I didn’t notice this problem previously. Maybe it is due to the newer firmware, or I’m just faster on it now than I was before. Maybe I’ll give it a try again on the next rev of the firmware.

White Cheddar rocks. I like Trader Joe’s in general, but sorry, their imitation Cheez-It isn’t very good. The real Cheez-Its are cheesier and saltier. The Trader Joe’s ones are almost a little sweet (ewww). I actually haven’t had the Target brand/Safeway brand/Reduced Fat ones in a while, next time I get a chance I might jostle up the rankings. And I can’t remember where I would place the Cheese Nips.

1. Dog groomers - Even Petco has a week long wait for appointments.
2. Independent Audi Shops - Apparently there are no independent Audi shops within like 30 miles.

Throwing a ball is a similarly complex motion. It is similar in that there is a multiple hinge lever motion to multiply the force. Position, balance, body turn all play a part in the process. But I certainly don’t forget how to throw a ball. Different shapes and sizes, even time away from throwing a ball don’t really degrade my abilities in throwing a ball. I can still get the ball to go where I want it to. I believe the reason for this is due to practice. I’ve basically practiced that motion until it has become a natural motion due to muscle memory. Inefficiencies and awkwardness have been evolved out of the motion over time.

“You throw like a girl.” I’ve read arguments that “girls” throw the way they throw simply because the average girl doesn’t have much practice much growing up. If I were to throw left handed, it would be pretty ugly. I could tell myself, “Hold the ball this way. Pull your hand back, elbow above the shoulder,  rotate the hips back, etc”, but I imagine that would be a pretty poor mechanical facsimile of a right handed throw. That’s what I feel like my golf swing is like. Though, not quite to that extent. I don’t really think my way through the swing, but I make sure to check my grip, my stance, etc. Do I check my stance or how I hold the ball when I throw? No. In fact, I can compensate for poor footing or poor grip without much thought.

I’m not able to throw curveballs or anything like that, but I’m not really looking to accomplish that with my golf game either. I’m probably not even little league material but I can get the ball to where I want without thought, and I feel like I should be able to do that with golf as well.

You can do all the important things like plan a trip, see how much a trip will cost, look up information about a station (integrated with Google Maps), and see a map of the routes.

I’d done most of the work during the break and have been using it regularly, but I never made the site well known because I found out soon after that the routes and fares were going to change on New Year’s Day. So I waited until I got the new route/fare data integrated, and the map switched out (and other tweaks).

So now everything is done, here is my BART Trip Planner for the iPhone. Please let me know if you see any issues. All the data should be accurate, but I can’t make any guarantees.

And once again, Jack has Mr. Bad Guy and in the same room is some female Mr. Bad Guy pissed off. And Ms. Pissed Off somehow manages to kill Mr. Bad Guy with all these trained CTU agents around.

Hello? You’d think by the third time (maybe more) Jack would have learned.

Compared to my Wizard, the iPhone is a joy to use. The OS is more fun, more pleasing to use. I like the iPhone’s email client better (though I’m not sure I like the 200 email per folder limit, but it has not been an issue yet). The webbrowsing is clearly better on the iPhone. Reception is a bit better I think, and reacquiring signal is much much better (the Wizard was horrible at reacquiring signal). Physical size is obviously better.

The calendar needs a little help (compared to other smart devices). I wish there was some sort of today type screen, though at the same time I like that the unlock screen is pretty clean and that you’re taken directly to the app screen, so I’m not sure where exactly you would put the today screen.

My only real complaint about the iPhone is the lack of any sort of external indicator. An LED or something to indicate that I have missed a call/SMS/email/whatever. If a leave it on my desk, I won’t know I missed something until I pick it up and turn it on the next time. Clearly a new hardware revision isn’t going to help me now, so I’d be satisfied with software (third party is fine) that will play a reminder alert/vibe every 5 mins until the phone is turned on.

