When Steve Jobs was first showing off the iPad I wanted a little more. I knew he was going to get to the end and show us something that would blow us away and make us want to start camping out for 60 days until it came out. But it never happened. I came away less than impressed based upon what I wanted it to be.

Having the chance now to step back and re-evaluate all of what the iPad is and isn’t, I see that the iPad was not meant for me. It wasn’t even meant for you. It’s meant for the person you know who is scared of computers. It’s made for my grandparents who have a Quad-Core computer with 6GB of RAM to send emails, and most of them are spam forwards. It’s made for the person who has a computer just so they can get on Facebook, send email, and browse the internet.

They don’t need shell access. They don’t need to edit videos. Heck, they don’t even need to manipulate the photos they get because Flickr does this for them.

This is also for the person that are scared of a full blown iMac. They don’t know OSX and heard that it is very different from the Windows PC they know. This helps bridge the gap. Although this was looked at as the middle pillar for Apple between the iPhone and the iMac, this could be the entry “computer” that people need in order to make the next step. Apple says, “Oh, you like how easy the iPad makes things? Do you know it is running the same operating system as the iPhone?” Or they might say, “You say you like what the iPad does, but you need to edit videos? The iMac is just as easy to get up and running.”

This is just the first generation iPad. When has any Apple product done everything you wanted it to on the first iteration? Yeah, I can’t think of one either. It’s easier to accept the iPad as what it is if you remember that the iPad is not for you. It’s for the person you know that uses a computer for email and web surfing.

So WWDC started today and we have new announcements of updated computer hardware, updated computer software, and even more of the same news about the update iPhone OS, OS3.  What everyone wanted to hear about was the new iPhone.  What will it look like, what will it have, what will it be is what everyone was asking.  Rumors have swirled around for what seems like several months now and today we got to see what it was.

Looks

For all of the mock-ups, purposed new iPhone frames, and finish rumors, the exterior looks in the most part unchanged.  Is this good or bad? The iPhone 3G seemed to have a good look and feel in a persons hand and about 5 minutes after one is purchased a case was slapped on it, so for the most part this is a good thing.  Others might disagree because they favor the first generation iPhone with the brushed aluminum back and hate the fingerprint friendly plastic case of the 3G.  The biggest update to the exterior might be the new “oil-resistant coating that keeps the iPhone screen clean.”

S is for speed and that’s good enough for me

The S does not stand for super as some might think.  The S stands for speed and that is what Apple is trying to get across.  Apple is showing off that certain things you do on the iPhone is up to 2x faster than the iPhone 3G.  There are several things that go into making this happen.  The first is a new processor and 3D graphics chipset.  Apple has always been tight lipped about the exact specifications of the hardware, but this combined with the support of the 7.2 Mbps 3G standard should allow you to see a boost in performance.

Battery

The battery has been improved, or software written to improve the life of it.  This will be good for business folks and others that currently have issues with the battery life.  The one thing that stood out for me is the 3 hour jump in usage for surfing on wi-fi and watching a video.

Updated camera

One thing that the iPhone has been lacking and nearly every other phone had was video recording capabilities. Though this is not a deal breaker for most, it would be nice

and handy to take video of family and friends at any time. Our friends in the jail breaking community have been recording videos on their iPhones for over a year now.

Apple took things a step further and rewarded everyones patience. Not only does the updated 3 megapixel camera record videos, it also allows for some rough videoediting by allowing you to choose the start and stop points for your video. When you are done editing it, you can post it to MobileMe, YouTube, Email it, or send it via MMS (Late summer for AT&T users).

The auto-focus based on you tapping on the object to focus on is a great idea and looks to be well executed. The white balance and macro ability round out the top improvements in the camera.

Whats missing or not right

There are many other “little” improvements that the iPhone 3G S has that we are skipping over because the bulk of what everyone wants to know about was covered above. There are a few things that are missing and/or delayed and it is odd that this would happen because it would seem like the 1 year product cycles that the iPhone has would put it behind the competition again.

- OLED screen – This would have been icing on the cake. OLED screens are becoming more popular on iPhone competitiors and by not putting it in this round of updates it will be one more year before me might see it.
- MMS – Really AT&T? You need the rest of the summer for MMS capabilities to be released here in the US? Really? Is MMS something new? Isn’t it something we have been doing since 2004? Is this something that you just found out about at the same time we did? Did Steve Jobs do a “Oh, one more thing At&T, we’re going to have MMS” trick on you?
- Internet tethering – This should not have even been released as a new feature. AT&T has not even put support behind this. If anyone knows about the NetShare app issue from around a year ago you know that either this is not a feature that is going to be released, or it is something that you will be paying more for if it comes out.
- Upgrading options – AT&T, why must we be gouged by such high pricing to upgrade and then the $18 upgrade fee is just a slap in the face.

Should you get it?

The iPhone 3G S, offers many upgrades to the iPhone line that look to be very convincing if you have the first generation iPhone and are looking to upgrade. You’ll get the better price and you will have all of the latest features to enjoy. If you have an iPhone 3G you might be a little more hesitant to upgrade for the speed and the camera because of the hefty price you will have to pay. If you love Apple. was there ever a thought in your mind that you wouldn’t get this iPhone 3GS? I didn’t think so.

