Dennis Clayton Design, Development & Communication Solutions
Web Development, Hosting, IT Consulting, Technology Solutions
Steve Jobs died on Wednesday October 5th, 2011. It is a sad day. His death is no more “significant” than anyone else’s, but the world has truly lost an icon… Someone who has probably changed the world of computing more than anyone else in recent history.
I don’t really know what more to say…
Rest in Peace Steve.
Dear Steve Jobs,
I feel that with the “death” of the XServe Server and the uncertain future of Mac OS X Server OS, Apple should delve into offering hosted services to pull in entities who are now scattered among numerous other services such as Google Apps for Domains, commercial hosting, and numerous other third party hosted or self hosted apps, which require a lot of maintenance, multiple accounts, billing, etc. Many of my IT associates who have switched to Apple laptops and desktops have commented to me that they hate still having to use non-apple apps to complete their daily business.
For example, the MobileMe interface already is an attractive and functional interface for email, contacts, calendar, iDisk, Photos and location services. How much harder would it be to allow a company to signup and fully attach their own domain to the MobileMe framework. Perhaps even create a separate enhanced version of MobileMe in their [Apple's] newest “cloud” datacenter in North Carolina and, over time, have an ‘a la carte’ offering of additional new services that users need/request. Maybe even allow developers to write custom Apps that can be cleanly integrated into the web interface and a matching app for the iOS device(s).
Keep the price reasonable, no more than $1-2/mo per user, which would be very attractive for small businesses, special pricing for larger corporations and perhaps discounts when Apple devices are purchased and attached to an account. Perhaps 1 year for free when any iOS device is purchased to draw users in.
The advantages of this would be numerous, it would give small businesses and organizations a unified and complete “Apple Branded Experience” on their Mac PCs, iPhones, iPads, etc. Almost everyone I know has a Mac device of some kind and many would prefer to use their own domain. Apple does offer the capability of attaching a domain to your MobileMe webspace, but that does not extend to customization of the other services.
Also, with minor modifications to the existing MobileMe framework, it would bring a whole new potential residual revenue stream that millions of users could utilize. It may also spur additional companies and users to buy Apple hardware knowing that all these services are so well intergrated. Adding similar features as Google Apps for Domains and improving upon them would make it a very attractive alternative.
Now don’t get me wrong, I do use and am VERY happy with Google Apps for Domains, but it would be nice to have some competition from another major player to keep things interesting. Google does accomplish a lot of what I’ve stated in this email, but it’s not as “pretty”, well integrated and cost effective for those with many needs.
Perhaps Apple could even purchase a VoIP company and add that to their portfolio of services. With an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and an old Mac Mini, it would be nice to get deep integration of all my communications needs while not being forced onto the @me.com domain.
I guess only time will tell how far Apple is willing to ascend into the cloud.
Over the years, I have always swung back and forth between Microsoft, Apple, Linux, etc. I get into Open Source moods, then realize there’s something I need on one the more ‘closed’ platforms of Microsoft or Apple and lean back towards those. Because of that, I currently have machines running all three major OSes. A PC Desktop running Windows 7, a Mac Mini (Intel) running the latest Mac OS X and my old Desktop running Linux (Ubuntu 10.04).
I’m sort of the same way with other devices, for phones and PDAs, I’ve used Palm (legacy and WebOS), Windows Mobile, Apple iOS (v. Original-4.x), Symbian, etc. But I had never taken the plunge into the newer Android OS. Perhaps I figured it wasn’t as stable or mature as iOS and some of the others that have been around for a while.
This past week, my wife lost her phone, so she met me at the Verizon store on her way home. I was there about 20 minutes earlier, so I was admiring the new Droid X, HTCs and the Samsung Fascinate. When she arrived, I suggested that we try the Fascinate since there was a “buy one get one free” special, we’d get rid of the MiFi 2200 since they have the WiFi Hotspot feature for only $20/mo more, and we’d come out a bit ahead. We were both Upgrade Eligible, so I did everything I could to sell her on it.
Now my wife is NOT really a techy person and since she already used her iPod touch as a PDA, I didn’t think she’d go for it, but she did. I was amazed. Now I’m the happy owner of a new Android phone.
My first impressions are good, it’s fast, has plenty of features and customization, a decent selection of apps, great hardware while still maintaining really good battery life and form factor.
Virtually everything I needed and had on my iPhone 3G plus more are now installed on my Fascinate and I only paid for one app (WebSharing). The camera (5mp) is excellent, the video (up to 720 HD) is also very crisp with GREAT audio quality for a phone. The screen is very bright and does a good job auto-adjusting based on the ambient light level.
The only minor con is that there is only a Bing search widget available. There is no factory option to change it to Google Search. This is just wrong in so many ways. Other than that. The Samsung skinning of the Android interface is a bit annoying, but since I’m a first time user, it’s not too bad, but I did like the interface better on the non-Touchwiz Droid phones.
