Tron Touring

A little update from the road coming up here. My annual vacation is a cycling trip with my son. We started this Monday and are traversing the south of Germany lengthwise, heading towards Lake Constance.

FaceTime Family

My mom’s mobile phone had finally thrown in the towel.
A week ago here in Germany, the Deutsche Telekom had lost exclusivity for selling the iPhone 4. They now can be bought on contract from Vodafone and O2 and without net- or provider-lock from many other sources.
After the last Apple keynote, FaceTime for Mac had come out in beta form.
Need I say more?

This is bizarre!

Freakishly Good HDR, from a Phone!

My Desk at Night, iOS 4.1 in-camera HDR

Updated, more photo examples after the jump!

I’m mostly unimpressed with what was announced at yesterday’s Apple Music Event. Still prefer my 80 GB Clickwheel iPod, it’s a design classic now. Feeling no need to rent TV crap and get it streamed to an AppleTV. iTunes morphed into a textbook example of creeping featuritis with “Ping”. “Let’s graft a social network on it” seems to be the motto of this update. Can’t be good for stability. And I’m still a bit miffed that they overloaded the name of a network utility. Now even less people are going to understand you if you tell them “Wait, I’m going to ping your mailserver for you.”
The one improvement announced yesterday is the iOS 4.1 update.

Hello, iPhone!

Phew, it runs!

“Head First iPhone Development” was a bit *over* my head

iOS vs. Android, Round One

One for the In-Crowd, one for the IT Crowd

For development purposes, I got a HTC Legend smartphone running Android 2.1. Setup and the first days of using it provided interesting comparisons to my iPhone 4 (iOS 4.01)

Less Desktop Clutter

Diminutive Wireless Keyboard plus Tragic MacPad

Coercing myself into using these wireless input devices. Like the optics, usability remains to be seen.
Now, how about some wireless synching for iP* devices, Apple? Wireless mains?
Yours truly, enjoying a tingling sense of EMI (electromagnetic interference).
Updated,

Droid Unboxing and Setup

Looking Good amongst it's iOS Competitiors

Amazon was fast again, and my son got his Samsung Galaxy S Android phone yesterday. You know how they say “Imitation is the purest form of flattery”?

One Infinite Loop

iPhone 3G Hanging in the Boot Process

What do you get if you mix the dev team, a weary 2-year-old iPhone 3G, lagging Apple unlock servers and a juvenile with an overly trigger-happy reset finger? Well, see above.

Samiel, Help Me!

Weber's Freischuetz at the Eutin Summer Festival

Picture made with iPhone 4, after a slight noise reduction in Photoshop entirely web-useable, don’t you think?

A Changing of the Mobile Guard

From the Department of Unashamed Fanboyism

All enthusiasm aside, there are things you can’t do on an iPad or an iPhone on a mobile basis. Coding for one. Cory Doctorow is right, you know. If you’re a maker, you”ll find yourself hemmed and hindered by the character of these devices and their ecosystem.