WWDC 2017 Thoughts

It's been a few days since the WWDC that Apple has annually in June and after going through the presentations and videos, here are my thoughts on the same.

1. iWatch

iWatch interface is now more pebble like in the experience. It tells you what is current, whats going to come etc. Also they have better tie in with many franchise so you have a mini-mouse dial and other toy story watch faces. The psychedelic dials looked cool.

Personal analysis - they did not mention anything about the battery life - which means it is still the 1 day and it dies battery. I would give it a pass. I am frustrated as it is with having to charge my phone daily (sometimes more than once in a day!)

(image via cult of mac )

2. MacOS

They named it High Sierra. The earlier OS version was named Sierra.

How unimaginative.

But under the hood quite a lot of good stuff going on. I am actually amazed how much has been updated.

• Now the OS comes with Virtual Reality support out of the box. 
• It also supports Unity and Unreal engines - these are mostly used for gaming ( a weak spot for apple), but I do not think that they are supporting these engines for gaming, but for VR. 

Check out this video of the VR ! May the force be with you

I pretty much think that there is a lot going on under the hood with the enhancements here. Probably one of the reasons for calling this release "high" is that it is an enhancement and not a radical leapfrog.

3. Augmented Reality

Pokemon Go was the first brush of most people with Augmented Reality. While in VR you are in a virtual world, AR basically puts you in the real world with stuff that is computer generated. Microsoft's HoloLens demos are a very good example of AR.

Here, I think that Apple has been really smart in using their iOS as an AR platform. There are quite a significant people who already own these devices - and what better way to get them involved in AR apps than using what they have - while Microsoft has the distinct disadvantage of users having to first get the HoloLens headsets before they can do anything.

See the following demo.

And this brings me to changes to the :

4. iPad

The iPad got a ton of updates.

First the specs update:

• There is now a 10.5" iPad.
• Officially Apple said that this is because it gives a full size keyboard. Which may be true, you can now get attached keyboards with slightly bigger keys and so easier to type on, but I think that is because...
• the 9" iPad is the biggest seller, because... 
• the 12" iPad is horribly difficult to handle.. 
• So a compromise and bring out a 10.5" iPad.
• The size per say is not going to be very different as the 10.5" refers to the screen size, and with the side bezels getting thinner, they are able to fit in a bigger screen with a small increment to the overall size.  
• Definitely a size I would want to use.
•  The refresh rate is now 120Hz. 
• usual monitor rates are 60Hz. This is what helps you feel that the video etc that you are seeing is smooth. 
• 120Hz will mean a very smooth display - especially for stuff like drawing.
• 512 GB of storage. 
• That is half a terabyte ! 
• That's a laptop you have there. Most high-end ultrabooks have this kind of storage.
• Drag and drop in the iPad
• Apple has implemented app overlays ( not split screen like how it is in Android, but real app on top of app. 
• Add to that you can now browse files ( hey - stock Android does not have this. You have to download apps to access the file system). 
• And drag drop files/images/text etc to other apps.

Here's how this all looks. Now tell me, if this is not going to replace the laptop what will  ?

5. The iMacPro

Apple also announced updates the iMac - most noticeably, the iMacPro. Unlike the older ones, which were upgradeable, these are not. For a machine for enthusiasts, I think that this is a very wrong strategy.

6. One Last Thing.

Apple gave this listed as 6. If Steve Jobs would have been presenting, he would have listed 5 things and then said - one last thing. The crowd would have swooned thinking of a new iPhone, but then Steve would have unveiled the HomePod

I like my music but I am not an audiophile. So, my view may or may not be valid here. But I have seen expensive systems - e.g. from Bose etc. ( hey no harm window shopping - right ?) and most of them have their experts sent to your house to set it up all for you. Or, you may reach out to your audiophile friend who may do it for you.

Apple automated this. Now the HomePod ( come on man, come up with some good naming, this is getting stale), comes with Apple's A8 chip. This will automatically adjust the sounds from the speakers based on the setting ( I assume they use some audio-wave processing to figure out the surrounding and the reflection of sound). So, you can pick up and reposition the speaker and it will automatically adjust the sound.

Not only that, you add one more speaker ( Apple did not mention if there are more than 2 speakers what would happen) and the speakers will recognize each other and play the music in tandem.

I think its pretty neat. But knowing apple, this will be tied in with their ecosystem. And you would probably have to use the dreaded iTunes software to play it /shudder.

Oh, the iPhone - that usually gets revealed in September. Hold on till then.

