Owle, not a Pixar sequel, is an acronym for Optical Widgets for Life Enhancement  housing that allows you to add additional lenses, an inbuilt mic,add lighting and stability to your iPhone 3gs which markedly improves real time video gathering  while remaining hand held portable. Why write what you can see

It’s pretty obvious  how much the viewer stands to benefit from this platform ,YEP  that’s the viewer. Local company too   : )

I’ve often thought of the iPhone as being a glorified controller that just happens to make phone calls.

No related posts.

No related posts.

Or read Galt’s speech ?

The latter. Seems quicker

No related posts.

I’m going to start posting items from my work blog onto this one since I get more exposure here.

A couple of items appeared on my  reader in close proximity that  suggested that iPhone isn’t just a neat phone but it’s also the future of handheld gaming and the death of terrestrial radio.

It’s also the death of common sense least for  the current incarnation of the iPhone. Which network is going to have the ability to support that many real times streams?  If you don’t have immediacy it’s not radio.  Sure you can  DL the playlist  1st over night then just add in the  hosts  locally  may work, but  why bother  what are we trying to achieve here?   Replication of radio? Why if it’s so bad, would we want to?

Apples  target… 10 million  phones.

Yep that kills radio’s    more than 1 unit per person.   > 300 million.
that kills  Nintendo’s ( just one  companies) 20 million  DS base.

It doesn’t even kill XM/ Sirius  merge  with  17.3 million paying users.  It’s a bit late to walk by the  bleeding corpse of radio  and get your friend to take a picture of you standing with your foot on its chest.  That’s the perception of radio anyway.   Sadly it doesn’t jibe with these results.

Radio reaches more than 235 million listeners over the course of the week according to the RADAR 97 June 2008 Radio Listening Estimates. (link)

20 times more people than  Apple expect to sell phones to. Radio  Two controls,  no computer needed to keep it in sync  and oh battery life can be in weeks/ month range.

As to handheld gaming?  Would you  pay  $70 a month for your kid to play games on it?  Beggars belief really that it’s being seriously considered as a question. 

Can we start using the iPhone to do excellent iPhone  related things rather than trying to recreate the old world?

No related posts.

“We’re legislating common sense,” Councilman Doug Lingner said.”

Then why does it need a law?

Cynical point 1:

This law is “needed” since the money goes to Phoenix while enforcing a general law on distracted driving wouldn’t be as advantageous financially, I mean the people just.. oh wait I mean 3.9% of the eligible voters of Phoenix just inflicted another tax rise to pay for 500 additional police which one hopes will catch most of those “do gooders” with a nice fine Secondly I don’t for a second believe that those additional officers will ever see the street and the money will go to something shiny that no one uses.

Cynical point 2:

As usual those super humans that have state jobs , like those that enforce the new law ,are… EXEMPT… in the state version. The same reason most of us have to prove we’re not on drugs while state legislators do not , what a lovely country you lost.

Texting-while-driving ban passed

Cynical point 3:

There is no way an officer can tell if you are engaging in legal ( dialing the phone) versus illegal activity and this law is merely a pretext to  allow the police to pull over anyone to start their “fishing expedition” 

Note that the newspaper of record doesn’t tell you the bill’s name or contents in either case.

No related posts.

I’m happy. Once they get back on their feet and start to provide a better choice of phones for Sprint/Nextel  ( Cell on sprint, walkie talkie on Nextel)  there’s a chance I’ll come back( though only on an annual contract )   when they do.  It’s a shame that so many hours had to be wasted to get to this stage but I am glad I finally found someone to talk to  ( 2 people actually)  that at least  tried to get me a solution to stay with them, I tried it, didn’t  feel like it was a fair trade that I would have to extend my contract because it wasn’t working.    

Not over yet.  Phone has to go back, final bill received and a note saying I am free and clear:)  Still there is hope.

No related posts.

They  don’t have the old contract available , nor have I signed an update, so I would like them to provide the document to which they have said is impossible. Nextel’s service in the Phoenix region has  deteriorated over the last few months , they have acknowledged this problem   with their “hybrid” phones that run  calls over spring and keep the walkie talkie on nextel but  here’s the problem .

Been offered 2 free phones/ transfer etc that works on this system on an Annual contract  ie  3 months longer than they have “got” me for.  Doesn’t that admit that the service level has been broken ?  Or should I be the “good little consumer”  and just take a “generous” offer.

Sadly I am at a loss as to how I can argue against a contract I don’t physically possess or show that their conditions have materially changed since signing? 

No related posts.

No rush  the I phone is coming out in the summer which is a cruel and heartless trick to play on the Q using public. Apple , though I have not seen anything other than the site (I’ll watch the keynote at home later in QT)  but the thought that’s made “no thought just do it”  an apparent reality is gratifying. I’ve not been having that great a day with technology  as it is.  

So the rumored Apple phone and Widescreen iPod just happen to be in the same body, add in a fully featured browser a top OSX and what we have here is technolust writ large. ( so much so I am not even going to indulge in carrier bashing)

K this phone has a glass cockpit , it’s just touchy touchy  and if Smith had dialed for help , say from a scriptwriter, in I Robot this iPhone would not have looked out of place.   They’ve taken one of the oldest actions  flipping through a rolodex or your record collection and brought it into gestures that  look natural.    The phone’s  “aware” of it’s orientation and function and changes the display accordingly, disables features you shouldn’t hit when on a call, moves to landscape mode at the same time you tilt it 

Whoopee a camera.. I’m a real downer on these since the kind of results you can get out of the space a lens has to go in  invariably sucks. I have a really neat Sony with Zeiss optics that you can see chromatic aberration on and it’s a GOOD dedicated camera of it’s kind costing more than the iPhone so  please just stop with the cameras  it’s the  “new digital clock on a smaller item” that seemed to sum up Japanese innovation in the 70′s

Connections?  Frankly I don’t care about the phone section at all. While the  iPhone uses quad-band GSM and  Cingular’s EDGE network, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.0  leave enough options to make this useful around the home  as a player, vid and organizer if someone can hack skype into it I am so there.

Storage, OMG  a mobile device that doesn’t come hobbled  with 64mb or 128mb  but a reasonable 4 or 8gb. Given Apple’s penchant for doubling the size of these in the first few iterations I’m not too concerned.

As for iTV  I need a raise, I need some kind of plan where pre tax  Apple purchases can be taken of my salary.. like a 401k  but maybe a 1024Mb?

What’s even cooler is Erin   was suitably geeked and cooing in all the right places : I had no sleep,   blocked head, unblocked bottom and  I need some sanity nap

No related posts.