They suggest starting with your index finger and then advancing to thumbing - "in about a week you'll be typing faster on the iPhone than on any other phone" - so get ready for a learning curve. Still only being demo'd in vertical keyboard only mode - I've always been wondering when they'd get a wide mode keyboard mode - I have fat thumbs (and all that...oh never mind). Stock widget is exactly like the OS X widget. Google Maps - it doesn't seem to be self-aware of where you are as some has hoped - you have to tell it where you are. Traffic updates can be live - nice! YouTube - yeah, gotta be on WiFi from what they seem to be saying. Has an airplane mode - no WiFi, Bluetooth, or cell signals come out of it in this mode (well thought out!). Set your ringtone - they don't mention loading your own, but part of me wants to use this one (NSFW).

Whew!

That'll hold us for a bit...

-mike

Labels: Apple, blogwad, cameras, Cineform, codec, Color, disk based recording, Final Cut Studio 2, hardware, high end, iPhone, Kirsner, Mac, NLE, plugin, post, post equipment, tutorial, workflow

Apple - iPhone - Internet in�Your Pocket

see the row of demos at the bottom? Far right is now YouTube.

SchaaaaaaWEET!

YouTube is converting (or will they start accepting?) videos to H.264, which iTunes, iPhone, (AppleTV anyone?) can access. Of course, this will work best when in range of a WiFi network you can get on, and it'll be interesting to see how long it'd take to buffer a video over the EDGE network (and also what the data rate plans will cost - I'd hate to have a 3 digit data bill from getting bored and watching YouTube....

And as long as we're talking geek, there's always this:

Waiting for Your iPhone: Five Ways to Handle the
Unbearable Stress

Yes I am probably silly for wanting one, but I do. My friends are doing it. I am powerless and weak.

Must.....obey.....Steve......

Has......new.....shiny.......

-mike

more coverage:

MacNN | YouTube coming to iPhone, live on Apple TV

"Apple today announced that iPhone users will be able to enjoy YouTube's originally-created content on their iPhones when they begin shipping on June 29. A new Apple-designed application on iPhone will wirelessly stream YouTube's content to iPhone over Wi-Fi or EDGE networks and play it on the iPhone's 3.5-inch display. In addition, Apple announced that YouTube is now live on Apple TV, following its announcement last month."

Labels: Apple, iPhone

iPhone Delivers Up to Eight Hours of Talk Time

So it is somewhat of a stretch to call it HD related, but it IS a content playback device.

And I'm being pulled into the "Ooh-I-want-one" vortex of geekiness on it.

Here's the fun new stuff:

1.) longer talk time: 8 hours of talk time now, 6 hours of internet use, 7 hours of video playback, 24 hours of audio playback, up to 250 hours (more than 10 days) or standby mode

2.)glass not plastic screen - perhaps because fear of a scratched screen was such a prevalent concern, Steve Jobs said “We’ve also upgraded iPhone’s entire top surface from plastic to optical-quality glass for superior scratch resistance and clarity."

3.) Also a couple of charts from Apple's PR release with claimed battery life and comparisons to other smartphones.

In related news, AppleInsider | Regulators O.K. Apple's Bluetooth headset for sale alongside iPhone

"Federal regulators this week gave Apple Inc. the go-ahead to begin selling its seldom-mentioned Bluetooth headset alongside iPhone later this month.

Apple has said little about the pen cap-like accessory since introducing it back in January alongside its first-ever mobile handset -- iPhone. Similarly, it has not said how much it plans to charge for the device or precisely when it will be available."

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Fast And Furious: No iPhone SDK Means No Killer iPhone Apps - Gizmodo:
"So no SDK == no access to iPhone's cool frameworks == no revolutionary apps, no real new concepts coming from third-parties, no eye candy available for anyone but Apple and no possibility for some really crazy games that will fully exploit the graphic and multi-touch power of the iPhone."


I have to say this is a pretty good argument. Read on. The good thing is that we'll still have good video performance on the device.

Thinking along those lines, watching QT in a web page should be doable, but not downloading it to save on your iPhone's media library, I'll betcha.

