Band of the Day iOS app

I love music, but since I’ve started a family and been working full time (as opposed to doing mostly nothing and playing in a band years ago) its become harder and harder to discover new music. It’s hard to find the time to sit around and listen to music, and most of the time I was getting recommendations from friends that I lived with, which obviously doesn’t happen anymore. I used to use last.fm as a sort of crude music discovery tool, as they will try to play music that matches your tastes based on your listening habits. That mostly never really worked for me as it was rare that I actually heard a band that I wanted to listen to repeatedly.
Today however I was introduced to a new iOS app called Band of the Day, and I loved it instantly! Each day a band is highlighted and you can read a review, check their bio, see messages from other users of the app, and stream whole songs from recent releases. You can also purchase songs or albums directly through the iTunes store. In a word, for me, it’s perfect. I have a train commute to work each day and now I have a super simple, beautiful music discovery app to help me find new bands. I’m going back now to browse trough past Bands of the Day!

Droid vs iPhone

I got a change to really dig into my friend Felix’s Droid this Thanksgiving. I wanted to write down my impressions here, not only to share with everyone but also to keep myself in check whenever I yearn to own this multitasking big screen monster of a phone.
First of all, let’s get the biggest pro the Droid has going for it, the screen. It’s a Backlit TFT 3.7-inch WVGA (480×854) 16:9 widescreen display (267 PPI) and it is amazingly beautiful. Holding the screen up to the iPhone and viewing the same content it is no contest as to which device is more pleasing to the eye. Under the casing the iPhone and Droid both use the same processor, and it wasn’t surprising to see that both OSes booted up within seconds of each other in our side by side contest.
Android has really come a long way, and it is refreshing as an iPhone user to have more granular control over how applications are used on your device. I was able to rip open six or more applications (Google Talk, Browser, Gmail, Android Market, Music, ConnectBot) and it was quick and easy to jump between the different applications using the home button hold method. I was really impressed with how easy it was to navigate between running apps this way, and the phone didn’t seem to have any issues with lag even though we were doing so much at once. That being said, it was extremely disappointing to see such heavy lag just swiping between the three default home screen panels and when pulling down the windowshade notification bar. I have read that you can replace these apps with third party applications that perform better, but honestly you shouldn’t have to do that just to get a good experience from basic functionality of OS navigation.
Another problem I ran into was that after connecting the Droid in USB mode, and unmounting the drive once we were done transferring some media, the SD card got in some kind of funky state that caused the entire phone to become unresponsive. After taking the battery out and putting it back in we got some white-text-on-black-background about a bootloader and instructions to connect the SD card to USB, but nothing undid the problem until we actually removed the SD card and put it back in.
I have been using an iPhone in various forms (original edge-only iPhone, iPhone 3G, and now iPhone 3GS) for over two years, and the responsiveness of the screen is hands down better than the Droid, I’m sad to say. The Droid screen seems to require either a little bit more pressure or a little bit more time to register where you are pressing. If it was my first touchscreen phone it probably wouldn’t even be something I would notice, but the iPhone sets a high bar with the effortless responsiveness of their screen. In line with that the software keyboard was pretty terrible at recognizing what keys I was pressing, especially in portrait mode. I am certain that I am partially to blame as it does take some time to adjust to how a particular phone reacts to your thumbpads tapping the screen, but it was really abominable at registering my intended key even when I was typing slowly and deliberately. The portrait keyboard actually takes up a much smaller amount of space than the iPhone portrait keyboard, making it more difficult to press the tiny targets.
The media features aren’t quite as robust as on the iPhone either, but it is definitely serviceable and of course with the Android Market you can replace the default media player with one of several available. It is a little disappointing that the SD card included is only a class 2 card so the speed is not exactly optimal for playing back large video files on that beautiful monster of a screen.
Not to get nitpicky, but the feel of the device also was not as organic and natural to me as holding the soft, rounded curves of the iPhone. It wasn’t uncomfortable by any means, but just didn’t match the same fit and finish. I would like to point out however that the slider has absolutely NO play whatsoever, which was something that really disappointed me about the Pre when I first put hands to it.
Of course, there are complaints I have about the iPhone as well. Android’s notification system is in my opinion the single best way to deal with incoming alerts from an unlimited number of applications. Icons populate the status bar indicating the number of alerts for a particular application, and when you drag down the windowshade you can select actions to be taken on the alerts which usually involves opening the application that generated the alert. On the iPhone, you are typically presented with a modal pop up dialog that REQUIRES your input prior to allowing you to move on. More than once I have received a push notification or text message during a call which required me to acknowledge the alert prior to having the ability to press the end call button beneath it. That is just piss poor design, and from Apple it is just not acceptable, knowing what they can accomplish.
The iPhone does not allow multitasking of any third party applications. However, many third party developers have begun to code their applications in such a way that the exact state of the application is stored when you press the home button, so when you relaunch the application again it is as though you never left in the first place. A perfect example of this in action is the newish Tweetie 2. Prior to the latest release if you exited the app and opened it again later you had to scroll back from the very top until you could find the tweet you were reading. Now, the list is exactly in the same place it was when you exited the app. Although this doesn’t help with apps that would require running in the background (ie a media streaming app like pandora) it does make the experience of using most data heavy apps much more enjoyable, and simulates multitasking as best as possible while still meeting Apple’s restrictions by sandboxing any third party applications.
I have jailbroken my iPhone so I can selectively chose which applications run in the background anyway, but I don’t take advantage of the feature that often, because it typically starts to negatively impact the performance of the foreground application I am currently using. The only essential thing I use the jailbreak software for is to add tiny notification icons to the statusbar with StatusNotifier, which is something every phone under the sun includes. I am hoping a future update will see Apple including something like that by default, so if you have a new email, you can tell without having to unlock your phone and look at the little red badge over the Mail icon.
Felix and I also took a quick drive so he could show off the Google Maps with navigation application. It was fucking awesome. Once we mounted the phone it switched into Map/GPS mode automatically. I pressed one button to begin the audio listener, and spoke the address of my proposed destination. The phone pulled up a route, locked in GPS, and started speaking directions. The GPS was pinpoint accurate as to our current location, and the directions we received were flawless. This is extremely well executed and I am hoping the rumors that this software will make its way over to the iPhone are true, because that was a truly badass experience.
All in all, the Droid is a very impressive phone, but the OS still felt a little too rough around the edges and unpolished for me to be tempted to switch devices. The iPhone has a consistency about it that is very hard to beat, plus the performance of native applications cannot be beat by java apps that Android runs. At this pace though, unless Apple really steps up their game (keep in mind all iPhones share the same exact screen size, this is going back over two years now) I could see the slew of Android devices coming out in 2010 to be a real threat. I am certainly going to keep a keen eye out for new Android headsets, but right now my iPhone still makes me the happiest. I use it more than I use my computer, which is saying a lot for me.