I know you check back everyday thinking something new and cool is going to be posted.  You probably thought that your favorite RSS reader was giving out and the posts just weren’t making it to you.  I am sorry to admit that your RSS reader is working a lot better than LL.  No posts have been written since last year.  Since this upgrade, I will be getting back into the swing of things and offering the high quality content that you expect and deserve.

On August 7th, 2006, Sports Illustrated writer Stewart Mandel wrote an article titled Bomar scandal will rock Sooners in 2006 and beyond, referring to the car dealership Big Red Sports and Imports, and the employment of Rhett Bomar. How prophetic of him.

At the time everyone hated Big Red Sports and Imports.  No one wanted to buy a car from them, the local sports talk radio station buzzed with hate towards them, and we even lost a mulleted fixture of car commercials.  Many were giving up on the OU football team for the next few years and could just picture Mack Brown laughing down in Austin.  It was a sad sight.

In stepped a red shirt freshman quarterback, the next year, that would hopefully be able to at least carry the team while they figured things out.  After all the next 3 to 4 years had been put on Rhett’s right arm.  Not only did this red shirt freshman “at least” carry the team, he led them to a Big 12 title and a BCS bowl game.  Things were looking up.  The pain that Rhett and Big Red Sports and Imports left in peoples hearts was beginning to fade.

This year while Rhett was down enjoying Sam Houston State University, visions of National Championships danced in Sooners’ heads.  This year Sam Bradford was the man and all of Sooner Nation was relying on his right arm.  He did not let us down.  Through smart thinking and laser locked throws, Sam Bradford took the Heisman trophy from two other quarterbacks and the Sooners are going back to play in the National Championship.  It’s funny how Heisman trophy’s, Big 12 Championships, and playing in the National Championship game can heal wounds.

That is why I would like to say Thank you Big Red Sports and Imports.  I know you had this in your master plans the whole time.  A sort of cleaning house, if you will.  Who are we to question your judgement on which college players you want to pay and who you don’t.  You had us in mind the whole time.  We are sorry for getting mad at you and calling you names.  We really didn’t mean it.  We will now put you back on our list of places we can purchase cars from.  We just have one little request though.  Please stay away from Sam Bradford at least for a little bit longer. Okay? Deal.

When the pairing of Netflix instant queue and the the new Xbox 360 dashboard was announced, I was more then a little excited.  I have never had the Netflix subscription service, though I did subscribe to the Blockbuster plan which I thoroughly enjoyed, so I knew what to expect.  Since I already had an Xbox 360, all I needed was the Netflix account.

This morning I hopped on the 360 to see if the new dashboard, sometimes called the New Xbox Experience, or NXE, was available for me to download.  When I booted up it asked if I wanted to do a system update, just like I wanted it to.  I clicked yes and around 5 minutes later I was all set.  I also because a statistic because I signed up for Netflix today, after the update.  I’m sure this will be a closely watched metric for them.

There are many new enhancements with the NXE, but the feature I was most interested in is the new Netflix Instant Queue.   The instant queue allows you to watch movies, TV shows, and documentaries instantly on your TV through your Xbox 360.

So far my experience with the Netflix instant queue has been great.  While I was in the other room adding movies and TV shows through the Netflix website, my 4 year old was in the living room watching all of them pop up on screen and was excited each time one popped up for him.  Adding them to your instant queue is super easy and quickly done.  The selection is quite a bit smaller then the full Netflix library, but there are many quality movies and TV Shows available to watch instantly.

Tonight I fired up the ol’ Xbox 360 and was all set to watch Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.  If you have not closed down the article after reading that last sentence thank you.  After a short 10 to 15 second quality check on my connection I was greeted with a status bar that looked like it was loading up.  After waiting the 10 seconds for it to buffer, it was Pee Wee time.  And there I was, watching Pee Wee Herman in near DVD quality streaming from Netflix to my 360 and onto my TV.  I thought to myself, this is just the beginning of a beautiful relationship

The updated Google Mobile iPhone app with voice search is out now and is a great little tool for on the go searching.  The best part is the voice search feature.  I searched for a few things and it seemed to work out well for me.  I’ll admit I was in a quiet place where noise was not a factor.  I’m sure the results in a noisy place could be quite different.

For my first search, I said “I used to be cooler.”  What it heard was “It is to be cooler.”  Not exactly what I wanted, but still there are probably some cool results for that.  The next time I spoke very clearly and pronounced every word as if someone was trying to read my lips.  This time after the little robot voice bee bops while searching, it found exactly what it was supposed to.  It heard me correctly this time.

For the next voice test I said Maegan Cook, which sounds a lot like Megan Cook, so when it heard me it recognized what I said as Megan Cook.  The Maegan Cook I was searching for is known for all of her zany YouTube video’s so I thought that might help the results show Maegan instead of Megan.  Instead I got Megan Cook who as of right now is not a YouTube star.  Megan is the way most people spell that name, so I was not surprized.  I searched Maegan Cook one more time emphasizing the May sound but it still found Megan Cook.

