The iPad Fixes Personal Computing

15th
Jan. × ’11
By Tony

I love Mac OS X. It’s beautiful, it’s stable, and it’s nearly malware-free. There are some problems with Cupertino’s modern OS, though. Problems that I always assumed were inherent to computing itself. Those problems: there IS still malware, limited battery life, portability, the fragility of making tweaks behind the gorgeous curtain, sloppy coding that drains resources. These things seem inherent to the paradigm of modern desk(and lap)top computing.

Then the iPhone happened. Nobody seriously considered it a “computer OS.” It was a slick, beautiful phone interface. Then the App Store happened. People– including Mr. Jobs– paused to think. Does it scale? Then the iPad happened. And this device has corrected each problem I enumerated earlier.

  • • The iPad’s closed ecosystem has drawn ire from many, and I think it’s problematic. You can’t argue, however, that this all but eliminates malware from the iPhone OS platform. Jailbreakers still have to be wary, but there have been no horror stories of apps stealing data or phoning home with sensitive credentials.
  • • The iPad’s purported 10 hour battery life is for active use. I’m not sure how long the iPad can play music with the screen off, while not connected to wifi, but it seems to be a heck of a long time. This makes my Macbook’s “seven hour” battery life seem like a joke.
  • • The iPad weighs in at a featherlight .68 kg (1.5 lb). This is negligible when thrown in a bag. Carrying around my netbook in my messenger bag, at 3.3 lbs, would cause strain on my shoulder after a long day. Even a typical book causes more strain than the iPad.
  • • You can’t even get a glimpse behind the curtain of the iPad. My theory is that, since the original iPod, Apple has strived to create a belief that their devices are actually powered by magic, not chips and disks. This end is further pursued with the iPad– the only means of ingress and egress from the magical innards consist of 1) a proprietary 30-pin dock connector and 2) a 3.5 mm headphone jack. That’s it.
  • • Just as with the iPhone, apps on the iPad are sandboxed, and their processes are killed as soon as you leave them. This will change slightly with iPhone 4.0 (iPad is getting updated this fall), but background processes are still very limited, and only allow 7 limited means of accessing the device’s resources.

The device isn’t without flaws– it simply exchanges them for others. Battery life is offset with a weakened processor, and stability is achieved at the expense of flexibility. But so far, in my experience, these compromises are well worth it.

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The Odd Couple: Using iOS and Android

15th
Jan. × ’11
By Tony

This post is OLD. Like, a year old. But I’ll repost it anyway.

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Android and iPhone from flickr user nrkbetaI have two phones. My friends give me weird looks when I whip out my G1- a beast of a phone compared to my slick, sexy iPhone 3G. I go back and forth often, and feel that I’ve developed a nuanced appreciation of where each operating system excels. A friend requested that I post a brief review of the difference, so here goes.

iPhone OS 4 beta home screen

iPhone OS is known for revolutionizing the mobile phone industry with its simplicity, attractively uniform interface, and a dash of Apple magic. When jailbreakers convinced Apple of the potential of its own device, that company mimicked the Installer’s functionality and created a multi-billion dollar industry for bite sized apps. Here’s where it trumps Google’s Android OS (AS OF this morning, iPhone 3.1.3).

  • • Sheer beauty. From the consistency of UI elements to the pervasiveness of Helvetica Neue, iPhone OS isn’t software. It’s an experience. Is this shallow? No. It’s appreciation of good design. Controls are intuitive, icons are descriptive, buttons are sparse but useful. Just beautiful.
  • • Stability. If I had a dollar every time an Android app had to force quit. Sure, iPhone apps crash, but they just go away quickly and quietly. You don’t notice it when the OS doesn’t call attention to it with a dialog box. Generally, much fewer crashes than Android apps.
  • • Applications. Apps, whatever. There’s 180,000 of them. Sure, 170,000 of them are totally useless cash grabs, but there is some software that makes desktop software pale in comparison. Tweetie, Plants vs. Zombies, Reeder, Buster,
  • • Media. I’m biased, because my G1 doesn’t even have a headphone jack, but the iPhone’s media experience is clearly superior. Why shouldn’t it be? Portable media consumption is Apple’s business. Also, whether you love it or hate it, iTunes is an extremely easy phone-syncing utility. There’s no useable media syncing app for Android. Nope, not even DoubleTwist (but maybe it’ll eventually get there).

Android OS from flickr user dpstyles

Android OS 2.1, as seen on a Motorola Droid

Android, Google’s upstart mobile OS, will be running on dozens of devices by the end of this year. It will be on everything from cell phones to digital photo frames to cars to tablets. It is flexible, it is open source, and it is hackable. Here’s why I like it.

  • • Widgets. These don’t save much time, as iPhone apps open quickly. But still, I like to show them off, and it’s nice to have a “dashboard” in your pocket.
  • • Google integration. Of course there’s Google integration. Apple’s failure to allow Google services to work adequately on the iPhone is infuriating to me. Android’s GMail, Google Talk, and Google Voice apps blow away anything Apple has permitted into the App Store. And iPhone Mail is really pitiful in its limited functionality and search capacity.
  • • Notification tray. It’s wonderful being able to see ALL of the events you need to respond to, as opposed to only the most recent one. The sliding tray is fun, it is very useful, and it blows Push notifications out of the water.
  • • Deeper access for apps. Any developer can access the phone in the same way that Google’s applications do. They can control the hardware, the file system, system settings. You can transform your phone with only a few downloads. If you root your phone, you can even overclock it. Overclock it!!!
  • • Root access. Though jailbreakers have done amazing things with Mobile Substrate and other iPhone innovations, they’re limited by the fact that the code underlying iPhone OS is totally off-limits. Do you want to make your own build of Android and install it on your rooted device? Go crazy. If you can’t code, then take a gander at the hundreds of customs ROMs you can install onto your phone.

