John Tokash

Palm Pre

January 10, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I watched the Palm Pre CES announcement. WOW.

http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/palm-pre-ces.html

I’m blown away. I read the blog posts, but even they did not prepare me for the complete package. Watch that video ASAP.

I still think Apple could win this war, but Palm is definitely showing up for the fight. Before the Palm Pre announcement I would have ranked the smartphone operating systems as Apple, RIM, Nokia, Microsoft. Now I think it’s Apple, Palm (Web OS), RIM, Nokia, Microsoft. And if everything shown in that video pans out and Apple doesn’t repsond in a major way, the ranking will move to Palm (Web OS), Apple, RIM, Nokia, Microsoft.

It makes you think. Are the other players sitting on some next gen tech, too? Will we see something earth shattering from Microsoft soon? One thing is for sure. This year, last and next are going to be historic for the phone industry.

Here are some of my observations (crossposted on Twitter) while watching the Palm Pre announcement:

  • The Palm Pre would not have happened if the iPhone hadn’t happened first. But, Apple needs to respond ASAP.
  • Developers Developers Developers Developers. Developers Developers Developers Developers. CSS, JS, Ajax, HTML.
  • If you browse to one of your Outlook contacts, their Facebook contact info will appear, too, if you are connected there.
  • If you are on a call and you place the phone on the inductive charger, the call moves to speakerphone.
  • Typing while no app is in the foreground starts a device-wide search for content or apps that match your text entry.
  • Conversations are in one pane even if they move from IM to SMS to IM.
  • PalmPilot: Centralize todo, calendar, documents, etc. Treo: Combine MP3 player, camera, PDA, Phone. Pre: Unify your online personas.
  • Web Browser Instances are treated, each, as currently running apps. They are each in the carousel with email, etc.
  • Task switching is baked in. Currently running apps appear in a carousel and can be discarded by swiping them up.
  • The application launcher appears, translucently, over the current foreground app. Like glass.
  • The CPU (TI OMAP 3430) has horsepower and Palm is the first to use it in a phone.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Apple · Mobile · Palm

iPhone Twitter App Comparison Chart

January 8, 2009 · 10 Comments

Here is a report card / eye chart I put together to compare the 5 leading iPhone Twitter clients. Enjoy! Please leave a comment if I’ve made a mistake in any of the rows. Click on the thumbnail to open the full comparison chart.

My current favorite is Tweetie. TwitterFon is the best free option (and the only open source option). Twittelator is the only app with sub group support.

iPhone Twitter App Comparison Chart

UPDATE 1/16/2009: Updated the chart to include the latest version of each app.

UPDATE 1/18/2009: Reading a tweet by Steve Birney, I realize I need to add offline functionality to the chart. [DONE]

UPDATE: 1/19/2009: Note to self – add Dave Winer’s link format to the list of features.

UPDATE: 1/21/2009: Added several new rows, corrected some inaccuracies.

→ 10 CommentsCategories: Apple · Blogging · Mobile · Twitter · Web

One More Thing…

January 4, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I have one additional wish list item for Macworld 2009: the iPhone needs a better application launcher. Paging through screens to find the app you are looking for is inefficient and can be frustrating.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Apple · Mobile

MacWorld 2009 Wish List

January 2, 2009 · Leave a Comment

TUAW asks what I want to see at MacWorld. Check out their predictions. Here is my wish list in order. First is what I want most.

1. A Car PC experience for an Apple product. Voice navigation, Text-to-Speech for email and news, Voice Recorder, Traffic. App Store. This could be related to the rumored Tablet or maybe just a new interface for the iPhone…

2. 6″-9″ device. This should incorporate learnings from the iPhone, NetBooks and Mobile Internet Devices.

3. iPhone: Hulu and Netflix streaming.

4. iPhone: Background downloading of Podcasts, Twitter and Google Reader. If I understand correctly, the promised “push” functionality will be insufficient for these applications, but I’d love to be proven wrong.

