Charles in Japan

iPhone Purchased!!!

Playing with the phone now. I think I'm really going to like it. The opening cerimonies start in about 20 minutes so we got a seat in the British pub to watch it.

Technology Update

I know you probably want to hear more about Japan. I have a lot of pictures to post, if I ever find time to make room on my computer. I've gotten used to things here and life has become more comfortable, so it's time for me to get out a bit more. I think I'll be doing to Hakone for the weekend sometime soon, even with this hot weather.  I've seen a couple fireworks shows here and for now I'll just say they are pretty damn impressive.  July 4th just isn't going to be the same anymore.  I'll post some pictures and tell you more later.  Promise!

Yesterday Softbank 'lowered' the price on the iPhone data plan.  Well, not exactly lowered, but if you don't use it, or use it just a bit, you pay a lot less.  They also opened up reservations, so I went off to Roppongi yesterday at lunch and reserved a 16GB black iPhone.  After playing around with the software on my iPod Touch I'm really excited to get it.  My biggest worry is battery life.  The phone could probably replace my computer for 80% of what I do.  I won't say it's for everyone, but if you do a lot on the net, especially if it has software you can use it's very tempting.

The second huge annoucement from yesterday was micro Four-Thirds.  This is a new standard from Olympus using the same sensor as existing 4/3s cameras.  It looks like it's going to be the first EVIL camera.  It stands for Electronic Viewfinder, Interchangable Lenses.  A compact camera with interchangable lenses has been desirable by a segment of the photography community for quite a while.  This nich is currently filled by range finder cameras.  Not perfect, but a lot of people enjoy them.

Take a look at the page to see some of the advantages.  One of the biggest is going to be smaller cameras.  The lenses will also be smaller, but to what extent I'm not sure.  Although the current 4/3s standard (which will continue) boosts an advantage in many cases, this should be much more noticible.  The most noticible difference is the loss of the mirror or prism meaning you no longer have an optical viewfinder, at least in the sense of a traditional SLR.  You can either use the LCD to frame like a compact camera, but without the speed loss of flipping the mirror, or put an electronic viewfinder in.  Basically a small LCD.  These have been pretty bad to date, but there isn't a reason they need to be with todays technology.  The loss of the mirror means the distance to the sensor can be cut in half.  The loss of the mirror should also mean a much more silent camera. 

One thing SLR cameras have always lacked has been the ability to record video, and the micro 4/3s standard supports video.  You can even use existing 4/3s lenses on it with an adapter.

Honestly, I'm glad I didn't pick up the expensive lens I was looking at.  I think this will be my next camera.  Even smaller and lighter.  People are really wondering where Olympus is going to try and place this in the product line.  I think you'll end up with a consumer line for those people that want more then a super zoom camera, but less then an SLR.  A lot of people are very comfortable composing on the LCD now.  I think you'll have a mid-range/prosumer camera.  To early to guess exactly what features it will have, but I bet one has a flip out LCD, maybe a high end electronic view finder.  I don't know if Olympus will do it or not, but a weather sealed version with lenses to match would be awesome.

A few attempts have been made to push into this area before without much success, but it's exciting to see such great inovation.  Olympus's decision go create a new digital standard I think is paying off and it's allowing them to go into areas where Canon, Nikon and some others are going to have a hard time following.  Seeing their new products go in the same direction I'm interested in makes me glad I invested in their system.

Woot! New Airport Express released!

and I realized I don't care.  It now supports 802.11n so it's much faster with twice the range.  My apartment is only 8.6 x 2.3m and my internet connection doesn't exceed my internet connection so I can't say it really matters to me.  Maybe when I have a drive that I access off wireless.  Nah, I can't imagine that 802.11n would even be fast enough in that case.

My brother wants to go visit the place that had the 'sewer' pics I posted a couple months ago.  I want to see it too, but now I have a quandary.  I was going to wait a bit longer to get my wide angle lens, but I'd really like to have for this (and lots of other stuff!).  Someone let me borrow their bike, once I go pick it up, so maybe I can put it off a little longer.  (^_^)

Update:  Yay!  I have new lines!  It must be a setting in Mars Edit I need to change.  The web interface seems to work ok.

Thoughts on Macbook Air and other Apple stuff

Things are finally starting to settle down around the Macbook Air. This is the third or fourth post I've started writing on the MBA so lets see if I finally post this one. My other ones used some harsher language, mainly against other so-called tech journalists.

