Apple Location Issue: Somewhat Better, but Still Bad!!!

Apple put out a press release last week, and issued a software update yesterday that addresses the location tracking issue that was made public two weeks ago.  It’s a step in the right direction, but there are still unanswered questions and things to be concerned about.

The software update does a few things right.  iOS version 4.3.3 makes some good changes…

• Only 24 hours’ worth of data is stored on the phone.
• The local cache of location data can be turned off entirely.
• The data file is not backed up to your computer.

These are all great steps.  Apple should be commended for making these changes.  However, they haven’t really gone quite far enough.  The data on the phone is still not encrypted (that change is coming sometime in the future), potentially making it available to apps and people if a phone has been jailbroken or a software exploit is discovered that allows access to such files.  I’m not going to make too much more of a stink about that because on easy way to avoid that is to not jailbreak the device in the first place.

Their press release was still a little bit troubling, though.  First, they engaged in a game of semantics.  They claim that “Apple” does not track “your” location.  Instead, the phone keeps a list of cell phone towers and WiFi access points near its location.  Uhhh… how much different is the location of things near you from your current location?  WiFi access points typically have a very short range (how far away from your house can you use your WiFi?) so the accuracy of WiFi location data is actually fairly good.  Nice try, Apple, but your word game doesn’t work on me.

The more troubling thing about their release is something that I haven’t heard anybody bring up, anywhere.  One of the things they stated was that the data on the phone isn’t really the phone’s location, but a local cache of list of cell towers and WiFi access points that have been near your phone, right?  Well, that data is coming from an Apple database.  And that database is huge.  Certainly bigger than what can be stored on a phone.  So Apple sends small subsets of that data to the phone, and this is stored locally (indefinitely for iOS <4.3.3, 24 hours for 4.3.3) to make calculating your location easier.  Sounds okay conceptually, right?  Well, there’s a big problem with that.  In order to decide what data to send to you, Apple has to know what cell towers and WiFi access points are near your phone in the first place.  They haven’t made any sort of statement about what they are doing with that data.

Imagine this scenario… you’re lost, and you need to know where you are. You might call a friend and tell them a little about what you see around you.  You can describe buildings and other landmarks, hoping that based on that information your friend will be able to help you figure out where you are.  But in the process, haven’t you revealed your position to your friend?  It just isn’t possible to get your location using this method without letting someone know where you are.  This is exactly what happens with cell phones (not just the iPhone) when they use this method to locate themselves.

Apple claims that it uses a unique ID number which isn’t tied to your account, and it changes (now) every 24 hours when making these requests.  Microsoft has said it changes the ID number as well periodically, but not how often.  Google never changes this ID number.  So in theory, Apple can only track a phone for 24 hours, Microsoft for an indefinite amount of time, and Google can track it forever.  They all claim they can’t tie this to an individual phone, but that just is not accurate.  Here’s why…

Every data conversation that takes place on the internet does so using an IP address.  It’s sort of like a phone number, and it is used to route data from point A to point B.  It’s fundamental to the way that the Internet works.  For two computers to have a two way conversation, both have to know the other’s IP address.  So these conversations where phones download the list of nearby cell towers and WiFi access points have to include this IP address.  It’s absolutely required. 

If the cell tower and WiFi location data was hosted by a third party (as all three of these players once did), there might not be as much to worry about because the IP address couldn’t necessarily be tied to an individual phone.  The trouble is that the companies providing the location data are the same ones that create the operating systems for the phones.  And you have to sign into their services to use the devices.  With the iPhone, you have to tie it to your Apple ID.  With Google, it has to be tied to your Google Account.  With Windows Phone, it has to be tied to your Windows Live account.  And all devices call home to update various aspects of those services… such as checking for app updates or checking email, for example.  Those conversations ALSO take place using an IP address, which happens to be the same for both these services as well as the location database download as well.  Bingo… they have a link between you, your device, and your location.

All three companies have claimed that they do not upload YOUR location to their services tied to your account.  The problem is that they DO have enough information in various places to be able to piece together your location.  A request for a list of nearby cell towers and (Your login to a company’s services + IP Address) + (WiFi access points + IP Address) = You + Your Location. 

I’m not saying that the companies are actually doing this, I’m just saying that the potential is there for these companies to tie a lot of information together than they’re admitting.  In all cases, you, your location, your purchasing habits, the contents of your email, and more can all potentially be tied together.  The possible implications can be scary.

The good news is that Apple now allows Location Services to be turned off entirely, so the phone won’t even ask for location information tied to nearby radio signals.  The down side is that turning this off completely disables all GPS functions.  It is technically possible to enable GPS functionality without the local cache functionality, but none of the phone manufacturers are allowing that.  GPS devices do it all of the time, but for some reason cell phones aren’t allowed to.

Q&A On the iPhone Location Tracking Issue

While it has been known for a while, news finally broke to the public yesterday that any model iPhone or iPad running iOS 4.0 or higher keeps a log file of its location, and that this file is copied to your computer every time you backup your device.  The problem is actually deeper than that, though.  This is a very serious privacy and security issue, IMHO.  The articles on the Internet don’t really seem to be painting a great picture of what this means.  So here’s my attempt… I hope it helps to clarify a few things!

Q: What’s going on?

A: All models of iPhone and iPad have been recording your location regularly into a file on the device.  The news stories here specifically relate to iOS 4.x, but prior versions of iOS are doing the same thing, they’ve just been recording it into a different file.  These files cannot be deleted, and this “feature” cannot be turned off.  The information even persists from one device to another if you replace one phone or iPad with another and restore a backup.

