I guess I was hoping to be surprised, for something a bit more. But it turns out to be just the BFG version of the iPod Touch. Is Apple doing a Nintendo now?

Apple iPad; WiFi top, WiFi + 3G bottom (from Apple’s gallery)

But to call it just a giant iPod Touch is skimming over the details. The 10″ capacitive touch and IPS panel are very drool-worthy. But for all its strengths, the 1024×768 resolution is really disappointing. Couldn’t it at least be 720p capable? So no native HD movies. Plus the 4:3 resolution will mean that 16:9 videos, which happens to be the majority of videos these days, even youtube videos, would either have black bars at the top and bottom, or cropped sides. The size is also akin to other ebook readers there, so naturally, Apple created a native app just for that, called iBooks. We now just have to wonder how long the Kindle, Stanza and other ebook reader apps could survive in the App Store before the ban-hammer comes.

The lack of multitasking is a bummer. For a tablet device, one which I envision I would play around on the couch or outside, it would at least allow multiple apps to run. For a superior surfing experience, flash is a given. Video and flash-gaming sites are ultimate time-wasters. It would be perfect on the device. Sadly, it’s a no go. At least for now.

The iPad also demonstrates how much of a control-freak Apple can be. The iPhone app has already shown us how much of a control freak Apple can be. You use it the way Apple wants you to use it. You install apps only if Apple approves it. You don’t see the underlying bread crumbs but the sweet happy icing at the top. The iPhone started it. The iPad propagates. Will the next generations of MacBooks have some sort of App Store for desktop software? What if you can only install software through iTunes in OSX? “Sorry, VLC is rejected because it copies existing functionality. Please use Quicktime instead.” Is the future Apple envision something which it can assert control over your personal computing?

Really? (from Engadget live blog)

I have to ask the question: is it really like that? I would envision something else:

Right now, I use 3 different devices for 3 different purposes altogether. I have my desktop as a gaming PC and all-round workhorse; my MacBook, for those times I want to watch a movie or surf while lying in bed or on the couch, or when I feel like sitting at the library or Starbucks; and my iPhone as the all-in-one portable device that fits into my pocket. So far, these three serve different purposes and their functionality usually supercedes the other: iPhone < MacBook < Desktop. I can't see the iPad being anywhere in that equation inequality.

Is it really? (from Engadget live blog)

Magical? Revolutionary? I’m a bit underwhelmed after reading how the iPad turns out. But first versions of Apple products tend to be like that. I probably have to wait for a few iterations before the iPad becomes actually appealing.

Not my invite.

All over the interwebz, the major blogs are showing off their respective invites to the next Apple event. I have always said that Apple’s marketing is good, and I think the cryptic message really tugs the heart-strings of the Apple faithful. Seems like it’s giving a huge hint that Apple has something new to dish out, not a rehash, not a refresh, not an upgrade, but a totally new product. Version numero uno. Of course, all rumours point to some sort of tablet device. Here’s what I hope the fabled tablet to be.

Secondary PC For Web Surfing

Most netbooks today suck. Make no mistake about it. They’re cute but just too small for actual work. The Atom CPU is sufficient, but the keyboard and screen real estate is a big tradeoff. As such, they are usually relegated to being nice portable machines for surfing on-the-go. That’s what I used my Dell Mini 9 for previously when I had it. Nice to play around with, try out different operating systems and surfing at Starbucks or MacDonald’s, but the keyboard and screen is too huge a compromise. Apple’s take on the netbook phenomena is probably this tablet. Use the tablet for surfing on-the-go while you’re out. It would be great if it had a SIM card slot for native 3G data. That would really be internet everywhere.

Input would be crucial. How could one enter google searches? Voice is nice, but not practical in my opinion. Try playing a NDS game outside and feel the shame when it asks you for voice input. I would expect some sort of on-screen keyboard but I wouldn’t be surprised if it has some sort of funky input, like handwriting recognition. The iPhone has showed us that an on-screen keyboard is indeed feasable. Why not handwriting recognition?

A tablet would also be too large to hold while surfing. One hand to hold, while the other makes inputs will give me carpal tunnel fast. Maybe the tablet could have some sort of stand to tilt it, and effectively its screen, while it is on the table, much like what a keyboard has. Of course, the tilt shouldn’t be too high, as inputs would push it backwards on the table.

An accelerometer is a given, since the tablet will need to know how to align itself automatically as the user holds it. A software switch to turn this off would be a nice feature as well. I hate the screen rotating while I’m surfing or gaming on my iPhone while lying in bed.

