Est. 2003
The blog of one Michael Heilemann, expatriated Dane coming to you out of New York City. Half machine, half grapefruit, Interface director at Squarespace, design lover, film enthusiast, Star Wars historian, creator of the Kubrick and K2 themes, and holder of opinions, many of which are shared on his Twitter account.
This works with both the simulator, as shown here, as well as actual iOS devices. Though if used with actual iOS devices, plug it in to the computer and go to Settings - Safari - Advanced and turn Web Inspector on. Beyond that, it's exactly the same. And it rocks. Hard.
[The] Premier of Taiwan was ordering an investigation into Apple’s Slide-to-Unlock” patent. I thought there was more to this story because getting the Premier of Taiwan to investigate a patent and making it so public in such a short time after the patent was granted, stunk. We later found out that Google’s Eric Schmidt was coming to Taiwan and was working with the government on a new project. Ahh, the stench has a name and it’s Google; in particular, Eric Schmidt. Schmidt made it clear that it was war on Apple’s products and they promised Android OEMs that they could use any of Google’s patents to wage war against Apple in court. #
It pains me to bring this up, as it’ll no doubt bring about scorn from the Android liga on Twitter, but seriously Apple? In what world and under what kind of a regime is this alright? Never mind that I can’t even stretch my imagination far enough to think up a technical reason, but my music is my user data. User data is sacred. The first time this dialog popped up I just pressed enter without reading it, because that’s what users do!
Boom. All my music gone. Not so magic. Not so revolutionary.
Don’t ever do that again please.
I love the engineers behind iPhone OS. They’re head, neck, shoulders and torso ahead of everyone else. It’s kind of scary in a way, as it probably shows just goes to show how far behind everything else is in contrast.
Not to pick on WordPress, I’ve just spent a good deal of time with it over the last few days, and it struck me again yesterday how, as I was testing a slew of role management plugins (argh, by the way), that I would activate a plugin, and subsequently not have the faintest clue where to look for any new UI inserted by it. Some put a single options page under Users, others inserted whole bundles of pages, some put them where I least expected it…
Contrasted with the iPhone, where when you install or update an app, from the phone itself, it will actually exit the app store and take you to the screen where the icon is, and show you that it’s being installed/updated. This usually takes 10-20 seconds, and you’re good to go; it’s right there ready for you.
It’s a small thing, and in the cases where you’d prefer to stay in the store it may be mildly annoying, but on a larger scale it means a lot less frustration and searching, even in a system as simple as the iPhone.
Because I’m a far lazy slob, and it’s high time I get my ass in gear
So I brought my iPhone, because that thing goes with me everywhere; and because despite the deafening music played by a live DJ (because that’s how the trendy people like to train, donchaknow), I was kind of hoping I could listen to some of my own music, or maybe even an audiobook.
I notice on the step-abdomenizer-leg-conjagulator-train-master-machine a wire with a plug that looks pretty much exactly like a dock-connector. “Hmm”, I think to myself, “that looks exactly like a dock-connector. I wonder…”, and plug in my iPhone. And sure enough, the touch screen turns into an interface through which I can choose my music or even play video.
That in itself is awesome (and the reason I need you to tell me what video podcasts you follow), but the coolest part is that it actually saves the workout data as a Nike+ dataset onto the iPhone. Go home, sync it and you’ve got your workout data right there alongside your usual Nike+ data (should you have any).
Aside from the fact that it’s a shame something like this has to happen on proprietary technology, it’s still very awesome and if nothing else extra incentive to get couch potato web-dev losers like myself down to the local gym.
Before we ventured out on our roadtrip, I bought TomTom’s US/Canada and Nordic apps for the iPhone for an awful lot of money. Hey, I thought, always having a navigation system in my pocket is a pretty nifty tool for traveling around a foreign country. Gee, golly.
Off we went, got the car, fired up the TomTom app aaaaand… FAIL.
What TomTom forgot to write on their incredibly self-conglatuatory app description (‘has been very well received’, my ass) is that the app is literally only half the product, as it is on its own, incapable of keeping track of your location while driving.
Oh, for that to work properly, you need the TomTom cradle.
I would have bought the cradle in the blink of an eye actually. Except, it wasn’t available. And still isn’t by the way, with ‘Coming Soon’ having been the message on the website for about two months now.