Just for funzys I searched “Ahhhh Yeahhhhh.”  In the rap scene this phrase is usually followed by “boyyyyyy.”  I decided not to say the last part and keep it the elongated two words.  Try as it may, it errored out, told me “Didn’t get that.”, and was not able to find this urban dictionary words in the search.  I was not disappointed, though Google just lost a little street cred with me.

Over all I am pleased with the voice search feature and think this will come in handy for on-the-go searching when my hands are tied up with other things or driving.  It is worth the free download.

A friend at work has been raving about a program called SugarSync, the online storage and sharing program for all of your computers.  SugarSync allows you to back up your home, work and laptop computer all through their manager.  This is a nice feature to have all of your files protected in the “cloud.”  Sugarsync takes this technology a step further by syncing all of the computers and on top of that being able to access your files from any of your computers through an SSL protected website.

Just those features would make it a great program to use, but it doesn’t stop there.  They turned the awesome up to 11 by offering mobile access as well as a free iPhone app.  You can download files from your computers to you iPhone through the nice little app.  Another great feature is being able to open the files on your iPhone.  

Let’s take a step back here and go over all that again in one sentence.  You can backup and sync files between all of your computers and be able to access them on you iPhone.  This sounds like one of the most convinenent things around and it is.  I have not currently been at a place where I say, “You know.  I sure wish I had that recipe off of my computer.”  The bad part is that I don’t have any recipes on my computer so that would be useless, but the good thing is that if did I would be saved.

I’m still in the early stages of using it, but I really like the SugarSync manager and the iPhone app is great.  The newest feature where you can stream your music from your SugarSync back up to any other computer or iPhone.  I want to dive deeper into this feature.  I will have more feedback and update this post when I have spent more time with it.

Two websites with similar goals have just been released to the public.  The sites http://www.ivoteddemocrat.com and http://www.ivotedrepublican.com are their to sell you t-shirts when your words just don’t say what you need them to.  The great part about the sites is they are not tied to a particular candidate and/or year.  In talking with the creator of the site he said, “The great thing is that if either party slips up or does something good, we will be their with a t-shirt for it.”

I Voted Republican

I Voted Democrat

Today at 5pm CST the Oklahoma City will have the name of their new team officially announced.  Too bad I just announced it early.  In this picture from the NBA Store shows what the new logo will look like.  Like me you are probably saying “Surely this is for the non-existent WNBA team or is there to throw people off of the real logo design.”

Because of the few slip ups that have happened on the NBA.com website and pictures that have been circulating it looks like Thunder is the name and this is the logo that will be used.  It is all the rage to have a new logo to sell more merchandise, so hopefully this one will only be around for a few years and then they can get another one done.  I hope the drafts of other logos that were discarded because of this one are never released because I will probably like those a lot more.

I am hopefull that the jerseys will make up for the bad logo.  I really want to like this logo.  I just can’t.  Anyone else have these same feelings?

Posted at Global Notions

The unthinkable happened yesterday at the National Stadium and hundreds of millions of Chinese fans across the country were finally brought back to reality during what has been an Olympics marked by national celebration.  Not only has China clearly dominated the individual sports (minus swimming) which has provided them an insurmountable lead in the gold medal race, but the Games themselves have been an overwhelming success to both their national and international audiences.  Air quality is great, volunteers are perfect, no spitting, no pushing, taxis are clean, food is splendid, venues are spectacular, no protests, greatest Olympics ever, the last iconic Olympics; all comments one can read in the news or hear in the streets around Beijing and throughout the world.  Yet, in the midst of all the good, China’s sport’s god will not be performing miracles this Olympics.

Liu Xiang had the weight of a nation on his shoulders leading up to the Beijing Olympics.  I posted this advertisement that has been running in China all summer as a reminder of the heights one can rise to (or be thrust to) in the rapidly modernizing, individualizing China.  At the end, the viewer sees a Chinese athlete being lifted by the nation to the top pedestal of a medal stand.  The athlete remains faceless, yet there should be no doubt.  He is Liu Xiang, China’s famous hurdler, a national hero.  If you watch the advertisement again, you might notice that the first three athletes all play in team sports (basketball, soccer and volleyball) and that the nation is helping them only to perform various skills required by their sport.  However, the country is lifting Liu Xiang, an individual, to the gold medal pedestal.  This is a powerful image in a country where rapid social change is the norm.

During an interview after Liu Xiang failed to run his preliminary race, a journalist asked why the public had not been warned about the chances of Liu Xiang not being able to compete.  His coach replied that they never had doubts.  While I find this hard to believe, it is indicative of a society that is beginning to accept individual success as THE true measure of success.  Liu Xiang had been hurt most of the running season with a hamstring injury and it’s highly unlikely his Achilles problem suddenly appeared the day of his race.  Yet the general population was allowed to continue to place the hopes and dreams of a nation on an individual athlete, despite reality.  When his body failed, and thus him in relation to the Olympics, it is not surprising that one would see a national outpouring of sorrow and disappointment.