Don’t get me wrong, I’ve used Android (I owned, and rooted a Nexus One way back when), but something just turns me off about it. All my friends at work have Android phones (or iPhones), and there isn’t a day where I hear one of them complaining that their phone app on the phone crashed and completely froze it. In the 5 years that I’ve owned an iPhone I can honestly say that I’ve never had this problem, at all. Why do people put up with this? Someone calls you, and the phone app crashes? That’s pretty terrible if you ask me. Say what you will about Apple’s walled garden, but I do know that I don’t have to worry about the phone app crashing while I’m trying to make or receive a call. I haven’t honestly come across an Android phone that just works, at all. I’ve gone into AT&T and Verizon to play with the various phones that are available, and not one of them can hold a candle to the iPhone in terms of complete user experience. If you have read any of my articles before, you can easily tell that I know way around a computer and tech in general; but there’s just something about having a device that just works exactly how it should without having to do anything at all to it. It’s not that I don’t know how, or anything like that, I just don’t want to. I’ve jailbroken my phone and it’s way too much of a hassle than I honestly want to deal with.

Don’t even get me started on fragmentation with Android. Ok, please, get me started on it. This essentially means that not every phone will get the latest version of Android. Essentially, if you bought an HTC Hero awhile back, you’re not going to be getting 2.3 Gingerbread. That is, unless you root your phone and install a custom ROM. That isn’t honestly the half of fragmentation, because even brand new phones don’t come with Gingerbread. Some phones are still stuck on 2.2 Froyo. Now Froyo isn’t that old (2010 I think?), but brand new phones are still coming out with this OS. That’s like Apple including iOS 4 on the 4S…it just wouldn’t happen. So why is Google allowing this? Well, Google doesn’t really have much of a say once it’s open sources it’s OS. Once it does that, manufacturers can honestly do what they want with it. They can release any version of the OS that they want, and they can choose to keep upgrading the OS or they can choose to keep at the same versions. Sure, you have the option to upgrade your phone by rooting it and installing a custom ROM, but should we really have to? Granted, iOS 5 isn’t going to be on the iPhone 3G, but that phone is insanely slow (412Mhz processor and 128MB of RAM…I mean come on), so I don’t honestly expect the latest OS to run on it. Another problem with fragmentation is that developers have to develop for all these hundreds of Android devices on the market. Since each and every Android device has different specs, the dev has to compensate for this and include support for every possible device that’s out there. This can not only take more dev time, but also more money.

I don’t honestly get why manufacturers don’t care more about quality, as they simply care about quantity. One thing that going to Apple has shown me, is that quality matters. Quality should be number one over everything else. Android simply just does not have quality written all over it, and that’s sad. The problem honestly lies with Google and them not taking control of the OS that they developed. I’d love to interview Andy Rubin and pick his brain about what he thinks about the lack of quality with Android. Honestly, being too open causes problems. Yes, I wish that Apple could implement certain features in iOS, but I’ll take ease of use and quality every day of the week, over being able to customize everything about my device, but have a lesser quality product. My wish would be that Android manufacturers take a look at what Apple has accomplished under Steve Jobs, and honestly see that quality does matter, and to put a bit more effort into their phones. There isn’t a day when I see a new post on Engadget about a new Android phone that’s in development. Seriously? Give it a break guys. You buy a new Android phone and two months later, it’s already outdated. Hell, I buy an iPhone and I get to keep that for a year and get a much better model next year, knowing that nothing will come out in between to obsolete this model. But this is what makes Apple Apple, and why I will always choose them over any other product. Quality means something, and it should mean more to everyone.

The 3GS looked exactly the same, but it offered a much better CPU, double the RAM (256MB), a better GPU, actual GPS, and a 3.2MP camera. With the 4, it offered a new design, a much, much better CPU, 512MB of RAM, a better GPU, 5MP camera, and an antenna that can cause problems if you hold it incorrectly. Given that the iPhone has been released every year since 2007, the time that has passed since the iPhone 4 has been about 16 months now, so people expected a much better phone given the time it’s taken to release it. Since this is the “speed” update, what’s inside? Let’s go over the differences, that we know about: A dual core A5-based CPU (same as the iPad 2), a dual core SGX 543MP2 GPU (again, same as the iPad 2), an 8MP camera with a 2.4/f aperture, 1080P video recording and video stabilization, a little better battery life, a better designed antenna, HPSA+ 14.4Mbps, Bluetooth 4.0, Siri the voice assistant, and it being a world phone (meaning the chipset supports GSM and CDMA together). So as an owner of an iPhone 4, you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? If you’ve used a 3G and upgraded to the 3GS, then yes it is worth it. The amount of upgrades included are pretty significant if you ask me. Being a current owner of the iPad 2, I can attest to the performance of it. Seeing as how the iPad 2 is a 9.7″ 1024×768 screen, both the CPU and GPU will simply scream on this device.