5. iPhone: Copy/Paste

6. iPhone: Better calendar integration with Exchange.

7. iPhone: Email more than one photo at a time.

I’m not really in the market for an Apple TV or a Mac Mini, but there are definitely changes they could make to those devices that would make them hard to resist. The Apple Home Server product rumor is also interesting, but I’d be in wait and see mode. Especially after experiencing the flakiness of the Time Capsule product first hand this year.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Apple · Gadgets · Mobile

My Top 10 Favorite iPhone Apps

January 2, 2009 · 2 Comments

Short and sweet.

Google Reader’s mobile version – This isn’t a native app. It’s the iPhone Safari version of Google Reader. I’d prefer something native, but, until background downloading comes along, it’s faster for me to just visit the site directly.

Things – a todo app that syncs with the OS X version of Things. This is the first time I’ve had a tasks application so well integrated into my daily life. It’s nice! Not cheap, though – $10 for the iPhone app and $40-$50 for the OS X app.

TwitterFon – My favorite iPhone twitter client. Twittelator is my backup, though. It supports groups so I can view tweets from a small group of people if I’m short on time. I hope TwitterFon adds that kind of functionality soon!

Amazon.com – This app is great in stores. Take photos of the things you want to see reviews on or want to price check. Moments later, the Amazon product pages for those items show up and you can make informed purchases at local stores OR do a 1-click purchase from Amazon.

iPod – The built in iPod functionality is great and I use it a lot for Podcasts, AudioBooks and Music. Still, I wish the Podcast downloading was automatic.

iTalk – Great for taking voice notes.

Yelp – Excellent source of information about local restaurants and services.

Maps – The built in Google Map functionality is great and keeps getting better.

The Creeps – My favorite Tower Defense-style game currently.

Shazam – Helps me identify songs on the radio that I’d like to download when I stop the car.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: Apple · Mobile

More on the Aluminum MacBook RAM Issues

December 7, 2008 · Leave a Comment

As I noted in Apple’s official discussion boards and my blog in October, the new MacBooks (late 2008 aluminum) are having a hard time with 3rd Party RAM, even when that RAM has the same specs that Apple recommends. As far as I know, noone at Apple has commented on the problem, yet, and the techs I’ve spoken to haven’t mentioned any official message.

Luckily, JKOnTheRun just took up the torch and TUAW is on the case as well. For all those who are not near an Apple store and can’t get the cheap official RAM swap, let’s hope a firmware patch is in the works!

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Twitter

December 1, 2008 · Leave a Comment

If you follow this blog in a feed reader, you may want to subscribe to my twitter feed, too. That’s where I’m doing most of my posting now.

My Twitter Posts: http://twitter.com/jtokash

My Twitter Posts as an RSS Feed: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14240813.rss

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Blogging

New MacBooks Hate 3rd Party RAM

November 26, 2008 · Leave a Comment

I wish someone (TUAW, DF, MR, MW, AT, etc) would start reporting on the problem that the new MacBooks have with 3rd Party RAM. Apple customers are getting frustrated.

See my post on the topic or the discussion thread (122 replies) at Apple’s site for more info.

UPDATE: Slashgear picked up the story.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Apple

New Blog / Old Blog

November 26, 2008 · Leave a Comment

I moved my blog. It is now hosted by wordpress.com. Same url, though, so almost everything should work the same as it used to (including the feed).

Images in most posts are broken. I can think of a few ways to fix that, but I might not bother.

The theme I was using isn’t supported on WordPress.com. I’ll customize that later.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Blogging

iPhone Apps

November 21, 2008 · Leave a Comment

Here are the iPhone apps I currently have installed and my thoughts on them. Note: I delete apps that I’ve tried and have decided not to use.

