Thank You Steve !

I am penning a few words extemporaneously today.  At about 6pm my nurse called to let me know that Steve Jobs had resigned as the CEO of Apple.  In a way I was happy to hear about the resignation as opposed to something else.  Then my thoughts ran into the realm of gratitude. 

When I was a young man, I loved computers.  I used to hang out at Radio Shack playing with TRS-80's and learned how to program in Basic.  I never thought that I could own a computer.  No one could afford a TRS-80.  When an Apple store opened a block away from my house all of the geeks transitioned there, hanging out in our corduroys and Jordache/Sassoon jeans typing away and programming.  It was only a matter of time before all of us mustered enough courage to work night and day to purchase an Apple II computer.  I still have it!  It was Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak who fueled the passion in us high school geeks.  Although we also admired Bill Gates in the process, it was the Apple II that made us believe that we could do great things.  Yes, it was only Visicalc and a crashy wordprocessor, but we created magic with the Assembler.  Who can forget writing in numbers?  Who remembers Peek and Poke?  

My first computer job came with an Apple II+, writing a script program for an all-purpose store, showing clothing, matching colors etc.  A collaborative project, it helped to pay down some of my school bills and tuition.  I then began working in a really ritzy store in Manhattan, doing their accounts receivables and database programming (all primitive stuff now) for about 6 hours per week.   The Apple community at that time was really close-knit.  We shared code and helped each other as much as possible.

It all came to an end for me during college when everyone went to IBM PC's and I had to go with the flow or suffer!  I went with the flow and literally, made no money for school, because the programming languages were so terrible.  I couldn't "make magic" with a PC.  So for years I held out, buying and building PC's until I finally came back to Apple in 2007.  I have never looked back.  It started with the purchase of an iPod for my wife two years earlier.  And then the full conversion.  I got back into programming again, albeit, I find OSX a lot harder than Basic or Assembler.   But there is really one person to thank for that.

I found the convergence of Apple products to be more appealing than Windows.  Everything just started working well together.  The computers spoke to each other.  Devices recognized each other immediately.  Even now, when I was "forced" to use a Windows 7 machine, it could not find my printer.  When I plugged in my Mac, it found the printer, the wifi - configured itself for its use, and just worked right out of the box.  Yes, Windows does some of that well now, but Windows XP and Windows Vista did not.  I finally found myself using my own cloud storage system.  At home and away, everything just worked.  I would only have to put my NAS address in once and it would find the NAS drive every time.  I didn't need to sync machines etc or sign in repetitively.  I have still not had a virus in 5 years on my Mac.  Although I cowered and installed an antivirus system a year ago only because I couldn't convince someone in my family to stop running in Root.  I did not want to press my luck.

And then I started watching the keynotes.  Actually, I started watching them in 2005 and was impressed and excited by the presentations that Steve Jobs gave.  They were exciting, invigorating and entertaining.  I wanted a Mac.  The commercials were priceless because they were so true.  I eventually purchased an Intel iMac and soon got back into writing again, because I could concentrate on writing and not the process of file management.  I again ran into the Apple community helping each other with problems.  Open source software that was to die for.   Software that actually fit a niche nicely.  And of course, the CRAZIES!   Ah yes, where would we be without mentioning the Crazies!  The ones who make Crazy movies about the Mac and about their allegiance to Apple.  The ones who stalked out the Comp-USA stores answering questions for customers that the store clerks had no idea about.  The ones who now stalk Best Buy stores doing the same thing.  The ones who look out for every Steve Jobs poll on Engadget and ensure that everyone votes at least twice - at home and at work.  The ones who push the envelope on Macrumors, MacDailyNews, Engadget,TUAW, Appleinsider and MacWorld,  asking for the impossible.  The thing about the Crazies is that one guy at the helm has been listening, reading and affecting the change that they have requested (some of the times).  That person has been Steve Jobs.   Steve has been represented in the media as being brilliant, assertive, rude, nice, bold and certainly ground breaking.  He has had a vision of personal computing that has been equaled only in Science Fiction.  He has made possible that which we believed was impossible.  The iPod brought paying customers to the post Napster world.  He convinced record companies to pay attention to this nascient entity and they did.   He brought dramatic changes to the PC by building All-In-Ones and then sped up the process by actually saying goodbye to a long time chip ally - Motorola.  The Intel chip propelled the iMac to greatness and catapaulted the Macbook Pro to being the number one most requested laptop in the world.  He had the vision to see what people wanted.  He implemented the ideas of the Crazies slowly instead of all at once.  He made it fun for anyone to play music, write books/screenplays, make movies by relying on that thing that humans do best -  concentrating on creating the project.  Gone was the process which made programs such as Windows Cakewalk (for music) and various video programs seem archaic.  iLife made it all so simple.  And above all else, it was all included in the Mac.   From the day that you purchased it, you were working on your projects.

