Category: Lifestyle (Page 17 of 20)

      iPhone 4 still won’t kill the Flip

      June 12, 2010 /

      Flip video.One of the best features of iPhone 4 is that it records video in 720p. As with the iPhone 3GS, a lot of people have been asking whether that functionality will kill the Flip. I think the answer is still no, but it will eventually turn into a yes.

      The problem is that the iPhone still isn’t prevalent enough. There are plenty of people in the world who are scared of smartphones – unsure that the additional cost of a data plan is actually worth it. For those people, the Flip is still a great option. It’s cheap, easy to use, and records great video.

      As smartphones become more and more prevalent, though, its inevitable that the Flip will die off. As I’ve said plenty of times about the Kindle, I still believe purpose-built devices are a thing of the past. The Flip is no exception. The more advanced our daily handhelds become, the less we’ll need things like a Flip to fill the gap.

      Apple, iPhone, Lifestyle

      DFW on video calling

      June 10, 2010 /

      DFW Infinite Jest.If you don’t know who David Foster Wallace is, you should. If you don’t read him, you need to. He was easily one of the smartest writers of our time and yet he manages to write with such charm and wit that you can’t help but love the guy.

      DFW’s great literary epic, Infinite Jest is chock-full of philosophical ramblings on could-be and once-was human conditions. Among his observations are the following thoughts on video calls, which in light of the recent iPhone 4 announcement, seemed appropriate to share.

      Good old traditional audio-only phone conversations allowed you to presume that the person on the other end was paying complete attention to you while also permitting you not to have to pay anything even close to complete attention to her. A traditional aural-only conversation […] let you enter a kind of highway-hypnotic semi-attentive fugue: while conversing, you could look around the room, doodle, fine-groom, peel tiny bits of dead skin away from your cuticles, compose phone-pad haiku, stir things on the stove; you could even carry on a whole separate additional sign-language-and-exaggerated-facial-expression type of conversation with people right there in the room with you, all while seeming to be right there attending closely to the voice on the phone. And yet — and this was the retrospectively marvelous part — even as you were dividing your attention between the phone call and all sorts of other idle little fuguelike activities, you were somehow never haunted by the suspicion that the person on the other end’s attention might be similarly divided.

      […] Video telephony rendered the fantasy insupportable. Callers now found they had to compose the same sort of earnest, slightly overintense listener’s expression they had to compose for in-person exchanges. Those caller who out of unconscious habit succumbed to fuguelike doodling or pants-crease-adjustment now came off looking extra rude, absentminded, or childishly self-absorbed. Callers who even more unconsciously blemish-scanned or nostril explored looked up to find horrified expressions.

      God damn it he was brilliant. For more of his thoughts on video calling, check out the source post at Kottke.org. Better yet, spend a month of your life reading this book.

      iPhone, Lifestyle

      The little ways tech changes our lives

      May 15, 2010 /

      iPhone in hand.There have been a million posts exactly like this one, posts detailing the most minute changes to our daily lives as the result of some new, ubiquitous technology, but I still get the same sense of wonderment when I encounter one myself. My younger sister graduated from undergrad today, replete with your stereotypically boring and overdrawn ceremony.

      One thing was different between this and my last graduation – my younger brother’s high school graduation – a few years back. I had an iPhone, and so did my older sister. My younger brother was sporting an iPod Touch. Within a few minutes we had fired up Words With Friends, a Scrabble app that’s playable with one other person over the air. From a few seats away I was able to dish out some domination while tuning out the muffled voice of an underwhelming speaker.

      There are plenty of people who would condemn my actions, my lack of interest in my sister’s momentous occasion. For me, though, there wasn’t much to see. My sister was across an auditorium full of a couple thousand kids. I would hear her name exactly once in the course of a two-hour ceremony, see her face just twice by the time it was over. Even she was willing to admit that the keynote speaker was beyond awful. Considering all of that, I don’t think it’s out of the question to seek a little entertainment.

      It wasn’t just me, either. Looking around the room I saw a swarm of handheld entertainment screens flickering with the owner’s stimulus of choice. There were students on the floor checking emails, sending pictures back and forth, playing games, hell some of them were making calls.

      Lifestyle, Mobile, News

      My experience with broadband penetration

      April 1, 2010 /

      Ethernet cabling.There has been a lot of talk, both in government and among non-profit groups, about bringing the web to everyone. Rural areas still struggle with slow connection speeds and a lack of quality service. I’ve been having some problems with my service over the past few days that make me really appreciate what it is to have broadband basically whenever I want it.

      I have a pretty cool job. I work from home, I get to write, I do a little programming. All of those things, though, require the internet, and for most I need a pretty fast connection. I’m actually writing this post from my phone. It’s great to have that option, but cellular service is still pretty slow and the data fees are too expensive for a lot of people. It’s also ridiculously cramped typing full posts on a touchscreen keyboard. Tablets could change that, but there’s still the 3G speed cap to deal with and the cost of a monthly data plan.

      With the economy still struggling, I can think of few better ways to stimulate rural and low-population areas, areas typically hit hardest by tough economic conditions, than a rollout of affordable, reliable internet service. When service goes down, it’s tough not to immediately start shopping for better broadband deals. At the very least, I could use the reliable connection. Waiting on yet another modem is painful.

      Lifestyle, Mobile

      Is the iPad the ultimate snake oil?

      March 14, 2010 /

      Apple's iPad.Yesterday’s early estimates suggested the iPad had moved 50,000 units in the first two hours of pre-sale. Now CNN is claiming Apple sold 120,000 units on the first day of release. Those numbers are certainly impressive, especially since no one can really say what the iPad does.

      The real thing people are spending money on with the iPad is a concept. Apple did a great job of pitching the iPad as a reading device, your living room browsing experience at an extremely affordable price. It sounds great, but I have yet to see an application that makes me really burn for the device. Will iBooks be cool? Probably, but I still hate ebooks for a lot of reasons, none of which seem to be addressed by the iPad. They can be, but they certainly aren’t yet.

      Lastly, you can’t ignore Apple’s hardware test period. Remember the first iPod Touch? Probably not – not many people bought one. There were serious hardware problems, though. Quiet alert sounds, no hardware volume control, and on and on. Granted, software updates fixed those problems as much as they could, but these are still pretty big issues for anyone owning the first generation of the device. The iPad won’t be as good as it was pitched to be on the first go round. If we’re lucky, it’ll be 90% of the way there by 2.0, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

      Apple, Computers, ebooks, Lifestyle

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