The data being recorded includes at least the device’s location, the time of day, and a list of WiFi networks available at each of these locations.  The file in and of itself does not contain your personal contact information, but it would be very easy to determine where you live or work.

Q: Does the phone send my location to Apple, or anyone else?

A: Not in and of itself.  Apps on your phone can be given permission to access your location, and there is no way to stop them from uploading your location information, but this flaw in and of itself does not cause your location to be sent to anyone else; it is saved on your phone and computer, but not uploaded anywhere else, at least as a direct result of this issue.  Jailbroken devices do not require that apps be granted permission to access location data; they can get to it anytime they want.

Q: Doesn’t that mean I’m safe?

A: Not necessarily.  There are several ways that anyone who wants to can get to this data if they are persistent enough.

Q: What does that mean?

A: If you have jailbroken your phone, any app on the phone can gain access to the location data without your permission.  In addition, a jailbroken phone that has not had its root password changed from the default is remotely accessible to anyone who wants to log in, and it is EXTREMELY easy to get to.  This includes access to the location log file.

Apple has also had a poor track record of security on iOS devices.  Hackers have been able to gain entry quite regularly ever since the device was first released (this is how some jailbreaks work, just as one example).  If someone were to want to target you, it’s entirely possible that someone with moderate hacking skills could obtain this file, whether it be through your phone (because it is always on the Internet) or computer (through software installed there).  Even if you haven’t been specifically targeted, once an exploit to a phone (or computer) is known, it is a consistent and regular practice of hackers to scan for vulnerable devices.  Computers are a little safer if they are behind a router, but phones are connected directly to the Internet without a hardware firewall to isolate them from attack.

Q: What if I’m not running iOS 4.x on my phone or iPad?

A: While it hasn’t been widely mentioned in the news, iOS versions prior to 4.0 also log location data.  The data is just stored in a different file in a different format.  But it’s there.

Q: Doesn’t someone have to have physical access to my phone or computer?

For most people, this is the case.  But not for everyone.  If your device is jailbroken and you haven’t changed the root password, remote access to your phone (and this file) is available for anyone who wants to get in.  It’s very simple to get to it.

As far as access to the data on the computer, ideally nobody else has access to your files remotely.  But that requires that you keep your computer fully up-to-date and make sure you’re running current and high quality antivirus and antispyware software, even on Macs.  Viruses and spyware could very easily gain access to this data, and make it available to third parties.

Q: How would I know if someone had gotten access to my data?

A: You probably wouldn’t have any way of knowing.

Q: What would happen if I lost my phone?

A: The chance isn’t high, but if someone with even moderate technical skills were to have access to your phone they could download the location data file and see everywhere you’ve taken your iOS devices since you got them.  Even if the phone is locked with a password, there are very easy ways around this.  Once your phone is in someone else’s hands, there isn’t really any guaranteed way of preventing them from getting access to your location data.  If you have signed up for the Find my iPhone program or connect to an Exchange server, you could remotely wipe the phone and hope that nobody had downloaded the data before you sent the wipe command.

Q: Some people seem to say this isn’t worth worrying about.  Is that true?

That depends.  The chance that someone wants to get your location information specifically isn’t very high.  My take on this is that you’re better safe than sorry.  If you don’t care if anyone knows where you’ve been, you may not need to worry about this much.  The chance that advertisers or hackers want location information in general is very high.

Q: What can I do to prevent my location from being recorded?

A: As of right now, the only thing you can do is turn off the phone completely (not just put it in standby) or put it in Airplane mode.  But this obviously prevents you from using the phone.  As long as the device is turned on and the cellular feature is turned on, it’s recording your location.

What makes this worse is that there is NO WAY to delete this file or turn the logging feature off.  It’s built into the phone at a very low level and it can’t be controlled by any setting on the phone.  iPhones have been recording this data for a very long time now, long before iOS 4 came out.  Forensic scientists have known about this for a while, but it is only now being made public.

Apple has not yet released a fix for this issue, and they haven’t even stated yet if they intend to do so.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

Q: I don’t believe it.  Can you prove it?

A: Right now the only way to see for yourself is if you are synchronizing your phone with a Mac.  In which case, you can download a piece of software and see the tracking data yourself.  It probably won’t be long before someone writes a similar utility for Windows, and if I see any news on that front I’ll update this blog post.  I’ve considered writing such a utility myself, but I have too many other things going on at the moment to bother.

Q: Does this affect other phones too?

A: This flaw does not affect other non-Apple devices.  The same researchers that found the flaw in the iPhone have also investigated other popular phones and haven’t found any evidence that any other phones exhibit the same behavior.

Q: If I wipe everything on my phone, does that mean the data is gone?

A: Your prior location information will be deleted from your phone, but it will be restored if you restore a backup from your computer.  In either case, the phone/iPad will start recording location data again, even after being wiped.

Q: Why should I care?

A: I can’t speak for you, but I’d rather my devices not record information about where I live, work, shop, and socialize. It’s bad enough that cell phone carriers record phone location continually; I’d rather that the location of my home not be recorded inside of a device that could be lost or stolen.  Not that I have anything to hide, but I personally just don’t want that information out there available to anyone, especially companies that might be trying to sell me something.

Q: Can any steps be taken to protect myself?

A: Turn on the encryption feature for device backups in iTunes.  That will at least prevent access to this data from your computer.  There isn’t much that you can do to prevent access to the data on the phone other than stop using it.  If you’ve jailbroken your device, at a very minimum change the root password, but I’d recommend removing the jailbreak entirely.

