The iPad has no Flash? Please, GET OVER IT!

Oh, of all the ridiculous comments that have arisen in regards to the iPad, the worse that I have heard is the iPad having no Flash ability. I mean really ! So here is my take on this. Those of us who have the iPhone have had no problems ignoring flash, so I don't think that we will miss it on the iPad.

The Uber-Geeks are pointing out that 70% plus of the web is based on flash and that even Netbooks can show flash content without a bother. REALLY? Well today, I used an Acer Netbook and couldn't help but look at the battery life dwindle to nothing as the Flash "infested" site went on a rampage. I also couldn't help but notice how everything just slowed down. It was like looking at Java, back in the day.

Then, there's the Uber-Geeks who yell and scream about Java's control and stranglehold over the web. Come on Uber-Geeks! Let's look at reality for a minute ! Perhaps it has gone to the wayside for many of you, but YouTube is stepping aside from its Flash Driven content and moving to Quicktime and HTML5. Infact, HTML5 and its ability to play within the browser is catching on quickly and is said to be the next big thing in response to Flash, with nothing to download, as it is in the browser. With the introduction of Silverlight, which is also dwindling, even while being forced upon every Windows owner, it is not making a dent either.

I predict that HTML5, which Apple does support, will take over. And to be honest, Thank the Lord for that. Flash has been the culprit in many viruses and worms and almost destroyed Windows. It is a memory hog and a really slow boat to nowhere most of the times. Yes, I agree it looks great, but sorry, I don't really want it either. I can really do without the crazy and intrusive ads that pop up all over the place.

I agree with Steve, leave Flash out of the iPhone and definitely leave it out of the iPad.


/R.

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.

ATT to clamp down on data hogs? ugh?

Talk about being unprepared! AT&T beckoned for the iPhone, the greatest phone ever released and the most popular smart phone on the planet. Yet, they were unprepared for the onslaught of data. So now they are talking about pulling a "Verizon" and charging the heck out of consumers for data. They reckon that this is what is slowing down the traffic in the San Francisco area.

Guys/Gals, I've got news for you! Although they are showing that 3% of smartphone users are responsible for 40% of the bandwidth and by deductive reasoning, that's mainly iPhone users, AT&T should have been prepared for this. Even with the Cingular network attached, they are a poor second in 3G coverage.

To add insult to injury, the recent onslaught of commercials against AT&T's 3G service by Verizon - which by the way has ridiculous pricing options - is met by an Apples to Oranges comparison by AT&T, comparing their Voice network to the Verizon 3G network. I am surprised that no one else has picked up on this. The actor throwing cards all over the country is not talking about DATA coverage, he's talking only about VOICE coverage. The data coverage, as far as I know, has not been challenged effectively.

This is a nationwide problem, not just in San Francisco or Anaheim or New York. It is an AT&T problem and it's not a bandwidth problem. In some of the data areas, the 3G coverage is just POOR! Nothing to do with the "data hogs," of which I am not by the way.

AT&T's response as usual is to jack up the rates. And why not? When you've got the best phone on the planet - one that people are willing to put up with bad phone service for - you can do whatever you want. But I wouldn't do that for too long, because with Android coming out, things could get a little more competitive and Apple could decide to go elsewhere.

Dragon Dictation for the iPhone.

Sensational program. A must have for every iPhone owner. But a few caveats in v1.0, especially if you have patient information or government information in your address book. Here is a reprint of my letter, written in response to a question about this product:

Incredible program. It really is for letters and short notes though. It is not very practical for long documents. A few reasons why. Although it translates almost 95-99 percent of American Dialect speech, you would have to have it "personalized" to improve regional recognition, as is found in their more spendy desktop products. I use the Medical Dragon system myself on a PC desktop.

Second, the dictionary is very generic, as one would expect for a v1.0 product. Thus most of the vocabulary is suited for a short letter or text message or note. Again, I see a more personalized product with greater vocabulary coming.

I think that Nuance is being nice right now with the product being free, but the usual "free" then "price it" option may not work with this product if the pricing for the desktop issues are anything to compare. I for one would find it very difficult to go from free to say $99.00 or something worse.

On the plus side, the recognition is awesome. Somewhat better at times than my desktop product running with 2 gigs of ram. Additionally, the idea of using a server to do the translating is a stroke of genius. It is very fast. I am very surprised by this.

I believe that they will need to remove permanently two things if this is to succeed in the Apple World. One, I noticed that you don't have to register to keep anything on the server. This means that they are using your UUID or Unique Iphone identifier. Second the Address book issue needs to be put to rest permanently. They should just get rid of it! Most people can put in the names later. Besides, it does a poor job at Non-American names anyway. African, Indian and Asian names are a travesty. One could always add it later or use a Pseudonym and "change all occurrences of Pseudonym" in editing.

Perhaps more insidious is the attachment of the UUID to the Addressbook. Despite the rebuttal from Nuance that they do not identify you, they are effectively doing so with the UUID and Addressbook. Additionally, there are a few HIPAA issues that come into play. What if my address book has Patient data or names of people whom I need to call? That is private and should have an opt-out provision. Additionally, I can see that in future versions, the UUID will be what is used to personally identify whether I have used the server or not and to modify or personalize my Dragon settings file. These really should be optional for the user.

On the plus side, this is a great use of the technology and I wholeheartedly congratulate Nuance on getting something like this done. If you correct some of the short comings, which are really more social than technical issues, I think that you will have a number one product on your hands.

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!

iphone 3.1

Lessons Learned
===============

So I've waited upon upgrading to Snow Leopard. And now I have also waited before upgrading to OS 3.1 on the iPhone. Judging by the Apple Forum, waiting is the thing to do. First of all, updating to 3.1 apparently destroys your Enterprise Exchange settings that push email in the workplace. Additionally, there is a large question about battery life that has become prominent. Not to mention frequent crashes.

Boy, does this sound like memory leaks or what? mmmgh, Lifedrive 2.0? I think that the problem with the frequent crashes has to do with the now implememented push notification service. Apple has allowed some of the software developers to go out of the sandbox and get a little taste of the OS core. Something that has long separated Mac programming from either Windows or Palm/Handheld programming. Palm had the same issues with crashes with almost every update for the same reason. This worsened when they decided to use a disk drive in their Lifedrive device. NVFS (Nonvolatile file system) was a bust! It seems that Apple may be having the same problem with so many different programs -- 75,000 at last count, vying for attention, many of these programs may be trying to access memory slots that are actually empty. Additionally, with Push Notifications, you are introducing background task management, further causing issues with memory leaks.

The only thing that I would want OS 3.1 for right now is MMS. I have been dying to have MMS for the longest time, but I will not download OS 3.1 until they have all of the wrinkles ironed out. Additionally, I will stay with 3.01 until I can be certain that I will not lose my work email as well.

Word to the wise: Do not do an upgrade until you see 80% No-Negative comments on the Apple forum.

Some delays.....

So I have been loading up my iPhone, with 3 gigs to spare on a 16 gig 3G (not S).
Now things have become somewhat slower. Making phone calls at times has become lagged. Someone has stated that it could be the cache file that is getting too big. It turns out that every time that you enter something into Google or Search for something then this gets saved in a cache file. This is apparently how Predictive text works for you when you go to enter the first 3 letters of a word....Interesting.

So anyone know how to clear the cache entirely?


LDD.