Blog: Articles filed under Apple

I have to say, I‘m experiencing some strong technology lust for the new wave of Android 3.0 tablets, beginning with the Motorola XOOM, that are hitting the market. Future Shop’s tech blog has posted some video reviews by rgbfilter that show off the XOOM, and there’s a part of me that’s saying, “Want. Want. Want.” It’s exciting to see competitors for the iPad running the first version of Android that’s “optimized for tablets,” and along with the release of the BlackBerry PlayBook, the tablet market is starting to get very interesting.

I have been somewhat sceptical of the niche tablets fill since the release of the original iPad. In retrospect, I think that was as much a reaction against the hype surrounding the iPad itself than any qualified evaluation of tablets in general. The idea that the iPad is a “game-changer” (whatever that means) was silly to me; yes, it’s a significant new product, but tablets are still in their infancy. They haven’t even started teething yet.

I’ve had my Samsung Galaxy S for about six months now, and I love it. This experience with an Android smartphone, and some good observations regarding the utility of tablets, such as this post by Peter Nowak, have caused me to change my mind. That is, I‘m a little more excited by (and about) tablets now than I was last year, and I kind of want one.

But not yet.

My philosophical difficulties with Apple preclude me from ever owning an iPad. Still, I’ll admit to lusting after the physical device itself—I‘ve never had a problem with Apple’s design, and I think the iPad is a beautiful device. So I‘ve been watching with interest the emergence of competitors, and of course my own biases make me partial to the Android crowd. Nevertheless, I still can’t justify buying a XOOM or similar device, because I‘m just not willing to pay $600 for tablets as they are now.

I know some people are, obviously, and all the more power to them. I guess I just have to face that I am not an early adopter (except, apparently, when it comes to HTML5!). Perhaps if I had a legitimate need for a tablet, rather than the mere desire for one, then I would be more amenable to the price tag. When it comes to that sort of money, however, I force myself to be honest: I don’t need a tablet right now. Between them, my venerable 4-year-old laptop and my shiny smartphone serve my needs. Sure, I can think of plenty of uses where a tablet would be more ideal—lately I’ve been bringing my phone into the living room when my dad and I watch TV, so I can sign into my IM client through it. I can see myself doing much more involved work on a tablet in that living room—coding, or writing blog articles—that just isn’t practical on my smartphone’s small screen and isn’t comfortable with a laptop in the living room chair. Likewise, a tablet is a great portable compromise in those cases where I don’t really need to bring my laptop to school but want more than just my phone.

(This last attitude, if anything, demonstrates the effect tablets are beginning to have. I suppose it’s part of the “game changer” paradigm shift iPad enthusiasts want to see. Laptops used to be the pinnacle of portability; now they are big and clunky. Tablets are sleek and shiny and sexy. How the times change.)

So a tablet would be wonderful, but I don’t need it; I just want it. And for me, $600 is too much to spend satisfying a want. Even $450 (the no-contract price AT&T is offering for the comparable Acer Iconia Tab A500) is rather much. If I had the extra money, perhaps I‘d buy one anyway, but I would still hesitate and think long and hard. Tablets are just very young.

It’s similar to my reaction to trying the first generation Kobo eReader last year. I love the idea of an eReader, but the technology isn’t mature enough for me yet. Likewise, I love what I’ve seen of tablets so far, but I can envision them getting much better in a relatively short period of time. I imagine it’s similar to how laptops began to proliferate throughout the 1990s; I still see people using really old Thinkpads, and all I can think is, “I admire you for using last year’s model … but wow, that’s an old device.” Of course, if I took this argument to its extreme, I’d never buy any technology, because “next year’s model” is always around the corner and always better in some way.

But it all just comes back to a question of needs, wants, and opportunities. Why should I buy this year’s tablet when I don’t need it, especially if I decide next year I need a tablet and there are much better models available by then? This is not intended to be an anti-tablet polemic. I‘m sure other people have plenty of legitimate reasons to buy existing tablets at their current prices, and I don’t begrudge them that. I‘m just expressing my own mixed feelings about my lust for a technology that’s still very young and still improving in leaps and bounds. I want a tablet, but I also want a better tablet than what we have now. And since I don’t need one right now, I’m willing to wait a little longer.

No, what you see above is not the result of an evil exercise in cloning first generation iPod nanos. I do indeed have two. Here’s why.

Last week after I arrived home from work, I dropped my iPod. It landed butter-side-down on the asphalt driveway with a dull, unassuming thud. Immediate inspection revealed no damage to the exterior, but when I turned it on, only the bottm left quadrant of the screen was working. I had broken my iPod.

This was my first MP3 player, bought in the summer of 2006 for the 20-minute bike ride to and from work. Sure, it’s only got a gigabyte of storage, but that has always been enough for me. Even as newer models came (and went), I stuck firm to a resolution that I would not upgrade until my iPod itself would no longer do what it was designed to do: play music.

A broken screen did stop my iPod from playing music, incidentally, and at first I thought that was the extent of the damage. Although this was inconvenient—I could no longer see how much of the battery remained, for instance, and selecting songs became an art instead of a science—it still played music, and that’s what I needed it to do.

