iPad Evolution of Resolution

Today was the day so many of us knew would bring forth the next iPad from Apple. In some respects, it is just another iPad, but I am quite impressed with the technical specifications that have been announced. I can’t wait to get my hands on it! This may be the turning point for many new users of the iPad who previously were content with their desktop or laptop computer. I am a firm believer in the “post PC” era as described by Tim Cook in today’s brilliant keynote (watch the video here).

What to do with my current iPad? That answer is the same as what I had done with the iPad 1, iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 4. Gazelle.com has a very nice model for how to manage the transition of technology. They provide a guaranteed price and offer a very simple process to ship a product to them and receive a market-based payment for it. I especially like the feature that gives you get an extra 5% if you accept the payment in the form of a credit at Amazon.com. I will be receiving $304.50 for the iPad. It may be possible to do better on eBay but the convenience of Gazelle wins the day.

The price of the current iPad may drop fairly quickly as people get attracted to purchasing the newer technology. When will the rapid introduction of new products obsoleting predecessor products that still seem like new? The answer is not any time soon. The pace of technology is rapid and increasing. Consumers are the beneficiary and of course, it has made Apple the most valued company in the world.

The big picture is the transition to tablets. Today I read that a hospital in Canada has purchased 4,000 iPads for their physicians. There are so many applications where you have to “go to” your PC or laptop. With a mobile device such as the iPad or iPhone or any other of the rash of wannabes in the market, the Internet and the applications are where you are, not where your PC is. The updating of records of a patient in a hospital used to be by a chart on a clipboard filled out by the nurse. Much of that has moved to the PC or the laptop on a cart in the hall, or in some cases down the hall, not very close to the patient. The iPad can be with the nurse or physician and not only provide a way to enter the data, but also a way to show an x-ray with amazing clarity to the patient or a 3D model of their muscle and bone system enabling the physician to explain exactly what may be wrong and what will be done to correct it. The resolution of the new iPad is quite amazing and exceeds the ability of the human eye to discern pixels. The iPad displays 3.1 million of them — more than your HD TV. I can not imagine being a physician and not having one of the new iPads.

The laptop and desktop will not disappear because they are still quite useful for those who create information as opposed to those who consume information. Consuming information from a mobile device has changed the world and how we interact with information already — and we are still at the beginning. But someone has to create this content and most of that creation will be done on laptops and desktops as long as typing is involved. How long will that be the case? Talking to Siri on your iPhone is the beginning. Typing may become a thing of the past, but of course art work still requires paint and brushes — or does it? The WSJ reviewed a wide range of new styluses available for use with the iPad (Sketching Out a Future for the Stylus). The world is becoming digital at an increasing pace.

Tags: art, digital, Healthcare, ipad, iPhone, media, nurse, paint, paint brush, physician, radiology, siri, stylus

Spectacular High-Res Image of Earth

The iPhone 4S takes great pictures, but nothing like this spectacular high-hes image of Earth. NASA Goddard oceanographer Norman Kuring gathered images from six different orbits of the satellite over an eight hour period last month. He stitched the six photos together to create the final masterpiece. I suspect it will be famous. The images were taken by a new instrument aboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) Earth observing research satellite called the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). It collects and distributes remotely-sensed land, ocean, and atmospheric data to the meteorological and global climate change communities. Among the data collected are atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, humidity sounding, land and ocean biological productivity, and cloud and aerosol properties.  As for those four vertical lines: that’s the reflection of sunlight off the ocean, or “glint”, that VIIRS captured as it orbited the globe. See Spectacular High-Res Image of Earth: The Other Side | Wired Science | Wired.com for the full story.

Tags: earth, nasa, NPP, photograph, satellite, space, suomi, virs

Kindle Update

Thanks to Mary Keough, over at IBM, for reading my post and correcting me on the weight of the Kindle Touch. I was thinking of the new $79 Kindle when I said six ounces. I weighed four devices this morning to make sure I got this right. Here is what I found.

I have to admit that I am vascillating a bit between the Kindle and the Kindel Touch. They are both very light and a pleasure to read on. The touch screen is nice, but the simple buttons on the Kindle create a certainty about your intentions. When I swipe, sometimes I go back a page to make sure I had not swiped two pages. With the Kindle, a click is always “a” click. All the Kindle devices are great, and I suspect the Fire will keep getting better with software updates and follow-on models.

Mary asked about the advertising and quetioned whether it is worth the extra $30 on the Kindle or $40 on the Touch to get the device “without special offers”. My opinion is that it is not worth the extra money. The special offers appear as a screen saver when you stop reading. They are totally unobtrusive. You can easily not even notice them. If you want to look more closely and are interested in something being offered, you can go for it. Speaking of reading, the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson was really great (see Apple at Grand Central Terminal). I am now reading Fall of Giants: Book One of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett. I have read most of his books, and this one too is really good so far. 