He helped to revolutionize the way in which we watch television.  Purchasing episodes and seasons digitally, although the encryption was quite silly, it was a start and a position of leadership that others would run to follow.   Even in music, iTunes still leads the way. 

But if the revolution was in the PC, created and reaffirmed by Apple, it was the telephone that once and for all made Apple the King that it should have been 20 years ago.  I have never forgotten the day, the hour, the minute that I saw the presentation for the iPhone.  Steve Jobs reiteration of the three devices being simultaneously made by Apple and the revelation that all three devices were really ONE DEVICE.  I remain, to this day, stunned by that presentation.  It was by far the best presentation I have ever seen even 4 years later.  The build up, which was literally pent up demand for a major change in the way in which we use a telephone had been going on for months.  No one knew what the final product would look like. And I assure you that no one knew that it would have ONE BUTTON.  It was the perfect device.  Finally someone had listened.  To make matters worse, the ridiculous statement by Palm about computer companies not being able to take over the phone business, made the iPhone even more coveted.  Steve Jobs got it right!  He understood what customers wanted in a phone.  So much so that Google, Samsung and even Palm itself literally made buttonless phones and called them original.  Everyone who wasn't living under a rock knew what was going on.  Worse, the purchase of non-Apple look alikes were based more on cut rate pricing and giveaways rather than wants.  AT&T continues to sell the iPhone 3GS above other smartphones.  Verizon has finally admitted that many people bought Droids because they could not get iPhones and the sales of iPhones has proven that.

Steve Jobs is a visionary.  His ability to see what customers want and to drive his engineers to the point of near impossibility and excellence has been amazing.  Questions are now being asked as to whether Tim Cook, appointed CEO today will have that same vision as Steve has had for the past twenty years.  Apple over the years has created some phenomenal hardware which has been closely linked with its software.  That union has led it to being one of the greatest tech stories of all time.   As a kid, I looked at my computer as a device that would change the world.  It changed the world for me, allowing me to pay a lot of my tuition; completing projects and succeeding in this world that has become the future.  Three guys were followed closely by my classmates.  We watched everything that they did.  It didn't matter if we were going into Medicine, Finance or Law, we followed these three guys like hawks.  Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak were one of the Crazies, but only one did we look to for what was next.  We watched him get thrown under the bus by the company that he founded.  We watched him while he was at Nexus and wondered when he would return.  And when he did, we jumped for joy.  We became the Crazies.  We talked about it at Christmas reunions.  Some of us took longer than others to return to the Apple fold, whether we were detoured by work or school, we eventually came back.  It wasn't out of some crazy loyalty that we returned.  We returned because we realized that we were missing something.  We missed not having to deal with The Process.  We longed for the need to return back to the simplicity of doing that which we set out to do.  Neither the hardware nor the software should distract us from our primary goal.  We returned because of STEVE JOBS.