Secondary Monitor

Like the 27″ iMac, the tablet would make a nice secondary monitor as well. A sub-10″ additional screen is nice enough to complement my MacBook on the table. An stand accessory would be necessary in this case, probably adjustable to tilt it while on the table, like I described above. Why would I want this? Well, because something like the Mimo Monitors looks very cool.

Image from TUAW.

A small secondary window where I can place my IM chats, youtube video or iTunes while I work on my main is nice and provides an uninterrupted view of my main desktop. One can never have enough screen real estate anyway.

Touch Gaming Console

The iPhone and it’s radio-handicapped cousin, the iPod Touch, has surprised everyone as how good touch-screen gaming can be. Games are one of the App Store’s most popular category, and most of its top-grossing apps are games. The iPod Touch is also marketed towards gaming, so naturally, the tablet would be marketed as such as well. Too add fuel to the fire, I don’t really recall reading Kotaku ever scoring an invite to an Apple event before.

E-Book Reader

One of the earlier rumours suggested that Apple approached several publications. The tablet would be a natural fit as a reading device. However, it’s hard to imagine reading full novels on the tablet, unless Apple can put it into some sort of low-power mode to extend the battery life. And e-zines? Didn’t those died when broadband became affordable? Apple will probably conjure up something here that my simple mind can’t yet fathom.

Besides the four functions I mentioned, is there any other functionality that we don’t need right now but require immediately the moment Steve Jobs announces something?

Oh, and one more thing…

Of course, just like any other Apple product, I fully expect this first one to suck. Make no mistake about it. It will be undeniably cool, but its defects could possibly be a dealbreaker. Maybe in terms of performance, or battery life. Or perhaps even the screen, like the latest iMac 27″. It took 3 iterations of the iPhone and 3 generations of the software for me to be truly satisfied with it. My earlier experiences with the iPhone 3G wasn’t as good. It was crashy and laggy, and graphically intensive games would either crash or stutter. Only after switching to the iPhone 3GS with the 3.1.2 iPhone OS does it truly rock.

Image taken from some site found using Google Images.

There have a multitude of e-book readers, or e-readers, in the market today. Most notably is, of course, the Kindle by Amazon.com, probably because it came from one of the enormous-est online retailers. Besides this, there are other e-readers as well, both niche and open, like Foxit’s, Sony’s and the Nook from Barnes & Noble. Currently, all of this employ the same technology for displaying text: e-ink. Only available in black-and-white, e-ink is useful for this purpose for two reasons: supposedly readable in all lighting conditions and its extremely low power requirements, only requiring power to change. Thus, among gadgets with which we are used to having battery life in terms of hours, e-readers stand out by having battery life in terms of days. e-ink technology is also sufficient as reading text does not require any sort of animation, except when “turning the page” of the e-book.

I’m quite the gadget nerd. So why is it not appealing to me?

Before I was e-crazy, and long before I even have some sort of income to supplement my gadget lust, I was a bookworm. And in some ways, I still am. I grew up on Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Franklin Dixon, Archie comics, and, if you remember, The Bookworm Gang. I lapped up stories on the Famous Five, the Hardy Boys, the Wishing Chair and the Faraway Tree. My family wasn’t well off enough to buy all the books that I crave, except for a subsidised subscription to the Bookworm Gang, so the library card became my salvation. I have lots of cherishes glimpses of the library from my memories. Even now, going to the library is also fun, albeit for different reasons. I also love frequenting second-hand bookstores or used book sales, to grab old Archie comics or other books on the cheap. They may be torn and dog-eared, but somehow it adds a bit of character to it, like it has gone on some fantastical journey before reaching my hands. Poor aesthetics can never take away the joy of turning the page to devour its content.

Seeing, holding, turning the paper of an actual book. Smelling it. These are the properties that can never be digitized (unless maybe if this happens). Sure, not everyone indulges in books this way. Some prefer to just consume the content; how it is consumed is entirely irrelevant. I went to a book store with a friend once, and on impulse, I purchased Wolverine: Weapon X. He actually chided me, asking why I would spend over $30 buying a comic. If I wanted, he has a lot of comics on his harddrive that he could have passed on to me. But the feel of holding an A4-sized hardcover is totally different from the digital format.

However, I do recognise that some books would be more useful as e-books. Textbooks, for example, would benefit as one would be able to annotate and take notes on the e-textbook. These notes can then be indexed and searched. They can also be uploaded and shared over a network. One can organize these notes into whatever format is desired, for easy reference and collaboration, probably sync’ed using Evernote or even Microsoft OneNote. Textbooks are also typically heavy to carry around. I know. My university textbooks never leave my hostel room. In digital format, physical limitations is completely irrelevant, replaced by storage limitations instead. But since flash memory is super-cheap now, if an e-reader can accept additional storage devices, or have loads of storage built-in, this would again be a moot point. E-readers are definitely useful in that regard.