Bottom Bar:

Phone

Email

Calendar

Safari (Web Browser)

Page 1:

SMS

Tweetsvile: I like this better than the others (Twitterrific, Twittelator, Twinkle) mainly because it automatically downloads a lot more tweets than the others. I rely on that functionality because I usually only check twitter 3 times per week. A nice feature addition would be to track which tweet I last read and start me there when the app opens. Haven’t played much with Tweetie, yet, but I hear that’s also a great app.

fring: I haven’t used this, yet, but I hear it’s a great multi-IM-protocol chat application.

Facebook

Contacts

Web shortcut to Google Reader Mobile

Maps

Weather

Clock

Google Mobile

Yelp: I love this app.

Stocks: This app would be much more useful if it updated in the background.

Wikipanion: Best of the Wikiperia browser apps.

PCalc: Bought this mostly for the paper tape functionality. Very handy to look at past calculations.

Units

i.TV

Page 2:

Things: Great TODO app. The pairing / syncing feature is well designed – syncs with Things on my MacBook.

iTalk: Cool voice recorder app. I would use voice recording on the iPhone much more if there was a button on the phone that triggered it. Perhaps Apple could let us choose which app to load when a user double clicks the home button.

Evernote

WordPress: Haven’t posted much from the road. But maybe.

ShoZu: Another app that I haven’t really used. The promise is that it integrates with Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, WordPress, etc.

iPod

Shazam: Very handy for telling you what song you just heard on the radio.

YouTube

Photos

Camera

Web shortcut to Flickr Mobile

App Store

Settings

Ocarina: The globe browser is a very nice touch.

TatomicLite: Similar to lumines in a lot of ways. Like lumines, though, I wish it became difficult faster.

Word Warp: Fun word game. Wish the words were clickable and could show you each word’s definition.

Page 3:

Doppler: Best offline browser for Google Reader on the iPhone.

Deliveries: Track FedEx, UPS, etc.

Jaadu: VNC client. Takes a little time to get used to the interface, but otherwise excellent.

FileMagnet: Don’t use this much. Could be useful for file transfers and reading docs on the go. Typically, I use email for those tasks, so I haven’t given FileMagnet a solid try.

iTunes

OpenTable: Haven’t had a need to use this. It came out earlier this week.

Movies

WebMD: Just in case.

Phone Aid: First Aid. Just in case.

Web Shortcut to iGoogle: Never use this. Might delete it.

Cor.kz: Wine ratings/reviews. I get an error every time I try to use this app. Will probably delete it soon.

FieldRunners: Fun tower-defense game.

GasBag: Gas prices locally.

Dual Level: Mine is not calibrated correctly, but will be useful next time I hang something.

Cube: Tech demo. s’ok.

Frenzic: Extremely difficult game. Though, I might be playing it wrong.

Page 4:

Web Shortcut to Fuelly: I’m behind on entering my mileage. Might need to start from scratch.

Stanza: Nice ebook reader. Since the colors are configurable, you don’t need to stare at black on white.

Geocaching: Haven’t used this much, but felt the need to pick it up.

Twitterrific

Colors: Generates color schemes based on photographs. It’s fun. Really.

TideGraph: Beth and the kids like to go tidepooling.

Google Earth: Overkill.

IGN Reviews: GameRankings and IGN’s site are not iPhone friendly. This app takes you right to the meat.

Firewall: Another tower-defense game.

Toy Bot 2, touchPhysics, JellyCar – games I thought I’d like but don’t. Yet.

Exposure: Cool Flickr app. Lately, though, Flickr Mobile is just right for me.

BigOven: A recipe app. Haven’t used it, yet.

SnapTell: Take a picture of a box and SnapTell will tell you about the product inside. It recognized my Fable II box.

Page 5:

Bloom: Surreal music generator. Charlie likes it.

Strategic Assault: Rough around the edges, but a decent alpha attempt at an RTS.

Galcon Lite: Fun game.

Twittelator

Calculator

Notes

Tweetie

Gas Cubby

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Apple · Mobile