For making us the kids of yesteryear love science.
For making us, the kids of yesteryear, hang out in Apple Stores programming and have fun.
For making us make possible that which was once considered impossible.
For making me and my kids do our work without relying on the process.
For making my kids love programming (MIT's Scratch)
For making my wife love using a computer once again.
For making me pay for some of my tuition due to making affordable hardware (Apple II+).
For making music fun again.
For making family movie making fun again.
For making it easy to make a DVD (no mean feat in the early days) from personal film.
For making homework fun to do.
For making it easy to write custom software for kids.
For making the software less prone to viruses and other nasties.
For showing us that there is a different way to do things.
For making us quietly convince our IT departments to THINK DIFFERENT!

FOR CHANGING THE WORLD !  AND FOR MAKING US ALL THINK DIFFERENT!

S T E V E    J O B S,

T H A N K      Y O U.

iOS 4.3....Eureka !

Yes, I thought the iPad2 was phenomenol.  Yes, I will be getting one!  Yes, I was blown away by the Garageband demo.  Yes, I really enjoyed the specs.  Just like many of you, I was impressed by all of the above.

But yesterday I also saw something that I have been wishing for.   The advent of iOS 4.3, with the ability to use AirTunes on ANY SUPPORTING APPLICATION.  Yes, you heard that correctly, the ability to use Air Tunes in any supported application.   What does this mean?  It means that you are not completely tied to iTunes to stream movies to your Apple TV or other iOS 4.3 device.   Hopefully, it will also mean that CinePlayer can stream xVid and AVI files to your TV not just .MV4 files.   At least, that is what I got out of the video that I played back last night of the keynote for iPad 2.  Web pages and everything else should be able to be streamed or accessed via the HDMI cable.

This is welcome news and for me a wonderful surprise from the keynote. 

The best gadget for 2010......

Folks, I know the iPad has had the reputation of being the best device for 2010.  It's on the wish list of many, but here's a story that may make you go Mmmgh?

I had the opportunity to purchase an iPad earlier this year.  It was a gift actually that was to be given to me some time in August.  I passed on the gift immediately.  I was told about how many wonderful apps that were available for it and how the simple act of buying an app once meant that it could be utilized on an iPhone and an iPad.  I was shown the simplicity of reading books and the running of gadgets from remote controlled apps.   I thought that this was wonderful.

However, I declined the iPad!   Yes, folks, I declined the hottest gadget of the year.  The gadget that is simply the best in its class - that of Tablet Computing.  So I know that you are asking the very question that many of my other friends have asked:  WHY?  And more importantly, what is the best gadget, in your opinion, for 2010?

For me, the gadget of the year is quite simply Amazon's KINDLE.

What I did not tell you in the first paragraph above was that I have a very large library of books.  Books that I never get to carry around with me.  They range from novels to sonnets to medical literature.  I have well over 1,000 journals, which I rarely get the chance to read and therefore am subjected to buying a subscription to a Journal Reviewer, reading in depth the articles that are germaine to me.  I rarely get the opportunity to read novels and when I do, I usually don't have the book with me.   What I needed was an electronic book device.  Something that just did electronic books.  I did not want something with email, twitter, You Tube or any such distractions.  I wanted a serious e-book reader.  No tweeting, beeping, ringing interruptions.  Just words on a page.  I wasn't interested in color or pictures.  Just WORDS.

The Kindle or more importantly, The Kindle 3 is perhaps the best e-book reader ever invented.  As of 2010 of course.  The iPad simply does not compare when it comes to reading a novel on the device for over an hour.  I tried to read on an iPad that was loaned to me and I immediately became fatigued trying to read at night.   Additionally, the iPad, excellent as it may be as a mobile utility device, is much too heavy to be considered a dedicated e-book reader or book replacement. It is too distracting, with its apps, alerts etc., to be considered a serious e-book reader.  Now, I am not putting the iPad down, but simply stating that if you are looking to read books and only books, then the Kindle is the better choice.