Q: Are you doing anything differently?

A: I don’t have an iPhone, but I am definitely going to be more selective about where I take my iPad.  I protect myself very well against attacks against my computer, so I’m not too concerned about that.  If I had jailbroken my iPad I would be taking that off right now.

Zune HD vs iPod Touch

Just a relatively quick comparison between my Zune HD and the iPod Touch (2nd gen).  More information to follow sometime later.

• The OLED screen on the Zune HD is amazing. It is quite bright, and very vibrant. When I held my ZHD up to my Touch, the display on the Touch looked, well, pathetic. It hadn't ever been so obvious how much backlight seeps through until I compared it to a device without a backlight. And as a result of the backlight, colors on the iPod look very washed out and poorly rendered when compared to to the Zune. One quick photo to compare below… The original is on the left, Zune HD’s rendering in the middle, and iPod Touch on the right.
  
  
  
  I played with the camera settings to get a better image from the Touch, and I couldn’t do it.  Its display just isn’t very good.  I’ll be posting more pictures later.
  
• Brightness on the OLED is NOT a problem. At equivalent brightness levels (the Zune only has Low, Mid, and High to choose from) the Zune's display is at least as bright as the iPod's. The real plus side for the Zune is that picture quality doesn’t deteriorate at lower brightness levels like it does on LCD.  So you can comfortably use the Low setting and it doesn’t detract from the experience.
  
  In direct sunlight the Zune is a bit harder to see.  But the difference wasn’t huge, and who attempts to use their device with sunlight falling right on it?
  
• I have been trying for several days to take a picture that shows a decent comparison shot. But none come out quite right. The white balance of the two displays is quite different (ZHD tracks in at D6500, while the iPod Touch is closer to D5000), so either the iPod's display looks yellow, or the Zune's display looks blue when they are in the same shot. And for some reason the Zune's display shows up a little bit blurry in pictures, which I can't explain. When you see the display IRL it is extremely crisp and sharp.
  
• The Apps on the Zune don't even begin to compare to those on the iPod Touch. iPod wins hands down here.  Microsoft promises more apps later, and they will be free, but they’ll never catch up to where the iPod Touch/iPhone App Store is.
  
• The browser on the Zune is better than expected. It is a hair sluggish while a page is loading, but once the page is loading the Zune zooms and pans a lot faster than the iPod. Page rendering is fine, but it seems like a substantial number of web sites are serving up their mobile version to the Zune where they serve the full version to the iPod, so direct comparisons aren't really possible. On sites that serve the full version, though, the Zune page rendering seems fine. One obvious lacking on the Zune is that only one page can be open at a time. It doesn't attempt to mimic the multi-page capability of the Touch.
  
• The user interface on the Zune is much snappier and responsive than that of the iPod Touch. Where the iPod is rendering page transitions at roughly 10 frames per second, the Zune is easily doing 30 fps or more. Scrolling on the Zune is also at least 30 fps, where the iPod is less. The iPod Touch never really felt at all sluggish to me until I compared it to the Zune's interface.
  
• The experience of listening to music on the Zune is WAY better than the iPod Touch. Between having a more logical and flexible layout of the menu structure for finding music, and the additional features that MS has added to link between artists and provide information (and photos) about the artists in your collection, the Zune provides a much more pleasing experience. And these features are available without the Zune Pass subscription. If you add the Zune Pass subscription, the Zune leaps further ahead because you can not only download but stream any of the music in the Zune catalog in real time. So any track is available at any time so long as you have access to WiFi. And the Zune's Channels feature is a lot cooler than I had eve anticipated. It not only makes music suggestions, but it actually downloads the recommended songs directly to the device automatically so they can play anywhere even without WiFi. Apple ought to be taking notes here.
  
  I’ll be doing a full video or blog post about this.  The Zune HD changes the way you experience music.
  
• Video playback on the Zune is better primarily because of the better screen. It also does a better job of organizing your video collection, because you can manually tag video files as being movies, TV shows, music videos, or other. iTunes doesn't let you do that on your own; the only things tagged this way are the ones you download from the iTunes store. Letting the user catalog their own collection makes it much easier to find your way around.
  
• The Zune's battery capacity is technically lower than that of the iPod, but it seems to be better at managing it. After two hours of watching video my iPod Touch is dead (my unit could be an anomaly, but it doesn't seem to be). I watched more than 4 hours of video on the Zune HD and the battery meter hadn't fallen past half yet.
  
• The HD radio is cool, but I have a hard time picking up the HD feeds in my basement. Then again, I can't pick up stereo in my basement on any radio either. When I take the device upstairs or outside, the HD kicks in, and it is definitely clearer than the analog transmission. The primary benefit here is that all static goes away and you get a clean signal, and higher frequencies are much better reproduced in the digital feed.
  
• One feature on the Zune I find particularly useful is the WiFi syncing. It is very convenient to be able to click three buttons and have the device connect and download updated podcasts, music, and video from anywhere in the house.
  
• Another thing I noticed is that the Zune software automatically picks up on changes in files in the music and video folders, and reflects them in the software automatically and virtually instantly. So as I was moving files in and out of my music folders the tracks would instantly appear and/or disappear. It has always bugged me that iTunes doesn't automatically pick up on music or videos that I add to my folders.
  
• As demonstrated in my last blog post, the iPod Touch seems to have some issues with sound quality.  The Zune did much better in testing.
  
