I Don't Typically Do This

Shooting Without A Viewfinder

Justin Blanton on the RX1:

My biggest hangup with the RX1 is psychological. Frankly, I just kind of feel like an idiot using it. It doesn’t have a viewfinder (optical or electronic) and so to frame shots you’re left to hold the camera in front of you and look at the (stunning) LCD display…like an octogenarian tourist trying to get a snap of the Mona Lisa. The process just feels a little silly to me after having spent so many years hiding my face behind large DSLR bodies and lenses. You definitely look like a fresh-out-of-Best-Buy amateur with this thing.

I’ve gone through a couple of viewfinder-less cameras in my search to find a lightweight replacement my DSLR and Justin sums up exactly how I felt after using them. It seems stupid to worry about how you feel when shooting, but if it’s something that keeps you from taking a shot, then the whole point of a carrying a more portable camera disappears, no matter how well it compares to a DSLR.

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Living Without The iPad

Matt Alexander, on what he came to realize after living a few weeks without an iPad:

The iPad is a means for productivity, entertainment, and communication - it encompasses the tasks we have so often spread across mediums into one centralized and fantastic location. But, in doing so, the door is open for inadvertent and helpless absorption into its environment. Into allowing oneself to reach for the iPad when you would otherwise be open for valuable thinking, reading, writing, and whatever else may be of importance to you.

Sent from my iPad

The “Disappointing” iPad 3

Marco Arment, writing about speculation that the iPad 3 will be disappointing, even before anyone has seen it:

Knowing no more than you do right now, I can guarantee you: the iPad 3 will disappoint a lot of armchair tech commentators, “analysts”, and anyone who gets paid by the pageview. (How convenient.)

We see this “disappointing” talk from many of the old-timers because they’ve spent 25 years writing about specs and that’s the lens they use to look at the iPad. “It’s not getting a quad-core processor? Android tablets have quad-core chips. How disappointing.”

They don’t care that Apple and third parties ship software that utilizes both cores (iMovie, GarageBand) and that hardly anyone ships Android software that utilizes more than one core, much less all four. They don’t care that Apple may have tweaked last year’s dual-core chip to get better performance and better battery life. According to them, since 2=2 and 2 < 4, the iPad 2 is a lackluster upgrade and is empirically worse than an Android tablet.

Meanwhile, 50 million people couldn’t care less what’s inside an iPad. All that matters is that the hardware and software work together to make a delightful experience. Just look at what Om Malik wrote about giving his iPad 2 to his mother in India:

It didn’t matter how it was happening — just that she could talk to her grandson who was oceans apart from her. If there ever was a moment that captured the emotion in a piece technology, that was it. The look on her face made me realize how lucky I am to write about an industry that makes such things possible. I also thought to myself, maybe somewhere Steve Jobs is smiling too.

Like I said before: It’s not about what it is. It’s about what it does.

Microsoft’s Halo Effect Opportunity

There have been reports over the past few weeks that Microsoft is working on a version of Office for the iPad. The main downside most think of to selling an iPad Office suite is that Office is the missing piece to the iPad puzzle and that enterprises will flock to the iPad in lieu of Windows 8 tablets once Office becomes available. There are two issues with this scenario: (1) the iPad is doing fine in the enterprise without Microsoft’s help; and, (2) Microsoft shouldn’t care if they make $15 off of Office for iPad or a Windows 8 license.

Office for iPad actually presents Microsoft with a great opportunity. It’s no secret that Windows Phone 7 reviews well but doesn’t sell well. Part of it has to do with a weak marketing effort on Microsoft’s part, but a lack of enthusiasm among frontline sales reps plays a huge role as well. The average consumer walks into a carrier store knowing about the iPhone, but may be swayed to pick up an Android handset at the salesperson’s behest (which in turn is driven by incentives). Windows Phone never enters the conversation.

Windows 8’s Metro interface is reviewing well, as Gruber mentions in a link to Christian Cantrell’s review of Windows 8 Consumer Preview, but again, Microsoft faces a perception problem. iPads and Macs are eating up PC sales, and so many won’t even give Windows 8 a shot.

Now imagine a world where the average consumer walks into the store knowing about the iPhone and having been wowed by Office for iOS’s Metro interface. Office for iOS isn’t going to push Windows Phone to #1 or #2, but at least Microsoft will be back on the radar. Even if users have already chosen the iPad for their tablet, an Office/Metro halo effect can drive those iPad users to Windows PCs and phones.

Along those lines, an iOS version of Office also allows Microsoft to establish a foothold with their own ecosystem – particularly their cloud storage solution, SkyDrive. If a user becomes dependent on Office for iOS and ends up storing all their documents on their personal SkyDrive or their company’s SharePoint server (because that’s all Office for iOS supports), they will likely seek out a PC solution that’s compatible with what they currently have. So would they rather go with a Mac, whose version of Office is usually a year or two behind the Windows version and never offers the same exact features, or go with Windows, whose version of Office receives first-class support from Microsoft and uses that cool Metro interface that they wish all of iOS had?

The #1 Reason Non-Techies Should Upgrade to iOS 5

The latest version of the iPhone and iPad operating system, iOS 5, comes out today and is available for third and fourth generation iPod touches, all iPads, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.