But this argument is also of the moment - this is just where we stand, now, before the product even ships. In time, I'd be very disappointed if they don't release an SDK. But this is at least a place to start, if a limited sandbox.

-mike

Labels: Apple, iPhone

iPhone PDF print-n-fold is a PDF file that you can print, cut out, fold up, and have your own faux iPhone.

If you can make it shiny somehow, somebody will probably think you have one for real. Or put your real phone in it, and pretend it is an iPhone. To help sell the dream, here's a ringtone for you to use (thanks to reader submission on that one, but beware, it is potentially NSFW depending on your work environment - turn down your speakers!).

-mike

PS - Somebody commented/groused/gave feedback that I'm getting off topic talking about the iPhone and other recent topics, it isn't truly HD moviemaking relevant. Respectfully, I disagree - among other things, iPhone is a widescreen portable video playback device, and I'm guessing it'll be, in a year or so, one of the most popular/widely disseminated ones out there. Now that I've pretty well wrapped my head around many of the issues of physically producing indie content, one of the other major challenges is how to distribute it in a meaningful fashion - iPhone could play into that (as could AppleTV, etc.). So I'm interested in tracking that kind of stuff. I still think marketing indie movies is the biggest nut to be cracked, as lower barriers to entry mean that not only YOU can make something you couldn't before, but so can everyone else - how do you separate your product out from the noise of the open market? How do you reach your potential audience, but at a reasonable cost? Just saying the words "Use the Interweb tubez!" is not a valid answer. More on that topic later- actually, that could be an entire blog right there.

-m

Labels: iPhone

AppleInsider | Apple may introduce iPhone developer kit at WWDC - report: "Apple Inc. at its developers conference next week may introduce a software developers kit (SDK) that will allow third party developers to write small applications for its upcoming iPhone handset, according to a published report."

Hmm - curious to see how extensible it is.

Labels: Apple, hardware, iPhone

iPhone release date confirmed: yours on June 29th - Engadget

Official from Apple, the commercial's on the air.

-mike

UPDATE - Apple - iPhone - TV Ads (Thanks Mike from B-Scene!)

Labels: Apple, iPhone

MacNN | Apple's iPhone delays Leopard until October:

From Apple: "we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned.'

The company said that while it plans to have all Leopard features completed by early June, quality control would add a few more months to the development cycle.

'We cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October,'"


I can understand how that could delay things, but they CLEARLY must have known this for months.

What vision pops to mind? Dana Carvey as the Church Lady saying "Isn't that conveeeEEEeenient?"

I'd been hearing that Leopard had LOTS of bugs as of a month or two ago and was behind schedule, and blaming it on the Popular New Thing About To Ship is a great bit of deferral - we're more willing to accept getting a better iPhone, sooner, than accept that Leopard is a huge complicated undertaking that was just buggy and late Just Because.

Interesting that Apple would choose to pull resources away from a $130 product with virtually zero manufacturing costs (R&D is expensive, but pressing discs is CHEAP!) that would be maximally distributable to their user base (everybody that has bought a capble-of-running-it Mac in the last few years) in order to finish a brand new product - Apple CLEARLY thinks there's more growth, and profit potential, in the consumer electronics space than there is in the software/computer space. And I can't say I can fault their logic.

Some were saying, when iPhone was announced, that it might steal resources (staff or dollars or both) from the Pro Apps group, where you have to hire expensive, specialty programmer teams to develop large, complex software for a relatively small group of potential users. What if you put such resources into building something less complicated but more widely applicable to the consuming public? It only makes sense for them to optimize resource allocation for optimal ROI.

So while my BS detector starts to tingle (think Spidey Sense of technology), using iPhone as a conveninent excuse to cover why it was already running late (regardless of how much staff was reallocated), it is a daunting concept to think of our professional tools (the OS in this case) languishing because Apple reallocated for consumer stuff.