DRM is another fiasco one will have to contend with. After Amazon demonstrated its ability to Force Wipe one’s purchased e-books, my waning lust for an e-reader dimmed even more. What if a representative from Borders breaks into your house to take away that copy you’ve bought? I’ve already tolerated buying digitally-distributed games on proprietary platforms. I don’t want a book to go the same way. I don’t want a Steam-like error message, stating “servers are too busy, please read the book later”. I still haven’t found an easier method to purchase DRM-free music, relying on a friend in the US to email me Apple gift certs so I can purchase them from iTunes. It took a long time for music to go DRM-free. How long will it be for e-books? Will it ever?

For now, I am unconvinced of the merits of an e-book reader. All the models look unimpressive to me. With rumours of an impending tablet-like device, could Apple sway me? Hmm…

Specs:

• Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz
• Intel GMA 950
• 1GB DDR2-533 RAM
• 8GB SSD (mini pci-e)
• 8.9″ (1024×600) LED backlit screen
• 1 RJ45 10/100 ethernet
• 802.11b/g Wi-Fi
• 4-in-1 Media card reader
• 3 USB ports
• 1.3 MP integrated webcam
• 4-cell 32Wh Li-ion battery
• Windows XP SP3

My very first impression: this thing is damn small and light! It’s really just for portability. Of course, the initial boot-up is slow, with all the crappy Dell and trial software that’s in there. The geek in me was screaming to reformat and reinstall Windows XP, but not without trying out other stuff first.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix is a pretty cool OS. It’s a twist of the very popular distro Ubuntu. The UI has been optimized for the limited real estate screen of a netbook. It’s also very snappy and fast on the Dell Mini 9, and the OS boots under a minute. Of course, the only reason I’m not staying with it, is because I’m lazy to get my games to work under Wine.

So it’s back to Windows XP for me. I tried to nLite my copy, but somehow, there always seems to be hiccups after I installed it. Some random service, like the Logical Disk Manager, won’t start, even though all I did was take out the languages. Sigh.

Doing all those, it gave me quite a good impression on the capabilities of this netbook. The Intel Atom processor will certainly not receive any performance crowns. It is a pretty slow CPU, so I will need to be extra patient with it. The solid state drive is relatively fast, especially when booting up, as seek time for a SSD is on a totally different scale altogether than a mechanical hard disk. However, reading and writing data feels a tad slower than usual, so probably it is not as fast as it should be. The amount of storage could also pose a problem. After install XP and drivers, I’m left with about 3.5GB of data. I have expanded it by slotting in my 16GB SD card, but still I am not confident of running programs off an SD card, since it will be much worse. I am seriously considering upgrading the storage, though it will cost an arm and 2 toes.

The touchpad is also somewhat OK for normal usage. It is sensitive enough, and I can tolerate it even if it is small. However, what I don’t like about it is how near the spacebar is to the touchpad, and the fact that there is no barrier between them. Thus, at the beginning, whenever I press the spacebar, I will sometimes hit the touchpad, causing it to unintentionally click somewhere else. Solution: time for me to get a mouse, specifically this portable mouse (Yes, I am a sucker for high end peripherals).

This brings me to the keyboard. Like everything else, the thing is small, but what is good is the letter keys are big enough. However, the extra keys, like Tab, Delete, arrow keys, etc, needs to be diminished in order to accommodate the bigger letter keys. I guess I can’t complain much, since keyboards are relative, and after extended use, I will most probably get used to it, and will be able to touch type as fast as I do on my work laptop and home PC.

Overall, it does get some getting used to. After each use, I find that I am loving it more and more, despite it’s smallness. It’s just too cute. If your computing needs (or in my case, wants) are not terribly high, a netbook could serve your purposes well. Just plug in a monitor and external peripherals for home use, and unplug when you bring it out.

The Dell Mini 9, at 1.2kg, will definitely be in my bag, if I bring one, each time I go out. Heck, it’s small enough to be put into my wife’s handbag (though I don’t think she will want to keep carrying it for me)! I think the most useful feature of a netbook is the fact that it is so light, you wouldn’t even notice the weight.

I guess I’m quite pleased with it. Now I can play my GOG games, old DOS games and emulators on the go! For the price I paid, it is pretty much worth every cent. I am not so sure I’ll feel this way if I had paid retail for it though.

I managed to find a PDF guide to configure the iPhone manually when I went to Singtel’s page, clicked on IDEAS, then Configure your phone. The catch here is that the settings are meant for internet access, not MMS, but somehow it seems to work.