The only thing that I used to do on my Wizard that I can’t do on my iPhone is GPS navigation. I’m hoping that early next year, after the iPhone is officially opened to third party apps, I will be able to make use of my Bluetooth GPS puck with my iPhone with software like TomTom or something.

iPhone and the web

Safari on the iPhone is second to none for mobile web browsing. Wish it did Flash. Sort of. I don’t miss seeing Flash based ads (or downloading them). I guess the only instance where I miss Flash is when I am visiting a site that relies heavily on Flash. I also wish I could save/download files.

iPhone and email

One thing I am slightly confused about is the poor reception of the iPhone’s email capabilities as compared to other more businessy type devices, like the BlackBerries and Windows Mobile devices. The iPhone doesn’t do push email - I’ll concede that, but I don’t use Exchange so it doesn’t really matter that much for me.

I think the iPhone email application works great compared to other devices. For instance, on BlackBerries IMAP folders are not used and it basically works as a email “pager”. People complain about being unable to delete or move multiple emails on the iPhone, but of neither BlackBerries or Windows Mobile devices support that either. Update: You can delete/move multiple emails at at time on WM PocketPC/Professional. Who knew? Just click and drag to select a range of emails. But don’t let go of that click initially because it will open the email. And don’t hold the click too long before dragging because then the context sensitive menu will pop up.

And there are complaints that you can’t edit Word or Excel files. Of course neither can BlackBerries or Windows Mobile smartphone devices (Professional or PocketPC versions can), and nobody complains about this apparent lack of a “business” feature. Or maybe they don’t realize it because nobody really uses it. And the iPhone’s Word doc viewer is light years ahead of the viewer on the BlackBerries (which relies on serverside preprocessing).

Nevermind that the iPhone uses much nicer fonts and has much better HTML email support.

iPhone and WiFi

Works wonderfully. My last phone (a Wizard) had WiFi as well but I never used it because it was such a pain in the ass. My friends with similar Windows Mobile devices have said similar things. But on the iPhone, it just works. And because it works so well, I leave it on and I use it all the time.

iPhone and Bluetooth

The iPhone currently has a slightly crippled stack and can only be used with headsets. I hope this is improved in the future.

As for headset handling, I think for the most part it works better than my Wizard. It is easier to switch between the headset and the phone. The only issue I had (and it may be specific to my headset and its ability to be paired with multiple devices) was once after using my headset with other devices, it was no longer connecting to my iPhone and the iPhone did not think it was there and the only way I could get it to connect was to re-pair it (it was still “paired”, I had to delete the old pairing and redo it). Normally, pushing the call/answer/multifunction button on the headset would cause it to connect and the iPhone would react appropriately, but since I had been using the headset with a different device last, it was trying to connect that that device.

iPhone and the keyboard

There is definitely a learning curve involved. And I’m still not quite where I would like to be. I’m better at it now, but I’d like to be more consistent. The Wizard had tiny keys so those coming from like a TYTN (with larger keys) may be more annoyed. I do like the fact that I don’t need to slide the phone open anymore.

However one thing is that I haven’t quite figured out the best way to hold it in the vertical position to type with my thumbs. In the horizontal position, there is enough room on the back for the other fingers. In the vertical position, there isn’t quite enough room, In order to get good range of motion for the thumbs, I feel like I should float the thumbs with the joint a little further out. But in that case there is really nothing holding on to the iPhone. It just kind of sits in my hands. And the concern there is someone will bump into me causing me to drop it, though it seems to be fine when sitting. Maybe the moral of the story is not to answer email while walking. On other devices, like the Treo, I can hold it the same way because the other thumb can still hold the device via the keyboard with triggering a keystroke. If I hold my thumbs in closer (in order to grip the sides of the iPhone), I get a smaller range of motion and it becomes difficult for me to hit the keys along the edge (though I can easily reach across with the opposing thumb). I think I’ll be able to figure something out with more use.

