PushingJelly

Well it’s out, the Apple device is called the iPad, is small cute and expensive enough to get some people moaning about it’s price but affordable for the devout/fashionably stupid to get one.

Looks quite nice and I’m sure it will be a roaring sucess, but why isn’t there a camera and iChat for comms? Once again they have overlooked Instant messaging/Video or audio chat for a mobile device – it is so frustrating. It doesn’t even have a mic from the look of it.

Will I get one? well never say never, it is very neat and I haven’t had the thing in my greasy mitts yet but I think I’ll be saving my cash at the moment for the next gen MacBook Pro. Sorry guys, with a MacBook and an iPhone, why do I need something I can’t put in my pocket or run any app I wan’t on.

At the end of the day I don’t spend enough time on the loo or in sitting on a train to justify it.

— update —

Ok, it DOES have a mic apparently, but still no zarking camera – really, I ask you – WHY?

Here’s a possible reason for the lack of flash support on the iPhone – Adverts.

I think that Apple’s purchase of mobile advertising company Quattro wireless is part of their strategy to corner the mobile advertising market and it will make it rewarding to app developers to include their advertising in free apps on the store. This is pretty obvious, but I think that the lack of flash on the device is deliberate to prevent the Google/Adobe ad duopoly from exercising their dominance and damaging Apple’s ad plans.

Apple’s long term planning never ceases to amaze me but if my guess is true this is quite impressive bloody mindedness.

Well it’s the morning after the night before and I have awoken on my sofa. The day is bright and there’s a sprinkling of snow on our cars that looks like icing sugar sprinkled from a giant sieve in the same way as mince pies have.
The start of a new year and a new decade.

In the UK we are looking forward to a change of government this year and although not a Tory voter by any means, the Labour party have been in charge for far too long, they are if not overtly corrupt then criminally complacent and need to go. It’s just a shame there’s no alternative to the Conservatives who let’s face it are potentially as bad as the incumbent bunch of tossers. Don’t start with the LibDems either, as they have no recognisable presence in the political race. I have no idea what they stand for and I am not even sure who leads them any more.

Technology wise it looks quite promising, the tablet finally looks like it is due for release (we have been waiting YEARS Steve, what took so long?), Apple may finally take the AppleTV project seriously and who knows what iPhone v4 will be like (Well Steve and Jonny Ive do obviously, it was a rhetorical question really). 40 Million 5MP camera modules have been ordered – apparently.

So as it has become traditional at this part of the year here are my predictions for 2010 (excluding the tablet which is a given)

• Tomorrows World will come back to the BBC (Oh please Aunty, serious tech reporting again – Click’s good but it’s not TW)
• O2 will turn on Apple for the bandwidth issue and drop the iPhone
• Free WiFi Mesh installations will increase in the UK (First one is always free)
• ADSL will reach “Up to” 100Mb/s (actually delivering 5Mb/s for anyone further than 10 feet from the exchange – Lies, Damn Lies and ADSL speeds)
• “iPod Game” will be launched with game controller built in (this is of course a joke entry)
• App Store will come to the Mac platform bringing unlimited secure application delivery to the Mac reducing piracy and in turn application prices and increasing Apple’s profits (30% cut remember).
• Apple will continue to alter the memory market with their bulk purchases of Flash chips causing the cost of solid state storage to remain too high for the rest of us
• The hepatic interface pioneered (read UAT tested) on the iSlate will come to the new iPhone v4 to applause and frustration in equal measure.
• The Apple Tablet will have a cell phone built in and be offered for cheap (£200) on contract

Happy new year everyone.

B

Had a enlightening and infuriating afternoon today.

At 5:45, I was sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop having a latte and a piece of cheese cake with my lovely wife. A small boy of middle eastern appearance and with an accent to match who must of been about ten years old, came over to our table and showed some leaflet muttering incoherently about “this is coffee”.

Bemused at what he was talking about, I placated with a “yes” and smiled and he then left.

As he left, my wife asked where my iPhone was – thirty seconds before the kid arrived it was on the table in front of me.

It had of course gone.

Realising quickly what had happened, I chased after the boy, who by then had run out of the mall and (according to a passer by) met up with another kid and apparently got onto a bus.

Walking back to find a mall security guard (two met me on the way – my wife had got to them first) – I remembered that because it was an iPhone and I have a subscription to Mobile Me (Apple’s cloud data service) I could track the whereabouts of the phone on the me.com website.

I told the mall security officer this and we walked promptly to the recently opened Apple dealer. I quickly explained the issue to a member of staff and they allowed me to log into the me.com website and we tracked the phone.

We called the police while watching my phone travel along a local bus route. We could see the phone stop at bus stops and then carry on it’s route. One of the shop assistants said that she knew the route (the 86) and we told the police where they could find the bus. We were told that they could not send anyone out as they couldn’t “chase around Romford after a bus”. I told them they wouldn’t be chasing around as I knew where the bus was and they could just drive there and pick the little git up.

Instead they told me they were going to send “a unit” to the shop to take details (even though they had taken all the info over the phone).

While we were waiting someone from Romford police station called me and I had to give all the information I just told the CAD operator.

By now I had sent a message to the phone saying that the police were on their way and that we knew the brat was on the 86 bus and in Goodmayes and that he should give the phone to the bus driver.

The office turned up after about 15 minutes (while we watched the kid get off the bus and go to a MacDonalds on our Hybrid Google Map display within me.com’s website.). He was a PCSO who although very nice and apologetic, was unable to do anything apart from take the details of the crime again (third time lucky perhaps). He couldn’t even fill out a crime report.

After giving the info to the PCSO, I went back to the terminal and it had stopped updating. We tried calling the phone and it was off, going to voice mail.

It was gone. The police were useless and were not going to chase the bus. I was not going to get it back.

