The Phantom City

I might think different after a while, but I was kind of interested in MacWorld’s live coverage of the event, so I decided to write down some thoughts to see if they survive as time goes on.

• I really hope at some point they come out with the iPatch.
• The iPad is an iPhone I can’t fit in my pocket and can’t use to make phone calls.
• The iPad is an expensive, but lighter and shinier, netbook where I have to pay extra for an hardware keyboard and comparable storage.
• The iPad has access to the Apps store, so I can run iPhone apps without having to squint at them.
• Maybe the iBookstore can force Amazon to start supporting epub?
• I’d get one over the Kindle DX at a similar price. I don’t know about Kindle 2.0 at its current price point.
• Unlike the iPhone, I could use it for extended reading. One also assumes the Amazon Kindle app will still work.
• iWork apps are kind of cool. Could use it for presentations at work.
• I love the data plan pricing, particularly the pre-pay option.
• I kind of wonder about the whole 250MB plan. That could be fine on the iPhone, but I suspect people would use video on this more frequently.
• Might have been an awkward design at 16:9, but I was a little surprised at the 4:3-ish screen ratio. Oh well, it’s not a TV.
• Games will be prettier, faster, and more involving, but I’d need to pick one up to see whether the size would be awkward for a handheld.

I like this gadget, but I just can’t see where it would improve my life in the age of the iPhone and netbooks. I’ve already got light-enough computing in a form factor that’s been around forever, and I’ve got good-enough ubiquitous data access.

But, that all being said, it’s one step closer to that future of computerized houses, touchpads, and jetpacks I’ve been hoping for since I was a kid, so I appreciate it for that.

Update: Almost forgot…if it’s running the iPhone OS, I’m guessing no Flash. Maybe more pressure to adopt some HTML5 alternatives?

Update, redux: I’m getting slightly irritated by the sheer number of blog posts I’ve read lauding the iPad as high-tech at a cheap price. Really? At the base level, it’s a 1GHz processor, 16GB of flash storage, 1024×768 multi-touchscreen, and Wireless-N. It’s not delivering high-tech…it’s delivering good-enough tech in a better form factor than we’ve been used to. That’s called design, and Apple does that regularly.

BTW, I have figured out an awesome use for the iPad in my life: A computer my mom would regularly use. She’s not a big fan of mice, or touchpads, or the pointy cursor, but a large touchscreen would be awesome for her. Now, if AT&T would actually deliver 3G to Reidsville, NC, getting her on the Internet would be easy. As it is, we’d have to get cable or DSL and a wireless router in her house.

This is an extremely odd post about OLPC (One Laptop per Child):

The processor is more than fast enough to run software written in capitalistic programming languages like C++, but the majority of the user interface is written in slow left-wing languages like Python. – Errata Security: Why the OLPC promotes terrorism

I mostly program in ColdFusion at work. I like to think of it as a feudal language.

Link courtesy of Global Nerdy.

Holy unexpected transactions, Batman!

Link courtesy of TheCrumb.com.

Rest in peace, Netscape. (Or at least official support for Netscape by the company that currently owns the name.) Arguably you were responsible for me doing what I do for a living.

Hey, I work across the hall from this guy! He’s got a window, but since he’s published I won’t begrudge him that.

The article is a good tutorial on the CFEclipse plugin for the Eclipse IDE, which I use for ColdFusion coding at work. (Eclipse and I have come to a pause in our struggle and are trying to normalize relations to avoid future conflict.) I had been ignoring the snippet feature for a while, since I didn’t see a lot of time savings with it, but Jim’s article convinced me to use it again.

Anyway, if you want more about ColdFusion, check out TheCrumb.com.

Rumors have been swirling for quite a long time that Google was coming up with a hardware competitor for Apple’s iPhone. Apparently not. They’ve just announced Android, a collection of OS, UI, and applications for mobile devices that is meant to run across various hardware supplied by major mobile device makers. They’re planning to release an SDK for developers in November, with phones based on the platform showing up later in 2008.

So, software for mobile phones that allows third-party applications? Sounds like a direct shot at OS X on the iPhone. I wonder if Apple will get their SDK out there a little earlier now? (Too bad they didn’t work together. That would have been interesting.)

Link courtesy of Planet Intertwingly.

LOLCats has given birth to LOLCode, which I’m pretty sure is the programming language of the future. Consider:

I HAS A <var> ITZ …

Declare a variable. Note the following:

• Every variable is an array.
• ITZ … has been reserved for future usage and should not be used (except possibly for initialization of single-element arrays)
• At present, all arrays are heterogeneous (they can have different types of values in them). This may change in the future!

All values are typed, and the types are:

• NUMBAR (signed integer, at least 32 bits wide)
• YARN (string)
• ARRAY (contains NUMBARs and/or YARNs and/or ARRAYs)

Currently the interpreter and/or compiler does type checking at compile and/or runtime. This may get nailed down to one or the other in future recommendations.

There is also a .NET compiler.

I’m going to be lucky if I can get through the day without typing CAN HAS or KTHXBYE into my code.

Update: Good examples of code.

Link courtesy of Boing Boing. Title courtesy of PawSense.

more funny pictures

And this is how you win a format war: Target Bets It All on Blu-ray.

It’s not about consumer choice or minor technology advantages. It is about marketing and business development with content providers, electronics suppliers, and retailers. Microsoft hasn’t gone all out in supporting HD-DVD — leaving it out of the XBox 360 except as an add-on — even though they were among those who backed the format. Sony, on the other hand, is making sure when we see a HD disc or player, it’s Blu-ray. Blockbuster has dropped HD-DVD from its stores for now, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see others follow suit.

In Europe, according to the article, HD-DVD players are outselling Blu-ray 3 to 1. Will Toshiba and Microsoft be able to take that advantage in hardware sales and convince stateside retailers there’s an advantage to working with their format? Will Europe end up getting stuck with a bunch of Betamax players, or will that market be strong enough to decide what happens in the U.S.? (Or, even more likely, will we just end up seeing a basic format difference between Europe and the U.S., much like with PAL and NTSC?)