tech ronin

Kindle vs. rumored Apple iTablet

Today Amazon introduced Kindle, it's new wireless reading device. It does seem kind of clunky when you see it in photos, as many have commented. Hopefully, it is a bit less so in person.

Kindle includes free wireless access based on the Sprint EVDO cellular network. It costs $399 which partially subsidizes the cost of the wireless. It sells new books for $9.99 and apparently many books will be priced lower. You can download a book in about a minute wirelessly. No need for a computer to be in between your Kindle and the store. That's moving in the right direction.

This is mainly a text-oriented device. You don't get pictures. It seems to have a web browser of limited functionality as a part of it. I'm curious about that to see how bad and limited it is.

I've been wanting an affordable eBook for a long time. I always felt they were charging way too much for eBooks. If you can afford to pay the initial $400 price of admission, the books you buy will indeed be more affordable.

All the big book publishers have signed up for this. Ninety thousand books are already available. You can read the first chapter free before deciding whether to buy a book. Amazon wants to make Kindle the iPod of the Book selling world.

The best favorable article about this is the lead story in Newsweek by one of my favorite tech writers, Steven Levy. It is entitled The Future of Reading. Check it out if you are interested.

The reason I'm writing is that I suspect that Apple may not want to cede the digital book reader market to Amazon. It's funny that Amazon just started aggressively competing with iTunes recently.

Maybe the rumors of an iPhone-like device with a 1.5x larger screen will come true sooner rather than later now that Kindle is out the door. It would sure look better than Kindle.

It's interesting that the iPhone specifically doesn't target books. It's hard to carry around text content on your iPhone while music and photos are emphasized. I think Amazon is smart to narrowly focus on their strength. I doubt Apple will introduce a focused device. They just might include some of this capability.

Amazon has the book trade connections and they are good at web apps. Let's see how they do against the master of digital devices. I'm waiting a while to see how things develop. I would jump on this bigger iTablet in a flash but I'm still curious and wanna see what the Kindle can do.

Cheaper books on a nice light (10 oz) screen from Amazon sounds like a great way for me to limit my physical book purchases. I don't have room in my new place for more books, frankly. And, I'm getting to be less enthused about collecting physical books at this point in the dawn of the digital age.

I have my qualms about a device that is designed from the get go as a monopolistic service. You buy your stuff from Amazon. If you want to read blogs, you must pay for a subscription. This goes antithetical to the trend of the free, ad-based web we are used to. And the web has color and images and even video everywhere.

All I need is one more device to carry around. I'm glad Amazon is in the ring helping to bring books into the digital domain.

Jail Broken iPod Touch Can Fly

I just read a Christopher Breen article on PlaylistMag.com and he tells you how to simply get Mail and Maps onto a 1.1.1 jailbroken iPod Touch. It is even easier to copy the Weather, Notes and Stocks applications to your Touch. That's more like it!

I still would miss the volume control buttons, speaker and camera, but the apps along with Safari and 16 gigs might be pretty cool. A waaay better iPod than any other we've seen to date. On its own merits, without comparing it to an iPhone, the iPod Touch is a great device.

I said on September 11th that a crippled iPod Touch won't fly. Well, I was wrong. Especially if you jail break and soup it up.

I don't own an iPod Touch, but jkOnTheRun has a great little YouTube video review you might like if you are thinking it might be right for you.

Leopard still only for my experimental use

I got started with Leopard on my backup computer, my MacBook, on the Saturday after Leopard launched. Had some problems there. I was tempted still to upgrade my main axe, my MacBook Pro, to Leopard but held off. Lucky thing.

I'm convinced that I would have lost more than I gained by switching my main machine at that time. I'm still happily productive on Tiger on my main axe. And, I haven't had a lot of time to do much with Leopard yet on my MacBook. But I have a few initial impressions and experiences to share.

I tried using the dock at the bottom of my screen because I wanted to see the cool new dock. This week I switched back to the dock on the side. I like it there. I like it on the bottom from an aesthetic point of view but a widescreen like the MacBook's really works better with the dock on the side. I like it on the left. The left side dock loses its 3D look, but still looks different enough to be a nice touch.

If you have a 24" iMac or even a 20" or 17" MacBook Pro or maybe a 15" MacBook Pro, you may have room for the dock on the bottom. But forget it on a MacBook. No way!

I like the way Leopard looks overall. I like the consistency and the great number of small refinements throughout. And, I am still being surprised by big improvements here and there. For example, the Network panel rocks (see above). It looks enticing and actually gives you the most important information you need on one panel.

I heard Mac guru, Dr. Bob Levitus, talking about Leopard on the Mac OS Ken podcast recently. He wasn't really recommending it. He loves it but thinks there are enough issues like the blue screen of death to make it a prudent idea to wait a while. Wait until you can upgrade with confidence. Wait until there's enough time for good advice to be published and for lesser but prized applications to be upgraded and fully Leopard-compatible.

I'm lucky to have a secondary machine handy that I could upgrade to Leopard and use for web browsing, feed reading and some email. I can tinker with it and explore and not get stuck with extra problems when I'm under deadline and have to get something out the door.

So what's the plan with Leopard? I'm going to keep this up for a while. I have my fun, new Leopard machine to play with and I have my MacBook Pro for work and anything else I want on my main machine. I want to wait until my favorite backup program, SuperDuper, works flawlessly with Leopard.

I have every intention of upgrading to Leopard on my MacBook Pro by Christmas. Maybe Thanksgiving weekend even. I'll be tracking the Leopard news. Once I'm convinced the chances of problems has diminished to unlikely, I'll go for it.