I decided to hit the kill switch on the website and remotely wipe the phone. I wish I had done this before I lost contact with it, as then I could be sure my data would be safe. As it is, I can only hope that the device will be wiped when it starts back up or when they try too many times to unlock it.

At any rate, I have done all I can to protect myself now.

The system will email me to tell me when the wipe has begun, until then I just have to wait. The SIM has been cancelled however so I am not that sure if it will work.

Things I learned today.

• Don’t trust anyone, including innocent looking little kids.
• PCSOs although nice and all are just there to make it look good, they are as useful as a chocolate teapot.
• The police couldn’t give a crap about petty theft, and won’t do anything – even when you hand them the thieves on a plate.
• If you have an iPhone, don’t send messages to the thieves to alert them to the tracking or they will turn it off.
• Lastly Wipe the phone before they do turn it off – just to be sure, you can always get your data re synced later from Mobile Me or the Mac/PC you sync with.

A recent gallery of pictures on CNET show’s the similarities of the Microsoft store ‘idea’ to the Apple Stores (I put that word in quotes because I don’t think Microsoft have had an original idea since Gates thought it would be a good ‘idea’ to charge for software).

One difference that strikes me however is the lack of customers in the store. I have never been to an Apple store that is this empty. Perhaps it was just taken at a bit of a slow period but it doesn’t look good.

I guess the real difference between being a blogger and writing professionally is that when you are paid to write, you have to write to get paid.

This simple truth might explain why I am so crap at updating the blog – I don’t have to so I am therefore not compelled to unless there is something outstanding that I want to share or get off my chest.

Being a mild mannered person (most of the time) and having a busy working life means that Pushing Jelly gets less attention than it should and for that dear reader, I apologise.

In the run up to the holiday season, I have a large amount of holiday booked. I shall try to pick up my game.

Well not content with attempting to ripoff everything else that Apple does, our friends in Redmond have opened a retail store.

Consider the irony then that first member of staff to meet customers as they came in the door was this person looking the antithesis of an Apple Store staff member:

Now, I am not renowned for being slim, quite the opposite in fact, I have been eating quite a number of pies over the last 20 years which has left me decidedly portly, however this was the opening of Microsoft’s first retail store, an event that would garner attention from all over the world. The PR guys at microsoft would have wanted it to look cool, hip and trendy. Millions have been spent on faux wooden tables and shelved to make it not quite but almost like an Apple store, the good and great of the industry press gathered to usher in a new world retail order.

Why then would they place porky here at the beginning of the line of employees to greet (on camera) the first customers. Nothing says Fat Geek like an ill fitting T-Shirt and rolls of fat bouncing up and down.

Good on Microsoft for not caring what their employees look like. I think bonus point should be given to them for being an equal opportunity employer. As a fat geek myself, I salute you (and you porky).

Movie here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Hk0ZCqRxg

Anyone who knows me well will tell you I am quite a sceptical guy. I don’t believe in any form of mysticism including (but not exclusively) any religion, magic, psy or anything else that cannot be explained by science.

I will entertain the idea that science does not have all the answers. Breakthroughs are being made everyday that previous generations would have said were acts of wizadry or gods. However the things that we don’t understand are just that. I think I have quoted Clark’s “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” before but I think it is very true.

Some time ago, I was visiting the local mall in Romford, Essex called the Brewery to see a fim. Through the windows was a spectacular view of a glorious sunset. I thought I’d take a picture of the sunset with my new iPhone so I snapped a shot. My son, Adam also took a picture with his Nokia 8500 phone.

It was only when I reviewed the picture later I discovered there were some dots on the image which were also on Adams picture.

I don’t think they are lens aberrations or reflections on the window as both my and Adam’s pictures were taken from different positions and heights.

Doing a little research on the net it looks like this is not a unique phenomenon,

Google

Wiki

Islington

Belgium

Texas

It goes on and on.

In my utopian dream world (something along the same lines as the one dreamed by Gene Roddenberry), when an abundant free energy source was found and we no longer driven by commercial concerns, everyone and everything would just work with each other to make the world (and space) a better place.

Standards would be open and adhered to. we would all use the best operating system because that was the one that everyone used and worked hard to make better. It wouldn’t matter if it cost more to produce because everyone would benefit in the long run.

Applications would talk to each-other and devices would too without the encumbrance of competing formats and incompatibilities – there would be one document format, one image format etc. and if a more efficient way was found to store data THE formats would be updated accordingly for the good of all.

It is the reality of microsoft and apple’s control of the marketplace that is forcing us all to look to the open world of the internet for our next paradigm in computing.

The cloud (as it is known) is the next battleground in the format war with Google taking an early lead but Microsoft preparing to exert its will on the net with Office Online. MS have previously had difficulty with their transition to an internet company (with the exception of hotmail of course which was already immense when they purchased it for $400 in 1997) and the industry is waiting to pass judgement on the new product.

Apple too seem to be preparing for an assault with the purchase of a massive new data-centre to host it’s cloud offerings (me.com was just the start) and the (apparently) imminent launch of a web tablet device.

The iPad (or whatever they will call it) will be reminiscent of Mr Roddenberry’s star ship bound devices but once again market forces are restricting the usefulness of the applications to be found there on because unless we all pledge allegiance to the fruit, we are again left with a choice between Apple’s OS, Google Android, MS Windows Mobile, Palm PreOS, Symbian and the many others. None talking to each other, the wealth of applications from one unavailable to others and the underground market of un-sanctioned applications confusing things further.

Even the much lauded Android is still owned by a commercial concern with restrictions on use built into it’s Ts and Cs.

It is the next generation mess caused by the same old companies. It sucks.

So much for capitalism, so much for the free market economy – at the end of the day the user communities suffer and the biggest corporate wallets win.