Probably one of the most exciting changes with the 4S is Siri (pronounced Sear-y), the voice assistant. With the 3GS, they introduced “Voice Control”, which allowed you to control certain aspects of the phone by holding the home button for three seconds and speaking a command. I honestly tried it a bit, but honestly never used it completely. Sure it’s good if you want to change a song or make a quick call, but overall it was extremely limited and didn’t really offer much. Well, in comes Siri. Siri is a technology created by Nuance, which Apple bought in 2010. They had an app on the AppStore (but has since been pulled and existing users have until the 13th to keep using it), and now it’s officially part of the 4S. What Siri offers is a vocal, digital assistant for you to use. So you can ask Siri to make an appointment for you, or remind you to buy a gift for someone, or hell, read back your text messages (and even respond to them!). The amount you can do with Siri is simply amazing. If you don’t believe me, watch the video below and see the amazing things you can do with it:

See what I mean? Being able to have an actual conversation with your phone, is pretty incredible. Not to say that this isn’t creepy at all, or that we should have conversations with our phone, but at least you can do way, way more than you could with Voice Control. Since Siri is only available on the 4S, some have said that it requires 1GB of RAM to work correctly. We don’t honestly know the actual speed of the CPU or how much RAM is actually available, but I believe that it’ll have 1GB of RAM, with the CPU clocked at 1Ghz, or 1.2Ghz. We won’t honestly know until iFixit gets ahold of it next Friday. Next Friday is when it’ll be available, with iOS 5 being available on the 13th. Once the 4S is out, I’ll be sure to put out a review and let you know how everything is. Until then, we’ll have to wait to speculate on how good it is! Oh, and pre-orders are available starting tomorrow at 12:01am PDT.

If you’ve never used WebOS before, and you enjoy pretty things, then you’re in for a treat. WebOS just oozes sex appeal. That’s not to say that iOS or Android don’t look good, but WebOS is just sexy plain and simple. Since this is the AT&T model, it comes with the 3G bands that AT&T support (850Mhz and 1900Mhz), and it also supports 14.4Mbps HSPA+. Everything else about the Pre3 is exactly the same. It sports a 1.4Ghz single-core CPU (would have loved a dual-core, but beggars can’t be choosers), 512MB of RAM (wished it would have a GB, but oh well), 3.6″ WVGA (800×400) screen, hardware keyboard which is pretty nice to use and a MicroUSB charger on the side. So the hardware seems to be pretty great, but how does the OS run? If you’ve ever used the Touchpad before, you may be turned off a little bit by the performance of the OS. I am very pleased to say that the performance of the OS is superb. Nothing ever lags, scrolling is perfect, and I can easily zip along between cards.

If I do have anything to complain about with WebOS, is the browser. Having used iOS since 2007, I’m used to the amazing Safari browser. The browser on WebOS just isn’t up to snuff, and that’s fine. It works just fine in pinches, but I honestly wouldn’t use it for extended web browsing. This is why I have a tablet if I want to do some web browsing. Speaking of the web browser, HP thought it was a good idea *not* to include an orientation lock in the OS. Why is this an issue? Well, how often have you been laying in bed, browsing on your phone? On the Pre3, if you do that, it’ll switch to landscape mode. Landscape more on a device with a hardware keyboard is not a good idea. Hopefully HP (or the homebrew developers) fix this in a patch or an update soon, as it’s next to impossible to browse in bed. Aside from that, are there any other things that annoy me? If you’re *really* big on apps, you’re going to be disappointed with the “App Catalog”. It simply just doesn’t have the apps available. Sure there’s Facebook and a few nice Twitter apps, but games or really big name apps just simply aren’t there. So if apps are your thing, and you don’t want to just use the web browser to access the web versions, WebOS simply just isn’t for you. Me? I’m not 100% big on apps, but there are a few that I wish were available, but I know they’ll never hit. Again, this is also why I have a tablet (iPad 2), so I’m not completely missing out. Are there any apps that I *must* use all the time? No. And during the time I’ve used the phone, I haven’t found myself missing very much.