So, are there weaknesses to the Kindle?  You bet.  First, you really do need to have the same brightness that you would have to read a regular book available to you.  Otherwise, you will need to buy a cover which has a built in light source or buy another light source.  There is no back light, as seen with the iPad.
Second, if you are into color pictures, the iPad is for you.  The Kindle shows only gray scale images.  Again, it is for reading.  Thus I would not recommend it for Magazine reading.  Nor would I recommend it for PDF books.  The manipulation that needs to go on with trying to read a PDF is just not feasible for long articles.
Third, after playing with the iPhone, any Smart phone or an iPad or iPod Touch, you have this feeling that everything that has a small screen needs to be touched to make the words and images move.  Thus page turns, character enlargement etc., are intuitively managed by Touch Screen -- On An iPad.  But not on a Kindle.  There are still ancient Touch buttons on the side and a relatively antiquated hard key keyboard.

But what beauty there is lies in the Software that Amazon has chosen to use.  Let me first say that Linux is always loved and the OS appears to be a version of this.   You can add books to the Kindle in many different ways.  You can use Amazon's WhisperSync which does over-the-air downloads via 3G or Wifi.  And did I mention that the 3G is free, without registering?   Yes, it's relatively slow if you want to surf the web, but for obtaining books, it's wonderful.  You can also Archive by just erasing a book off your KINDLE.  You can save an entire folder, which contains all of your books from the KINDLE to your PC.  This is great if you want to upgrade a Kindle.  You just download the folder and store it on your hard drive.  This also allows you to save files on the Kindle and use its 4 gig memory as a hard drive.  You can upload Audiobooks via this route also or MP3 files.

One amazing feature that I loved was during an hour of reading a classic.  I couldn't move, but I had to go to the bathroom.  Well, you can let the Kindle read to you.  It will ( in its really nice phonetic voice, which I might add is quite human-like) continue reading where ever you have left off.  Really great for bathroom breaks :).

The Kindle is small enough to keep in your bag or jacket.  It can download updates if you like, in the background.  Additionally, you can turn off the Wifi and save the battery.  I have used it for 22 days straight on a single charge once.  Normally, I will charge it on weekends though.  What is good however is the ability to read anywhere, anytime.  And if I forget the device, well, I can continue the reading on my phone if I wish.

One important feature about the Kindle is the lack of a back light.  I point this out because it is very important.  I can read a Kindle for at least an hour straight, without stopping because I do not have a large back light shining into my eyes.  That back light is okay if you are reading at 7pm.  But at 10pm, this is a strain.  I have tried reading my iPhone at night and I hate it.  It's too bright.

Of note, the 1000 journals will not be archived.  For that I am actually going to use an iPad.  The PDF restriction is an issue there.  Also, for technical reading, I really would not recommend the Kindle, at least for medical technical reading.  If you have to jump back and forth, several times, then an iPad is better.  But luckily, I have found a wonderful niche for my Kindle.  It is now the proud provider of all of my classic novels and since they are free, the list is now well over 100 in size.  I look forward to reading Moby Dick and Brave New World many years later and from a different perspective than I had before.  The non reflective nature of the Kindle makes it a winner anywhere.  And the fact that I will not be distracted by the web when I am reading is just icing on the cake.

This is why I am calling the KINDLE 3 with WIFI & 3G the best Device for 2010.

My thoughts on iOS 4.2 thus far......

I had hoped to not be sucked into the Reality Distortion Field,  but it happened.  The Steve Jobs presentation of an iPhone shooting video directly to the AppleTV was too much for me.  With the blogosphere going crazy last week when 4.2 was not released, I grew excited.  But this morning I have begun to have buyers' remorse.  Yes, I know it was a free update, but I have remorse none the less.   It seems that my favorite company is guilty of doing something that Dell has begun doing recently:  Overpromising and Underdelivering.  It is unusual, but it has happened.  As I pressed the buttons of my iPhone in excitement, I soon began to realize that my happiness should never revolve around a gadget.  With that, here are my views on a few of the salient updates:

1.  Codec limitations on streaming.

     This was supposed to be the most insane thing available.  The thing that would make Apple exceed Google in the cool factor arena.  The thing that would just drive sales of this device out the window.  The ability to use 3rd party apps that support codecs outside of .mp4, .mv, .mov finally being allowed to coexist with their Quicktime partners and streamed to the Apple TV.   The easing was found on the iPad first, then on the iPhone and iPodTouch devices over the past 8 weeks.  For a brief moment I thought that hell had frozen over and the chain had finally been broken.  But alas NO!  Using VLC or OVideo, both of which play Xvid and AVI as well as MP4, MV and MOV to stream to the AppleTV will only give you sound but no video.  I don't think that this is an engineering issue since VLC and OVideo were able to do it without a glitch on the phone.  But it gets worse!   Even Apple's own iMovie found on the iPhone will not stream to the AppleTV, nor will any movies stored in the Photo Library.   Now that makes no sense at all !!   And again, I am left feeling completely frustrated by what could have been a major leap in innovation for this company.

2.  SMS Ringtones.

      I know many in healthcare have been clamoring for this.  This is the Pager - Breaker.  Place a good Ringtone on an incoming message from the hospital switchboard or the floor and you're set.  But alas, this was not "the cat's meow."  The ringtones are a set of Hollywood tones that have no meaning to me at all.  There is no ability to draft a beeper sound or any custom tones.

3.  AirPrint.

     Airprint is also a major disappointment.  I was so excited that Apple went this route and opened up printing to almost all printers, but then I read the fine print.  Only available to wireless printers and only a handful.  I have a network printer which an app called e-Print finds very easily, but Apple's Airprint doesn't even recognize it. 

The printing feature is so major that I wonder how many people will remain quiet about it.   Even with the use of an Airport Base Station, Airprint still does not recognize the printer. 

4.  Proximity Sensor Issue.

     Can you believe that this has not been fixed yet?  I was so disappointed by this earlier tonight as I spoke to a Radiologist about a test result.  Not knowing that it had not been fixed, I struggled trying to press the Speaker Phone button, resorting to my "Keep the Home Button Pressed" technique that I wrote about earlier.   This is clearly begining to feel like a Hardware issue,  perhaps from an IC that can or cannot be re programmed.  Is it some logical statement written in the software or a hardware switch issue?  Right now, it's annoying to have spent this much money on a device and have to put up with this.


5.  Notes with new fonts.

     I have no complaints about this one.  I think that this is a great idea.  Although I have found myself using Notemaster a lot more, the simple Notes app still serves its purpose.  Perhaps we could see folders next for this little puppy?

6.   ICS Calendar Invitations.

     Finally more cohesiveness with Microsoft and the ability to import ICS calendars, something that should have been done a long time ago.  But I am happy for this one.

7.   Close all Apps button.

      No, you won't find it anywhere it doesn't exist,  it was just something that I thought would be nice to have.  I don't need to have all of the apps that I opened in a rested state of meiosis all of the time.  It eats up memory.

8.    Facetime from different modes. 
   
      Facetime from an SMS message is nice.

9.     Find My iPhone.

      I have not installed this yet, but I probably will this weekend.  Seems logical particularly if you have important data on your machine.   However, there is a little voice inside my head that asks, "will this be abused?"  Giving a hacker carte-blanche details of my whereabouts seems a little eery, but if you're at a party or a bar (wink :)), this program is a God send.


These are my initial thoughts on iOS 4.2 thus far.  Slightly disappointed that Apple did not hit the ball out of the ballpark with this one.  DLNA is right around the corner with a much more open Codec selection and already winning the hearts and minds of the living room.    If the new AppleTV is to become anything more than a Netflix conduit, of which there are many to choose from, I think that Apple will need to step up to the plate removing the past restrictions that they have previously imposed.  This codec issue being the most irritating of all.   And there is ample evidence that other companies are listening, if Apple is not.  Take a look at the LG BD590 Blue-ray player     with codec support that includes the following:  DivX®/DivX HD, MPEG2 TS/PS, MPEG1 SS, XVID, MKV, AVI, WMA, MP3, AC3, AAC, JPEG, PNG.   Not to mention a 250gb hard drive and ripping of DVD's to the hard drive; 2.0 usb connectivity, Netflix®, Vudu™, YouTube™, Roxio® CinemaNow, Pandora®, Picasa™, AccuWeather®.  Support for Netcast and DLNA. 