Apple Pencil

Last week the Apple Event '15 happened. As usual, a plethora of information was released from Apple - a lot of which was already known as Apple seems to have become a leaky bucket post Steve Jobs. But the one that sticks out to me is the Apple Pencil. A few years back, I was very bullish about the camera in the iPhone4s , and now I think this new thing is quite good.

But, the customary rewind first

Well, apparently, Apple thinks it does now :D

The difference though is huge between 2007 stylus and the current stylus. For one, at that time, if you used a Palm or an O2 device, you just had to use a stylus to do anything. Using your fingers rarely got anything done, unless you could tap on it with your fingernail.

Fast forward to today. The iPad pro still uses finger multi touch for its interface. However, Apple has added the pencil for activities that use a lot of detailing. Watch the demo below.




I do a little bit of sketching. And I find using the finger very cumbersome. I tried it on the iPad and also on my Nexus. So, then I got a pen which allows you to sketch. That too is cumbersome cause it has a very broad tip, something like this.

This still does not give me the control that i can get with a pencil or a pen's tip.

That's where I think that the Apple pencil is going to shine. With its thinner tip, and also the ability to sense the angle to broaden the stroke (instead of going to an archaic menu to change the stroke width), is a pure win in my view.

And I think it is going to decimate the competition. In this niche area, the company that has a monopoly as of now is Wacom. Their products are expensive and not so great, but till now, there was not much competing products. I think they are going to die just like Blackberry.

To do a comparison, I checked out Wacom's line of tablets which has a display. The one that closely matches the iPad Pro ( thats the only iPad model as of now that will be able to work with the pencil) , is the Cintiq 13HD .  At the time of the writing, Wacom's online store is offline, so I can't get the price from there, but a quick google search throws up that they start at $999.

$999 for Cintiq 13 HD vs $898 for the iPad Pro and Pencil

And the iPad can also do the other things that an iPad does ( email, browsing, games), while with the Cintiq you are stuck with just sketching.

I rest my case. Bye bye Wacom.

Expectations from Apple's Smartwatch

The crescendo is picking up about the imminent launch of a watch from Apple - dubbed the iWatch. The noise is so much that Google has preemptively launched their wearables - specifically the watch. That gives them the bragging rights to launching the wearable OS first ( though you could technically point towards the pebble watch and other such precursors).

However, I don't like the way they are going about it. It seems like it is a mirroring of the functionality of the phone on the watch. So, you get all the notifications etc on the watch. That I think is the wrong approach.

What I would have liked is an extension of functionality.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

I would expect the phone and the watch to work in isolation without a need of the other.  Its like how the phone works independently of the laptop. So, if you are checking email on the phone, it does not require that your laptop be nearby.

Similarly, if you are wearing just the watch, I would expect that it work flawlessly without being dependent on the availability of the phone. Which means that the watch is more than just a timekeeping and a notification device.

Lets go over a few examples of what I think Apple will come out with. I am going to think from the perspective of different types of watch users.

The basic business user will have something similar to the current generation of Android watches. You will have beautiful watch faces - get ready to go wow - cause Apple really cares about how things look. So, I am pretty sure they would have already talked to the major watch makers and asked them for using the watch faces from certain iconic watches. Expect Swizz and German watch faces in addition to a few digital faces. This will get the notifications from the phone - e.g. new mail message ( dont expect to read it on the watch - I don't think Apple will think it a good user experience to read two words at a time), calendar events and alarms.

The next level of user is the sports enthusiast. I expect that Apple will partner with Nike for getting the Nike+ as part of the watch. So, now you can just go for a jog with the watch and it will use the Nike+ tech to track your runs, and once you are back within phone or laptop range, it will sync all the data with it so you can review it on a bigger screen. I also expect that the phone will have more sensors added to it like heart rate monitor, pulse monitor ( which means that we can potentially see a better strap which acts as a sensor - and also cause angst among the users as they wont be able to change it ). Already as per the rumor mill, apple has basketball athetes ( and probably others) testing the watch. I hardly expect such professionals to carry a phone along with the watch - so that why I think that the watch can work independently.

The 3rd user I think that the watch will cater to are for health reasons. As stated above, I expect the watch to have different biometric sensors - and hence it will be a boon to patients. Also with the WWDC'14 seeing the launch of APIs specifically for health, I expect that the APIs also tie in with the watch in some way. So the watch becomes a measuring instrument and passes on the data to the phone, which in turn will enable doctors to monitor the patients.

