WhyNottMe?

My iPad concept

Sunday, December 18th, 2011 | Rants | No Comments

Apple’s iPad has changed the way we view mobile computing.  It is loved by large and small companies and organizations.  Business men, grandmas, infints, and according to youtube, even cats enjoy the brilliant design and smooth interface.  it’s intuitive (yes the famous apple word).

the iPad as it sits right now, price and functionality, is not what I’d deem worth my money.

it’s an excellent tool, but I can’t use it without thinking, I wish there were a few differences.  The screen and camera need to have better resolution and pixel density.  But where it’s really lacking, is audio.

I understand for really good sound you should use headphones, but what about people viewing videos with the kids, or skyping with others around.  Or what about just using it in the privacy of their own home.

Having the speaker blasting away from you is stupid and inefficient.  in order to hear it better you need to cup your hand around it or blast it at everyone and everything infront of you before the sound reaches the viewers ears.

internally the speaker location is here.

and let me tell you, it’s small.

Just earlier today i was playing around with an ipad and I had an idea for the audio.  Now if they were to use Open air speakers, you’d be able to get better sound and cool the processor at the same time.  If they were to perforate the sides where I’ve circled.

they could put 2 speakers on each side with a corresponding air vent on the opposite side that woud run over a heat sink connected to the processor.

To insure the best sound you would need to have 4 speakers so you don’t cover them up while gripping it.  Just like the screen, the speakers polarity would be effected by the accelerometer.  in the photo shown above the top and bottom left would play the left audio channel, while the right the right, but when flipped to portrait, the red circles would be isync just as the blue would be.

In my opinion, Audio is a major factor in the experience.  DAC’s have been getting better and better and smaller and smaller.  my iPhone 4s has the best DAC of any of my apple products.  There is so little hiss as compared to my laptop, it’s amazing!

I know this a lowly blog, but I just like to post my ideas somewhere.  let me know what you guys think.

iOS I’d like to see.

Thursday, December 15th, 2011 | Rants | No Comments

I love my iPhone. It does everything I need it to. That being said, the world keeps spinning. We have new advances every second. No I don’t want an android. I understand they get a lot of new stuff first, but regardless of what the package says, it’s all beta and almost always flawed. What I’m referring to at are little upgrades I’d like to see. First one, this one is almost a must for me. I call it “on deck” processing.
For those of you who use any streaming service, Netflix, spotify, of a number of games that have to make a call to a server, you know that loading screen?

I don’t want every app that’s open to be using processing power, but the newest 2-3 would be nice. Maybe it’s my lack of patients, or maybe my short attention span, but I’d like to be able to queue up my Netflix while I check my email or send a text. And if I get an email/text during the show, I’ll pause it if I want to. Odds are however that I’ll let the video keep playing while I respond.
One other thing is like to have different takes place on this screen.

Clearly it does show my recent texts, but if I want to respond I have to open up my text messenger. I’d like to be able to just respond there. No more of this quitting one app to text.
Also I’d like to see an email feed similar to the stock display. Not the viewed ones just the new ones.
The last major update I’d like to see involves Siri. Siri is not completely there just yet. It bugs me that apple released a “major” function and selling point that’s still a beta. That’s the exact reason I don’t want to own an android device. However Siri is awesome. I love it. Yes it screws up my commands sometimes, no it can’t do everything I ask of it, and that’s what I’d like to see changed. I’m sure it’ll happen but I’d like Siri to be able to access my Facebook status, twitter, google+, and my rss feeds.
Even with all this, I am very satisfied with my phone. It’s better than any other phone out there (sorry overly zealous android fan boys). If you don’t believe me that the iPhone is the best, why else does everyone compare their phones to the iPhone. Samsung being the worst. I hear complaints that the iPhone isnt 4g, clock speeds show little to no difference from 3G to 4g. And 4g networks haven’t proven to be as stable as 3G.  All things aside, iPhone is the industry standard and has been since the release of the first generation phone.
One last thing before I place my last period. I’ve re enabled comments on my blog. So feel free to do so.

Tech turn off

Sunday, December 11th, 2011 | Rants | No Comments

As many of you know, I am a very active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints.  My wife and I  attend church weekly.  We are primary teachers.  For those of you who don’t know much about the LDS church, Primary is the sunday school classes for children ages 12 and younger.