It is time for Apple to shed this crazy QT limitation and let the customers decide what format they want to watch.  As you can tell, this is my biggest pet peeve for iOS 4.2.  I know that an App store is just around the corner for the ATV and that is very exciting, but I would like to have some of the basics taken care of first.


LDD.

Google TV : Nice but wait for Apple to show its hand with its secret weapon.

I just finished seeing a few iterations of the new Google TV.  One word:  NICE!  I think that a lot of people wondered about the keyboard, but this was revealed to be a small Thumb board that looks relatively comfortable to type on.

Through the literature I have been reading that Google TV may make Apple TV completely irrelevant.  Mmgh?  Well that would be news to a few thousand people who, in the first 24 hours, made the tiny black box a rarity.  And to the many who have ordered the same online only to find a 2 week waiting list with free shipping.

A few people in the know, other than those looking for a Non-Roku way of getting to Netflix due to the fact that they can also get to iTunes, have snapped up the device and made it a rarity in the Apple Store.
Here's Why?  And here's why I think any talk about obsolescence, despite the AppleTV 2's flaws are way overblown:

1.  THE APP STORE!  The Secret weapon that Apple has in its armamentarium is the App store.  With the App store Apple can introduce anything that it wants.  TV mainstream channels that are resisting Apple now can put their own apps in the device.  Can you imagine Comcast putting an app in the store, making available all 800 channels just by segmenting it into an app?  Or Enhanced TV?  The App store can make the Apple TV anything that Apple wants it to be.

Want more proof?  Let's talk about my favorite pet peeve of the mobile Apple devices:  The inability to play more codecs.  I have clamored to have Divx, AVI, MKV a part of the Apple line up.  They have refused.  But there is an App called CineXplayer which will use iTunes to port .AVI files from iTunes into the iPad and play it flawlessly.  There is now also the VLC app which does the same thing.  The official Apple restriction is gone with the entrance of an App.

2.  Airplay !  There is talk that Google already has this, but I could only find it in DLNA.  This is not really the same thing and as I have found with a few friends, DLNA is really buggy and really picky.  It's not as simple as plugging in your computer or device and turning on your Samsung TV and hoping that the TV picks up the signal.  If Apple's Airplay is done correctly, you will be able to stream content from any iOS device, to the AppleTV and automatically have it show up on your TV.   This leaves room for a good hack that will stream an iOS compatible NAS drive to the Apple TV.

3.  Simplicity!  Hard to gauge, but Apple is notorious for making things simple.  It's in their DNA.  It is also that which may separate Google TV from the masses, not to mention the price difference.

I believe that the Google TV will be a hit, but pricing and bundling concerns may make it not so pleasant as it will be branded according to the distributor.  This makes for a less than linear or smooth experience.  But from what I have seen Google TV is a unique take on television and programming.   But as Google shows its hands in this arena, the App store remains Apple's playground to experiment and surprise.  Remember all Apple TV's -be they version 1 or version 2 - have a non consumer useable USB slot.  It's not there for nothing.  The gloves may be coming off for these two tech titans, but I think Apple may have the upper hand.  They have been doing media for a long time and the App store is their Trojan Horse to change.

The iPad

Today's announcement was again another master stroke from Steve Jobs. However, most in Techland are unimpressed by the device. Its name seems to offend some women, if the blogs are to be believed. Its lack of Flash is still hitting hard in some circles; the OS being possibly some flavor of iPhone OS 4.0 and not OS X 5.1.X seems to be bothering a lot of people, even though these things don't seem to upset people in the Netbook arena running a watered down Linux or Android system.