Call quality on AT&T’s network has been outstanding (surprisingly enough). With the iPhone 4 that I have, it’s pretty good, but not great. With the Pre3, it’s actually really damn good. I had a few hour long conversations and never seemed to have any issues with the audio quality. Speaking of the network, since this phones supports 14.4Mbps HSPA+ (the iPhone 4 only supports 7.2Mbps), I was extremely excited to finally test this out. AT&T likes to call HSPA+ “4G”, even though we know it’s nowhere close to LTE 4G, so we’ll just call it “fauxG” instead. Using the iPhone 4, I can get an average of around 3.2Mbps, with a maximum of around 5.45Mbps. Using the Pre3 (and speedtest.net, since they don’t have a dedicated app), I got an average of 6.7Mbps, with a maximum of around 8.75Mbps. Far, far from LTE speeds, but a nice bump from the regular iPhone speeds. In real world, I’ll never honestly use these speeds (since downloading apps isn’t going to take that much time), and with a 2GB maximum for the month, who really needs these speeds. Ironically enough, since I was using my iPhone SIM in the phone, AT&T caught wind of me using a 3G SIM in a “fauxG” phone, and sent me a text saying I needed a “4G plan”. Because of this, I contacted them about it, and they said they weren’t going to change my plan, and it was simply a warning. They said I needed a 4G plan because I’d get faster speeds and “more coverage”. I don’t see how a 4G plan would give me better coverage, but oh well. Being on an unlimited plan, I wasn’t about to give that up, and just said I was using the phone to write up a review of the phone. Luckily, they let me keep the same plan and said I was fine.

For someone who hasn’t used iOS, or Android before, WebOS would be a fantastic OS to use. But if you’re someone who has used them, there’s a lot to be desired in it’s current state. Hopefully HP either sells WebOS to Amazon, or they actually decide to pick it up again, but as it is, I can’t justify using it over iOS or even Android. If you’ve read my posts before, you know how much I hate Windows Phone, so I can easily, easily recommend WebOS over Windows Phone every day of the week. Don’t get me wrong, WebOS is sexy and hell, the hardware is there, but with the lack of development happening on the main OS, there really isn’t much left life in these devices. Given that the Galaxy S II and the iPhone 5 (4S???) is just around the corner, it’s honestly too little too late for a phone that could have been amazing. Overall, I love it, but I just can’t recommend it to someone who’s never used WebOS before and want to use it as a main phone. Second phone? Sure.

Score:

8.2/10

Let’s say that you just bought an iOS device, like the iPhone and you wanted to sync everything that you previously bought but didn’t have access to your computer to sync. iCloud lets you redownload any and all of your purchased music or applications right to the device. So that means, you can instantly download that favorite song, or download that app you need to have while you’re out on the go. The idea here, is that you can access all of your previously purchased media, straight from the phone, you no longer need a computer. Another great feature of iCloud is that you can now wirelessly backup your phone directly to iCloud over WiFi. While this may not sound like the greatest feature around, it’s great if either you lose your phone or you swap it at the Apple store constantly (or you just buy a new device). You can restore from the iCloud backup, straight from the phone and get it to exactly the state you had it at when you lost it or swapped it out. Personally, I find this feature amazing, because I’ve swapped my phone out at the Apple store at least 4 times with the iPhone 4, and each time, I’ve had to wait until I got home to sync it and get it how I wanted. That’s no longer an issue.

What other amazing things does iCloud offer? Since iCloud is currently in beta (the first beta was released Monday), there’s still a lot that can be added before it’s fall release. However, it’s the potential of what could be that has me the most excited. Imagine that you’re listening to a podcast or a song on your computer and you have to leave. You want to take this podcast/song with you, but you want to pick up exactly where you left off. Right now, you can’t do that at all, without having to seek/scrub through the song or podcast. This detaches you from the experience you were having with the song or podcast, especially for podcasts since you can never scrub to the exact second you left off. What would be amazing is if iTunes can sync your location (either automatically or at request) when you pause the song or podcast, and you can instantly pick right up where you left off on your iPhone or WiFi enabled iPod Touch. This way you don’t have to find your location in a podcast, or start the 13 minute long Tool song you were listening to, all over again. One way that this sort of works, is when you purchase a song (doesn’t seem to be podcasts yet honestly) on your Mac or iPhone (I don’t own a PC so I haven’t tried), it instantly shows up on your other devices. I just bought the song from the Assassin’s Creed: Revelations E3 trailer on my Mac, and seconds later it was already on my iPhone. This I absolutely love, because that means I never have to sync with my computer just to get that song/app I downloaded.