There are a ton of great features included in the update, but the feature that will have the most profound impact, especially for people who don’t plug their devices into their computers every day, is free iCloud backup. In addition to copying any new content to the device, iTunes also backs up your device’s data to the computer. The type of data that is backed up includes:

• Photos and videos in your Camera Roll
• Messages
• App data
• Device settings
• Home screen layout

If you ever lose your device and need to get a new one, you can restore the device using the latest backup and the device will look exactly as it did at the time the last backup was taken. The key here is “at the time the last backup was taken”. If you haven’t plugged your phone into your computer in a month and then need to replace it, all of the photos, videos, text messages, and notes taken in the past month are gone. Even better: you can restore the device from anywhere there’s a WiFi connection – you don’t have to wait to get home to get up and running.

With iCloud backup, your device is backed up to Apple’s servers daily, as long as it’s plugged in and connected to WiFi. BOOM You no longer have an excuse for not having an up-to-date backup of your phone.

HOW TO GET IT

In order to get iOS 5 and iCloud backup, you do need to update to iTunes 10.5 and you do have to plug your device into iTunes one last time (future software updates come directly to your phone – another benefit of having iOS 5). Once you plug the device in, iTunes will tell you that a new version of iOS is available and ask you if you want to upgrade. If it doesn’t, you can check manually by clicking on your device on the left hand side and then click “Check for Update” near the middle of the screen.

After the upgrade is complete, go into your device’s Settings, tap on iCloud and follow the instructions on the screen in order to set up iCloud and iCloud backup.

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The iPhone 4S Upgrade Conundrum

Ben Brooks has a post up describing the situation most of us are in: despite being loyal AT&T customers for at least the past four years (thirteen years in my case), we aren’t eligible for the full discount on the new iPhone 4S.

Instead, AT&T offers a smaller subsidy for those close to the full discount date, but not quite there yet. Ben, along with most people who bought their iPhone 4s on Day 1, aren’t eligible until November 18th. In my case, I’m not eligible until March 10, 2012 as a result of family members having used upgrades recently. If you have upgrades available on other lines in your family plan, the upgrades are pooled and can be used for a phone on any line, so you can use one of those to get your shiny new iPhone 4S and you can stop reading now if you want.

PAYING THE ETF

The full subsidy for an iPhone 4S is $450 and the smaller subsidy is $200. For a lot of people, the early termination fee of $325 minus $10 for every month you’ve been under contract is less than the difference between the two subsidies, meaning that it makes more sense to pay the ETF and start a new contract with AT&T. Unfortunately, AT&T has policies in place to prevent this from being an option. First, there is no way to pay the ETF without canceling your account. Second, if you do cancel your account, you have to wait 90 days until you’re considered a new customer. If you open a new account before the 90 days have elapsed, AT&T will just reactivate your old account.

GOING UNLOCKED

Since the small subsidy is only $200, one might be tempted to just pay the no-commitment price for the iPhone 4S and save the upgrade for the next iPhone. For the iPhone 4, the unlocked price and the no-commitment-but-locked-to-AT&T price are the same, so it made more sense to buy the unlocked iPhone. I tried to see if the same is true for the iPhone 4S, but I couldn’t find the pricing for the unlocked iPhone 4S. I started a chat with an Apple rep who told me that there would be no unlocked iPhone 4S at launch.

OUR OPTIONS

Now that Sprint is joining the fray and Verizon has the iPhone 4S at launch, it’s curious that AT&T is going to such great lengths to inconvenience their customers. Taking a longer-term view of things, and assuming that the iPhone 5 pricing will leave us in the same boat, here are the options available to us (these are numbers for 16 GB models; add $200 for two 32 GB models or $400 for two 64 GB models):

• $640 - Switch to Sprint or Verizon, then switch to the other or back to AT&T for the iPhone 5 and paying a $240 ETF. Probably not worth it.
• $650 - Switch to Sprint or Verizon and get half-subsidy pricing on the iPhone 5.
• $850 - Pay no-commitment pricing, and then get the full-subsidy for the iPhone 5.
• $900 - Pay the half-subsidy pricing, re-up for two years, and then get the half-subsidy pricing again on the iPhone 5.

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It’s not about what it is. It’s about what it does.

Amazon just announced the Kindle Fire, a 7” tablet priced at $199. In contrast to the existing Android tablets out there, Amazon doesn’t focus on specs. In fact, Amazon offers just as many specs on the main Kindle Fire page as Apple does on the iPad page – they tell us that the Fire has a dual-core processor (but no mention of clock speed, amount of cache, model number, etc) and that the Fire has a 7” screen with IPS technology, “similar technology to that used on the iPad” (their words, not mine).

For example, the Motorola XOOM page tells us (if we have Flash installed): “The dual-core process MOTOROLA XOOM has a larger screen, more pixels and higher-quality front- and rear-facing cameras than the competition.” These types of marketing messages have questionable value because they require consumers to assume that “better than” comes with no strings attached and assumes that consumers can draw the conclusion that better specs imply higher utility.

Instead, Amazon sets aside those assumptions and clearly articulates the utility of the device: you can read books and magazines, watch TV and movies, listen to music, check email (a jab at the email-less RIM Playbook, no doubt), use apps and play games.

Rather than telling us what the Kindle Fire is and expecting us to figure out what it can do, Amazon saves us the trouble and tells us what it does. And what it does is extremely compelling.

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