We, the teachers, are given manuals filled with lesson plans and activities for teaching about Christ’s church and teaching to the children.  Along with the manual, we have pictures we show, scriptures we reference, talks we quote, and songs we sing.  That’s a lot of books to carry.  So, what do I use, that’s right, my iPhone.  In our primary class we have one student who even brings an iPod touch to class and uses that for his scriptures.  I encourage it.  We have a reward system for those who remember to bring their scriptures and one time he was not rewarded for having his iTouch because it wasn’t charged.

Well, after class we have a reunion of half the primary classes for one final class of the day.  (the other half meets before us.  there are a lot of kids in primary.)  Today we had a scripture chase game.  that’s where a reference is given and the children have to look it up, the first one to get it wins.  The primary president excluded those that had been using mobile devices for scriptures.

I understand that older generations have a hard time seeing technology as anything but a toy, and that women (typically) have a hard time accepting that as well, and maybe that’s what we were seeing today, but it seemed to juvenile of her to just exclude them.

This world isn’t traveling in a direction of continued paper use.  We are moving away from our books and pulling out our mobile devices, e-readers, laptops, and tablets to information and entertainment.  on my phone I can carry hundreds of pounds of information in my small 4.9 oz device.  It’s convenient, easier to use, more compact, and frankly, smarter to use these devices than to carry books.

I’m not banishing books to the darkest corners.  I have a hard time believing books will stop existing, but I do have a hard time believe you’ll see books on the go as much, and possibly at some point, never again.  We’re moving fast to a mobile information planet.  Accept that.  it’s not sacrilegious, it’s not offensive, it’s not even a personal insult, it’s brilliant!  Every child in primary could have one, it would have all their scriptures, hymns, friend magazines (a religious publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later day Saints), and other little helps in class.  It’s an enabling tool, opening up a world of information to you with just a swipe of your finger tips.

So, you older generations who despise the ease ability of our new technology, try it out, adapt it, and see why we prefer to carry an iphone in our pocket than 15 books under our arm!

And the tables turn

Friday, December 9th, 2011 | Rants | No Comments

For those of you’ve been reading my blog or any tech news know about the hp touchpad and more importantly, webOS. Hp has announced that the operating system webOS will be released as open source. This is great news for everyone, except google. That means there are 2 major open source mobile operating systems on the market. No this is not the death of anything. It’s merely more competition which, in my opinion, is a great thing. Competition sparks innovation and price cuts.
Who knows, maybe this means someone else might bring a tablet to the table that’s a real contender with the iPad. Android fanboys will tell you that anything is better than the iPad, but theyre wrong. The fact is, no one has made a tablet that could replace the iPad. Sure it might have a better camera, or 3d camera (which feels like a retro fit from the late 70s to me) or stereo speakers, but one aspect that is regularly over looked is battery life. Why would you want a mobile device that only lasts 3 hours? It’s mobile and for 8-10 hours of the day so is the average joe, joes toys should hold out at least that long. I’m no iPad fanboy, if you want to talk about it I’ll tell you right off the bat, it feels like a beta device to me. Not really ready to buy just yet. Yes it’s cool, yes it’s useful, but the low res screen and cameras are a huge turn off for me. If you offer me a free one or one at a huge discounted price, sure I’d go for it, but I wouldn’t spend the full price on it. That being said I feel the android tablets are worth far less as well.
Maybe this webOS will inspire ios and android much like Linux has done for windows and osx. Maybe ios will allow more app to os integration, and maybe android won’t shove integration down our throats as much. Although I may never own a webOS device, and I’m not bothered by that fact, I’m excited to have another major mobile os on the market.

Who have you listened to?

Monday, November 14th, 2011 | Rants | No Comments

Throughout my life I’ve jumped from one band to another. I feel that I’m very well rounded when it comes to music. I can listen to radio head for hours, jump to the del Vikings, switch over to some iyaz, and sing along to mc hammer. However there seems to almost always be that one artist that you can call “home.” that one artist you feel a close connection to. For me, and I know some may call this sad, its weird al. Yeah he’s goofy and I’ve heard arguments that he’s not a true artist, but none of that matters to me. He’s amazingly talented and very witty. Those who have worked with him, and have written about him, seem to only have good things to say about him. His whole idea of music is to make the user smile, and for me, it works. He’s not self righteous, preachy or political. He’s a huge hit at meat festivals despite him being a vegetarian. He lives his life separate from his career. Artists like him are few and far between. And for me, he’s my “home” artist.