To call this a big, fat iPod Touch would be close, but not completely precise. It appears to have created a niche unto itself. It's not an eBook - it's a lot better. Yet, it's not a portable laptop - it's less than that. It is a class all by itself.

It appears to beat the Kindle, something that I was about to buy in December to read more books. I believe that the pricing is the killer app! A lot of people expected $1,000. What Apple did was segment the market, while still keeping even the top model iPad below the price of a MacBook. Brilliant ! Apple now has segments in just about all markets: The Sub $500 market will get you the low end iPad, any series of iPhones or iPod Touches; 500-999 will get you a used Macbook Pro or a MacBook or any series of iPads; 1000-1500 will get you a Macbook and a low end Macbook Pro or a desktop iMac fully loaded. 1500-2500 will get you an extra fully loaded iMac, a super duper Macbook and a fully loaded Macbook Pro. 2500+ will get you a Mac Pro - the PC looking separate machine with a monitor separate. They own this entire genre. Not to mention the fact that everything talks to everything else.

Some are ticked off that the iPad has no USB slot, but why would you need it? It's an advanced eReader basically, not a full fledged computer. And what about the iWork series on this thing? $10 buys you brilliance. So, they have Price, Products and a large developer population. The No-Boys (and they are mainly boys) say that this product is too lightweight and will fail dismally.

I say "NO!" The product is pure genius. I believe that many women will purchase this product. Mainly because it doesn't get in the way of doing whatever it is you are doing. There is no Operating system to worry about; no virus shield etc. The 3G option without a contract is again pure genius. I can see myself going away for a week and staying on 3G while I'm out and using the hotel wifi for everything else. I think that the only thing that will remain is whether AT&T means it when it says Unlimited Wifi or if it's 5 Gigabytes?

I think that Apple will learn a thing or two from Palm however. I don't think that Steve mentioned Iphone OS 4.0. I think that that will come either next month or during the iPhone presentation. Why is that important? Because I believe that we will see MULTI TASKING during 4.0. Jobs actually listens to the criticism. This is a 1.0 device. But I will probably still buy it to talk with all of my other Apple products. The syncing and the Sphere is just so compelling.

But look for OS 4.0 to take a gigantic hint from Palm with its opening page. I don't think that we will be thumbing through pages and pages of apps. I expect to see some kind of folder.

So, to my original query. Who will buy the iPad? Doctors, healthcare workers, people who like reading books, women, not kids and not teenagers, some tech savvy users, but not most, but definitely those who do not "like" or "get" computers. At $499, it's going to be compelling. It's better than an eBook reader; better than a Netbook and with excellent productivity software, it outshines a lot of laptops.

I think it's going to be a Winner. Uber-Geeks sit this one out!

LDD.

More on DropBox

...just a quick afterthought on Dropbox. I still believe that this is one of the solutions of the year for handheld devices. If you haven't had a chance to use this with your iPhone, you owe it to yourself to do so.

I am finding all sorts of uses for this product. From storing short clips to PDF files and other large data files, Dropbox seems to be fast, when hooked up wirelessly over lan and reasonable for downloading pdf files over 3G.

Picture storage is also excellent. What is nice is the ability to obtain these files from either a computer or my handheld device.


Highly recommend!

Welcome...

Welcome to my new blog. The Iphonedoc is a blog about, well whatever I feel like writing about on the day. Most of it will be Mac related.

A little about me. I am a physician and I work a very long day. In my spare time however, I love to play music, write and enjoy some of the tech toys that I purchase every once in a while. Most of my "toys" are utilitarian, meaning they were purchased not so much for fun, but for work. Hence, my Mac has enhanced my life in so many ways that my original Windows XP machine could not. I never upgraded to Vista on account of not only negative publicity, but because a lot of my software would not run on it. It would however run flawlessly in Parallels on my Mac.