 Other patrickWeb stories related to the Kindle

Tags: amazon, apple, fall of giants, fire, founders hall, ipad, iPhone, isaacson, ken follett, Kindle, kindle fire, kindle touch, steve jobs

Kindle Fire – Part 2

On September 28, Amazon announced three new Kindles — a $79 Kindle, the $99 Kindle Touch, and the $199 Android-based color touch screen Kindle Fire tablet. Technology pundits have criticized the Kindle Fire’s touch screen and various aspects of the user interface (see Daily Report: Kindle Fire Attracts Critics, and Buyers – NYTimes.com). I have observed the shortcomings also, but I think the device has a market niche that will be well served — people who like to read books. At $199, it is less than half the cost of an iPad. Amazon will relentlessly promote the Fire on its site and is rumored to be nearly ready to provide software updates for better performance and improved user interface.

I remain a believer in purpose-built devices. The iPad is great for documents, weather, stocks, surfing the web, and reading books at the kitchen counter. The Kindle Fire is great for reading books. That is what it does best. It can also do most everything the iPad can, but not everything. I don’t see myself giving a slide presentation with a projector and the Fire. I don’t plan to put 40 gigtabytes of dropbox folders containing all my data on the Fire. The Fire is great for reading a book, listening to music, or watching a movie. It is basically a media player. You can do many tablet computing tasks, but that is not what it is best at. The device I like the best for reading books is the new Kindle Touch. It weighs six ounces and has no moving parts. Turning pages and setting bookmarks is as easy as a touch. You can change the font size to the optimum and read comfortably for long periods of time wherever you may be — incuding outdoors in the sun, which you can do with an iPad. If I am at the kitchen counter and want to read for ten minutes, I launch the Kindle app on the iPad and it automatically takes me to wherever I left off on the Fire or iPhone or wherever I last read — a seamless experience. So many gadgets, so little time! I plan to donate the entry-model Kindle to the senior center.

Tags: amazon, apple, fire, founders hall, ipad, iPhone, Kindle, kindle fire, kindle touch

kindlefire – 1

There are many reviews out there already about the new Kindle Fire (see Nook’s Specs Are Exaggerated, Again). I would not glority this posting by calling it a review — it is simply my first reaction upon receiving the kindlefire this afternoon. The fire was actually delivered to the Marriott Atlanta Century Center on Tuesday. I have been in Florida for the last few days and when I got notice of the shipping, I had the Kindle diverted to where I would be staying during the weekend for a University of Phoenix residency (more on that later).

My first reaction on taking the fire out of the classicly simple Amazon packaging was that it was heavier than I expected. It is not as heavy as the first Nook, but it is heavier than the other new Kindles. After a few hours of using it, I would say it is lighter than the iPad and not really so heavy after all. Speaking of the iPad, the obvious question from many will be “how does it compare to the iPad?” My son reminds me that the fire “is not an iPad”, and it should not be compared to something that is totally different in design and intention. I agree — the two are different animals with different purposes.

I had some difficulty setting up the fire because of the marginal WiFi signal in my room at the hotel. The fire wants you to confirm your Amazon account after getting a WiFi signal, but the Marriott wants you to confirm your room # before it activates your wireless. It took a while to figure out how to get around the Catch 22. The fire is clearly a content device — it is designed for reading books and the news, watching movies, and listening to music. There is a large selection of apps but I have not yet had time to try many. The free enhanced email program available in the Amazon app store works very well.

The fire navigation is a bit awkward but I think that is a matter of getting used to a different paradigm. The text entry mode has a nice movable cursor for use in corecting entries that is very nice. I need more time to experiment with it, but as a first impression, I think that text entry may be better than the iPad in that respect. I know — don’t compare the fire to the iPad! They are both great and I look forward to more experience with the fire and will share that as the days progress.

Tags: amazon, fire, ipad, Kindle, kindlefire

iPhone 4S Bluetooth Advantage

I continue to believe that the iPhone 4S is much better than what some in the media panned. Peter Svensson at the Sidney Morning Herald did an excellent job of reporting about a little-noticed feature that makes the 4S unique among smartphones (See iPhone 4S first phone for low-power Bluetooth). The updated Bluetooth feature enables the iPhone 4S to communicate with a new class of wireless devices not previously in the mix — for example, watches and heart-rate monitors.

Bluetooth has been around since 1994. I use it to connect my iPhone to the audio and phone system in my car and to connect a keyboard to the iPad 2. What is new about the Bluetooth chip in the 4S is that it can support connecting to devices that use much less power than has been the case. The new ultra-low power chip uses so little power that it is found in devices that are powered by a “button cell” battery like what is found in watches and which can last for years.