As for Final Cut - two schools of thought on this one:

1.) They were already going to show now/ship later, so this isn't affecting them that much. The announcement of new OctoMacs with no new GPUs or high def optical drives the week before NAB reinforces that supposition, and hints that maybe we are in for a wait as I posited last week If Apple wants to seriously take on Avid for performance, they need to cut free of all that legacy code that has held them back or so long and optimize for the hardware platform of the present and future - the Intel platform. Apple hasn't sold a PowerPC professional Mac in quite some time now, so having software that does an extra bit of performance on the new hardware platform and requires the latest OS to do it is a gutsy move that, uh, would, um, require everybody to upgrade to new hardware/OS. While Apple has gotta love that idea, I just don't think it viable, and I'm pretty sure they don't either.

2.) It won't matter, because the new Final Cut Studio is about ready to roll - they've been working on this for a long time, the last major code effort was the port to Intel that happened last February or so, they've had LOTS of uninterrupted time to work on this. Apple won't be so radical so as to divorce a large segment of the OS and hardware Mac market in order to get a bit more performance out of the software by relying on a brand new OS. They've never done that before, and why change now. It has ALWAYS worked on the current OS, and maybe back a major version (sometimes, depending on OS release cycles), and works on current and one generation back machines. After writing that thing the other week, I don't THINK Apple would go that radical to get performance trophies at the expense of supporting the majority of the user base. While it'll probably run best on Intel Macs with latest OS, I'll betcha I get pretty good performance on my Quad Core G5 running 10.4.9 (I hope Hope HOPE so anyway). I'd get more, but not hugely, crushingly, real-world usefully more RT perfomrance an a 4 core Intel Mac Pro. And I have sneaking feeling that maybe they won't be ready to really make those 8 core Macs sing since the OS isn't truly optimized for it.

I've flipped some emails with Bruce Allen this afternoon, and editor web buddy who originally pointed out the announcement to me.

I'd said:

My bullshit detector is pinging a bit - if you steal folks for
iPhone, that shouldn't bump the release FIVE MONTHS!

Software ALWAYS lags hardware. Until you see benchmarks for shipping software/hardware you can personally lay your mitts on and afford, it can be a dicey proposiiton. Of course, I'm going to need to get into a beefy Intel Mac sooner rather than later with Redcine right around the corner...dammit. My only Intel Mac is my MacBook I'm typing on right now.

And Bruce responded:

Agreed, Mike, agreed!

It makes the 8-cores very scary to buy now - you can buy now, expecting performance to improve with Leopard... but by the time Leopard comes out, Apple might very well have released the NEXT 8-core models. This must be driving you nuts, my friend, since I think you are in the market to buy your next Mac, right?

The problem for everyone is, if you don't get an 8-core and independently benchmark RedCine on it,, who will?


...we'd have to wait on, and trust the results of, Rob & Graeme I'd bet. Fortunately, they are both honorable guys and share my utter loathing for what I consider "specsmanship." It has been said "...there are lies, damn lies, and benchmarks." The height of such endeavors I dub specsmanship, and with maximum pejorative emphasis.

Anyway, in summary:
-bummer that Leopard is delayed
-but I don't think/I hope that it won't affect next Final Cut's release
-if I haven't said it yet, the rumor of a high end, Avid tackling, 4K capable Final Cut Extreme never quite sat right with me, since Apple isn't in the ultra-niche high end business. Realtime codec/frame size mixing on a timeline? Yeah, LOTS of folks could use that daily. 4K finish? That is an ultra tiny minority of the market and doesn't make sense right now. But if they want to go nuts collaborating with Red (no idea what the working relationship really is between those two), I'm all for it, even it if isn't best use of their resources in the big picture (but GREAT for my needs!). Anyway, to announce a forthcoming package that would include the capabilities that Final Touch had, with the new asset management tools they acquired, and the next Shake, and say it'll ship "later this year" meaning next year, is the most plausible idea I've come across to scratch that Final Cut Extreme itch
-Oh, back on track - I'm kinda hoping new GPU & optical drive options would be announced on Sunday, but I'm not holding my breath - the timing would be so wacky.

-mike

Labels: Apple, FCP, Final Cut, iPhone, Leopard, OS X

AppleInsider is running this article that includes a video that some folks created that sniffs out a few more details on iPhone's capabilities - ringtone management, calendar event creation, etc.

Labels: Apple, iPhone