During this time, my faithful companion was my Lifedrive by Palm. I have been in the Palm fold for almost 9 years, but the day that I received the Lifedrive as a gift, I wanted to go somewhere else! The device was a nightmare! None of my software would run on it without crashing. Despite letters to the chairman - yes, I didn't stop with just customer service - nothing was ever done to correct the problem. Nevertheless, I learned how to use the Lifedrive and kept the crashing to a minimum. This included:

1. Never attaching the Lifedrive to the Computer for backups.
2. Learning how to back up individual files without hotsynching.
3. Hotsynching = Strychnine. After every hotsync, my Lifedrive was more unstable.
4. Limiting file transfers to the SD card. The actual 4 gigabytes of onboard memory were so volatile that anything interrupting it would cause a soft reset, lasting 4-7 minutes at a time, in which you held your breath and hoped that your data was still there.

There's a lot more, but you can peruse www.lifedrivedoc.com for those horror stories and solutions.

After alot of soul searching, beginning in 2006, I looked for alternatives to my Lifedrive. I was going to purchase the TX, but found that it had the same flawed operating system as the Lifedrive and the only thing that separated the two was that the reset time was only 1-2 minutes instead of 7. I then saw the iPhone. I fell in love with it immediately, but wondered how useful would it be if I can't put programs on the device. Thus I waited for the App store to come out. Then I thought, what a lot of hype. Lots of preliminary programs, but no true medical ones. Then Handbase came out and a few calculators and I began to see the light. Palm was dying! And it didn't matter what you looked at, the obvious choice among Physicians and others in the health care field was the iPhone. It would only be a matter of time before the other companies started falling like flies. In the medical profession Palm ruled, but that was going to erode and I could see it coming, whether Palm issued the greatest device known to all mankind or not. Windows CE or whatever it's called these days would not stop it either. Despite its long entry into the medical field, multitasking (done wrong) and supposed interoperability with Microsoft Office, I found it lacking.
Wifi setup was a pain. Exchange was was a pain (that coming from IT itself), rendering of spreadsheets and other data poor - a surprise given the fact that Microsoft created it. No, I would wait.

The change however came in October of last year when the 3G model came out. I bought a few medical apps, which were rudimentary and could not replace my Lifedrive, until Handbase and SplashIDcame out. Once those arrived, I knew that it was time for me to move on. It was one of the most difficult transitions ever. You see, I am not afraid to say the following: I LOVE PALM COMPUTERS. Literally, I actually turned around, after being 20 miles out, to go home and pick up my Palm VX once - in snow! But, the promises that came from Palm, from 2006 onwards were too much to bear. The constant delays, purchases, sales, purchases of the OS were just too much. With Palm announcing that they were ditching the PalmOS altogether and moving to WebOS, I knew that I had made the right choice. WebOS is really akin to Apples iPhone incursion into this field. It didn't work as well as it was first perceived. Delays in application runtime and the inherent design of Java (can you say long load times) make this not the best in show. Although I believe Palm will be working on internal applications, I cannot afford to wait any longer for software, updates etc.

As for Microsoft? The technology is old! Apple is leading the way now for the handheld market. More and more developers are turning to them. I am learning OSX myself to attempt to write a few rudimentary apps. The SDK is right there in the computer to learn. No downloading etc.

Yes, I am an iPhone guy now and I don't see myself turning back to Palm or any other handheld system any time soon. Having said that, I really do wish Mr. Rubinstein and Palm all the best and I really want them to succeed with the Palm Pre. Not only for all of the people who love Palm as I do, but competition will make the iPhone better.

So what of this blog? Well, I am going to write about a lot of Medical Apps that I have purchased. And just as in my previous blog about the Lifedrive, I will neither receive nor accept any software, kickbacks or anything of the sort. I will give my honest opinion (and I state that early, because there are a few negative ones coming up). Most of my commentary will be made in the hope that the programmer/developer/company improves the product. I am not an island unto myself, thus I am always open to criticism and suggestions. I will write about the iMac, not just the iPhone, although the latter will predominate. I will also write about a lot of software not germane to Medicine. You will be able to pick out things on the side that you're interested in. I do read my mail. So feel free to drop me a line.

/The iPhone Doc.