My favorite feature so far is the Swype text input. You just draw the word on the popup screen keyboard and it intelligently pulls out the words, even if they’re names or website addresses and so on. It is very accurate and intuitive. The Swype website has a bunch of nice tutorials for more advanced input options.
Now that I’ve had it for a few days, I am sort of disappointed I waited so long. Perhaps it was a good thing to let some of the early bugs get worked out.
I have never been as disappointed in Apple as I am with the new iPad.
Here’s why:
AT&T as the only carrier
AT&T SUCKS! Need I say more? Those Verizon commercials about AT&T are all 100% correct. AT&T’s 3G coverage is sad, Verizon’s is amazing. Until AT&T is gone, the only version I’ll ever get is the WiFi only and use my MiFi 2200 on Verizon for data on the move.
No front-facing camera
ALL of Apple’s computers and monitors come with webcams these days, even the iPhone has a camera in the back. Why did they not do this? AT&T probably had some say in it, because they SUCK so badly, and wouldn’t be able to handle video conference over 3G.
No Multitasking
They touted this device as something “better” than a netbook, yet it cannot even multitask like a netbook. ANY netbook is better than this device for this one simple feature. This feature is “crucial” for a multi-function device like this for it to have any kind of usability outside of basic apps.
The iPhone’ish Operating System
I would’ve preferred something more of a hybrid between the iPhone OS and Mac OS X, I know that would’ve probably required more power and therefore shortened the battery life, but add only 1-2mm thickness and a lot more battery could fit in if shaped correctly. Having a “fuller” OS probably would’ve solved the multitasking issue and would allow people to run more apps therefore making it that much more of a “usable” device. Even with this robustness, it would most likely NOT cut into the Laptop market since it doesn’t have a mouse and sometimes you just need a mouse.
No Removable Memory Options
Apple should have simply created 2 versions, a WiFi Only and a WiFi+3G, have some onboard memory, maybe 16 or 32GB, then allow us to expand with it SD cards. SD Cards are getting bigger all the time and would allow much greater flexibility for expansion. Of course that would cut into Apple’s profit margins when they want everyone to buy the 128GB version coming out next year.
More Codecs
As much of a “media company” as Apple is, they still need to support the needs of the public as a whole. Everyone, or at least most, has DiVX AVI or MKV movies that they’ve downloaded or gotten from friends. It would be really nice if these videos could be natively viewed on this device.
Overall, complaints aside, it is still a nice device. For the price, it’s still, in my opinion, a much better value than the Amazon Kindle line. The Kindle is too “plain jane” and black and white while the iPad is the Kindle’s hot younger sister that still has some growing up to do. 
I will watch the iPad over the next year or so and if they do make some of these improvements, especially the carrier, multitasking and front-facing camera, I’ll buy 2-3 for me, the kids, and around the house.
Finally Apple’s tablet device has been officially announced. Steve Jobs just now got done with the presentation finished.
Here are some basic specs…
1/2 inch thin, 1.5 pounds, ~9.7 inch high rez display, 1ghz Apple A4 chip… New Apple chip that contain all the controllers. Accelerometer & compass, WiFi 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, speaker/mic and 30pin (standard) connector, 10 hours of battery life, 16 to 64gb Flash storage…
IPhone App compatible and can be scaled up to new screensize (pixel doubling)
More to come.
Later today Google is expected to release a new web browser based on Webkit (what Safari uses) and Firefox. I feel that it will be a welcome addition to the browser wars.
I used Firefox, but have notice a lot more browser crashes with 3.x than previous versions and it feels quite laggy sometimes even on a Quad processor machine with 3gb RAM. It gets to the point sometimes where I just load up Safari or Opera to surf sometimes.
IE just sucks. I ONLY use IE for site testing during web development and for the “best” experience accessing my day job’s Outlook Web Access (OWA) for email. Other than that, IE is not a part of my day to day browser use.
If this Google takes the best of Webkit and Firefox and makes it “better, faster, stronger”, then I will use it. Of course I will be frank on my review of it and will do my best not to be biased since I use Google almost exclusive for my search needs, Email (Google Apps for Domains), Analytics for stats, etc.
I will post up a review once I get my hands on it and can put it through it’s paces.
I think Google will have more downloads of this browser in the first 24 hours than Firefox did on it’s 3.0 launch day if it posts up something on the front page of Google. This could be huge.
What a complainer… Sure, there are going to be bugs, lots of them sometimes in the case of a new product of this type… People should almost expect them.