By the way, even when I go to Leopard on my MacBook Pro, I'll still have my G5 tower on Tiger. That machine isn't Intel based and still runs Classic. I still have one Classic application I like to run from time to time - Civilization II - a classic game if ever there was one.

I hear Intel Macs are the ones that get speedy on Leopard. Older machines don't fare as well. My 3-year-old G5 runs great and I don't want it slowing down on Leopard. It'll probably be fine, actually, since the Mac towers have decent and upgradeable video cards.

Then there are the highly anticipated screen sharing and remote control features in Leopard to consider. Once the kinks are worked out (hear Ted Landau's rundown of initial limitations on the Nov 8 episode of the Tech Night Owl Live Podcast), this snazzy sharing stuff is going to be compelling.

If I fall in love with Leopard over the next few weeks, I may decide I want an all Leopard household at some point. The advantage to NOT doing that is that I'll be able to run Leopard-incompatible applications on my non-Leopard machine(s) as needed rather than being stuck without that option.

iPhone Update Nov 14

The iPhone has not gotten markedly upgraded since it was released on June 29th. I'm still waiting. But, I also have never been more happy with a device than I've been with the iPhone. It beats the iPod cold with its extreme full-featured capabilities, connectivity, web browsing and amazing big screen with touch interface. The iPod was an awesome device. The iPod Touch has wonderful possibilities. But, the iPhone kicks butt like these don't.

I wish the iPod touch could compete with the iPhone but it doesn't. Part-time Net access doesn't match full-time even if it is only at EDGE speeds. From now on, my iPod needs to have buttons for volume control, a camera and speaker too. But, if you can't afford a monthly data plan or a $40/month voice plan, it might make a lot of sense to go with the Touch if you want a connected device with great web surfing and you think you might like using it at home and work sometimes as an alternative to your notebook. Unfortunately, I have heard quite a few people say they really miss volume controls.

I find that I mostly don't take my Canon 700 IS camera with me on my daily walks. I bring it sometimes when I know and remember that I'm going to have cool photo opps. So, even though the fidelity is often seriously inferior to my Canon, my iPhone is my camera most of the time. As long as there's lots of light and I don't need telephoto or anything like that, I'm good.

I walk every morning 2-1/2 miles to and from downtown Tiburon for breakfast at Acri Caffe in downtown. When no one is around, I use the built-in speaker and carry the iPhone in my shirt pocket to listen to podcasts like Buzz Out Loud, Mac OS Ken, MacCast, The Tech Night Owl Live, The Apple Phone Show, This Week in Tech (TWIT), the Wall Street Journal's Your Money Matters and the PowerPage Podcast and a few others. When I have to, I use the headphones. I'm sure glad I am not limited to headphones anymore.

I walk in Old St. Hilary's Open Space Preserve most days. It's pretty much Ring Mountain on a smaller scale. Same rocky, treeless terrain with views. And the views are spectacular on the many sunny days we get around here.

I'll just have to wait for a 16 meg version of the iPhone. I believe Apple knew what they were doing when they went with EDGE. If they had picked Verizon, though, I bet iPhone v1 would be a 3G device. I'm happy to wait and pay a mere $20 a month for unlimited data access and get great battery life that I don't have to worry about. I would pay at least $30/month maybe $40/month for AT&T's 3.5G when the iPhone supports it as long as coverage is good in Marin county where I live.

Keep in mind, I had a BlackBerry Pearl before. If the iPhone didn't exist, I would probably still have the Pearl or maybe try the BlackBerry Curve. But, I get more than double the value with the iPhone. And, I don't work at a company with a BlackBerry server, so I'm not required and don't need BlackBerry or corporate email for that matter.

I liked the BlackBerry Pearl's keypad about as well as the Treo 650 before it. Each had advantages. The Pearl has a better numeric keypad capability with bigger keys that are more comfortable to type on. But the Treo had full QWERTY which is a little easier to type on. But those Treo keys are on the hard side. They don't compare to the comfy, softer and wider Sidekick I had for a few weeks.

Now I'm typing on glass. It works because the keyboard is big and you hear clicks as you type and you see the letters as you go along. Actually, it works because of the intelligence which guesses what you are trying to type and corrects you if you let it. Usually it corrects you well, but you have to remember to stop it when you type something unusual. To stop the correction, you just tap the screen. To accept the suggested word, you hit the space bar. This is pretty efficient. Firmware 1.1.1 improves things a bit by letting you double-tap the space bar to get a period. Typing is as good as Treo or BlackBerry as far as I'm concerned and I really strongly prefer having the huge numeric keypad when I need it.

People have bonded to their PDAs and cell phones before, but I believe the iPhone brings a whole new level of companionship. You always have several options if you have a few free minutes when you have your iPhone with you. If I don't find a free paper at my local cafe, I can read the New York Times, Google Reader, DIGG, check stocks, weather etc. on my iPhone.

There's lots more to add to the iPhone. Copy and Paste please. And native games, not just web-based games. We need to be able to add the applications we need given our own particular needs. I don't mind waiting until they can do it right. I finally quit using custom apps on my Treo because it crashed way too often when I loaded it up with extra applications. The computer industry has long sacrificed stability for shiny new features. I'll take the stability and elegance that iPhone brings to the party for now.

I'm new to Tiburon. I shopped around for a while to find the best breakfast place. The Acri wins easily in the end because it is a very comfortable environment, you can get a a great eggs and coffee breakfast for $8, there's plenty of room to sit and write and read. You can even talk on the phone with disgression. It has nice restrooms. And, saved the best for last, free wi-fi. That means my iPhone works better than a 3 or 3.5G cell phone. Yay! Great surfing.