I pretty much predict that these things are going to come from Apple. For me it makes sense that Apple will look at the watch not just as time or notification device, but push the boundaries of a sensing device. 

iPhone5S in short

If I have the money, I would buy it. But man... too damn expensive :'(

In short this is what the new iPhone5S has:

• The slate color ... definitely the one I want. 
• 64 bit processor: This is a game changer. People just talk about like how they are just changing to 64bit on the desktop and what difference does it make on the phone. I think its a big deal.
• Fingerprint scanner: It is a feature that has been around in laptops for sometime - and the feature that most people disable first. Here's hoping that Apple really gets it to work on the iPhone5s. 
• iWork available free ... good bye Office knockoff apps. This is a full step into enterprise domain. 
• Camera ... ooh the camera. I wish all phones had cameras like this. Unfortunately this means that the 16GB camera phone is too less of disk space. And the slo mo capture where you can playback the entire video normally, but select a region to play in slo-mo - that is brilliant. 

You asking about the iPhone5C ? Just an iPhone5 with a plastic body. Don't bother with it. 

Apple WWDC 2013 : Gazing into the crystal ball

Edit 12/Jun : Updated with the actual announcements !

Quick note on the WWDC which is going to happen tonight. A lot of speculation is going on, and I just wanted to list down what I think is possible to be announced tonight. After the WWDC, then I will look back and see where I was correct ! Without further ado - my expectations:

• With Intel launching the haswell chips last week, just in time for the WWDC, I expect the laptop and PC lineup to change to this new chipset. 
• Got It ! 
• The macbook air line recieved the new chip and now gives full day battery life - a day in apples term is 12 hrs for the 13" MacBook Air
• We will also learn about the retina display IPad minis
• Missed it! 
• No talk about iPads at all.
• OS7 is a given. 
• Got It. 
• No brainer here. 
• OS7 will still keep skumorphic design in the apps. I dont expect apple to be more like windows flat textures. 
• Missed it ! 
• Apple is going to remove skumorphic designs with a vengence ! However, it is not flat like windows. 
• A streaming music service - I dont know whether it will be called iRadio ? 
• Got It ! 
• It is streaming music. 
• It is just called Radio and is within the music app. Makes more sense than having it as a radio. 
• Still does not support FM though :-/
• An update to the maps software showing how it is better than before. However, if you checked the Google I/O a couple of weeks back and their Maps software, I think apple will still have a long way to go before catching up. 
• Got It ! 
• The new 3d flybys seem impressive. Eiffel tower with the rotation around it is pretty cool. And as mentioned in the video - you can see through the tower - which is a lot of data processing happening. 
• Still no idea how it will work in places like India ;-)
• I do not think an iPhone mini will be announced. If I was apple, i would not dilute the iPhone brand with a cheaper version. However, seeing that iPods are now available in all sizes, maybe someone in apple is thinking in this direction. 
• Got It ! 
• No talk at all about a smaller iphone.
• Apple TV will now also stream the music
• Umm. I dont remember this. Was it mentioned ? Need to check the keynote again. 
• No new product lineup (I hope I am wrong here)
• Sort of ! 
• The MacPro was announced - which is a whole new beast of a computer ! What a design ! 

Apple WWDC '12

Last night Apple again sent the world buzzing with their list of updates. I just finished watching the Keynote and here are my impressions:

• Siri on the iPad. 
• I totally nailed it. I had predicted that siri will come but only on the newer iPads and owners of iPad2 and below would be left cold - I was right. 
• I also dont think Siri is coming to India anytime soon.
• However, since there were so many references to India in the presentation ( the video of kids, the pdf he dragged to the folder) that I think Apple has started thinking of India. 
• I wonder where they will open their first stores in ?
• The retina display macbooks were mind blowing. 
• There had been a lot of talk about how retina display could not be done for bigger screens. Even Intel wrongly predicted that retina display on laptops will be available by 2013 - a year too late !
• It also has SSD ( Flash drives ) which is pure yummy! 
• Unfortunately, there was another shocker - the price. Today, I just did a quick check on the cost of a fully loaded MacBook Pro, and oh boy - that kind of cost will burn out your pocket. Screenshot below with the cost. This device is going to remain a dream for now. 

 