As we mover further into the cloud (which I’m honestly loving if it continues like this) what other forms of syncing would be really great? How about syncing the current open tabs of your browser? Or syncing the exact location on the web page (instead of just starting at the top)? Or your saved games across all devices (Angry Birds or Plants vs Zombies for example)? Granted, Mozilla already did syncing of tabs with Firefox for Android, but that doesn’t mean that Apple can’t. I actually quite like the idea of syncing the location you are in a page, instead of always loading just the top. I say this, because there are certain sites I like to visit that are quite long to read, it’d be nice if I could sync where I am on the page with my iPhone or iPad and pick up exactly where I left off. I really like the idea of starting on your computer, and finishing what you’re doing while mobile, because let’s face it everyone has to go outside sometimes right? I hope one day that I can write some notes down in TextEdit on the Mac, and look at my phone or iPad and find the exact notes there waiting for me, where I can add more content, or edit what’s already there and find the changes at my Mac when I get back. How would you like your IM application to sync your conversation across all your devices? Say you’re talking to a friend on your computer and you have to go out, but you’re still talking to them via IM on your phone. Wouldn’t it be great to sync that conversation, so you can look back at it and not feel like you’ve missed anything? You’re not going to remember what you talked about 10 minutes ago, but if you synced the conversation you would be able to! The possibilities are endless.

There may be some concerns about privacy, but honestly if I post my credit card online (making purchases I mean), I’m comfortable enough to have my data synced with the cloud. Apple has said that iCloud will launch in the fall with iOS 5, meaning they have a good three months or so until it’s released to either add new features or perfect the current ones. I certainly hope they implement at least some of the features I’ve discussed here, because the more data I can sync across all devices automatically, the better. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Apple who accomplishes this, but it certainly will be the most elegant that’s for sure. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next, and I’m a proud supporter of iCloud.

When I look at my photos on Flickr, they look nice, even with some HDR added to them. But for whatever reason, I just cannot hold a candle to some of the photos that I see on the Flickr groups out there. So what’s the real difference here? Some Photoshop magic, or are these photographers just really that damned good? Let’s take these two links for example,

My shots:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joertell/

The Sony NEX-5 Flickr group:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1379448@N25/pool/

These just look better than mine, despite the exact same camera. So now the question here is, do I man up and really learn this trade, or try to spend $1400 on a Nikon D7000 and see if my shots get better? Since I’m relatively new at this trade, I think I should honestly learn everything I can first, before “upgrading” to a better camera. Because if I spend $1400 on the D7000, the shots can honestly come out the same, despite being more expensive. What I’d really love to see, is the non-post processed shots, and see if they’re any better. But knowing most people, they aren’t going to post these. Post-processing in Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom really do make photos look better, but is it taking away from the artistic talent? Are people relying too much on these applications to make their photos pop?

One trend that seems to be mighty popular recently is HDR. HDR, or High Dynamic Range essentially draws more light into the picture, making things glow. Similar to what you saw in Half Life 2 with HDR support. There’s one website that I recently came across that is purely HDR photos: http://stuckincustoms.com. Spend 5 minutes looking at these photos and you’ll see exactly what I mean. This is all post processed using an application called Photomatix and Photoshop/Lightroom/Aperture. Now, these photos can look insanely beautiful (like on his site), or they can just look nice (like some on mine). You really need to know how to fine tune the settings here. Despite his quick free tutorial, I’ve had quite a few really nice looking pictures from Photomatix. Now what I really want to test is, if I should HDR it before, or after I post-process the image. I’ve noticed that shadows can become overly bright using HDR, but I haven’t quite figured out how to emulate the results he’s getting (without paying a good amount of money for his tutorials).

So what does a guy to do? Spend money on a better camera, or spend money learning how to get better? I think I really want to spend money on how to get better. The better camera can always come later. Photography is something that I really want to make a hobby of mine, possibly taking it into a profession one day. How I just need to get better! What are your thoughts? What camera/software are you using?

The movie that started this whole “3D craze” was Avatar. Avatar was actually shot in full 3D, which means James Cameron actually used a real 3D camera to shoot what he needed. And to be honest, the results were very stunning. Having been my first “true” 3D movie, I was blown away. It wasn’t so much “pop out at you”, but more of depth of field. Meaning things truly felt as if they were on a 3D plain, instead of just being static on the screen. I mean, we all remember the 3D Captain Eo at Disneyland as a kid, where it actually popped out at us. But this 3D is far from that, it’s more to show distance in the background, and to show that the actors are actually walking around in a 3D environment. This worked perfect, and watching the 2D Blu-ray of Avatar, paled in comparison. But you may have seen other 3D attached to various movies, like Alice in Wonderland or Harry Potter. This 3D is done post production, and is all done with computers. These films were not shot with a real 3D camera, but done by a studio who just does these after-market 3D transformations. These are the films you need to watch out for, because as we know humans make mistakes and it just looks poor. Since 3D cameras are in the rarity now, there aren’t too many films that are actually shot in 3D right now.

