Random thoughts on Life, Music, and Beer.

Public Transit on Google Maps

Wednesday, June 18, 2008 - 11:34 AM

I don’t know when they started doing this, but I just noticed it today:  Google Maps now includes an option to get directions for taking public transit.  It even shows alternate routes that you can take.  This is awesome.  I hate trying to find public transportation information from CTA/RTA/Metra.

I don’t know what other cities this has been rolled out in, but it’ll definitely make getting around Chicago easier!

David Byrne Demos “Playing the Building”

Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - 12:09 PM

David Byrne demonstrates his “Playing the Building” installation in New York (which I wrote about previously):

I still wish I could go to New York this summer to go to this!

Stupid iPhone Complaints

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 09:03 AM

So, not everyone is as excited about the new iPhone as some of us.  It’s to be expected - it’s Apple, and some people are going to complain no matter what.  Cnet’s Crave has a list of features that they think should be in the new iPhone.  Some of them are pretty dubious.  Let’s look at these requests, shall we?

• MMS (Multimedia Messaging) - Is this really necessary?  Are twelve year olds the target audience for the iPhone?  The answer to both is, “No”.  Why do you want/need MMS when you have the best email client on any phone?  MMS is completely pointless.  Email is for grown ups.  Text messages are for children.
• Copy and Paste - This I sort of agree with.  But, I don’t see how Apple can implement it with the current interface.  Maybe Apple’s engineers don’t either.  Who knows?  But given all of the things you can do without it, I don’t think it’s really that big of a deal.  I’m also fairly certain that it will come eventually.
• Video recording - Quote from the article:  “Yes the quality wouldn’t be that great, but it should be an option anyway.”  You really don’t understand Apple, do you?  Apple is about quality.  They are not about to put a feature that sucks on the iPhone.  Have you ever seen any phone with decent video quality?  Why would Apple put in a feature that they know is going to suck?  If you want video, go buy a camcorder.
• Voice command - Again, this goes back to a matter of quality.  I’ve never used the voice command feature on any phone that worked well.  Voice command on phones, as it is now, is a poor feature.  Could Apple do it better?  Probably.  But the technology isn’t really there yet to make it a killer, “must have” feature.  Apple isn’t going to include a feature that is going to be sub-standard.  Voice command is sub-standard.
• Bluetooth flexibility - This is the one point that I agree with 100%.  I don’t know why they haven’t done this yet.  Given that OSX is the only operating system that allows you to flawlessly integrate Bluetooth phones for syncing and file transfer*, you would think that they would do it with their own damn phone.  On top of that, being able to stream music via Bluetooth, as the author states, would be a great feature.  (I don’t really see the need to use it as a modem via Bluetooth, as you’ve got web browsing and email on the phone itself.  But, I’ll concede that some people may find this useful.)

People are going to cry that the iPhone doesn’t have this feature or that.  Most of the time it’s just BS.  Yes, Copy/Paste would be great, and Bluetooth connectivity would be awesome.  But the iPhone kills the need for MMS.  Video recording and voice command are non-features to begin with.  I think Apple knows what they are doing with the iPhone.

* Have you ever tried to set up a Bluetooth phone in Windows for these things?  I have, and I’ve never gotten it to actually work!  Every time I’ve tried, either Windows refuses to connect to the phone, or it connects, and everything looks like it should work, but none of the features actually work.  It’s horrid.  It takes about 30 seconds to connect to a Bluetooth phone on a Mac.

WWDC News

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 07:54 AM

Okay, so I’ve got nothing to report that you haven’t already read elsewhere, or didn’t already know before the keynote for that matter.

• New iPhone with 3G and GPS?  Check.
• Great new iPhone apps?  Check.
• Subsidized iPhone pricing?  Check.
• MobileMe replacing .Mac?  Check.
• Snow Leopard announced?  Check.

I do have a couple of things to say, however.  First off, my purchase of an iPhone is inevitable now.  All of the new features combined with MobileMe make it pretty much a no-brainer now.  And even though there were no real surprises with anything announced yesterday, Apple (and Steve) still managed to make everyone say “Wow!”  Think about that.  Everyone already knew everything that was announced, but they still managed to exceed our expectations.  We knew what was coming, yet it still was beyond what we had hoped for.  That’s pretty impressive.

On MobileMe.  One thing that I think kind of flew under the radar was just how impressive the web app portion of MobileMe is.  Put MobileMe next to Gmail or Yahoo! Mail and they look silly and amateurish in comparison.  MobileMe is a web app that feels like an application.  Gmail (all of the Google Apps, really) and Yahoo! Mail are web pages that have application-like functionality.  They feel like web pages.  They act like web pages.  MobileMe acts like an application.  Not only that, it acts like an Apple application.

People thought the iPod was going to have a “halo effect” of bringing Windows users to the Mac.  And that was just an MP3 player.  This will blow Windows users away.  I can’t imagine what it’ll be like for an iPhone owning Windows user, one who has never used a Mac, using their MobileMe account.  Eventually it’ll click with them: “Why can’t my entire computer-using experience be like this?”  Eventually, they’ll buy a Mac.

MobileMe was the real Trojan Horse in yesterday’s announcements.  The iPhone will bring them in, but MobileMe will make them stay.

Efficient Hydrogen Technology

Thursday, May 22, 2008 - 09:49 AM

It’s amazing that the auto companies have been (supposedly) working on this for years, and claim that it’s not efficient enough to be feasible, but this guy just decides to go ahead and do it on his own. I’m glad there’s still room for innovation from individuals in this country, because the large corporations just aren’t able to anymore. (Or, more likely, are happy with the status-quo, and are unwilling to innovate.)

Unfortunately, the oil companies will put every effort imaginable into suppressing this.  (I envision some laws in place by the end of Bush’s term in office that will make implementing this technology highly restrictive.  Call me cynical.)