People are finally realizing this has a small niche and there are people who will buy it, regardless of the fact it doesn't have an optical drive among other things. The non-replaceable battery isn't turning out to be a big deal. You could replace it yourself in under 5 minutes, just keep track of the screws. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple would do this in store for you, at least if it isn't busy.

The first thing that is really obvious is that Apple's first priority was on reducing the weight, 3lbs max, which I think is right in my opinion. For true road warriors this is the issue, not size. From reading other articles you quickly learn that most people assume small size means it's light weight, or less of a hassle to carry for hours. Apple's other no compromise position seemed to be on screen and keyboard size. The keyboard is the same as their other laptops and it has a full 13" screen, larger then most, if not all 3lb notebooks. I don't really have a problem with the rest of their choices, soldered memory (fixed 2GB) or the small hard drive except for one thing. One USB port. iPod, Camera, G3 wireless connection, ethernet connection, external storage, flash drive. There are too many times I would want two (or more things connected). Could I survive, yeah. I'd like to see Apple do something to help improve this situation on the next generation.

Some other recent complaints. Apple released a new product called Time Capsule which is a wireless hub with a hard drive built in for backups. Why the complaints? Apple previously claimed you could use any USB drive with their airport hub to do backups. Now, this was on their Leopard pre-release page and pulled months before the actual product shipped. Apparently lots of people went out and bought not just an airport hub, but also large USB drives just to use this feature. The problem is that you can't force those drives to write to disk, so it was possible to lose information under certain situations. That is not acceptable for a backup solution, so Apple canned that feature and came out with Time Capsule that handles it properly. Now all these people are pissed off. Granted, I can kind of understand, maybe you needed a wireless hub so you bought the Airport Extreme. For the rest of you, you are idiots. Who the hells buys products based on pre-released specifications. It's not like it would of been hard to get an Airport Extreme and/or hard drives when you bought Leopard. People people people, PLEASE wait until you see the final product before buying!

Today Steve Jobs said something to investors to ease their worries about the stock price. I like Apple as much as the next person, but I think any reasonable person would see their stock price growth as being rather unreasonable, or at least unsustainable. I wish I had bought them back at $7 five or so years ago though.

Enough rambling on Apple. I'm still hoping for an Aperture update this week or next at the big photo show, whatever it's called. I'm going to get some more rest and hope I feel better today.

Macworld 2008

Macworld has come and gone so it's time to put in my two cents I guess.  As expected Apple released a sub-notebook.  As you'd expect, it is tiny, .76-.16 inches thick.  It tapers from the back to front.  3 pounds, which I think is a little heavier then other sub-notebooks, but it's got a 13" screen and a full sized keyboards that the others don't.  It's got the new multitouch technology in a very large touch pad.  People seemed overwhelmed by the control panel options, but it isn't too bad.  It's a welcome addition.  It has the main features you'd expect.  LCD backlight on the screen, 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1, USB 2.0.  And that's about it.  Audio out port and a micro-DVI port finish it off. 

So that's the average to bad.  It has no optical drive, but it has a cool feature to wirelessly connect to the optical drive of another machine very quickly and easily and install software off of it, even reinstall the OS. It has 2GB of memory, but it's soldered on.  No upgrades for you.  That's a bit of a downside for me.  The battery is also non-removable.  This isn't really an issue for me, but a lot of people seem put out by it.  Do you REALLY use your computer for 10 hours on long flights?  You might try sleeping part of the time.  With many airlines offering power it seems like less of an issue to me.  Apple will replace the battery for $129, which is the price of a battery on all their other machines, so not bad overall.  The last one is kind of a killer for me.  It has two storage options, one is an 80GB drive, same one used in the iPod.  Very small, 4200rpm make it even slower then traditional laptop drives.  You don't want to be doing lots of disk swapping and the 2GB limit on memory means no large tasks.  They also offer a 64GB solid state (flash) drive, but at $999 it isn't cheap.  I'm curious to see benchmarks on it later. 