Cost of a fully loaded Retina display MacBook Pro

• Dictation as a feature - hmm. lets see how this works. 
• There are some big flaws with dication or Speech to Text. I will wait and see if these are going to be addressed by Apple.
• They dont really work well in noisy locations. 
• In quiet location, they dont pick up the accent unless you speak with a nasally American accent.
• Facebook integration etc is meh. I don't really like the twitter integration in iOS5 as it is quite limited, and also as I cannot share with any other service. Android does this part really well - and I hope one day iOS will be able to. So, untill iOS6 is rolled out, I will reserve my judgement here. 
• Game Center is a big Game Changer (forgive me the pun!)
• When the WWDC was going on, i was chatting with my friend and lamenting about the lack of the gaming scene on macs. This is going to change drastically with the game and GL SDK that apple is now providing. 
• They probably showed Diablo3 as that is one of the few new high end games that run on the MacOS. 
• It allows users to play across apple devices - which to me is a big deal. You can play on the mac with your friend who is on an iPhone. Superb ! That is if you are into casual gaming. I am still leery about high end games.
• I really want to see some good mainstream games being made for the mac and at a lower cost. Hope to see this happening now with Apple's focus on GameCenter.
• Notification Centre... oh how I want that ! 
• One of the neatest new feature is the notification center. After being used to notifications on Android and iOS devices, I was always wondering when it will come to mainstream computing. Windows 8 has some concept of it I think , but Apple has totally nailed it. 
• Ramblings : I wonder when this feature will be coming to Linux or will I have to code it myself ?
• The apps for blind people and autistic children was amazing. I wish other manufacturers also highlight how they are helping in these spheres. 
• I feel really sorry for the people who bought the old macs in the last month or so. They will get the new OS , but stuck with the older hardware. :P
• Maps ! 
• Now Apple is having their own maps. Does this mean that their deal with Google has run its course ? I see this as another attack at Google. 
• The 3D mode is spectacular. Google has just got a jab to wake up and make their maps better. Fortunately for Google, the apple maps is so far limited to the apple devices. 

Looks like someone liked SimCity a lot in Apple ! The Flyover mode renders buildings in 3d with textures!

•  Passbook did not make much sense to me as I do not know how those will work. Are those applications even available in India ?

• Incoming phone and reminders. 
• Android OS 4 is coming up with quick replies for common replies when you get a call you cannot take at that moment. However, the killer stuff in iOS is the "Remind me when I leave". This will basically pop a reminder of the missed call when you leave that location - this is an awesome feature to have ! 
• Additionally for the phone - the "Do Not Disturb" feature is what I have been dreaming about for a long long while. I have been woken up too many times at night due to some email pinging. These small things, the attention to detail is what makes people fans of Apple. 
• Meh about Safari
• A lot of screentime was spent on Safari. To me that browser is not that great. Sure a lot of mobile traffic uses it - but that is because it is the default browser on the device. This is the IE of iOS world. Just because it is there does not mean it is great. 

Next year I hope to see a list of 'Great new features for India'... but I doubt it will happen. 

I dislike Android phones now

I have started to dislike using the Android phones.Sure there are a lot of people who swear by it - but I am getting hit by issues which I did not have to contend with in the last couple of years that I was using the iPhone. Here are just a few of those.

Why is it that the phone manufacturers do not learn from apple and provide substantial internal storage ? Here I got a very stupid error which wants me to uninstall applications. WTF ! Why have an Android market if you cannot even install programs on the device ? The internal memory of the device is just around the 200MB mark - its a joke.

I

Also keep getting frequent crashes. I understand if there is a crash due to a 3rd party application - but this crash occurred in the android market application !

And now the straw that breaks the camel's back. See the message underlined in red. The damn device rejected an incoming SMS ! WTH !

The phone manufacturers are still taking the consumers for a ride. I am also guilty of being a gullible party - but this is also to do with my friends who let me down in guiding for a new phone. They did not point out these issues - and now when I come across this - they say its there.

Unfortunately I am stuck with this phone for sometime till the price of the 4S comes down in India or I get it from a friend. This is quite frustrating. Simple common sense has not been used by the Android team and the Android vendors.

Sometimes, in interviews people ask what can be changed for a product. If someone asks me about Android - well, they will get an ear full. 

Jailbreaking the iPhone

Ok. So I finally succumbed to jailbreaking my iPhone. The main reason is being that I am now in Singapore, and the 'unlocked' iPhone I bought in India does not accept a SIM from singapore. What a stupid thing !

After a few days of carrying two phones, one which was actually 'unlocked' I decided to jailbreak the iPhone. As per a recent US Ruling, iPhone jailbreaking is legal.

Scouting around the web, the easiest way to jailbreak is to just browse to Jailbreakme.com. It shows a nice page with a "slide to unlock" . Ho ! this is going to be easy I thought. But just before doing the jailbreak, I thought about doing a backup... and thats when things went horribly wrong. So, this blog post is also an attempt for people who may face the same issues.

The adventure started with the update. I did not realize that a new iOS4 version ( 4.0.2) had come up, and without thinking I cliked 'update'.

Now, the 4.0.2 version from apple is a sneaky piece of software - it only blocks the jailbreak hack. So, ofcourse Jailbreakme.com did not work. Looked around on the web, and the only way forward was to downgrade the iphone.