The username/password of the default setting was incorrectly set, it seems, to 65ideas for some reason. I removed them, or essentially setting them to blank. The other details should be auto-filled. Now I can finally send/receive pictures!

However, I still feel that Apple do not fully grasp the meaning of MMS, or Multimedia Messaging Service. Not Picture or Image, but Multimedia. Why can’t I send someone video or sound? Maybe the 3GS can send/receive video, but I doubt that. Hopefully, Apple will extend the application.

Johnny Lee become famous for his youtube video on turning Nintendo Wii remote controller into a head-tracking device. Apparently, that one video sealed his reputation for making incredible innovative devices out of everyday objects, which you can see via his project blog.

Apparently, the original idea of head tracking is attracting some very big attention from very big game companies (or rather, big companies with gaming divisions).

Johnny Lee today introduced Project Natal on his project blog. It seems to me like a 3D camera with tracking capabilities. There is a public video demo of this, but of course, since it is a demo video, I doubt that the final product will be this seamless.

One thing that bothered me though.

The human tracking algorithms that the teams have developed are well ahead of the state of the art in computer vision research. The sophistication and performance of the algorithms rival or exceed anything that I’ve seen in academic research, never mind a consumer product.

Like what a commenter had said, I hope that Microsoft will allow the researchers to publish a paper for the scientific community. If the algorithms is really that good, then there will be definitely be more uses for in other areas as well, not just for entertainment.

However, all doubts aside, that is one unbelievably cool product if it ever goes to market. And if that really does happen, can we finally have a good Star Wars game where I can wield a lightsaber properly for once?

I was scouting around for an LCD TV for my love nest bedroom and after a few days of scouting, I immediately fell in love with this: a Panasonic Viera TX-32LX800M.

The price was a nice S$799. A tad high for a 32-incher with a 1,366 x 768 resolution; even the salesman at Best Denki was asking me why i chose this particular model as there are cheaper ones around. I replied that I like the marketed feature set.

• 100Hz Motion Picture Pro
• IPS Alpha Panel
• 10,000:1 High Contrast with Intelligent Scene Controller

(useless to crow about)

• 24p Playback
• VIERA Link and SD Card Slot

The main draws were the 100Hz and the IPS Alpha panel. Most 100Hz LCD TVs are definitely in a higher price range than this. Sony’s were above S$1k, which was too much for me to spend on. And those were not even 1080p-capable. A 100Hz panel would “smoothen” out fast motion, by drawing an extra frame in between. This is handled by the TV itself, through some magic of algorithms. Since I’m mainly using this for my Wii and PS3, it would definitely help. The IPS Alpha panel (link is very market-speak by the way) is enticing as I’ve always heard of S-PVA or IPS panels being superior in quality as standard TN panels, which you find in your everyday cheap LCD monitors.

The other specs are just bonuses. A high contrast ratio means nothing to me, everything is super high now. The 24p playback is useful since I will definitely be playing movies off my PS3. The VIERA link is bsaically a HDMI remote, controlling devices via the HDMI cable. Not sure what else I can hook up via HDMI, except my PS3 and PC, so it won’t be particularly useful, unless there is some awesomely outrageous must-have gadget in the near future. The SD card slot is simply a cute feature.

All in all, money well spent!

This gif image is created by yours truly using glickr.

I find that it is a very seamless implementation. I really like it. However, the highlighting seems to be permanently on for me. If I need to correct the middle part of a word (yes, I do make mistakes despite the excellent spell check), I would have to drag my finger to place the cursor there. Now, it automatically highlights the dragged portion, from where the cursor was to the destination. I am not sure if this is an intended design or a bug, so I have sent an email to the author of the app. According to him, this is an intended design.

Another minor annoyance I have with this is that in the SMS app, if you switch to the number mode in the keyboard, the placeholder where you write your message will be replaced by the copy and paste buttons. Not a super high priority flaw, but still an annoyance nonetheless.

For those of you with jailbroken iPhones, this is a worthy addition to your list of jailbroken apps. Right up there with SSH, PdaNet and BossPrefs. Install it via the iSpazio source in Cydia now!

I had recently purchased a Corsair Flash Voyager 8GB from newegg.com. A friend of mine was recently transferred back from the US, so I took advantage of Black Friday.

I had knew about portable apps for a long time now, but didn’t really go into it much. I didn’t have a USB thumb drive before, so I used it in conjuction with Dropbox. Since Dropbox has a 2GB limit, I didn’t really put much apps into it. Now that I have an 8GB drive, and I barely know what to make use it for, I decided to move my Portable Apps into it.

