a little r’n'r

You know, I’ve got a challenge for anyone out there with some time to spare: get Sony Ericsson (and all the other phone manufacturers) a clue.

I was just surfing (read ‘getting lost’) in some product catalogues for bluetooth headsets and cellphones. I’ve had my trusty Sony Ericsson K610i for a while now (ie. more than 6 months) and technology moves pretty fast. Now I don’t need to tell you all the reasons why I think this is (or, until recently, was) the best handset on the market, just suffice to say that it’s red.

However, while getting lost in all the options and marveling at all the cool accessories you can get for a phone now, it occurred to me to just wait for the iPhone. Why spend money on just another phone, when by waiting a bit, I could get “The Most Successful Product Intro of the 21st Century”?

So it occurred to me: for all the great hardware out there, wireless headsets, keyboards, watches, bracelets, necklaces, the software on these handsets is appalling. They’re fine for making calls, and sending messages, but useless when it comes to being media players. Worse, while Sony Ericsson is pushing “Walkman” branded phones, they’ve overlooked one mega glaring elephant sitting in the room: there’s no way to get stuff onto these things!!

Who cares if it’s got 4GB of storage (in a brick, mind you!) if you can’t load your music or video library onto it? The program you use to load stuff onto the phone should be the same software you use to manage your library anyways. That’s where Apple got it right with their iTunes/iPod link: not only did they make a great media player, but they made bought a great tool for managing the stuff on the player (that’s even useful without the player!) Now, I know that these phones ship with software that allow you to do just that. But come on:

I’ll assume Sony Ericsson is just being sarcastic if this is meant to be a competitor to iTunes.

So the challenge is this: can someone out there design a better iTunes? It’s as if iTunes/iPod has become this incredible Everest that no one wants to attempt. It’s good, but it’s not that amazing. We’re not talking new technology that no one has ever seen before, we’re not talking flying cars or perpetual motion here. iTunes is just a simple idea implemented very well. But it’s not without faults, there’s room for improvement.

I’ll leave you with a little food for thought:

“Rapidity is the essence of war: take advantage of the enemy’s unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots. [11:19]” - Art of War by SunTzu

So while I was on holiday (which explains the blog silence), I picked up an Elgato Turbo.264 - basically a hardware H.264 encoder. The results are fantastic: my 1.66GHz intel mini now converts iPod/iTunes-ready video in faster than double realtime. Whereas a two-hour movie in AVI format took 3-4 hours to convert, it now takes 35mins.

Plus, since the Turbo.264 is hooked into QuickTime, that means any QuickTime conversion can be handed over to the chip for some dedicated love (eg. iMovie/iDVD exports), or so I’ve heard.

For anyone who’s doing a lot of video conversion, this bad boy is the ticket.

An entertaining short video from Italian internet consulting company Casaleggio Associati.

Some people were left a little underwhelmed by the keynote announcements on Monday.

Safari for Windows? Sorry if we don’t jump up and down. We’ve been using Safari for years (on our Macs). Safari with draggable tabs and session restoration? Let’s be honest, if Safari didn’t get these features in the near future, the market share would start actively declining from that whopping 3%.

Games on a Mac? Come on. What with the Wii/360/PS3 out there, are we really going to start turning to our Macs for hardcore gaming? Apparently, the EA announcement was full of air, as their games may be running through a technology called Cider.

As far as users are concerned, the “Top Secret” features that Steve Jobs alluded to at the previous WWDC seemed to be:

• reflections in the dock (ftw!)
• Cover Flow in the Finder
• Quick Look
• Spaces
• Time Machine
and
• a slightly heavier drop shadow on the active window

But just like completing a jigsaw puzzle, the more pieces you put down, the clearer the picture of what’s missing. Let’s go back to Cover Flow in the Finder, the item that everyone seems to be making the biggest fuss about being non-news (Eye candy? Sure. Useful? Not so much.)

When Cover Flow was first released as a standalone app by an independent developer, it had that air of “I don’t know what it’s for, but it’s awesome!” vibe to it. Apple shortly rolled that into iTunes as a return to visually browsing your cd/record collection.

It wasn’t until the iPhone demo in January that the usefulness of Cover Flow really became apparent.

When your input mechanism is no longer 1×1 pixels (ie. a mouse pointer), accuracy becomes an issue. The traditional list/column interface of iTunes/iPod is not suitable for a (roughly) 40×40px finger to manipulate. As such, the list items on iPhone are significantly enlarged. But in Cover Flow mode, you get the best of both worlds: an attractive interface that does not require pinpoint accuracy, along with the ability to visualize a ton of information.

Hence Cover Flow in the Finder. Multi Touch on the desktop is coming.