Here is how you do a downgrade.

1. Download the relevant build. Go to this page to download the relevant firmware. Choose 4.0.1 (thats the latest as of now which can be jailbroken).
   
2. Start iTunes.
   
3. Connect your iPhone and select it.
   
4. You will see a button which says 'Restore'.
5. While pressing SHIFT click on Restore. This will prompt you which firmware version to restore to. Select the firmware you downloaded in 1 above.
   
6. The restore process takes some time. Go make some tea or something.
   
7. Once restored to 4.0.1 , navigate to Jailbreakme.com in the browser on the device. Slide to start the jailbreak process.
   
8. Jailbreak is just part of the process. What it does is opens up the iPhone to be able to install other 3rd party apps which is not part of the Apple Store - cause apple does not allow applications which messes with the system internals. The next step is to open up the SIM.
9. In point 8, one new app gets installed. Its called 'Cydia' which is an app store not controlled by Apple. Search for ultrasn0w in that. This is the SIM unlocking software. Install it.
   
10. Now you are good to go. Change the SIM to a local one.
    

Have fun now.

Issues etc.
One has issues with supported software, and here we are talking about unsupported software. So there are bound to be issues. Here are a few things that I faced.

1. For some firmware versions ( e.g. 3.1.3 ) you need to put the phone in the DFU (Device Firmgrade Upgrade) mode. If you are not able to get out of this mode after putting in the firmware, you will need RecBoot installed to get out of that mode.
   
2. Sometimes you get an error ( error code 10) during the downgrade portion. This will kind of leave your device in the hanging state ( happened to me). If this happens, disconnect the cable from the computer to the iPhone and use it on another USB port. Also make sure that the cable is the original iPhone one. I am using a different cable which was cheaper, but that causes problems.
   

Resources:
I did not dream up this process. The following sites were incredibly useful. Check them out:

• U.S. declares iPhone Jailbreaking Legal, over Apple's Objections : recent ruling in the USA makes it legal for users to jailbreak the iPhone.
  
• Rolling back your iPhone 3G to OS 3.1.3 : If you are not happy with the iOS4 as it really slows down the device, you may want to follow this guide to downgrade to 3.1.3. Just make sure that you download and install RecBoot before you begin the process as you are definitely going to need it.
  
• How to Downgrade Your iPhone 3G[S] from iOS4 to iOS 3.1.3 : Similar to the one above, but has a good video of how to get into the DFU mode.
  
• RecBoot : Download RecBoot from here.
• iPhone firmware files : List of all firmware restore files.
• How to Unlock the iPhone 4, 3GS, 3G using UltraSn0w.
• iOS jailbreaking : Wikipedia article on jailbreaking.

iPhone vs Android

For those who did not really like my write up :)

( Courtesy : Greywulf's blog )

Android vs iPhone

Yesterday I got a chance to chill out with an Android phone - the HTC Desire. Its being used by one of my team mates (recently I have started working on a project with tenCube which makes the security software WaveSecure).

As a long time user of the iPhone (one and a half years now!), and having a good knowledge of current trends in the market I can say that I would passably know what I am talking about :)

At the end of the playtime ( which was like a few hrs since we were celebrating 5 years of tenCube in a lounge ) , I am left with mixed feelings. Let me elaborate.

What the Android has that the iPhone does not.

The biggest +like factor is the ability to multitask. That was like wow ! coming from the limitations of the iPhone. My colleages gtalk was working silently in the background, and he got an IM from another colleague from Singapore - which shows up as a scrolling text in the top status bar. I was like WTF ! cool !

Since its a google android, it works seamlessly with gmail. In fact - when you first start an android based phone, it will ask you for your gmail id - and if you are not using gmail as your primary email - you are not gonna enjoy the integration. But I suppose, if you are reading this post, you do have a gmail id.

Apart from this...

... nothing much.

Some comparison Notes

These are the things that I noticed while playing around with it.

iPhone has a kind of 'multiple desktop' concept where you can just scroll around by swiping left and right. In Android you require 2 steps : 1. click the button to bring out the list of apps and then scroll through them.

Android has the gadgets concept which is like the Windows or Google gadgets that you have on your PC. I think these are highly overrated as per screen you cannot really fit in more than 1 or max 2 gadgets.

Game quality on the iPhone is much superior to the Android. I have Assasin's Creed and Hero of Sparta on my phone, and going through the Android market I was not really able to find out any similar kind of game.

The Android market is tiny - and also not very well categorized. For instance, on the main screen you just have 'games' and 'apps' category. in games you just have some 4 different categories. In spite of what people may say about the android market place increasing - it still feels very limited and stifled.