The industry group behind Bluetooth said these small devices will be labeled “Bluetooth Smart.” Devices such as the iPhone 4S that support the new standard will be labeled “Bluetooth Smart Ready.”

Casio announced that it will introduce a Bluetooth Smart watch in December that will be able to link to a smartphone and alert the wearer to incoming emails and text messages by beeping and vibrating. Sony Ericsson had a watch five years ago that did the same thing, but it weighed nearly half a pound because of its big battery.

The possibilities in healthcare are exciting. Nordic Semiconductor, a Norwegian company, said that one of its Bluetooth Smart chips will be used in a belt that monitors heart rate and relays it to a smartphone. Other possibilities include glucose sensors for diabetics and sensors that can tell if a chronically ill person has fallen or had a significant change in posture. Home health monitoring is entering a phase of innovation that has the potential to improve quality of life and reduce the cost of healthcare. Stay tuned!

iPhone 4S Tracking

UPS tracking shows that the iPhone 4S is in Windsor Locks, Connecticut after arriving in Louisville, KY. Before that the iphone was in Anchorage, Alaska, where it arrived from Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong. The origination of the shipment was somewhere in China, and from there it went to Shenzhen, China enroute to Hong Kong. I am expecting the 4S to arrive mid-day tomorrow and I can’t wait. Stay tuned. Meanwhile iOS 5 is running on both the iPhone 4 and the iPad 2. The press has had mixed views, but my view is quite positive. The key feature is iCloud. I tested it today. You take a picture with the iPhone and then go to your MacBook or PC or iMac, and the picture is there in your Photo Stream. iCloud is implementing cloud computing for the consumer. Much more to come on the subject.

Tags: 4s, apple, fedex, icloud, ipad, iPhone, iphone 4, iphone 4s, iphone4, itunes

Kindle 456

There are quite a few stories here in patrickWeb about the Kindle and about Amazon (see the links to the left for indexes to both topics). I confess that I am a fan of both. I also love the iPad — but for different reasons. The media loves to write about arch rivals and head-to-head competitors. They want to speculate about whether Fire will win out over the iPad. I don’t see it that way. In fact I see them both as winners. There is not going to be one device that is best for all things for all people. That is the great thing about consumer technology — there is something for everyone. Some will be happy to have an iPad as their sole “computer” and use it for reading books, writing stories, doing their email, and shopping on the Web. Others will want more purpose-centric devices. If you read a lot of books, you will want a Kindle. If you like to read outdoors, forget about using an iPad. On Saturday I received the new $79 Kindle. (I ordered the Kindle Touch and a Fire also but they will not be available until November). The new Kindle is great. It has no keyboard and is therefore smaller. You can hold it in your hand and read to your heart’s content and never get a sore wrist. It weighs next to nothing. The e-ink makes the words clear as a bell indoors or outdoors. If there is something you need to type, it has an onscreen keyboard that lets you select with the cursor. If you are going to write a story, that would be no good but to enter the SSID of your home WiFi network to get started, it is no problem. The new Kindle is #4 for me. I sold the Kindle DX on eBay and handed down one to my wife who doesn’t care about having the very latest model like I do. When the Kindle Touch and Fire (Kindles 5 & 6) arrive, I plan to donate a Kindle or two to the local senior center. What will Fire be like? I can’t wait to try it, but I expect it will be great for consuming media and for shopping — probably better than the iPad. When it comes to syncing my board papers between Dropbox and Goodreader, I expect the iPad will continue as the preferred solution. I expect the apps for CNBC and Bloomberg financial reporting, aviation and healthcare apps and many other apps will continue to be best on the iPad. I don’t see a replacement for FaceTime with the grandchildren. The best news is that we have some competition for tablets. That may make Apple the first company to have a market value of a trillion dollars, or it may mean that there are enough differences in the preferences of billions of people in the world that there is room for at least a handful of very successful products and companies. My bet is on the latter.

iPad stories on patrickWeb
Kindle stories on patrickWeb

Tags: amazon, apple, book, books, dropbox, goodreader, ipad, Kindle

Amazon, Boxee, Cloud

The pace of announcements from the media and technology industries will certainly be fast throughout the rest of the year. A couple of important developments this week were things that I had expected, and was very happy to see. First, was Boxee’s announcement (Boxee Blog » Boxee for iPad and more goodies) of their new app for the iPad. I have been following Boxee for years — see story from June 2010. I don’t know for sure they will be successful in the long run, but I really like what they are doing. Boxee is trying to become the TV Guide for video from the Internet. The free iPad app gives you a good view of this — just flip through many video choices and enjoy. As you would expect, a lot of their content is from YouTube, but not all of it. You can also watch video from Vimeo, Netflix’s Watch Instantly library, VUDU’s new Hollywood blockbusters, or critically acclaimed and foreign films from MUBI. There’s something for everyone. Boxee’s philosophy is to offer whatever content you want on a Boxee device connected to your TV, or with the Boxee app on your iPad, and I am sure other apps to come. Boxee provides a single interface to all the video on the Internet, regardless of who it is from. What they are doing is an important step to breaking free from the TV-Cable model of the past.