Overall?  Like many of Apple's products it's going to appeal to a smaller market, especially at first.  Apple always makes some extreme tradeoffs like leaving off an ethernet port and going with a very small hard drive.  Maybe other manufacturers are using them too though.  I think they maybe should of made it a little bigger with longer battery life though.  I'm not going to be lining up for it.  I'll have to wait and see where it goes.  I'm hoping that new software for the iPod Touch will fill most of what I want to do with a portable machine like this.  How much of a success will it be?  I'm not making any bets.

Speaking of the iPod Touch, Apple has released the Apps that came with the iPhone for the iPod Touch for $20.  Seems pricey to me.  Most of them require access to the internet and with free wi-fi rare in the Japan I'll probably be skipping this too.

Apple announced a new backup solution.  A wi-fi base station and hard drive together.  500MB and 1TB.  It's probably enough for most people, but I would of preferred to see them separate.  Honestly though, with only a 160MB drive on my laptop either would probably work for me.  This is the only way to backup wirelessly with time machine.  Why this doesn't work with external drives is still a bit of a mystery, but I bet that there were problems in some corner cases and when backing up data anything that might cause a loss is bad.

I think the last big announcement was with the Apple TV and movie rentals.  Apple TV has gotten a large upgrade, but it's firmware, so you get it even if you already bought it.  Yay!  Apple TV can now rent movies without a computer and a large update to it's interface.  Renting movies is the other big announcement.  Seems like most of the movies studios are in.  $2.99 for old releases, $3.99 for new releases, and HD content is a dollar more, only in the US for now.  Prices seem reasonable.  You have one month to watch a movie you rent, and you can view it for 24 hours.  That brings up the first problem.  24 hours?  What if you don't finish it the first night?  Rentals should be at least 32 hours.  From the beginning of the evening one night, to the end of it the next.  Start watching it 5pm Wednesday night, you have until 1am Friday to finish.  The other small problem is that if you buy it on the Apple TV you can't move it to your computer or iPod.

No super major products like the iPhone, but you can't have one every year.  I'm glad to see them improving the Apple TV and adding movie rentals.  I'd rather have the ability to rent movies then buy them I think.  I just with Apple could release them worldwide all at once.

Maybe my biggest disappoint was no word on Aperture, Apple's Pro photo software.  Adobe's Lightroom has surpassed it.  I like Aperture's workflow better, but as it stands I'm going to purchase Lightroom.  I'm certainly not the only one waiting for a new version.

10 Hours Remaining

until the Macworld keynote.  The rumors range from that nothing interesting will be announced to that Steve Jobs will end the writers strike(!?!?!).  The biggest expectation is for a small, light notebook.  Most people though have unrealistic expectations.  Somehow apple is going to cram everything in the current pro line into something half the size and give it feature x that the author feels EVERYONE needs.  I laughed at one guy who thought it be a slim 4 pounds which is hardly a reduction from the 5 pounds the current Macbook weighs.  Apple has a very well defined product line right now.  If Apple does release a slim, light notebook that is what it will be.  Slim, light and reduced features to match.  I'd expect at least a 40% reduction in volume and weight or it just isn't different enough from the current offerings.  You hear a lot of moaning that a 32GB or 64GB solid state drive wouldn't be enough, but once I take off the movies, music and photos in my computer I don't use all that much.  I think my photos take up around 28GBs right now. 

Other then that I expect we may see a new 3G version of the iPhone announced, maybe with more memory.  New deals with movie studios and movie rentals.  This kind of excites me, but I'm not sure if I'd be able to rent them with a Japanese credit card.  Blue-ray rumors are running wild, but I don't think it will happen.  Apple just updated the Mac Pro line and announcing Blue-ray a week later would piss off a lot of people that bought it already.  The new hardware releases right before Macworld means they probably have something new to announce. 

Apple's motto this year is 'There's something in the air'.  Most people are expecting that Apple's new notebook is going to be called the Macbook Air.  And it very well could be, but in that case it's likely to be a smallish very light 2 poundish machine.  Within 10 minutes you'll have people already declaring it a failure due to it not having feature x or y.  Although there has been a little talk of it, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple has a large announcement having to do with wireless.  Cellular wireless built into their laptops?  Wifi-max?  There is another wireless that can transfer HD signals so you wouldn't need cables.  Maybe something else completely new.  There are a number of standards out there that companies aren't really using yet I could see Apple picking up.  10 hours left and we'll know!

iPod Touch, found again

I thought I had lost my iPod Touch a couple days ago while out with friends and I dreading buying another. I picked up a iPod Shuffle so I'd have something to listen to on the train and at work. Fortunately today while picking up a pile of clothes to take the cleaners I found it! Yay! Yeah, I know I should be more organized, but when all you have is an air mattress everything goes on the floor. I'm going furniture shopping this weekend, but I really want to measure my place first. I have no idea where to buy a tape measure here.