• The Zune desktop software is also significantly snapper than iTunes on Windows. And I think I like the design and interface better. With its polished interface, it is certainly snazzier and more refined. iTunes looks relatively dated at this point.

Complaints

My biggest complaint is mostly with touch-based devices in general, and isn’t specific to the Zune HD.  And honestly it is something that I’m surprised we don’t see talked about.  It’s the lack of physical buttons for navigating through music tracks.

Recently we have had the dangers of text messaging while driving crammed down our throats, and it surprises me that some of this hasn’t spilled over into other areas.  Attempting to operate a touch-screen music player while driving is just as dangerous.  In order to control the device you have to take your eyes off of the road for significant amounts of time.  And many operations on both the Zune HD and the iPod Touch require two hands to perform effectively.  Just adding two buttons for changing tracks would be huge in attempting to fix this problem.  But the current trend is to move away from buttons, and I believe this is a mistake.  I’m not asking for a device with 47 buttons for every possible function, but there really ought to be dedicated buttons for the most basic functions of the device.

I took my Zune HD with me the day I got it when I went out running a few errands.  I found that it was extremely inconvenient and potentially dangerous to do even the most basic of tasks.  This isn’t limited to the Zune, either; it is a problem with every touch-screen based music player, whether it be the Zune, iPod Touch, or iPhone.  It’s enough of a problem that I must publicly shun anybody that operates one of these devices while behind the wheel.  It’s dangerous, and it shouldn’t be done.  Apple and Microsoft both really need to rethink their designs a bit to make these devices a little more friendly to situations where full attention can’t be given to their operation.

As a result of this, I will continue using my previous Zunes in my truck.  The Zune HD will probably become my primary travelling device, but not the PMP that gets used the most.

Wrap-up

So to summarize, when comparing the Zune and iPod Touch, people looking for a device primarily for music and video, the Zune will provide a much richer and more interactive experience. For people looking to take advantage of the App Store, the iPod Touch can't be touched (hardy, har, har). So if you’re buying to listen to music, I recommend the Zune. If you’re buying for the App Store, the Touch is the only way to go.  For web browsing, the iPod has a bit of an edge, but it isn't much.  Both will provide a similar experience there.

If someone already has a significant amount of DRM protected content from the iTunes store that they want to keep, there is probably no reason to consider the Zune (though they need to get out from under the thumb of the music industry). But if someone doesn't care much about the App Store and their main focus is music and video, the Zune HD provides a significantly better experience for both. Since the Zune can play all of the file formats supported by the iPods (plus more), switching from the iPod to Zune isn't too painful, and it’s a switch that I bet a lot of people would be thankful to have made later on.

Apple Tablet: Small Mac, or Big iPhone?

There are rumors circulating that Apple will be releasing a tablet device sometime early next year.  There are certainly a lot of Apple fans that are very excited about such a device, even though they don’t even know what it will be.  (Can you think of anyone besides Apple that can get people excited about something that doesn’t even exist (and hasn’t even been announced) yet?)

There is very little information to go on at this point.  The rumors seem to be indicating that it will be a 10.1” touch screen device priced around $799.  Other than that we really don’t know much, including what it will do, or even whether it would run a full version of OS X or a modified version of the iPhone OS.  There is a rumor that the device will have some sort of cellular radio for Internet connectivity as well, but again, none of this is confirmed.

But even amidst Apple’s perpetual silence on future devices, I think there is a lot about it that we can conclude, should such a device actually come to pass.

The pricing alone could tell us a lot.  If it is priced at $799, it is $200 below the price of the white MacBook.  And about $200 over the selling price of the iPhone (price to carriers, not consumers). That alone tells me that the device will be one of two things: either it’s going to be a lobotomized netbook, or a large multimedia device.

I come to that conclusion based on the products that Apple already has in its lineup.  Think about this: the current Mac “netbook” is the MacBook Air.  In a lot of ways it is much like the PC netbooks that are on the market: small device, lightweight, low power, missing devices like optical drives and myriads of connectivity.  In fact the specifications on PC netbooks aren’t that far off of the MacBook Air, aside from the 13” screen that the Air offers where the screens on netbooks are usually 9-10”.  (Even the CPU isn’t that different between the two.)  An Apple netbook would have to be essentially a smaller, even more stripped down version of the Air at a lower price.

But we know that the device will have a touch screen.  That adds to the cost of a device.  And Apple won’t be happy if it doesn’t support multi-touch, and multi-touch capable touch devices are more expensive than the touch screens used on Tablet PCs.  For Apple to be able to release an OS X-powered computer that offers decent performance, plus a multi-touch touch screen, the price is going to be somewhere near where the MacBook Air is now, if not higher.  Nobody would buy it.

The other problem with trying to go the OS X route is that OS X just isn’t designed for a touch screen interface.  I develop software for touch screens and have learned a lot about what works and what does not work.  Menu bars, like the one that stays at the top of the screen all of the time in OS X, are totally unusable on touch screens.  Buttons, in order to be clickable, must be at least 3/4” wide and high.  A typical button in the OS X user interface would only be about 3/8” high on a 10.1” screen, making them too hard to press accurately.  A screen that size is simply WAY too small to even consider doing general purpose computing.  Even the 15” screens we use as part of my business are too small for that without software being designed specifically for that application.  Applications on OS X are not.