The other exciting development of the last few days is the announcement by Amazon of the Kindle Cloud Reader (see Amazon, Skirting Apple, Announces Cloud for Books – WSJ.com). The philosophy is similar — more choice for the customer, not trying to lock you in to a proprietary model from the past. Amazon believes you should be able to buy a book once, and then read it everywhere. Up until now, “everywhere” meant on your Kindle, the Kindle app on the iPhone or iPad. You could read a book on the PC or Mac with the Kindle app but that is not quite the same as the handheld devices. The breakthrough with the Kindle Cloud Reader is that it enables your Chrome or Safari browser (on any device) to look and act like a Kindle. That means that on any piece of hardware that supports one of those browsers (and no doubt more browsers to come), you can have instant access to your Kindle library and continue reading even when you are offline.

The breakthrough was achieved by Amazon developing a software version of the Kindle using HTML5, the new and evloving standard for how Web applications are developed. People like “apps” on the iPad and other devices because they are responsive and have a nice look and feel to them. They don’t feel like you are browsing a Web site; they feel like they are doing something locally on your device very specific to the “app”. If you are using Kayak to find flights or OpenTable to make a reservation, or eBay to check your auctions, these apps seem very natural. With HTML5, anyone will be able to build a Web app that is just as natural as an “app app”. The subtle and profound aspect of this is that now you can go to Amazon.com, buy a book, and read it on your Kindle Cloud Reader on your iPad. That means you don’t have to go through anyone’s app store — you just go to the Web. Apple will surely not like this since they take a 30% commission when you go through their store. Amazon will like it a lot! So will the rest of the world. HTML5 is the biggest change in the Web since the 1990′s and it will reeult in better apps and more choice for all of us.

Tags: cloud, ipad, iPhone, Kindle, kindle cloud reader

Apple Event – June 2011

The annual Apple worldwide developer conference opening keynote drew a crowd of 5,200. It would have been much larger if the auditorium had the capacity. The extraordinary video is a “must see” if you are interested in either the Apple products or the marketing that surrounds them. The two-hour video is an exemplary model for how to communicate. Tell them what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them. Not a new idea, but executed by the Apple executive team with incredible precision, enthusiasm, and clarity. They also added an important element to the classic three-element communications model. Demo it to them. You get the feeling that the executive team knows exactly what they are talking about and are passionate about it.

Next month we get to see Lion and I for one can’t wait. It sounds like Apple is really listening to what customers want. For the iOS 5 update, we will have to wait until “the Fall”, but it also has a large number of exciting features. The big one is integration with iCloud. The immediate question many people have is what does iCloud mean for Dropbox? There are many unanswered questions. Google, Apple, and Amazon are at war to win our hearts, minds, and bits for their clouds. Some will say that iCloud is a makeover of MobileMe but I believe it is much more than that. iCloud will be continuously streaming billions of bits to all of our Apple devices — songs, photos, emails, web page and reading material bookmarks, calendar updates and reminders, contact information, tweets, and much more. While Google, Apple, and Amazon will strive to get our more and more of our loyalty, there are many parts of our digital lives that they don’t touch.

Every Saturday morning, I update my Quicken data on the MacBook at the kitchen counter. After I close Quicken, the file is immediately updated at dropbox.com. A bit later, I head into my office and access Quicken on the iMac. All the data is there, updated and ready to use. The same file is also on the iPhone and iPad and a handful of ThinkPads that are scattered around the house. Cloud computing does not mean putting everything in the cloud instead of on your computer — it means putting data in the cloud so that it can be replicated to all your devices. Your data is no longer where you PC is — your data is where you are. Some photo afficianados will prefer to use Picasa instead of iPhoto. Some will use Google Docs instead of Apple Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Some will use Amazon for their music. For me it will be Pandora. I plan to try iCloud as soon as possible and will surely use it for my purchased music, probably for photos, and probably not for documents. Definietely not for Quicken and various specialized files like my web site content, GPS data, etc.. All the boards I serve on distribute materials via pdf files. When I receive those by email I detach them to dropbox.com folders. I then synchronize Goodreader with dropbox on the iPad so that all the pdfs are local on the iPad for use at board meetings. I am enthusiastic about iCloud but I do not see it taking over my digital life, at least not yet.

Tags: amazon, apple, cloud computing, dropbox, google, icloud, imac, ipad, iPhone, lion, mac osx, twitter