Boring music

Saturday, November 12th, 2011 | Rants | No Comments

Those who know me, know that I’m very opinionated especially when it comes to media. With my new iPhone 4s I noticed the amp on this thing is so crisp and clear, far clearer than any of my other toys. So I started listening to song after song on here with my akg’s. I’m learning lots of artists don’t make music for hi-fidelity listeners. But others have proven to have hidden experiences for those with better equipment. A few that I can name that are a completely new experience have been, “replay” by iyaz, Bon jovi, radio head, sunfall festival. A few that surprise me with their lack there of were, led zeppelin, killers, and jewel. In fact jewels songs have way too much room noise. Obviously there are some that I swear don’t think of any other audio source other than 10 dollar ear buds and stock car stereos. Which were, cascada and ke$ha. I have nothing against any of these artists, they just lack a secret portion of the song meant only for those who really care to listen.

Audio

Saturday, November 5th, 2011 | Rants | No Comments

I love these headphones. I can hear sounds and parts in songs that other cans have left silent. Also I love the look and feel. In my mind these are the perfect listening devices for the price. The one problem is that I can also hear imperfections in songs, tv shows, and movies. It can be annoying. Anything from the loop of the room noise that was added later to off camera sneezes. In an imperfect world, these perfect cans pick out those flaws.

Ryan Russon Never posts on his blog

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 | Rants | No Comments

all of you who think he should post something, really anything, please comment on this!

Warranty?

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 | Rants | No Comments

So I had some car issues.  a few things had broken or come loose.  so I did what a good client should do and I called a head of time to set an appointment for me to drop off my car.  

so 9 am rolls around and It’s time for me to drop off my car.  I informed the dealership that i had class that night and needed it back.  He re-assured me that the car would be done in the early afternoon.  

Also, all the problems were covered under my warranty except an oil change.

well 3 rolls around and I decided to call up and ask how far along my car is.  the man on the other side tells me they haven’t even looked at it yet.  I reminded him that the appointment was at 9 am.  he said they were busy.  mind you there were 2 other cars there besides mine.  and mine was supposed to be the first one in. 

I show up at 4:30 and wind up having to wait till 6:30 till they’re done.  also, they decided some of my repairs were not covered under the warranty.  

this was the tire well.  they said that if it breaks loose they’ll cover it but if it grinds against my tire they won’t any more.  

wow, so $200 dollars later I leave the dealership only to find the tire well was not put on properly.  it’s missing screws and was folded, yes folded, at the base of the front.  

a phone call to them this morning reveled that i can set an appointment to bring it in some other time.

se habla English?

Thursday, September 4th, 2008 | Rants | No Comments

Now just so everyone knows,  I’m very much in favor of allowing imigrants from different countries into the U.S.  I think we’re a very blessed country and we should share our blessings with others. 

However I have 2 requirments.

1: no laws are broken in your passage from there to here.

2: You need to learn English. 

2.5 if you’re currently learning english don’t work in a place where I would have to trust you with my financial transactions.

I recently (about 5 min ago) had an experience that was frustrating and annoying.  I went to pay my school fees and found an asian woman behind the counter.

“hi I’d like to pay my school fees.”

“you pay your what?”

(mind you this is her only job is to take school fees)

“I need to pay for my classes!”

“oh ok.  what student number?”

“I have my ssn.”

“ok,  you tell me ssn”

(I did)

“ok you pay all?”

“no I’m set up for the payment plan.”

“ok you pay half now.”

“no I should only have to pay 1/4 of my payment.”

“yes yes, you pay half now.”

“no I’m already set up, it should only be this much.”

“yes yes, you pay half now.”

“is there someone else I could talk to?”

“I talk you.  you pay half now?”

“um, no, um,  what days do you work here?”

“I work wed, thru, firday.”

“so you don’t work here tuesday?”

“no, no, you pay half now?”

“no thank you.  I’ll be back tuesday.”