This, of course, ignores the fact that a tablet device lacks a keyboard.  Much of what people do on computers is based on having a keyboard.  People, especially Mac users, use their computers to browse the Internet, read email, write documents, edit photos, listen to music, and watch and create videos.  As we have seen with the iPhone, browsing the internet can be done on a keyboard-less touch screen device, but it is usefulness is limited.  Composing email without a keyboard is totally impractical.  And editing photos and creating video are both difficult (at best) on a low resolution screen, especially when the likely low capacity hard drive of the device is considered.  That leaves us with browsing (sometimes), watching video, and listening to music.  What does that list of activities sound like?  Yep.  There’s your iPod Touch/iPhone functionality.

Yes, I know the iPhone has an on-screen keyboard.  And that works okay for creating short text messages, or even short emails.  But for composing larger emails or documents, a touch keyboard just won’t do.  People like having the tactile feedback of actual keys to press when typing, especially as keyboards become larger than the screen on an iPhone.  A decent size on-screen keyboard on a tablet would fill more than half of a 10” screen, and that doesn’t leave any sort of room for software to run.  You couldn’t even rest your fingers on the screen because the act of just touching the screen would activate the capacitive touch sensor, so you’re left hovering your hands above the display.  This becomes very tiring very quickly.  Short of the tablet device being a netbook with a real keyboard, I just can’t see Apple trying to run OS X on a device this size. 

I think the prospects of an Apple tablet being based on the iPhone OS, however, are much higher than something based on OS X.  Nearly everything sort of falls in line with what we know. 

Since tablet devices are, by their very nature, touch-based, it would make a lot more sense for Apple to start with a product that is already based on touch.  OS X is not, and it would take a major overhaul of not only the OS but all of the applications that run on it to work in a touch screen environment.  The iPhone OS, on the other hand, is totally designed around a touch screen.  Touch, swipe, pinch; all of these are the fundamental operations that take place on a touch device and they’re already supported on the iPhone. 

One of the problems with the iPhone and iPod Touch is the small screen.  Watching videos on something that small is not fun, especially if you are trying to share content with someone else.  You can’t comfortably have a group of friends crowd around an iPhone to watch a video; it makes a lot more sense to take turns.  Or for Apple to release a device with a larger screen. 

An iPhone-like device with a 10” screen could be a very good multimedia player.  It’s big enough for the kids to watch in the back seat of the minivan.  Or large enough to watch a video comfortably on an airplane.  Or perhaps even large enough to become an ebook reader that competes with the Amazon Kindle.  (Yeah, battery life wouldn’t be as good, but I think most people are used to charging their electronics every night anyway.)

Creating such a device wouldn’t be without its own set of hurdles, though.  Something with a 10” screen absolutely has to have a higher resolution screen than the iPhone, so all of those apps in the App Store aren’t going to work without significant reworking to fit the larger screen (or look absolutely horrendous after being blown up to fill the larger display).  So should the mysterious Apple tablet be iPhone-based, expect that it will be limited to off-the-shelf iPhone capabilities for a while after release until developers have a chance to rewrite their software to fit the new screen.  But it would surely have music and video playback as well as web browsing built-in from the start.

But one of the biggest indicators to me that something like this will be iPhone OS-based is that Apple has a hole in their lineup of multimedia devices.  You can listen to music and watch videos on tiny devices like the iPods and iPhone, or something big like a computer monitor or TV by using the Apple TV.  There is a class of devices between the iPod and computer that is missing.  Apple wants to sell you iTunes content, but they don’t have anything that competes with portable DVD players.  The largest portable device (aside from laptops) for watching iTunes video is the iPhone. 

Also consider this… there are rumors that Apple is in talks with Verizon for a partnership for mobile data for the tablet device.  $799 might be a little steep for the average consumer.  But if the device were to be tied to a mobile data plan (like the iPhone is), that $799 might come down to $299 or $399 with Verizon contract.  That puts the out-the-door price right in line with the iPod Touch and Apple TV, and iPhone.  All of which target the same demographic they are already catering to.

I really don’t see Apple releasing a device based on OS X if it is strictly a touch screen.  And such a device certainly wouldn’t cost $799.  There is already a Mac-based device with a tablet display, the Axiotron Modbook.  It’s very expensive, and its only interesting to a very small segment of the market.  A $799 multimedia device is much more appealing to a nearly infinitely larger group of people.

The other thing that really leads me to believe that this will be a multimedia device rather than a computer is that tablet computing is not something that the masses are interested in just yet.  Microsoft’s Tablet PC features are very well implemented in Vista and Windows 7 and yet those devices are only being picked up by a very select group of people.  Outside of the world of doctors, salespeople, and maybe a few in the construction industry, a tablet computer just doesn’t make a lot of sense.  And among that group, a device at $799 might as well be $1999; they’ll pay whatever it costs.  Trying to target people for a $799 tablet just doesn’t make a lot of sense for Apple or its shareholders, especially considering how much they like their premium product markup. 

Since Apple likes to charge a 50-100% premium for their products, we ought to look at what’s in the market that would compete with a $799 product.  Yes, netbooks fall into that category, but not tablet PCs.  The other thing we find in that segment would be… you guessed it, portable video devices.

All of this coupled with the total lack of rumors or information leaks of Apple’s upcoming Snow Leopard having any sort of support for a touch-based Mac, and the rumors of an unidentified device running the iPhone OS lead me to believe that there is absolutely no way that a touch screen 10” tablet device is going to be running OS X as we know it now.  Aside from creating a brand new OS family for such a device, the only choice Apple has is to base something on the iPhone OS.  It makes perfect sense, while all of the other possible options just defy logic.

iPhone OS 3.0: Getting Closer

Of those features that I require in a phone, the iPhone has been missing quite a few in the past.  With OS 3.0, they’re getting closer.