Side note: Last month we exceeded the number of minutes on our AT&T FamilyTalk plan. It came to the tune of an extra $100!! I called AT&T and explained that I wanted to increase the amount of minutes on our plan since we exceeded it last month and we were on track to exceed it again this month. The AT&T rep not only took care of this right away, backdated it so that we wouldn’t incur extra charges this month, but he also removed the extra charges from our overage last month!! He did this all without any prompting by me that this was something I was interested in. I thought this type of service was extremely excellent, and it makes me feel much better towards the company as a whole. I still hate having dropped calls, but that seems to have improved a tiny bit in the last week or so.

iPhone 3.0 is good enough for me

I finally decided that paying upwards of $399 for the new iPhone 3G S was not worth it for me, considering that the only thing in the new phone I’m really interested in is the speed boost.  The next day, I found the ipsw file for installing the new 3.0 software update which is released to the public on Wednesday June 17th.  Following are my impressions, especially poingnant in light of my recent dabbling with the Palm Pre at the Sprint store the other day.

Let’s start with the most obvious and dramatic change, Spotlight (which is Apple’s marketing-speak for “search”)

Spotlight on the iPhone 3.0 OS

It actually works really really well, even if it can lag for a second or two while it searches the database it creates of all your media, contacts, mail (To, From, Subject), and application names.  As you can see, searching for “earl” above returned a contact, a song, and two emails from said contact.  This is awesome, and makes life much easier when you just want to quickly pull up a contact, search an email, or play a song.  It’s also handy when the app you want to run is several screens to the right, because you can generally get the application open quicker by swiping right and typing one or two letters to bring it up in the search results.

The next big change for me that makes life using this phone so much nicer is landscape mode being supported in Mail, Messages, Notes, Stocks and Contacts.

This feature is especially nice in Mail when trying to read an HTML email.  usually they are formatted in such a way that viewing them in portrait and being able to read the text means moving the screen back and forth to read each sentence, not exactly optimal.  Having landscape support in these apps really adds to the experience of using them, and it is something that was a long time coming.

