My rambling weblog of things and...stuff

That’s right, the iPhone was “born” 5 years ago and I think this may be a good time to remember how it was unveiled in 2007:

So I was at a concert in Lisbon last night and when I picked up my phone to take some pictures of the show I noticed the iPhone was using the wrong time. It said it was 05:30 when it was actually closer to 22:30. Since I know the iPhone uses location to automatically set the time-zone and adjust the clock, I quickly opened the Maps app and to my surprise I was “located” in Vietnam.

Yes, Vietnam, and I have the tweet to prove it.

When I opened Foursquare to make a quick check-in in some Vietnamese location (to freak out my friends), I noticed that it was now locating me somewhere near London by showing nearby locations. I quickly changed back to the Maps app and sure enough I “was” now in London.

Yep, I also have the tweet to prove it. And this time I was able to check-in at the Apolo Theatre :)

A few minutes later, I noticed I was back in Lisbon as if nothing happened. At first I thought my iPhone’s GPS antenna just had a meltdown (since my wife’s iPhone still displayed Lisbon as her location) but then I came to know the same happened with other people at the concert and not all of them were iPhone users.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? Is there an explanation?

You’re watching A New Invention on ‘30 Rock’ 02/03/11 - TV Replay.

Today is the first day of a post-Jobs era. A man that has been praised, loved and hated by so many but that has never been indifferent to anyone with the bit interest in technology.

It’s pointless to try to make a heart-felted and deep post about the man whose professional achievements are well-known but whose private life was so, indeed, private. What I can only testify is the way his legacy has affected my life.

I’ve been an avid user of all things Apple for a few years mainly because of the way their vision of technology makes sense to me. Everything seems to be connected around a simple concept: to offer the best products that just work the way people expect them to. Sure, there are a lot of people that disagree but one thing is undeniable: the man has spurted a movement in the technology world that very few have done in such a profound and lasting way.

And it was not only technology that was affected by him. In 1986, after been thrown out of his own company just a year before, Steve Jobs bought Pixar and changed the way animated movies were made.

I still remember the day I went to see Toy Story. I was with some friends at the mall (which at that time and age was probably the most interesting thing one could do) and we decided to go to the cinema and we ended up seeing Toy Story, even though many of my friends (and myself, I have to admit) were not so keen about going to watch an animated movie. Remember, at that time, the only reference for animated movies were the Disney movies that were mostly musical-based love stories. But since the cute girls that we were with wanted to see it, we conceded and ended up leaving the cinema with that feeling of wanting to run back in and watch it all over again.

And as I was watching Ratatouille with my son this morning before taking him to school, I realized that I was probably right one month ago when I wrote this: “his legacy is strong enough to endure for years after he’s gone”.

Let’s hope it’s true. To a great visionary.

There’s something special when a music that has the same BPM (beats per minute) as my current running pace starts playing on the iPhone while I’m jogging. Especially, if it has a strong beat or rythim. It feels like a jolt of energy going through your body and it gives you that extra push for the next kilometre.

Now imagine if at the same time a narration would kick in, by mr. Morgan Freeman (who else?), to make you feel as if you’re inside your very own documentary with a text like: “The avid male jogger starts his journey early. He chooses his equipment wisely, he sets his ambitious goals and he plans his route to new territories as part of his self-discovery path. No cold rain, gusting wind or hot summer day will stop the jogger’s epic journey to sculpt his body to please his female partner.”

It would be epic, indeed.

I think I just got a great (and probably profitable) idea for an iPhone app. Now if I could only get in touch with mr. Morgan Freeman…

About 4 months ago, I posted about Apple’s decision to reverse scrolling in the new version of Mac OS X. But now that Lion has been released, people are starting to complain a lot about this and contesting the decision. Well, if people read my blog they could have gotten used to the idea by installing and using Scroll Reverser, which I’ve done ever since I first knew about this decision.

But the discussion is only natural considering that Apple has decided to change something that has been the standard for years. So, evidently, the question remains: why do it and why now?

Why do it?

Because our way of interacting with our devices is changing. I got used to the new scrolling direction quite quickly and oddly enough it felt natural. And then I realized it was because I also own an iPhone and an iPad and this is the natural way of scrolling with your fingers.

Naturally, you may reply: “But the iPhone and the iPad have been around for awhile, so…”

…why now?

Up to now, people have been using the scrollbars to go up and down pages of information. In that sense, the traditional scrolling direction makes sense. But ever since the advent of more capable trackpads and Apple’s introduction of two-finger scrolling, people started using the natural touch-based scrolling that defies the conventional scrolling direction.