Features added in previous releases:

• Microsoft Exchange synchronization.
• Third party application support.

Essential features just added in 3.0:

• Sync multiple folders with Microsoft Exchange (finally).
• Internet tethering for laptop Internet access (waiting on AT&T to “turn it on” and detail their pricing plan).
• Voice dialing (requires new 3GS hardware, and it doesn’t work with Bluetooth).

Features still not present:

• Multitasking between multiple apps.
• Higher resolution screen.
• Reliable carrier in the USA.
• Decent battery life.

They’re getting closer.  Should T-Mobile or Verizon get the iPhone I’d consider pulling the trigger and getting one.  But for now my dream phone still remains the Tosihba TG01.

New iPhone

With all of the “I love the iPhone” articles out there (so much for objective journalism) I want very badly to write my own on where Apple dropped the ball with the new iPhone, but I’m going to bite my tongue.

That is all.

The lack of multitasking is a definite deal breaker for serious smartphone users. Battery life, though it is supposed to be better, is still going to be atrocious.  Battery use with the phone is going to remain unchanged.  How about a BIGGER BATTERY? Exchange support is still very much half-baked.  Why won’t they synchronize folders other than the Inbox?  And where is Search? AT&T is the worst decision that Apple ever made.  Thankfully I think they’re regretting it now, and maybe they’ll do something else.  Video editing?  On a phone?  Seriously?  Fix the other stuff first! Tethering is a nice addition, but it looks like AT&T is probably going to charge up the yin-yang for the privilege.  (It is, always has been, and will remain free on my phone.)

Why I Don't Want an iPhone

I'm kind of in a geeky-technical-article-writing mood, so if geeky technical articles aren't your thing, you might as well just skip this post, and maybe a few more that follow.

Since the iPhone 3G came out last week, I've had several people ask me if I was going to get one. Well, the answer is quite simple: on a piece of paper write the two letters that follow "M" in the English alphabet. And be sure to capitalize. Then add an exclamation point or three. There are many, many reasons. I won't list all of them, but I'll hit on a few deal-breakers.

Lost Functionality

Some of the biggest are because of things I'd be losing transitioning away from my current phone (an E-TEN glofiish X500+). These are things that I actually do with my phone, and do regularly.

• High resolution screen. My glofiish has a VGA (480x640) resolution screen. The iPhone's is half of that (320x480). So everything would be twice as blocky and blurry.
• Voice commands and interaction. I can say "Call John Smith at Work" and the phone does it. Or "What is my next appointment" and it reads it to me. Or tell it to "Play Natasha Bedingfield." It also reads my incoming emails and text messages aloud. Very cool.
• Dial contacts by name or a portion of their number. On the iPhone you scroll to a contact in your contact list, or dial their entire number. On my glofiish (and other Windows Mobile devices) I can either dial a portion of their phone number or name and select them from a short list that updates in real-time. For John Smith I would dial S then M (or actually 7 and 6) and John Smith would pop up. In most cases it only takes two or three keystrokes to find the person you are looking for. On a touch-screen device, this is wonderful.
• Automatic ring/vibrate modes. If I setup an appointment on my calendar the phone automatically goes to vibrate mode during that block of time. No surprise ringing in church or at the movie!
• GPS with door-to-door routing. I have no less than three programs on my current cell phone that do door-to-door routing. The iPhone has none. (Not that cell phones necessarily make great navigation devices though.)
• Full Microsoft Exchange synchronization. While the iPhone can synchronize email, contacts, and calendars with a Microsoft Exchange server, it doesn't automatically sync email folders besides the Inbox (a deal breaker for me since I have rules that move messages to the appropriate folders automatically), doesn't allow any sort of email search (phone or server-side), and doesn't allow me to access files on my network remotely like my glofiish does.
• Remote desktop. I can connect to and use any of my computers at home from my glofiish, just as if I was sitting in front of them. And it's actually pretty fast.
• Use phone as a modem for a laptop. With three clicks on a laptop, I can get on the Internet using my cell phone's always-on, unlimited data connection, wirelessly. Not something that just looks like the Internet, but the real Internet. iPhone? Nope... Apple doesn't want it to, and AT&T won't allow it. But anywhere I have phone coverage I can get on the Internet with my phone, laptop, or even both at the same time.
• Use its GPS for laptop navigation software. My phone shares its GPS with laptops and other devices over Bluetooth.
• Free calls to friends, family, business contacts. This is actually a T-Mobile thing, not a phone thing. But if I were to play by the rules and switch to AT&T as part of getting the iPhone, I'd lose my free T-Mobile-to-T-Mobile minutes, which I use very heavily.
• Create and edit Office documents. I can not only view, but also create and edit Word, Excel, and OneNote documents. As geeky as it is, I actually do create spreadsheets right on my phone with some regularity. Having the VGA screen really helps here.
• Battery life. I'm hearing the iPhone 3G battery has a hard time making it through a work day if it is used at all. Not much of an issue with my current phone.
• Satellite radio. I can (and do) listen to XM satellite radio on my phone.
• Fully-featured custom applications. Apple has placed some pretty tight restrictions on what software can run on the iPhone. Programs can't run "behind the scenes" for example. No such restrictions on the glofiish.
• The most awesome scripture reading program isn't available on the iPhone. I use it at least every Sunday. And nothing else comes anywhere near its functionality.