This is posted from my brand new internet connection. The guy who installed it tested it, 58-65Mbs downstream, and 8-12Mbs upstream. A lot slower to the US, about 2-8Mbs downstream and 4-10Mbs upstream. Yeah, I can upload to the US faster then download. Not bad for a shared fiber connection. He said it was a little slow today, but I'm not complaining. You might start hearing a little more from me.

I KNEW IT!

Mac Rumors recently posted a little comment about Apple's large cash reserve and what they've done with it.  Apple's $5 Billion Cash Reserve   They mention buying Fingerworks.  I used to own one of their keyboards.  It's almost more like a touch pad.  There were no keys, you just pressed the location for the letter, but that also allowed you to do all sorts of neat gestures.  They also called it multi-touch technology.  Ever since I saw the information on the iPhone, I was sure Apple had bought them and I was even more sure after using my iPod Touch.  Other companies have a lot of catchup work to do.  Fingerworks technology was so far beyond what anyone else had available.  I feel vindicated.

An Apple sublight laptop?

The rumors are flying that Apple is finally releasing the sub-notebook/tablet at Macworld in January.  This has been a bit of a hole in their current offerings and I'd be excited if they fill it.  Although I wanted to see one in the past, I really didn't have a need for it in Dallas.  It was easy enough to haul my notebook around.  Now in Japan, I feel the desire for one.  Apple's 13 inch book book is a better size, but it's only .4 pounds lighter then my 5.4 pound 15" notebook.  Their small notebook has actually gotten a little heavier recently which might be a sign that they have a product to fill the hole.

Everyone seems to want something different.  Optical drive?  Modem?  Dedicated graphics?  What about expansion?  Do you need a lan port? modem? Firewire 800?  Audio In/Out?  Mini-DVI?  Of course everyone wants a huge battery life, low weight and a cheap price.  So what do the rumors say?  Not much, 12 or 13" in screen, LCD backlight, no harddrive, but flash memory instead.  A few laptops have been released with a 32GB drive so far.  It's an expensive and small option compared to a hard drive, but fast and saves a lot of battery power.  It's also rumored to be half a thick, that would make it only .5"!  If you've ever had the chance to play with an iPod touch I can believe it, or at least want to believe it.  The price is rumored to be just $1500.  I'd be real pleased if it was thin, a "subnotebook" at 1.5" just doesn't feel that compact when you are carrying it around.

Seeing the price, I think this machine might meet the needs I have for a portable computer here.  What will it not have?  No optical drive.  They take up lots of space and battery life.  You want to watch movies on it?  Download them from iTunes will be Apple's answer (or convert them).  No dedicated video card.  It will probably have minimum connectivity options.  What will we get?  wireless B/G/N, bluetooth and USB 2.0.  Maybe a web camera, mini DVI out, lan port or firewire.  Apple doesn't seem to like lots of ports on their portables.  I think they'll stick to meeting the needs of 90% of their users really well and most of them won't need this stuff.

I hope it runs a full version of OS X instead of a stripped down version like some sites have guessed in the past.  I hope it gets at least 5 hours of real life usage with wifi enabled and connected.  I hope it weighs l2 pounds or less.  Scale the existing iPod touch up to a 12" screen and .5 inches think it comes to 24 onces, so it might be possible.  I'd like to see it running a real processor and not some of these really slow versions some small laptops have.  At half an inch thick though, I wonder if it will have a keyboard or a touch screen more similar to a tablet.

I'm looking forward to Macworld and Apple's next attempt to separate me from my money.

Apple's iPod Touch losing out to iPod Nano at checkout lines

Link: AppleInsider | Apple's iPod Touch losing out to iPod Nano at checkout lines.

Whoa, what type of genius figured this out?  The cheapest iPod Touch is 50% more then the most expensive Nano ($100).  The touch is great for video or showing photos, but most people who buy an iPod use it for music, and the Nano does that just fine. 

Who ever imagined?  The cheaper product outsells the more expensive one.  Will the wonders never cease...