Tag Archives: iphone

Reality Distortion Field

iPad announcement summary

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Apparently Apple has announced a new product called iPad. It’s like a big iPod touch. Having owned all three iPhone models  I must admit I would probably enjoy owning an iPad, limitations and all.

As it is, I already use my iPhone more than I use my laptop anyway:  when I wake up, I check my email on my iPhone, not on my laptop. When I want to see the weather, I check it on the iPhone, not on my laptop… The list goes on.

When I use my laptop, most of the time I use it to watch video or browse the internet in bed or in the living room couch. The iPad should do all these things more comfortably than my laptop. The only thing it’s really missing for me is a webcam for videoconferencing. I’m not saying that it will replace my laptop… but it may end up being an additional toy.

Reality Distortion Field

Operation Chokehold

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Fake Steve Jobs is angry at AT&T‘s poor network performance and all their excuses. Dropped calls, falling back to EDGE, slow data rates, poor voice quality, etc. So he called for Operation Chokehold through his blog:

Subject: Operation Chokehold
On Friday, December 18, at noon Pacific time, we will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees. The goal is to have every iPhone user (or as many as we can) turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour. Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of their abusive comments. THe idea is we’ll create a digital flash mob. We’re calling it in Operation Chokehold. Join us and speak truth to power!

Since this post, there has been a lot of discussion about it: on the blog, on the web in general, even on Twitter. Everyone is all over it.

This all started as a joke and now sort of took a life on its own. The Facebook page has about 2000 fans. The Facebook page against it only 22 as of this writing.

According to latest estimates by The MKX® Department of Cyber-Risk Assessment, nothing will come out of this. But following all the commotion is kind of fun. Will you join Operation Chokehold?

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The Browser Wars II

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About three and a half years ago I took a look at the browser usage statistics here in The MKX®. A lot has happened since: Safari came out for Windows, mobile browsing finally became usable with the iPhone, and Google released a fast new browser called Chrome. I think it’s about time we take another look:

Browser Internet Q4 2009
(by Net Applications)		 The MKX®
April 2006 		The MKX®
December 2009
Internet Explorer 64% 59.32% 38.57%
Firefox 24.44% 27.12% 34.84%
Safari 4.40% 9.32% 18.55%
Chrome 3.82% No data 5.68%
Opera 2.25% 2.54% 0.49%
Netscape 0.31% 0.85% No data

pie

Conclusions:

  • Firefox, Safari usage keeps climbing.
  • Internet Explorer use is declining.
  • Chrome came out of nowhere and in a few months has a respectable number of users (myself included).
  • People who don’t use Internet Explorer are smarter and better looking. Thus, in average, our readers are smarter and better looking than the rest of the world.
  • Opera is dying a slow, painful death.

As an interesting not, now 2.75% of all our visits are from an iPhone or iPod touch. Thanks for reading.

Reality Distortion Field

No longer missing iPhone features

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In June of 2007 I wrote a post titled “Seemingly obvious software features missing from the iPhone“.

Today, iPhone OS 3.0 will be available and the iPhone 3G S is shipping, so I thought it’d be interesting to see how things stand now.

Below is the original list, with the items that are now covered striked through:

  • Video recording
  • Voice-note recording
  • VoIP (like Skype) functionality
  • .Mac syncing
  • Copy/Paste
  • Ringtones from your music
  • Synchronization thrugh WiFi or Bluetooth (done through MobileMe)
  • Keychain (password storing)
  • Objective C/ Cocoa SDK
  • Dashboard/Widget support (outside of Safari)
  • iChat (through 3rd party applications)
  • A2DP
  • Voice dialing
  • Games
  • Slot for memory cards
  • Spotlight
  • Java
  • Flash
  • MMS
  • Geolocation
  • eBooks
  • Built in RSS Reader (through 3rd party applications)
  • SSH ((through 3rd party applications – client only)
  • Bonjour iTunes sharing
  • Printing support (through 3rd party applications)
  • Video teleconferencing
Almost everything is covered now. What do you think the new list should contain? Here’s a recent article with 25 still-missing features.