And a couple things that I don't do very often, but that are missing from the iPhone:

• Record video.
• Send pictures, music, and video to other cell phones.
• Listen to FM Radio.

Unnecessary Headaches

Since Apple is only allowing their phones to be used on AT&T in the US, I'd be forced to switch cell phone carriers. This would cause other headaches, not directly the fault of Apple:

• For an equivalent family plan like I have (4 phones, 1000 minutes, unlimited data on 3 of the 4, unlimited text messages on all, free calls within the network), I'd be paying about 2.5 times as much as I currently am -- $300+/mo vs $120 (before taxes).
• AT&T coverage isn't very good. In fact, there is virtually no AT&T coverage at my home. With T-Mobile I get a full 5 bars nearly everywhere I go on a normal basis. Apple couldn't have picked a national cell phone carrier with worse coverage.
• Since AT&T's 3G network is still new and being rolled out, I'd be forced to use their 2.5G network. T-Mobile's 2.5G data network is about 2-3 times as fast as AT&T's 2.5G (80kbps vs 200kbps typical), not too far off of AT&T's real-world 3G speeds.

In All Fairness

There are a few things that the iPhone does that my phone currently does not. They just don't outweigh the above issues enough to make switching even worth considering.

• Browser. Hands down the version of Safari on the iPhone is much better than Internet Explorer on my phone. There are some worthy alternatives for my phone coming out at some point, but nothing just yet.
• Multi-touch. Pinching to zoom, etc. My glofiish is single touch.
• iTunes. I don't particularly care for it, but a lot of people I know have their music and video in iTunes. Of course only Apple devices can play these files.
• Accelerometer. The iPhone can sense which way it is being held relative to the direction of gravity.
• Storage. The iPhone's storage is either 8GB or 16GB. My glofiish currently only has 4GB. (Fortunately, when 8 or 16GB MicroSD cards become common I can swap it out.)
• Pretty interface. The iPhone's interface is certainly more esthetically designed than Windows Mobile 6.1 on my glofiish, but overall it is a lot less functional, because buttons have to be big enough to push with a finger. Personally I feel that the iPhone's interface is kind of bland, though. Screenshots here and here.
• 3G network. If AT&T ever decides to roll out 3G with decent coverage in my area, it might double the data transfer speeds I get with my glofiish.

Am I really using Windows Mobile?

Yes, I am; WM6.1 Professional. I know that iPhone aficionados will claim that Windows Mobile is unstable and crashes a lot. That may have been true 2-3 years ago, but it just isn't the case any longer. My phone is one of the most stable devices I own. It actually crashes less than my iPod Touch.

One bit of iPod Touch followup

In my last post about the iPod Touch, I wasn't able to get the device to synchronize or display HTML email. Re-installing some software on my mail server fixed that, so I'm now getting HTML mail on my Touch.

iPod Touch 2.0

After a long wait yesterday I was finally able to download the version 2.0 software update for my iPod Touch about 1:00 this morning. I've been at least a little anxious for a few of its new features, mainly Microsoft Exchange support, but the upgrade wasn't available on the morning of July 11th as promised. So I had a long day of repeatedly clicking the 'update' button in iTunes. Finally, 1:00am on the 12th, it showed up.

It took forever to download -- two hours or so. I guess Apple's servers are a bit slammed at the moment. (Side note: what's with the TV shows that came with the download? I didn't ask for those.) But it eventually finished. The frustrating part was actually installing it. iTunes starts by making a backup of everything on the Touch before completely wiping it clean of everything on it, including its firmware and software. The backup went fine, but things went downhill from there pretty fast.

Twenty minutes after it started the process of "Preparing iPod software for installation" it came up with an error indicating that the upgrade had failed. Not good. So I unplug it, hold down the power button for like 4 and a half hours to get it to power down, then turn it back on to find a screen showing just the iTunes icon and a picture of the USB connector. Yep, it's bricked. It's got no software on it, so it can't boot. It's a black & silver $400 paperweight.

I plug it back into the computer and after a couple minutes iTunes sees it and tells me I have to do a full restore. Fine. So I click through to get that started. 30 minutes later the process obviously isn't going anywhere; no indication of any activity on the iPod and iTunes has locked up. Repeat the process from the previous paragraph with the same result.

So I think, maybe it doesn't like something about the USB port I'm plugging into, so I try another. Another twenty minutes, another failure, though the error is different this time. This really isn't looking good. Try again using the same connection, same error. Fail x 5.

Finally I figure the only way it is going to work is to do the upgrade from my Mac. We already know that Apple doesn't write very good Windows software (I think this is why Apple fanboys hate Windows so much; they try to run Apple software on it.), so I copy the upgrade files over to my Mac, launch iTunes, plug in the iPod. iTunes detects it and installs the software (though it takes about an hour). Done! It worked! Whew!

I take it back to my main computer again, plug it in, and iTunes copies all of the content it backed up at the beginning of the process. It's projected to take a couple hours, but it appears to be working. Head to bed to resume the process in the morning.

So now it's finally time to take it for a spin. Since Exchange synchronization is the first thing I'm interested in, it's the first thing I set up. It's a pretty painless process; I just tell it my email address, username, password, and the name of the Exchange server, and boom!!! it's setup. I can read my email, my contacts and calendar are synchronized with Exchange / Outlook / my cell phone, supposedly in real-time. They omitted support for Notes and Tasks, but I don't use those much so not a big deal to me. Also missing is server search so I could pull up any message based on its contents. That I will miss.