Another annoyance is that the size of download is tucked away in the text and not shown at the top. Further it is greyed out - its like they want to trick you into downloading without knowing the size.

Form factor both were near enought. I guess thats cause of HTC engineering rather than Google.

Some pages have login screens with the login and password boxes. On the iPhone when you touch any of these, the page zooms so that you can easily see what you are typing in. On Android there is no such functionality. On top of it, double tapping does not work as expected. On the iPhone double tapping expands the table element , so for instance, if you double tap on a text column, it will 'fit-width' and you can continue with it. On android, it just zooms without looking at the element you are tapping. So most of the time, you end up pinching to zoom correctly.

The HTC also does not do landscape view - which is a mystery to me. Some text is still a bit small when you look at it in portrait mode. So, i am used to tilting to horizontal mode and can easily read it. On the HTC, I was not able to find such stuff.

The Facebook app for iPhone is much much better than that on Android. I think that the app is still new to Android and expect it to improve, but the one on iPhone is just better.

oh, and gmail integration is also doable on the iPhone by hooking up your gmail account as an exchange account. So that advantage goes away.

Conclusion.

On the whole - the User eXperience is much better on the iPhone, even now. Android has one upped on the functionality scale, but I have a big suspecion that the iPhone release ( on 7th June 2010) is going to blow away that advantage.

At this point I will not recommend any phone to you. Wait for the 7th , and i will be doing a review of the iPhone OS.

But one thing I do know - my iPhone 3G will not be doing multi tasking as apple is deliberately crippling that option.

The iPod Revolution

[Source: Online MBA for MashableMashable.com]

non-US iTunes

I always had this problem .. whenever i used to tap the iTunes icon on the iPhone, it would say that it is not available in my country.

Stupid. I can't imaging why a company like apple would be so short sighted about iTunes, while the appstore works ( except that the india app store does not have Civilization Revolutions). Also, after getting my new Acer netbook and installing Ubuntu on it, it becomes difficult to access the iTunesU - a great resource for any kind of knowledge seeker.

I am yet to see the apple keynote from 8th April - for the OS4.0 details. I downloaded on my PC in iTunes but forgot to sync to the iPhone. Now, I am trying to get it to download on the ubuntu netbook, but firefox crashes for any itunes link!

Finally, in frustration, i browsed to the itunes web store in safari on the iPhone ... and ... it opened the itunes app ! I was delighted. Now I can browse all the stuff - from the ringtones ($1.29 per tone - boo!) to the movies and songs downloads to the podcasts. Damn - this thing is a gold mine ... and if you have the moolah to fork over for the movies and songs - you can damn near get anything !

I dont really like the iTunes software on the PC - because I was primarily using it for my music collection. But now, browsing through the podcasts and videos - it was an enlightning moment. This , together with the appStore and now the iBook marketplace , defines why apple is getting so far ahead - and why it will remain so far ahead.

Sometimes I think that locking up to the walled garden of apple wont be too bad after all.

Cost of a Mac

So, someone was telling me the other day that if one wants to get a laptop of the same spec as a Mac, it would cost more.

Is that true ? I decided to check it out.

I decided to check it against the Alienware laptops from Dell. ( Alienware used to be a different company, but Dell aquired it a few years back. I guess they thought they would benifit from the reach of Dell).

Here I am not going to go on about the OS part of it. Just the hardware part. OS is a personal choice. If you like to let the OS do everything - its a Mac for you. If you want to configure everything - go and get Linux. If you want something in between - try Windows. Whatever.

This is a comparison purely for gaming rigs. I am looking at the cost vs specs of a high end gaming rig.

	Macbook Pro	Alienware (custom rig)
Cost :	$2499	$2074
Screen :	17"	17"
Memory :	4 GB	4GB
Hard Disk :	500 GB 5400rpm	500GB 7200rpm
Processor :	2.8 GH Intel Core 2 Duo	2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9600
Keyboard :	Backlit	Backlit
OS :	Mac OS X	Windows Vista Home Premium 64
Colour :	White	Black
Graphics :	9600M GT (512MB)	GTX250M (1GB)
Weight :	2.99kg	not specified
Battery Life :	7 hrs	not specified
Screen Size :	1920x1200	1440x900

Matching the specs of the apple , the Alienware rig comes out to be less costly !

iPhone BrainMap

Work of an idle mind.

Random thoughts on 2008

Just a meangerie of thoughts on the year that was. 

Bikes / Touring

My rides have gone down :( . Ridden only 2 overnight kind of rides this year. One to Guaghar and another to Dandeli with BN. BN now has grown to more than 800 people, and was featured on Yahoo group blog as well as bagging a most interesting group title at the Yahoo Moderators meet in Mumbai. 