With the iPhone and the iPad, Apple introduced us to a more natural way of scrolling in the screen… the touch. Devices such as the magic mouse and the trackpad are slowly doing the same for laptop users. Which brings us to the new version of Mac OS X, which is nothing more than the first step in the ladder of unifying Mac OS X and iOS. The new multi-gesture capabilities introduced by Lion shows us that the touch-based interaction may very well be the future, which in turn leads to other changes such as the removal of the traditional scrollbars (except when you’re actually scrolling) that are now less useful and allows to regain some screen space back.

It’s true that this is a change that will not be welcomed by a large part of Mac users, especially those that do not own Apple’s touch-based devices. But I’m guessing Apple’s decision will prevail and people will slowly understand that this is actually the way to go.

Remember this?

This is a screenshot of (the very old) Super Off Road, commonly known as “Ironman”, a game that I used to spend hours and hours playing on my MS-DOS computer.

Well, if you liked this game and you have an iPad (or an iPhone), you’ll love this one:

This is Reckless Racing HD for the iPad and it brought me the feeling I used to have while playing Ironman: hours and hours of fun. It’s basically the same kind of game where you command tiny cars on off-road tracks racing other tiny cars. But now, with cool graphics and sounds. I was lucky enough to buy it when EA was having a sale on several games and it cost me only $0.99. 

Highly recommended!

As many Apple fans out there, I followed the news at the WWDC keynote yesterday. I was quite pleased with the amount of new features both on Lion and iOS5 but what really caught my eye was the way Lion and iOS are starting to walk towards a unified operating system for all Apple devices. And in doing so, they are filling out the holes that were previously occupied with third-party apps that will now have to rethink their future.

One OS to rule them all

Both Mac OS X and iOS are walking towards each other in the sense they keep borrowing features from each other, but between Lion and iOS5, I’d say Lion is the one taking the biggest leap.

Let’s start with Multi-touch gestures. This has an impact on the way people browse in Safari or iPhoto, all to make it look and feel more like if you’re working on an iPad. Consider even the subtle change of reverse scrolling in Lion.

Then there’s Full-screen. Let’s not waste any display real estate, exactly like you have on the iPad or the iPhone. It actually makes a lot of sense, especially in smaller displays like in the Macbook Air or my white unibody Macbook.

The new version of Mail looks really familiar, doesn’t it? That’s because it is almost the same as in the iPad!

And if you still need more proof, check out Launchpad:

I rest my case!

More Apple, less third-party apps

Another thing that really surprised me in yesterday’s keynote was the way Apple seemed to be launching new features that were fulfilling most of their users’ desires. Apple is known for their innovative features but it is also known for not launching simple features like MMS or copy-paste on the first iPhone (when the competition had already done it 4 or so years ago) or the simple fact that we still don’t have SMS receipts on the current version of iOS. Yesterday was different. They sounded a lot like a company that was actually listening to their users and decided to act upon it by presenting some interesting features that aim at filling out some holes in the current version of iOS and Mac OS X.

But Apple’s faults on missing features are third-party developers’ opportunities. And if they have been taking advantage of those missing features by creating great apps (and gaining some money in the process), now they’ll have to rethink their future.

iMessage vs. PingChat (and a bunch others)

I’ve been using PingChat to exchange SMS and MMS-like messages (with reading receipt) with family and friends and it works great. But now Apple is launching their own version of this kind of apps. And I bet the integration with the rest of iOS is much more subtler than in PingChat, so… guess which one I’ll be using in the future? :)

Reminders vs. 2Do (and a bunch others)

This is one of those things that Apple haters love to point out: why doesn’t iOS include a simple way to sync ToDos with the Mac? This is 2011 and I still have to use apps like 2Do to manage my tasks between iCal and the iPhone/iPad. Finally, Apple has come to its senses and is now releasing the Reminders app that I hope will finally make my life easier on this end. 2Do is great and all but it still creates some (really hard to manage) conflicts when it comes to sync tasks between 3 different devices. I’d much more rather use an elegant Apple solution, which I hope Reminders will be.

AirDrop + iCloud vs. Dropbox

Don’t start your flame-throwers just yet, I don’t really think that the AirDrop and iCloud combination will make me stop use Dropbox altogether. But I’d say Apple’s getting there and if they do it the right way in the future, I’d say Dropbox will lose a great chunk of Apple users.

Oh, and Wi-Fi Sync (vs. jailbreaking alternatives)

Finally! No more USB-based syncing!