So, what’s a gadget-crazy boy to do? Use both phones, of course. I swap my T-Mobile sim back and forth depending on what I need to use, or what software I want to run. In the future, though, maybe I can just boot camp it. :)

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A Tale of Two Blanches

15th
Jan. × ’11
By Tony

Blanche DuBois is my favorite character in American literature. Tennessee Williams created a character who is sympathetic yet abhorrent, elegant yet smutty, beautiful yet repulsive. She’s also a victim of homophobia, male oppression, and deteriorating economic conditions in the south. Upon reading Streetcar for the first time, I was bawling hysterically for Blanche, and I discussed the play with my high school mentor. I’ll never forget the eight words that altered my view of and relationship to this mentor: “Don’t you think she kind of deserved it?”

No, I didn’t think that, and I have no idea how anyone else could. I thought Blanche was a victim of her place and time, a woman desperately trying to find her way in a time when women were finally free to do something other than marry an abusive alcoholic mechanic in N’awlins.

Susan Harris, creator of the Golden Girls, was clearly sympathetic of the character, as well, because she based the character of Blanche Devereaux on Ms. DuBois. They have a lot in common: they panic about their fading looks, they’re promiscuous, they’re elegant southern ladies, and they both react violently when they find out that someone they love is gay. I think that Blanche Devereaux is remarkable for her disparities with Blanche DuBois, though. Blanche Devereaux is an incredible deconstruction of other Blanche, disassembled and rebuilt into a sex-positive, self-empowered feminist icon.

Where DuBois is ashamed of her past and does all she can to hide it, Devereaux proudly boasts of her sexual conquests and advertises her future conquest plans. DuBois’ past is met with horror, scandal, and sexual abuse, while Devereaux’s is met with amused reactions and wisecracks. Where DuBois seeks the company of suitors because she is desperate for attention, Devereaux seeks the same company for her gratification and hers alone– she doesn’t give, she takes. She decides what she wants, and gets it, even if a conquest takes thirty years. While DuBois fantasizes of being rescued by a man, Devereaux fantasizes about sweaty convicts being released from prison. She needs to be rescued by no one: she owns a home (and her banana leaf bedroom is a Belle Reve in itself!), she has a satisfying career, and would be too proud to accept help if she needed it, anyway.

Devereaux is one of the strongest women ever depicted in American television, and it’s stunning to me that she could be based on one of the frailest and helpless women in American lit. I just wish that Tennessee Williams could have seen that his heroine had finally come into her own.

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You’re Doing It Right: Maryjean Ballner

15th
Jan. × ’11
By Tony

My friends know that two of my favorite things are cats and Everything is Terrible. EIT is a group of artists in the Chicago area who gather schlocky VHS tapes from thrift stores and garage sales, and then cuts them down to pure gold. I was very upset when EIT’s YouTube account was deleted following a copyright claim by the producer of one video that was their target. I believe all of their videos are now hosted somewhere (Vimeo, UCB, YouTube), but it took a while for them to get back up.

Imagine my delight when I found this gem: “So Your Cat Wants a Massage,” by Maryjean Ballner. The video is adorable, because Ms. Ballner is so fun, so frisky, so genuine, so likeable. She can make something as decadent and frivolous as cat massage seem intriguing and hilarious. My suspicions about her were confirmed when she contacted EIT to tell them that she is a huge fan. She enclosed a copy of “And now your Dog wants a massage?” Ballner was also a guest on Letterman due to her newfound viral glory. EIT expressed its gratitude to Ms. Baller in a note on the site.

She has handled her newfound celebrity in the best way possible: she’s laughing about it, she’s proud of it, and she’s making money off it. She has tons of fans on Facebook. She’s selling her old videos again, and I’m sure they’re selling much better now, thanks to the niche-friendly nature of the internet. She knows how to market herself.

I think that the rightsholder that got EIT’s account zapped has never appeared on Letterman. Just saying.

I plan on writing a follow-up about the success of 70’s Soap Starlet Brenda Dickson, who also knows how to lucratively harness her viral value.

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Web Heroes: Bre Pettis

15th
Jan. × ’11
By Tony

Risktaker, doer, maker of things. Bre Pettis, one of the founders of the groundbreaking NYC Resistor deserves top billing for kicking the Maker movement in the United States into high gear.My good friend @iwasahumanboy recently tweeted me: I wish you could bittorrent clothes or cool electronics. Well, friend, it’s not far off. 3d printing is being hailed as the next great disruptive technology, and has gained some attention this week thanks to this excellent article by Public Knowledge. The technology involves depositing very thin layers of a material to build an object from the ground up. Previously, machines that could accomplish this were very expense, and so designs were outsourced to central printing houses. But in the same way that it’s impractical to outsource your book report to a professional printing house, it is expensive and difficult to crank out small runs of 3d objects with a prototyping company.

Bre Pettis founded Makerbot Industries to bring 3d printing to the masses, and now his desktop 3d printers are in 2,000 homes. Think of a Makerbot 3d printer as the desktop printer counterpart to a printing press. It’s designed to make one or a few copies, at low cost. The entry level model costs about $700. After some brief assembly, your Cupcake CNC 3d Printer– the company’s flagship model– is ready to crank out physical objects based on your object files. Where do you find these? You can make them with Google’s free SketchUp, or download one from Thingiverse, a YouTube for things (also a Bre Pettis creation).

For throwing all of his effort behind this manufacturing revolution, and for his indefatigable efforts to push technology beyond what we can even envision the limits of, Bre Pettis is one of my heroes. Listen to his interview with Public Knowledge– he’s so likeable and excited about the future. It’s inspiring.

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