We all knew it was coming, it was just a matter of time. A lawsuit has been filed against Apple over what the plaintiff is referring to as the “Defective iPhone 3G,” which she hopes will become a class-action complaint. Alabama resident Jessica Alena Smith filed the complaint yesterday against the iPhone maker, alleging that the new iPhone’s 3G performance and reliability has been subpar, despite the claims made by Apple’s aggressive marketing campaign. Considering that a true fix has yet to be issued for users’ 3G problems, this could just be the tip of the iPhone lawsuit iceberg. More >>
But now, this woman wants to file a class action lawsuit against Apple due to 3G not living up to her expectations. Even though the Infineon 3G chipset may be a bit flawed, it’s still not completely Apple’s fault. AT&T is the provider and that can cause the dropcalls, coverage (or lack of) issues and so on.
I live in Kentucky and don’t even have 3G where I live, so I cannot really vouche for the quality, but I did get a chance to travel to Lexington KY this past week and had NO problems whatsoever… Actually my 3G was much faster on my phone that one of my friend’s tethered BlackBerry. I brought up pages much faster on my phone than he did on his laptop.
Some people just don’t have anything better to do… Just ask for a refund and get a different phone… geesh.
I got my new 3G today after waiting for two weeks for Apple to get more in. Went down to the AT&T Store and sat there and waited while the silly customer service reps sat there and explained EVERY little feature of the phones to the customers… Geeesh. Took about 25 minutes for just one person ahead of me in at each of the 3 reps… Amazing.
Finally, I got to the desk and the girl went back and got it for me and started chatting up a storm about it… I told her I already had the 2G and already knew everything about it, if I don’t, I’ll read the manual. I also voiced my disappointment with having to pay $10 more for 3G in an area that doesn’t even have 3G service. Isn’t that “illegal” to charge more for a service that isn’t even offered? They tried saying, and it must be the official AT&T stance, that the higher price was to be “more competitive with the other data plans”, not because of the faster 3G speeds. Competitive? By raising the price higher towards the crackberry plan? COME ON! I’ll admit that I knew I would have to pay $10 more a month, so I didn’t make that big of a stink.
THEN, she asked if I wanted SMS messaging… Prior to ordering, I didn’t realize they stripped out the 200 SMS messages that came with the 2G plan… This is getting silly. Apple and AT&T are really letting this iPhone thing go to their heads. So I had to pay $5/mo for just 200 SMS messages.
So basically, due to the lack of my area’s 3G coverage, I am paying $15/mo more just to have the same level of service that I had on my 2G. They better be investing on getting 3G in my area and loosen up on the SMS. SMS is probably the most efficient use of the network and they charge the MOST for it! COME ON!
I ended up calling and making a stink about the SMS and got 5 free months of SMS + 1000 extra rollover, which I’ll never use.
They activated it in the store and synced up my contacts with MobileME via WiFi before leaving. Once I got home, this is where the waiting started…
Syncing with iTunes took about 60 minutes.
It had to:
The backup thing runs like ALL the time now instead of being manual and although I appreciate the backups, I don’t feel like I need it EVERY time I add or change something. Especially when it takes as long as it does. The other day, after not syncing for a week or so, it took 30 minutes or so to just do the backup.
THEN, I couldn’t use any of the 3 cradles that I have for my phone due to the physical differences between 2G and 3G… A Dremel tool easily solved this, but again… This is a negative for Apple. At least they didn’t decide to change the actual connection layout of the plug.
Overall, the audio is much better in the earpiece, the external speaker is louder… Some things seem a bit zippier and the keyboard seems a bit “tappier” and faster to type on. Maybe it’s the more comfortable feel, I dunno.
I am going to do my best to get this “$15/mo more for nothing” thing remedied, but most likely, I’ll just have to eat it.
I’m actually what you could consider a recent Apple “fanboy” but I am starting to feel the euphoria I felt about Apple for the last few years starting to fade. If they get any worse, they are going to lose me and my evangelism about Apple and surely, I am not alone in these feelings.
The new Apple iPhone 3G was announced today (6/9/2009) at WWDC 2008 in San Francisco. The new price is only $199 (8gb) and $299 (16gb) due to carrier subsidies. It has tons of new features built into it, notably GPS and 3G (of course) and will definitely make inroads not only into the corporate market with the new MS Exchange functionality, but also into the more frugal consumer market. $199 makes this phone very competitive with the higher end blackberries and cheaper than most of the Microsoft Smartphones.
Most of the base features are the same, like the flash storage capacity, but Apple did take suggestions from the community and improve the design, such as making the headphone jack flush as to not require a special adaptor to use non-Apple headphones.
The 16GB model also has a white backed version as well as the new Black backed and the front of the phone is wholly unchanged…
Included accessories, everything is pretty much the same:
Look for the new iPhone to reach stores around July 11th. Hopefully supply will be able to hit the demand that I anticipate. I plan on getting ahold of one for myself.
The new Microsoft Surface technology looks pretty slick, albeit a bit expensive. Perhaps someday, after I make a bunch of $$ on my Apple Stock (AAPL), I’ll be able to afford one.
Check out this video below with a “new” voiceover. Funny Stuff…