BN calendar for the year getting delayed :( . Since all activities are volunteer activities, it all depends on the amount of time people have. This year, we ran short of time.

Yamaha made a huge impact in the market with the launch of the R15 and the ZF16 bikes. Both have amazing build quality and look great too! 

No new bikes in the highly anticipated 250cc sector. :'( . Bajaj was going to bring the Kawasaki Ninja 250, but with the worsening Economic scenario, those plans may never see the light of the day. 

Gaming

On the gaming front , Crysis is probably the only FPS that i finished in less than a week. Amazing graphics ( well, my 8800GT helps ;) ), and a gripping storyline. Getting my cousin to leave the comp so i can play was the bottleneck ;)

My world of warcraft character reached level 80, taking only a month after the release of the WoTLK expansion. Levelling has become easy in WoW , and the new quest storylines are quite involved. For the indian players out there, you can either join Deathwing (FTH) or Frostmourne (FTA). At 80 usually one starts to raid - the most amazing experience of the game. But with work and home activities taking up most of my time, I doubt I will be raiding. Which may finally mean bye bye to WoW. I also created a google group  wow-india , to find out if there are more nut-cases like me, and I was not disappointed.

Mass Effect looks to be like KoTOR saga. I have just played a bit - and it is nice. Not overly gripping. 

The game which was the most different one i have ever played has to be Patapon on the psp. Just the concept is amazing. You need to take your army of 'eyes' and make them attack, defend etc based on drum beats. I don't know who was goofing off so much, but it sure was a good goof! 

Politics

Obama became the first black president of the USA. It took them a lot of years to elect a black and they still haven't got a woman as president. Looks like the glass ceiling is still there. I don't mind , as long as the leadership is effective (which it wasnt in the last few years). 

In indian pre-elections, people voted mostly for politicians who had been performing. Shela Dixit in Delhi for example - she got another term. People were complaing that people are still voting for the same party, but having seen the changes in Delhi in the last few years, I am with the verdict. Best roads in India, a good mass trasport system with the metro, to just name a few of the achievements under her rule. 

Terror

The most graphic attack on India - at the Taj and Oberoi in Mumbai. It shook everyone up because , instead of being the usual bomb them and pick up the pieces, it was a long drawn out fight. It also showed that the police is quite ineffective , and the politicians will try to point the fingers anywhere. VilasRao was removed after public anger. Now the new minister is keen to keep out of sight. 

War clouds gathered for a brief hours, but nothing has happened. Pak is good at political rhetoric.

Movies 

Some good movies this year  : Quantum of Solace, Rock On! , The Dark Knight

Some forgetable movies this year : transporter 3

Gadgets

Apple launched the iPhone in india. Costing 31k for the 8GB model, it is just outside the reach of most people. The device has amazing responsiveness - better than any other phone I have seen. 

Google launched the first Android based phone. Waiting for this to become available in India. 

Work

Not much to write about my work. Somehow another year goes by. 

Economic situation crashed drastically. From the sensex being at 21k in Jan , down to 9k now. Major ripples due to the economic meltdown in the US. Hiring freezes almost everywhere. Which means that if you float your resume now, there is a slim chance of getting jobs, and the jobs that are tere , the big bosses squeeze you for the compensation given to you. 

What else ? Do you have a vivid recollection of any event which I don't ? 

Quake on the iPhone!

I want an iphone sooo badly now !

Apple is in India

Apple store is now in India !

I just saw the ad in the paper today, and checked out the website. You can check it out at :

• http://www.apple.co.in/

The store has the relevant information about each model - damn expensive though :( ... and no info about the iPhone :(

In love with the iPhone

My cousin was in India for a few days, and Pune only for a day. And he had an iPhone !

Oh man ! what a sweet device. Its wider and longer than the E6 I have , but almost 1/2 as thin. If you look at the shot above, the date is Sat 5th ( this weekend). Only later did i think about having taken the pic with my E6 next to it.

It requires one to have clean hands, as we found out after eating Paranthas. The screen got smeared, even though we had washed our hands. A quick wipe from a paper napkin, and it was clean.

The slide-to-unlock was super cool ! If you have watched the introduction of the iPhone, you know what I am talking about. Well, everything about the phone is cool. Everything 'flows' together. Click on an icon, and it flows up , expanding to fill the screen.

My bro uses it as a photo album. The flick to change the pics was so intuitive. I think, if nothing else, this is gonna be a hit with people who want to show their family pics, travel pics etc. It makes all of that almost like flipping through a photo album. No scroll bars, just a flip of the page. Easy !