Previously, if you downloaded any podcast using the iTunes application on the iPhone and that podcast had chapters, there was a bug which wouldn’t let you play the file with the screen locked.  This was insanely annoying, even though there was a workaround.  Now, that bug has been squashed, but there is still a 10MB file limit on downloads using AT&T’s network instead of wi-fi.  Essentially, this means you’re not going to download any podcast of significant size without finding a wi-fi network first.  However, there is a really nice feature which allows you to tap the title of the podcast, instead of the download button, and it will simply stream the file to your device over the air.  I was very surprised by this.

Streaming a Podcast from iTunes

So once the file is streaming, you don’t even need to download it, the screen above is what you see, which is similar to the way streaming files in the browser looks.  Now, if you lock the screen, the stream pauses.

A streaming podcast playing from the lock screen

But once you double-tap the home button and the controls for music playback come up, you can just hit the play button and the stream you had been listening to just picks up where you left off without having to unlock the screen.  Nice!

I’ve also decided not to jailbreak anymore, as it seems like things always get too wonky and I end up taking a performance hit for it.  The only two things I was using jailbreak for anymore anyway was to have a notification icon in the status bar if there were unread messages and the Terminal program.  Most of the time I used the Terminal app to ssh into my Linux box at home, or to jump host from that to my Apple TV if I needed to fix something for my family while I wasn’t home.  There are apps out there, like TouchTerm and iSSH that let me do this still, even if they are not as nice and smooth as Terminal was.  This is iSSH checking on an rtorrent session on my Linux machine:

Works for me!

When I first heard that the Palm Pre was going to support running multiple applications in the background I was pretty jealous.  Now that I’m getting to hear some first party reviews about how it actually works, and had a little time to play with it myself, it appears that battery drain is a big concern.  Not only that, but on a screen that small applications are optimized already to be running in full screen, there really isn’t a huge need for me to be running multiple applications in order to conduct my daily business.  If I want to chat with someone over IM, I go into the IM application I have installed, I can still listen to and control music playback while staying in that IM app.  Granted, I can’t check what a new email is without leaving the application, and it would be nice to have a notification drawer like the Android OS does so you can see the subject and sender and then decide if you want to go to the Mail app or just deal with it later.  Overall I am pretty happy with the way that Apple has decided to run things with the new 3.0 OS, and it is certainly an improvement over 2.1.1.

Although the iPhone OS only allows limited multitasking (only Mail, iPod, SMS, Phone, applications getting installed/upgraded, or content being downloaded on iTunes can be running in the background) copy and paste works just like it does on a desktop computer, so you can copy some text in the browser or from an email, and then paste it to use somewhere else, like a twitter application or in Notes.

I am eager to see how well (or not) the push notification system Apple has built in for third-party applications to use works.  I am worried that it will be painful when you get 5 IMs at once from someone, and have no way to get back to controlling the application you are using without dismissing those 5 pop-up windows first.  Maybe I’m wrong about how it works and they have something more elegant planned.  I’ll find out June 17th, so I can’t wait!

Time to wait and see

Palm released the Pre last weekend, and Apple just had their big reveal on the new iPhone hardware yesterday.  I already have the 3G iPhone, and I have been following the Pre since news of it broke in January at CES.  Since I have paid for the original iPhone and stupidly waited in line for the iPhone 3G, I’m not eligible for the full discount price, based on the length of my contract.

Today I stopped by a Sprint store, it’s on my walk home from work, and played with the Pre.  It was nice, for sure, but nothing that really blew me away.  It’s still early for the Pre, the App Catalog only has roughly 10 apps in it.  The hardware is definitely not in the same class as the iPhone.  The keyboard is fine, probably a little nicer than the keyboard on my Blackberry Curve (work phone, ugh).  The software definitely seemed a little rough around the edges.  For example, I opened a few different sites in new browser windows all in a row, and when i went back to “card view” none of the previews showed anything, just blank white “cards”.  When I actually opened the “card” it showed the page fine, but things definitely got gummed up and slowed down there for a few seconds.  Thing is it seems like the Pre will let you overload it pretty hard before it starts to complain about not being able to open more apps.  I didn’t see that warning but I have heard of others reaching that limit.  Definitely a phone and OS to watch though, as it is so early for them it could easily be the best thing out there in a year.