It’s kind of amusing to me. When I watched Star Trek (I’m not a trekkie), I thought who in the world would want to use a touch screen only interface? You do loose a little with the loss of tactile feedback, but if the interface is good enough it isn’t as much as you would think. Is the iPhone the first step to an LCARS like interface becoming widely accepted?

iPhone and other features

I don’t really miss the lack of video recording, MMS, multiple receiver SMS, etc since I’ve never used those features. I wouldn’t be surpised if they showed up in the future in a software update, but that’s really not a big deal to me.

iPhone, in conclusion

Overall I’m pretty happy with the my iPhone. It is definitely a good step, and will hopefully compel the industry to move in the right direction.

As an aside, I wonder how many people refer to their iPhone as “iPhone” versus “phone” like in the case of “I forgot my iPhone/phone”. I always referred to my Wizard as “phone”. With my Treo, I may have used “Treo” more than I did with my Wizard. I guess it depends on how strong the brand is. I suspect the ratio of “iPhone” to “phone” is pretty strong, especially compared to generic HTC devices (and their carrier branded brethren).

Right afterwards, Dilbert gave a career presentation as well. LOL.

Mine was a bit less cynical. Dilbert’s version has some truth in it, but it ain’t always like that. I like my career.

Though no Andriod devices are available right now (publicly), that doesn’t stop people from comparing Google’s offering with Apple’s. Maybe it is because both Google and Apple have brands that create fans.

Both devices offer innovation but in very different ways.

iPhone’s Innovation

I think we can all agree that the iPhone greatest innovation is its UI. Hopefully this is the kick in the pants that the mobile phone industry needed. Because, in general, the industry had been doing a pretty poor job. Someday all phones will have as slick of a UI.

Android’s Innovation

I believe Android’s innovation is its redefinition of the OS/Application model. For most “smart” devices, such as those running PalmOS, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian, J2ME, etc, the OS/Application model is essentially the same as that on a desktop. You launch an application and the application handles all of its state and deals with the user. This is fine on the desktop because we have plenty of memory and CPU. And we also have large displays and can run multiple apps at the sametime. The problem this poses on a limited device is that applications are responsible for the state and the quality of the implementation will vary depending on the developers.

For instance, with the iPhone: You get an email, click on a link that takes you to a webpage, and then you click on an address that takes you to Google Maps. You can’t go back. The iPhone’s main button takes you home instead. The iPhone just kind of avoids this.

On Windows Mobile, you can keep on clicking the OK button which closes screens until you get back to where you wanted to be. Of course that only works until you run out of memory, then it will need to start closing applications. And where you are when you relanch an application depends on the application’s developer.

With Andriod, applications are broken down into Activities, Intents, and Services. Activities represents the UI screens and Andriod automatically manages those screens for the developer. This ability to go back across applications is an OS provided function.

This I believe is Andriod’s real innovation. Not just Activities, but the entire thing is an evolution of the OS/Application relationship. I think it is a better fit for more limited devices. Of course I am more technically progressive, so maybe the world will not agree.

The iPhone cannot adopt this innovation easily (unless they layer this on top of their UI right now, but then this would create a division between first class native apps and Andriod-type apps), but Andriod can slowly adopt a nicer UI.

The iPhone will probably have a more noticeable impact because its innovation is more visible. Andriod’s innovation is a little more radical technically, and others will probably be slow in adopting. It is a little more radical, and competitors will probably take a wait-and-see approach.

And I really don’t want to read anymore about how Andriod is J2ME.

Windows on the other hand seems to lack a decent IMAP client. Outlook works kinda, except the deleting email kinda sucks, and sent email always goes into the “primary” account or something. Thunderbird is OK but it doesn’t feel quite right. It also doesn’t seem to cache the emails, so for large emails I keep on having to hit my server.

For instance, I have this one email with a bunch of large attachments. In order to save all the attachments, it seems like it needs to redownload the entire email each time it saves an attachment. WTF? So, say the total file is 12 megs and it has some 10 attachments (I didn’t actually count). It appears to need to transfer 120 megs to save the attachments. Joy.

Err.. What else is there really? Eudora? Thunderbird by a different name now. Outlook Express? Pegasus?