So I bought half a product. Twice. I’m stupid that way.
So the same day we drove to a Target and bought a real TomTom unit. Worked flawlessly and practically saved our trip several times.
I mailed TomTom, asking for my money back on the iPhone apps, reasoning that they had sold me a product which fails to live up to what it promised (and promises still) to do. They told me they couldn’t give me back my money, I would have to take that up with Apple.
Of course, despite in theory having the ability to remotely turn off apps, Apple of course holds the policy of flat out no refunds on iTunes Store purchases.
So… TomTom creates an app which in itself does not do what it promises (and which is expensive, the US & Canada version currently goes for $100), but they unfortunately can’t refund my money. And Apple, renowed for their approval process, which ostensibly is supposed to shield me from bad apps, chose to approve TomTom’s app and gladly took my money despite the app not working?
What is wrong with this picture? What happened to my rights as a consumer? They product may be virtual, but my money isn’t…
I immediately imagined the possibility for a multiplayer tabletop strategy game, along the lines of Warhammer 40.000, in which there is no board and no pieces, just players. Bring the game with you, when you meet up with your opponent, have a quick round, wherever you are. I was going to say, that all you’ll need is a flat surface; but you obviously don’t even need that, when everything is virtual.
Another thing struck me. Since the iPhone knows where it is, which way it’s pointing and how it’s tilting, it should theoretically be possible for it to apply that data-over-time to a video stream and in essence create Google Streetview-like spheres; employing some clever math, no doubt.
Exciting stuff, though of course not the first example of augmented reality on the iPhone.
The distance between the dream and the substance of augmented reality is an infinity of real-world problems. But…
The implications boggle the mind, and while they do, you can read up.
Other than the recessed headphone jack (possibly the stupidest design decision in the history of ever), there’s only a single thing about the iPhone annoying me on a daily basis, and which, together with the non-glove-compatibility of the interface, has convinced me that yes, the iPhone was most definitely ‘Designed by Apple in (sub-tropic) California’.
The remote control ‘clicker’. It catches on to zippers like a Turkish vendor on a tourist. The shape along with the location along the wire, makes it perfect for incessantly snatching onto anything and everything semi-solid in the neck area, which in my case happens to be the zipper to my jacket.
Had the clicker been entirely smooth, from end to end, this wouldn’t be a problem. And no functionality need be sacrificed. Everyone gets what they want, we all become friends and world peace ensues.
Thank you Steve.
Hey, everybody bitching and whining about your iPhone plans out there in the world (yeah Canadians, I’m looking at you, whiners); I think it’s official now. Denmark has one of the worst iPhone plan in the world (though it looks like Norway beats us).
Not to mention Telia, which doesn’t have the best reputation in the country either…
So, you know, the next time you’re a Canadian whining about Rogers and their iPhone plan, consider that ours is not only more expensive, but worse in every conceivable way. In fact, you can’t get a plan for your iPhone in Canada that’s as bad as the ones we have here in the Northern countries.
Think about that for a moment.
I love my iPhone, but there’s one thing I don’t understand. With my iPod, formatted with FAT32, I could connect it both at home and at work, and effortlessly stream music off of it or even copy music onto it in both places. Not so with the iPhone. It is bound to my workstation. Sure, I can connect it to my workstation (or my MacBook Pro or Rikke’s Powerbook or someone else’s computer), and they will detect it just fine. But the music on it is inaccessible…
If I try to turn on ‘manage manually’, which is what worked with my iPod, it tells me I have to erase the music library to bind it to the current computer!
Combined with the minijack port being compatible only with Apple headphones (what’s that about?!), this effectively makes it a pain in the ass to use at work. After all, I spent good money getting myself a pair of awesome headphones (Beyerdynamic DT 770); yet if I want to listen to something off of the iPhone, I have to use Apple’s headphones?
In turn, this has me switching back and forth between headphones, as I have to listen to something from my workstation and then back on the iPhone for a podcast, or whatever.
I love that it can be disconnected at any time, so I can take a call if necessary, and as such I accept that it doesn’t work as a HDD. But how can this be intentional? At least let me stream my own music off of the damn thing; that’s the least you can do.