3D has really picked up some steam as of late, especially in Hollywood, but why is that? Have you seen the ticket prices for these “3D” movies? Hollywood thinks it’s ok to charge an additional $5-10 just to see the movie. If it’s IMAX *and* 3D, it’s close to a $25 movie, you might as well just wait for the dang Blu-ray to come out. But since people still go to see these movies, Hollywood keeps pushing them out. I mean, do we really need to see Harry Potter or the Smurfs in 3D? No. The movies that actually were filmed with a 3D camera are few and far between, so do your research before you go to see your next 3D movie. It’s a shame that Hollywood marks up the price of these films just because it’s “3D”. Since there are fewer people going to see movies in theaters, Hollywood needed to make it’s money somehow; so they charge more for a “3D” movie. Not very fair if you ask me.

So let’s get back on track to the “TV” aspect of this. Every major manufacturer now makes a 3D TV, even Vizio does. But again, is it really worth getting one? Since the technology is so new, I’m inclined to really say no. Why? For a few reasons honestly. Not only is it so expensive, but it requires a set of glasses per person. Let’s say you like to have a movie night with either your family or some friends; well you’d need to get glasses for each of them if you’re going to watch a 3D movie. These glasses aren’t cheap either, so expect to pay a pretty penny for each. The average 3D TV comes with a “starter” pack of one pair of glasses. Yet the average family consists of 2-3 people. The cheapest pair of glasses I could find on Amazon was $128 for the “stereoscopic” 3D glasses. That’s well over $300 just for one family, even more if you actually have a movie night with friends or the rest of your family. The cheapest LCD 3D TV I could find on Amazon was close to $1,400. That’s not the worst price for a 46″ TV, but I wouldn’t expect stellar picture quality out of it either.  Oh and I forgot to mention, you also need a 3D Blu-ray player too. If you’re using a receiver, you’ll need a receiver that supports HDMI 1.4 for those 3D images. So let’s take a tally here: 3D TV, 3D Blu-ray player, 3D-capable receiver and 3D glasses. All for the low, low price of half a years pay. :\

Now  I know what you’re going to say, new technology is always expensive. Well, given the gigantic push that Hollywood has given 3D, you’re in the minority if you don’t have one. I’d like to call bollocks to that. I’m sorry, but I do not need and/or want a 3D TV right now. There’s nothing to watch, 3D movies are incredibly limited, 3D broadcast TV is so limited it’s not even funny, it’s insanely expensive, and unless your movie is Avatar, you’re not getting the full 3D experience. I hope 3D goes the way of HD-DUD and just dies. It’s consumer unfriendly, and serves no real purpose in the CE (Consumer Electronics) world. If you really know me, you’ll know that I’ll have a 3D TV soon enough, just because. But I digress, this is not something I will buy until there’s an actual use for it. Sure there are some games that have 3D, and some movies, and some broadcast TV, but it’s not mainstream yet. No buy from me. I’ve even convinced a friend of mine not to buy a 3D TV, based on these merits. It’s just not a smart buy right now, unless you’re super rich.

As of writing this, the only color available for the iPhone 4 is black.  The white one has been delayed until the end of the year, as it supposedly harder to paint a phone white, as opposed to black.  So for the people that are waiting for the white iPhone, or just like reading real reviews, this review is for you.  The first thing that you notice about the iPhone is it’s new design.  It’s made with a glass front and back, with an aluminum frame.  The phone is not only thinner than the 3GS, but you’ll notice that it’s completely flat, as opposed to the 3GS’ roundish design.  This new design is a thing of beauty, and it truly shows once you have it in your hand.  It feels like you have a million dollar phone in your hand, and not some plastic thing like so many other phones are.  It just feels sturdy.  The front glass is using Corning Gorilla Glass that is impressively strong; however the back isn’t, and is quite fragile to drops.

So now we’ll get to the elephant in the room, the antenna.  Pretty much everyone has heard that if you touch a certain part of the phone, the bars drop to next to nothing.  Now people are crying fowl with this, because they can get it to drop to 0-1 bars.  While it’s true that you can get the bars to drop if you touch the black band on the bottom left of the phone, I personally have yet to get the call to drop because of it.  I live in a great service area, where I have 4-5 bars at all times, so honestly this doesn’t affect me at all.  My friend on the other hand, he has major problems where he live, drops calls all the time.  So to resolve this, Apple is giving everyone who ordered the phone a free case of their choice.  They can choose the regular iPhone bumper, or a selection of 5-6 different cases from different companies.  I chose the InCase one, since they made a really great case for the iPhone 3GS.  So the case fixes this issue, but is it truly an issue?  While I agree there is a problem if you live in a low signal area, I don’t see this as a HUGE issue.  If you’re personally having issues with the phone, take it back, plain and simple.  I don’t have any problems with mine, so I’m not taking it back.  Now that we’ve covered this, let’s talk about something more important.