There are other portable suites out there, like Pen Drive Apps or the looks-proprietary U3. But I guess I’m most familiar with Portable Apps. I’ve been thinking about putting a whole OS into it, but then I will have to boot from it each time to use. Ubuntu Portable sounds cool in theory but not very useful. Since my home and work OS are both Windows (Vista 64 and XP respectively), Portable Apps works just fine.

These are the official portable apps stuff I’ve got in:

• 7-Zip Portable
• DosBox Portable
• FileZilla Portable
• Firefox 3 Portable
• Notepad++ Portable
• PuTTy Portable
• VLC Media Player Portable

PuTTy and FileZilla portables are lifesavers! One aspect I liked is I am able to add my own stuff in, like:

• utorrent
• Genesis Emulator (gens)
• NES Emulator (fceux)
• SNES Emulator (snes9x)
• Madness Interactive

I’ll probably add more soon.

I have also recently discovered PTC, which expands the capabilities of the Portable Apps menu, allowing you to rename apps on the menu, change the theme, always stay visible, add categories, etc. It’s a pretty cool hack that I heartily recommend to anyone who is as fond of customizations as me.

Now who’s crazy enough to set up World Of Warcraft as a portable app? (Of course, I don’t recommend doing it. For one thing, the amount of read/writes will probably kill the flash drive faster than usual. And I’m not sure how the USB transfer bottleneck will contribute to the online lag.)

What Mat Brady has wanted was to give the iPhone 60GB memory size, a slide-out keyboard, a 16:9 640×360 screen, a front-facing camera and a rear 5MP camera with 3x optical zoom. All in a pretty slick package.

I have my own reservations on the improvements he wanted. Firstly, I think he forgot one very, very important aspect: battery life! It is pretty depressing to read that in a CPU-GPU intensive game like SimCity, the battery can still be drained even though it is plugged in.

The upcoming Nokia N97 was stated to have 1.5 days of continuous music playback. Of course, the phone would have to be in airplane mode, no bluetooth and no other services running. But even with those services on, I would expect the phone to have about 15-20 hours of playback. Which is un-freaking-believeable. My iPhone, while listening to music and surfing google reader on 3G in the morning for about 2 hours, will drain its batt life by mid-afternoon. Sucks. Apple really needs to work on its battery. I don’t really mind adding a bit of thickness to accommodate a larger battery pack, which is why the Morphie Battery Extender for the iPhone 3G looks mighty appealing, but I just can’t bring myself to pay an additional US$100 to get the same battery life as other 3G phones.

I don’t agree with his need for 60GB worth of storage space. The only cost effective way to get such a high storage is for the iPhone to use HDDs instead of flash storage, and a HDD means moving parts. It’s ok for a media player to have moving parts, because half the time, it’s kept safely on my bag, not jiggling about in my pocket. Flash memory is of course, more expensive, but since it has no moving parts, I would think that it is more durable. And your music won’t skip no matter how violent your phone is vibrating. My previous Creative Zen Vision M used to skip if I were to run with it in my bag. Flash memory also has way better seek time, so there won’t be additional lag. “Additional” because I still have yet to encounter a smart phone that is NOT laggy. Yes, iPhone included.

The slide-out keyboard is very much welcome. A slide-out keyboard would also be easier to implement cut-and-paste, a feature that is highly touted for by users, but continuously ignored by Apple. I could certainly learn to say “Command-C/Command-V”, instead of “Control-C/Control-V”. Of course, the keyboard solves only half the problem; the other half being the common clipboard, but that’s another story. The drawback is that it will add to the thickness. It will be a looks-vs-awesomeness fight, so that’s why I don’t see Apple putting a physical keyboard in.

A bigger and better camera is also welcome, with some simple pre- and post-processing software. 5MPs seem to be the sweet spot. I do believe the hardware and OS is capable enough to provide simple processing, like adding gimmicky picture frames and modes such as night shot, macro and burst. However, the downside is that a bigger camera probably requires more space. Another looks-vs-awesomeness trade-off.

Of course, all of these features are highly dependent on battery life, which I’ve blabbed about, and the underlying OS itself. Mac OSX is already highly regarded as being super-stable with good performance. However, I find the mobile version to be highly lacking. The latest 2.2 update is great, but I am still getting crashes in Safari a few times. I still can’t believe the stock Notes app still takes very long to start, although it is just a simple text editing app. More performance fixes and enhancements will also be much appreciated.

I think my dream iPhone is one with a stable, performance-enhanced mobile OSX and extended battery life. Both of these are highly probable to be on Apple’s to-do list, unlike a bigger camera or physical keyboard.

Source: The new iPhone ELITE