So I test it out to see if it really is real-time. I launch Mail, send myself a message, and wait. About two seconds later my cell phone tells me I've got new mail and reads it aloud. At the same time the email pops up in Outlook just like it's supposed to. But it isn't to be found on the iPod. So I wait longer; maybe it just takes a while. Nope. Never shows up on its own. I have to manually refresh for it to show up.

I tried a few other things... delete an email from the iPod, mark it as read/unread, move it, etc., to see if those changes are synchronized back to my Exchange server automatically. Nope. Not a single one of them. Exchange is obviously working right because my cell phone is synchronizing in real-time. It's just the iPod that isn't.

I check a few things, and the iPod is definitely configured the way it is supposed to be for push (real-time) synchronization to work. But it isn't working. Not only that, but I have to manually click on each of my email folders (of which there are many) to see if there are any new messages. It doesn't synchronize anything besides my Inbox automatically. That's way too time consuming and tedious. Honestly, the email feature was working better using IMAP before the software upgrade. This so-called Exchange synchronization isn't working at all the way that it is supposed to. Big disappointment.

UPDATE: I did my initial Exchange testing at about 11:00 am this morning. At 3:45pm I received the first real-time synchronization alert, and mail showed up in my iPod's Inbox as it should for the first time. I'll keep an eye on it to see if it continues to work.

EDIT: I also just noticed that HTML messages aren't supported with Exchange. I thought we had moved on from 1995?

So then I open my Contacts to see if they are synchronized with Exchange. Yep. They sure are. A minimum of two copies of each one. For some of them there are as many as 6-8 copies of each. But I don't dare delete them, because that will probably delete the original off of my Exchange server. So not cool. In addition, some are showing up first name first, others are showing up last name first. It makes them difficult to find, because there is seemingly no pattern to which way they are listed. Calendar synchronization actually seems to be working right.

EDIT: Calendar synchronization was working properly. Now I have multiple copies of all of my appointments too.

So I move on to the App Store and try out a few things there. The facebook application works pretty well, but it isn't any where nearly as functional as their dedicated iPhone web interface (which also seems a tad faster too). It has also crashed on me three times, one of which rebooted and locked up the iPod completely. Hopefully they'll remedy that with an upgrade. The eBay app is actually pretty cool and snappy. I also paid for and downloaded MooCow's Band and Super Monkey Ball. Band is fun to play with, but it gets tiring because it only has a few instrument sounds; every song you create with it is going to sound the same. It also lags quite a bit from the time you press a note until the time you hear it play.

Super Monkey Ball has pretty fast animation, but the graphics really aren't very good (computer games in the mid 1990s had better graphics, and virtually everything on my cell phone looks better) and it is nearly impossible to control with the accelerometer-based tilt interface. The first few levels were passable, but I got to a level where there are no guardrails on the side of the platforms, so if you tilt even a little bit too far you roll right off. It's also difficult to know where "center" for the control is, because it certainly isn't when the iPod is parallel with the ground, so it's hard to find. And there is noticable lag between the time you move the device and when the monkey starts moving in the corresponding direction. With time I bet someone could get it, but it's really difficult to master. The part that makes it hardest is that the game keeps rotating the display, and you have to instantly react by changing the angle of tilt control to match, or you're instantly rolling the poor monkey in the wrong direction. With the delay that's hard, and since "flat" isn't the center position for the control it's quite difficult to coordinate the movement properly.

I tried a couple other apps and quickly determined that they were pretty much garbage; obviously things written either in a very short time or by inexperienced developers. So for right now, there aren't a whole lot of compelling titles in the App Store, though I'm sure that is soon to change.

The other app I tried is the iTunes remote control, which works as advertised. Since I actually don't use iTunes to listen to my music (since it won't play 85% of it) it's of limited use to me.

Music and video playback are pretty much the same as before. The complaints I had with playing music still apply. Video playback is still quite good. There's still no copy-and-paste, the interface between different apps is still inconsistent (different colors, backgrounds, different button coloring conventions, many apps don't support landscape, some are configured within the app, others through Settings), and the former smooth scrolling through long lists is now choppy. And I really really miss the "back" button found on browsers and many cell phone interfaces, especially when you get into the App Store. For example, after you download an app you have to click on several buttons to get back to where you were. On a positive note, the scientific mode of the calculator works, and in scientific mode its accuracy is much higher than available before!

Overall I'm kind of disappointed. The Exchange synchronization isn't working at all like it is supposed to, to the point of being next to worthless to me, and most of the offerings in the App Store are lucky to be classified as "mediocre at best." And since I'm using an iPod Touch instead of an iPhone I had to pay for the upgrade. Yes, I'd do it again, but I was hoping for more for my money.

At least I'll have a device to fully test any iPhone applications I choose to write, if I ever do. Though I'm kind of doubting that will ever happen because Xcode (Apple's tool for developing applications) is so primitive in comparison to the development tools I'm using on Windows it would be like taking a step back in time 15 years. And as great as my life was 15 years ago, I'd rather not have to repeat it.

I still think Apple hates me.

Buzzing Out Loud

After a couple attempts, one of my voice messages was played in the Buzz Out Loud CNET podcast this morning. At 27:43 into the broadcast available here:

http://www.cnet.com/8301-11455_1-9972839-10.html

Although after listening to what I had to say, I think it didn't come across the way I intended. I really meant to say that I doubt that what I was told by the T-Mobile rep was correct. Guess I should clarify my thoughts a little more before opening my mouth. Oh well.