While the design is going to be the first thing that people look at, it’s the screen that will get people to stay.  Once you turn on the screen you’ll instantly notice how amazingly gorgeous it is, especially when you compare it to the 3GS.  Text looks beautifully crisp, images look so nice, everything just looks better.  How did Apple do this?  Well they employed what they call the “Retina Display”.  Essentially what this is, is the same 3.5″ screen, but they upped the resolution to 960×640, AND increased the pixel density to 326 dots per inch.  If you see one in person, try looking at the screen, you’ll be pressed to find ANY pixels at all.  You’ll notice how amazing this screen is, by either viewing email or by using Safari.  This is one feature that I much have on my phone at all times.  If a phone doesn’t have this beautiful a screen, and a pixel density of 326 or greater, I won’t use it.  Just try looking at a 3GS once you’ve used the iPhone 4, you just can’t!  I’m even using it to browse the web more often than I am on the iPad (mainly because everything looks so much nicer).

There are other things in the new iPhone, like a gyroscope, a better GPS chip (which IS much better), a noise cancelling microphone on the top of the phone to block out noise, 802.11n WiFi (though no 5Ghz band), 720p video recording, a MUCH, MUCH better 5MP camera, and probably a slew of other things that I don’t quite have the room to talk about.  There’s no badmouthing a phone that can sell close to 2 million iPhones in the first weekend, including international.  This phone is without a doubt the best phone I’ve ever used.  The only gripe I honestly have with the phone is that because it’s made of glass, it can get slippery sometimes and is a little difficult to hold some times.  This of course is going to be fixed with a case, as the 3GS was very slippery for me too, but the case fixed that as well.  All in all, if you need a new smartphone, buy this phone.  AT&T is only as bad as your location, so if it’s bad, then obviously don’t buy it.  I’ve used an Android phone (I actually got a Nexus One), and quickly went back to the iPhone.  If you want the best mobile experience around, you’ll want an iPhone.  Sure it’s not the best “phone” out there, but I honestly don’t have any problems with it, and you won’t either (Unless you live in San Francisco).  I’ll do my best to add new posts that aren’t Apple related next time, I’ve just gotten so busy lately, I haven’t had time to write as much as I’d like to.  I actually have 3-4 topics in drafts right now, that I just need to get around to write, but I’ll get off my ass and write them.

On the morning of April 3rd, I waited in line at the Apple Store, in fact, I was the first in line! While, I truly despised Apple employees clapping and cheering, it was really nice to get the first iPad sold. Given the fact that most of my friends thought I was crazy for getting one, or the fact that it lacked certain features other devices should have had, I still went in with excitement. I was the first one to buy, and I was the first one out. I then drove home with my friend, eager to play with my new toy. I unfortunately didn’t play for too long, as I didn’t have any sleep the previous night, so I was running on fumes. I got home, activated, installed some apps, and fell asleep. During this time, I still had my netbook as my primary computer, which still couldn’t play HD video properly, or without overheating. So I would attempt to encode video to play on the iPad, but it took 9 hours to convert one little HD show. It wasn’t until a little app called AirVideo came out. This app let’s you stream all of your media from your computer, to your iPad. This was great, as I wouldn’t have to do any converting, but the Atom processor was still too slow for this. I then upgraded my system to a quad core i5 processor, and I was in heaven.

Watching videos on this display is amazing. Not only is the screen 9.7″, the resolution is 1024×768, with a 1Ghz processor inside. This baby can play full 720p video without breaking a sweat. I’ve put a full length Blu-ray rip of Minority Report on here, and wow, it plays it flawlessly, with no skipped frames, or any overheating. When people have said this thing is fast, they weren’t kidding. I have yet to have the iPad slow down at all, nor have I had to reboot it yet; it’s going on 28 days of uptime. My iPhone would have to have been rebooted after a week or so. The iPad does not disappoint in any way, despite only having 256MB of RAM (same as the 3GS). I was hoping for at least 512MB of RAM, but I honestly don’t notice the difference at all. Things just fly on the iPad, from web browsing in Safari, to watching videos, to playing games, the iPad is a beast. I’m hoping I can get to at least 6 months before having to reboot (or at least until the next software update). If the iPad performance is indicative of what’s to come for the next iPhone, sign me up!