The iPhone announcement though really underwhelmed me.  I probably would have upgraded just for the faster processor/more RAM, but then I found out that I won’t be eligible for the $199 price until December, and until then if I want to upgrade it’ll cost me $399.  Not worth it by any stretch.  Plus I get all the benefits of the new iPhone OS 3.0 for free!  Don’t get me wrong, the new iPhone is nice and all, but nothing really amazing is going on there.  I know Apple says it’s going to be 2x faster, but we all know how that pans out.  I honestly wouldn’t use the video recording feature enough to justify the cost, and everything else is a wash: wouldn’t use voice control that much, I’m sure, and the compass would be handy maybe three times a year.

That being said, I think that next year or even the next six months holds a lot of promise for the smartphone industry.  As the economy continues to falter, prices are sure to drop, specs are sure to get better, and phones are sure to get highly competitive.  I thought it was interesting that the Apple anouncement really didn’t address anything at all about the Palm Pre, it just kind of existed in it’s own little world of “look what we did”.  Apple is always like that though.  They just go on and on about how what they make is the best.

Going back to the Pre for a minute, the hardware was disappointing.  The top half of the slider (the part with the screen) was easy to wiggle when the phone was closed.  Overall, it just felt cheap.  There is not that much substance between the keyboard and the back of the phone when it is open and you are typing, it was just a wierd feeling.  Like I said though, I’m not a big fan of hardware keyboards, so SLOW!  Overall the build quality was not up to par with the iPhone.  That being said though, if I was on Sprint I would snatch this thing up in a second.  Also, hooray to Sprint for actually having two working units on display (with touchstone chargers) to play with.  T-mobile STILL doesn’t have G1 phones that actually WORK for you to try out.  Why T-Mobile, why?

Life After Roe

Life After Roe

An insightful look at the modern dilemma of abortion, and recent legislation which seeks to erode the rights granted by the decision in Roe v. Wade.

Helping out Daddy

Girl, 14, Helps Father Commit Suicide

Wow. The brief article doesn’t really expose very many facts about what exactly happened here. I don’t know if the man was sick or healthy, if we was abusive or melancholy, whether he was actually trying to commit suicide or experienced a mishap…so many questions. They don’t really provide that much most likely because the investigation is just getting started. It certainly seems suspicious though. My guess is that the girl is a typically disenchanted teen, and took the oppotunity to finish the old man off once and for all upon discovering that his suicide attempt only resulted in serious injuries. Although it certainly would be exciting to discover that she simply tried to murder him.

Incredibly Insulting

Just read this article about Bush’s slackening:

Don’t Stop Him Even If You’ve Heard This One [WP].

I found it incredulous that Bush is starting to really play up his lack of education, which kind of tacitly points to the nepotistic avenues down which Bush has been fortunate enough to travel, all thanks to the hard (if mostly evil) work of his family.

I guess he is so arrogant as to think that people wouldn’t draw those conclusions: Powerful father, slacker son, shaky election, shady ballot counting, sudden leader of America. I mean, really, the general public is not so stupid as to not figure these things out. Although, at this point he has been elected, and barring some egregious criminal activity (Iraq doesn’t count, somehow; nor Abu Ghirab (sp?)) he is our president until 2008.

For those familiar with my attitude that we are living in a world created solely for my pleasure, this white house is a good counter-argument. Although they’re still making tons of movies based on Philip K. Dick stories!

What ever happened to Weezer?

Man, I remember when Weezer first started getting airplay on MTV, and that sweater song was being sung by young folks everywhere I went. It was a great, anthemic song with simple lyrics from a band that mostly ripped off 50′s chord progressions. But this came in the midst of the flannel revolution, and they couldn’t have sounded more different than the Pearl Jams, Nirvanas and Stone Temple Pilots. It was a breath of fresh air to have four nerdy guys who just liked to rock out and had a great sense of melody. That first album didn’t have a bad or mediocre song on it. Then came Pinkerton, which I listened to incessantly for about a year. The songs were great, they were exposing really personal information thereby helping to really connect the singer to the songs, the maker to the making. But from then on, each album has lost more and more of it’s luster. So now they have a new disc slated to be released this year, and I don’t even know if I care anymore. I used to LOVE this band, but their most recent releases have left me dissapointed. The first few albums had soul, but these recent records are just lacking in the “this was not made by robots” department. Maybe it’s just me, but I look back to a time when a Weezer solo wasn’t just the melody of the song played on guitar.