I also wanted to check out the typing, as on the E6 its a pain. I have tried the onscreen keyboard as well as handwriting recognition, but its really slow. With the iPhone you need to use your thumbs to type , and I was wondering how i will type properly on it. But its a breeze. Put your thumb on a character, and it ballons up , so you can see which character your thumb is on. You can then slide your thumb around if you hit the wrong character till you are on the right one, and when you leave it, the character gets input into whatever you are using ( I was trying with notes).

sms chat is like an IM chat (e.g. google talk), where the sms from you and your friend shows up as a conversation. No going to the sent items to figure out what you sent. Its right there on your face when you type. flick up to go through the past conversation. The only other phone I have seen this on is the Treo ( Palm version, not the Windows version). I wonder what's stopping other phone manufacturers don't do this, its so convenient.

The only question that remains is "WHEN ARE THEY GONNA RELEASE THE IPHONE IN INDIA ?"

iPod Touch

Drool ! This is what a music player should be like ! Wow ! Totally blown away.

But after the launch of the iPhone earlier this year , this was sure to happen. However, if you ask me , I would still like to get the iPhone instead of the iPod, just so that I dont have too many different devices.

Read more on the Apple site. Watch the videos. Ah-maze-ing !

Apple's evolution

iPhone

iPhone, the latest release from apple was released last week ... and it was crazy ! People were hanging out in line since monday to get it ! The buildup was a lesson in creating hype by arguably one of the best showman today - Steve Jobs.

Just a bit of history for people who do not know much or are not into tech as deep as me :)

Apple was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniac. It was a giddy climb to stardom and Steve was in his time the worlds youngest billionare. Board politics reared its ugly head, and he was removed from apple. In the interim he went on to make Pixar - the company which redefined animation movies with Toy Story. Then, in the later part of the 90s Steve was back as CEO of Apple, and apple never looked back. ( If you are interested, read iCon which is on Steve Jobs)

Together with designer Jonathan Ive, the products from apple just went on becoming better and better - objects of desire so to say. Diverging from the desktop business which was seeing a revival of the macOS, apple launched a revolution in the form of the iPod. Frankly, at that time , and even today, there are many mp3 players which have more features, but what the iPod did was beat everyone on usability. Just about anybody could use it. With its simple white slim box design it became a hit. Apple's attention to detail are just too good.

Then about a couple of years back, rumors about an apple phone started surfacing. In Jan this year, Steve Jobs demoed the phone for the first time to an ecstatic audience and showed the world the iPhone. It was finally relesed on the last friday of June to an expectant audience worldwide, but only in the USA.

And no, you cannot use it here in India.

Plz dont do this to your phone!

People first in line became heroes after getting the iPhone. You can get hundreds of blogs/pics of those now on the net. However, what facinated me was a couple of links of opening up the phone to see what is inside. $500 up in smoke. Check out the links below :

• Apple's iPhone disected : We did it so you did not have to - Anand Tech
• iPhone Take-Apart - Think Secret

The amazing compactness achieved is really remarkable. I have never designed hardware, but since most companies do not get near to this level of compactness, I think that its ok ;-)

So, what does the iPhone do ?

Most questions can be answered ont he iPhone website. Check out the videos there if you can, words cannot describe what the videos can. However, a brief summary of important points :

• Touch screen with multi touch. Basically you use your fingers to type and flick the pages.
  
• Take pics with a 2MP camera. you can then zoom in and zoom out using two fingers. As the distance increases between the fingers, it zooms in. Aaah !
  
• 4GB and 8GB memory to play your songs. Did I mention , the iPhone is the best iPod till date ?
  
• Fully capeable internet browser. The palm treo i use is not good with full html.
  

But if you are gearing up for buying it right now, I suggest you dont. Here's the reasons :

• Locked SIM with AT&T . Which means I cannot open it up and replace the SIM with my Airtel/Hutch SIM. If you check the take apart pics from AnandTech or ThinkSecret you will notice that there is no way to open the phone apart from destroying it totally. I think interchangeable sims will be available in the future (EU release end of 07, rest of world release mid 08).
• No Edge. Believe me , full html on a slow gprs connection is quite frustrating.
  
• Cannot add any other applications. This is a bummer. What it means is that if there is a cool application available, you cannot install it.
  
• Limited storage space. 4GB is small for music and videos. I have a feeling the storage is going to explod pretty soon to higher nos. Anything less than 20GB is not worth it.
  
• No IM.
  

Following is an interesting photofeature of the evolution of apple through the times ! Click on link below to see it in full.

Apple Evolution