The fall must have damaged to the battery as well, because I charged it up that night, and when I turned it on in the morning, it gave me a “very low battery” warning and shut off. Since it refused to hold a charge, I had no choice but to declare my iPod nano dead.

So then I had a dilemma. What do I buy to replace it? There’s a myriad of MP3 players on the market, and although I’m a tech-savvy person, most of them are close enough in terms of features that it’s so very hard to make a useful comparison. It mostly came down to price: aside from the shuffle (which has no screen), the new iPods start at $150. There were some other brands that cost half as much, but I still wondered if they cost too much. In the end, my decision didn’t come down to price so much as features—and not the features I wanted, but the ones I didn’t want.

Imagine my surprise upon learning that the latest iPod nanos (fifth generation!) have cameras in them. Now, I have nothing against putting a camera in a device. That’s great. But I don’t really need to pay the extra money for an MP3 player with a camera when I can get a comparable one without a camera for a little less. Come to think of it, I really don’t need anything from the MP3 player except for it to play music and have a screen so I can select songs. What I really wanted was my first generation iPod nano.

So I got one. I went on eBay and easily found an auction for an iPod identical to mine—only it was 2 GB instead of one. So it’s an upgrade! It cost me $37 with the shipping (my original 1 GB iPod nano cost me over $200). It arrived today, so I snapped a photo of my two iPods together. I love continuity—in fact, I crave it. I would have kept my old iPod for as long as it kept going, and I’m a little frustrated I lost it to something as incidental as a fall. It has served me well, and even though I have a new one that is identical … I still miss it.

Sure, it’s not the newest model, and it doesn’t have umpteen gigabytes of space. That’s fine for me though. Unlike a mobile phone or computer, I don’t need any new features in my MP3 player. I want it to play music. The extra space, compared to my old one, is nice too. But it’s the comfort this continuity brings (and at a fraction of the price of the original) that matters. My first generation iPod nano is dead.

Long live my first generation iPod nano!

I intended to post this two days ago, but somehow never got around to it. You know you need to blog more when your grandparents remark on your inactivity. So let’s do this!

The past few weeks have been, for the most part, uneventful (and that’s good). I worked a bit more than I would like, but there’s not much to be done. I’ve tried to use all the free time I have as wisely as possible, mostly reading. Now that the snow is gone—even though the frost warnings are not—I like to sit outside the front of the house on the nice days.

Having finished playing Mass Effect a second time, I tried playing Tomb Raider: Anniversary again. Unfortunately, the controls continued to frustrate me as I fell back into the rythym of “No, Lara, jump that way—oh, and you died.” So I tried Tomb Raider: Legend instead. While it’s the same engine, the levels are shorter and more varied, so I’m less frustrated with it.

I’m greatly anticipating Mass Effect 2, and a few days ago I saw the trailer for Assassin’s Creed 2. I enjoyed the first Assassin’s Creed, although the story was somewhat weak, and the second one looks like it will be worth picking up eventually. Video games remain a side hobby, however.

Not too much happening in June, but it is a month of firsts for me. This Friday, I’ll be getting my wisdom teeth out (for the first and, logically, only time). Then a couple of weeks after that, I’ll be attending a wedding—my second wedding ever and my first wedding as an adult. So we’ll see how that goes.

Rogers released the HTC Dream and HTC Magic on June 2, the two headsets currently using Google Android. Those of you who aren’t into technology can safely skip this next paragraph; suffice it to say, I find Google Android sexy.

The Apple iPhone indubitably revolutionized the way we see smartphones. Where the BlackBerry and Palm were function, the iPhone was all about design—after all, it’s Apple. Unfortunately, Apple is starting to use its reputation for innovative design (i.e., its coolness) to sell uncool products. Because the iPhone is sort of like the North Korea of smartphones, in that Apple has control of what’s sold through its apps store and ultimately what’s on your phone. That’s why I find Google Android so appealing. Anyone with the coding skills can write Android apps and distribute them to anyone with an Android-powered phone. Thus, you can have all the functionality of an iPhone without any of its draconian drawbacks. The major disadvantage, of course, is that you risk the scorn of all your friends who are slaves to the Big Mac—er, Apple.

So the prospect of getting a Google-powered smartphone is extremely tempting. Yet I‘m not willing to become a slave to Rogers. I don’t need a smartphone. It would be nice to be able to check my email or update my calendar from anywhere, but honestly, I don’t get that much email, and my calendar seldom changes. If the plans were less expensive and Rogers were less evil, I’d jump at this opportunity in a second. Fortunately, I just have to wait until tomorrow, and mobile phone prices will be the least of my concerns.

Yes, tomorrow I get my wisdom teeth out. I’m nervous; I’ve never had any procedure like this done before—and would like to avoid them in the future, naturally. My wisdom teeth are fully grown in, and they don’t cause me any pain, so I’m hoping that means the surgery will go as smoothly as such things can go and my convalescence will be short. We shall see.

An interesting week lies ahead of me.