Some of you might have heard about the bad things about the iPad, maybe from me, and maybe from other places, so I’ll just break down exactly what the iPad can’t do. As of right now, the iPad can’t do multitasking (until OS 4.0), it won’t play Flash videos (more on that in a minute), you can’t connect a USB hard drive to it for storage. And they’re right about everything, the iPad won’t do multitasking until OS 4.0 comes out, but I haven’t found too many cases where I’d really needed it. But then again, there hasn’t been a good IM client for the iPad yet, so maybe I’d feel it more if there were. Now we’re going to discuss the elephant in the room…Flash. Flash is the “technology” that most online video and most Facebook games use to deliver content. Flash isnt on the iPad, nor will it ever be. And let me be the first one to say “Good riddance”. Flash is a piece of crap that uses far too many resources on a desktop, makes my CPU work overtime, and drains the shit out of battery life, just look at the crappy JooJoo. If Flash on the desktop is crappy, how the hell does Adobe expect to make Flash workable on mobile devices? Yeah I can’t play Farmville on my iPad, or watch Hulu, but I’d rather have performance and battery life, than a few hours of Flash video. Plus HTML5 on the iPad works great, with no plugins, and no shortened battery life. I hate you Flash, and I always will. There’s no reason why I can watch a 1080p video on my computer with only 10% CPU usage, but with Flash, it’s 60-70% for just a 720p video. Pure and utter garbage.

I know the iPad isn’t for everyone, and I’m not expecting it to be, but it does a lot of things really well. You can easily browse the web from the comfort of your couch, without the additional heat from your laptop, you can sit in bed and do whatever you want, the possibilities are endless. While I still have a desktop for things I can’t do on the iPad, I still use the iPad for everything else. I’d just rather sit in bed and watch a TV show, than sit at my computer to do it. Given the fact that AirVideo can stream all my videos, I probably should have gotten the 16GB, but I did want that extra room just in case I go on a trip and need some movies/shows to watch. I’m even thinking about selling this one, to get the new 3G version, in case I want to bring the iPad to somewhere that doesn’t have WiFi, because it’s better to have it than not. If you’re still on the fence about getting one, go to Best Buy and try one out for longer than 5 minutes. You’ll love it just as much as I do. I mean, I have a friend who is very pro-Windows, said he tried it and hated it. What’s to hate about it? Try it out for longer than 5 minutes, seriously, you’ll really enjoy it. I can’t imagine being without it. I take it to work, even if I’m not going to use it, because again, I’d rather have it than not. For a tablet, $499 is a damn bargain! With so many great apps out there, it makes me wonder why more people aren’t getting one! It’s replaced my laptop, or at least my want of one, and will stay in my life for quite a long time. <3

Let’s start with the interface.  How in the heck is that a homescreen?  Or at least something you’d want to use?  A bunch of colored rectangles?  How is that nice to look at?  I saw where they were going with it, making it more Zune HD like, but seriously, they couldn’t have done something better than this?  What if I want my applications on the homescreen?  What if I really like “DoodleJump” and want it on my homescreen so I can play it any time I want?  Well, based on what I’ve seen so far, there’s none of that.  Outside of the homescreen, the interface is just as basic, with only text and some animations.  Is this really what I want in a phone?  Because I could easily go back to my Nokia 3360 from nine years ago if I just wanted text.  I’m not saying this thing has to be the prettiest at the ball, but come on, don’t step up to the plate thinking you’re a 10 when you’re a 3 at best.  Microsoft also said that they’re not allowing any sort of “themes”, so that really nice TouchFlo they made to make WM better, is nixed.  Based on this, I’m stuck with the same boring homescreen, and same boring everything.  It just goes to show that Microsoft really knows absolutely nothing about design and aesthetics.  We already have the iPhone, Android and WebOS that are all really nice on the UI end, and then we end up with *this* from Microsoft.  I’d rather use Symbian than this crap.

Microsoft did do one thing right, they made the hardware specs pretty damn high.  This means that the minimum screen res is 800×480, 8GB of storage and something about CPU speed, which I can’t recall right now.  See, that’s what we need, minimum specs so we can get rid of the crap QVGA, 320×480 resolutions we’re still seeing in phones.  I’d also be incredibly grateful when we start to make 1Ghz processors the standard in phones, as 500Mhz just isn’t enough anymore.  Being a hardware person myself, I welcome better specs, and praise MS for making these “minimum” specs!

Back to the fail.  One of the things that was really good about Windows Mobile, was that you could side-load applications.  Meaning, you didn’t need to use any special software or program to install software, and could download them from the manufacturer’s website, or elsewhere.  Well, with WP7S, the only way you can install applications are through it’s “App Store”.  So that means that any developer who wants to make an app, can only do so if it’s part of the App Store.  I know that this is how the iPhone is, but there are ways around that .  Who knows, maybe someone will figure out how to get around this.  Lastly, Microsoft has stated that they’re not going to include any form of copy and paste to WP7S.  Why not?  WM has always had copy and paste, hell even the iPhone has copy and paste.  Why omit this feature?  It’s incredibly useful, especially if you wanted to copy something someone sent in a text, to someone else.  Or copy the entire webpage, and paste that in an email…I mean, who wouldn’t want that?  Just stupid of Microsoft to not include this.  The other lacking things are no multitasking (man, people REALLY need to this worked on, because multitasking is KEY in a smartphone), no Flash, no upgrades from previous hardware…come one Microsoft.

If you take a step back and look at Windows Phone 7 Series as a whole, you can easily tell it’s lacking.  It does have some nice features, like nice menu animations, integrating Xbox Live (though I hate achievement whores); but when you compare it to the iPhone, Android, and even WebOS, it just doesn’t stand up at all.  Microsoft needs to hire some better UI designers as they just don’t have a clue.  I fully expect WP7S will be an utter failure until they can get something more usable; until then, I do not want these phones, period.

The iPad was unveiled by Apple on January 27th 2010 after years of speculation that Apple would release a tablet.  I waited patently at Engadget as the keynote went on, viewing every update as it came, but I was ultimate disappointed in the device as a whole.  The first thing that upset me, was the bezel was too large, I mean look at all that black there, they could have done a little better on that aspect.  I like to have as much screen as I can.  Next, they decided to use iPhone OS 3.2 instead of skipping to 4.0.  While this is ok in the fact that they used 3.2 instead of 4.0, they however didn’t really do anything to the interface except adding the ability to use your own wallpaper on the homescreen (something jailbreakers have been doing for ages).  They still have the same 4×4 icon set, they still use the same icons, though they did update the dock to look more the Leopard/Snow Leopard.  They didn’t do anything revolutionary to the homescreen.  I guess I just expect more out of a new device, especially when iPhone OS is becoming a little stale in comparison to Android/WebOS.  They did however make some nice changes to the interface of everything else.  Settings has an all new look, as well as Mail, Calendar, YouTube, Photos, etc…  The software aspect is pretty nice (except the lackluster homescreen).  Hardware wise they decided to use a 9.7″ IPS LCD screen, coupled with a 1Ghz “Apple A4 chip”, which is nothing more than an ARM Cortex-A8 chip, no word on actual memory of the device yet, but I’d hoped it’d be at least 512MB since the iPhone 3GS already  has 256.  There is a 3G version of the iPad, but comes at a higher price AND you had to pay an additional $30 for the Unlimited (read: 5GB) data plan.  Since this is still iPhone OS, it still has the same gripes I talked about in my previous post (no Flash, no multitasking, etc…), so I’m not going to get into that at all.  Let’s get into why I’m really excited about it.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a netbook as my only computer right now, a netbook I use to watch video on, which causes the crappy Atom processor to choke on and heat up.  Since my iPhone screen is way too small to enjoy a TV episode/movie, I can’t wait to watch a show/movie on this screen.  yeah it’s only 1024×768 resolution, but it’s so much better than the iPhone’s 480×320, and definitely better than my netbook’s 1024×600.  This also means that I can watch a movie/show on the iPad and be able to browse the web at the same time.  If I tried to do that on my netbook, I wouldn’t be able to, the movie would freeze and the CPU would jump to 100% (which it seems to do no matter what I do).  That means I can watch my 720p TV shows and movies on a 9.7″ screen and not worry about overheating my notebook.  I’m also incredibly excited about web browsing on this screen; the iPhone’s screen is just too small to be able to do any real web browsing, without scrolling for days.  Since the iPad will run most, if not all of the iPhone’s apps, this means that games will be so much better, it’ll also make SSH applications actually worthwhile, thanks to the bigger screen.  Though it makes me wonder if games designed for the iPad will run worse on the iPad than on the iPhone, since the iPad uses the same graphics processor as the iPhone, or will the extra horsepower from the “A4″ pick up the slack?  One thing that I don’t get is, why would anyone want to put their music on this thing?  Isn’t that what your iPhone/iPod is for?  I’d rather have that space available for apps/movies.  I guess if you’re lazy and don’t want to get your iPhone/iPod out.

I’ve already pre-ordered the WiFi version as a birthday present to myself, as I did not want to wait for the 3G version, nor did I want to pay an additional $30 to AT&T when I already do that for my iPhone.  Another reason for not getting the 3G version is that where am I going to take the iPad?  I have WiFi at home, and I’m sure as hell not going to take this device anywhere only to have it stolen, so I’m going to keep this baby at home thank you!  Since the iPad runs on iPhone OS, it’ll only be a matter of time until it’s jailbroken.  I really can’t wait until this thing is jailbroken as that will truly open up everything, themes, additional programs.  As excited as I am for the iPad, being a hardware enthusiast, I want more.  I want a 10″ HD screen, 1.5Ghz processor, 512MB/1GB of RAM, front facing camera for Skype, and a dedicated GPS for the WiFi version.  Hey, a guy can dream can’t he? .  All I know is that I’m going to be extremely happy with the device, but I will certainly write up a review after I get it in less than 3 weeks.