Tech journalism is not an oxymoron
They’re not cool; they’re not “Steve” ads; I don’t like them. But they may be appeal to “non-Apple” folks, and if that works, that’s fine. They’re also the first Mac-rather-than-iOS-device-ads I’ve seen since the “I’m a Mac” spots, and that makes them a good thing.
Read more in my latest article on The Mac Observer.
The interview I did with Chuck Joiner for his MacVoicesTV podcast is up. I talk mostly about my upcoming appearances at Macworld|iWorld, including the Macworld All-Star Band at Cirque du Mac, my session on “The Geek Outdoors” and more.
The Road to Macworld | iWorld 2012 takes a Jersey turn in a conversation with Chuck La Tournous. Chuck lets us know why his geographic orientation will help him in his Macworld Rapid Fire session, talks about a little history with The Macworld All-Star Band and their appearance at this year’s Cirque du Mac party, and his credentials to talk about Parenting in the Mobile Internet Age. The conversation raps up as he leaves host Chuck Joiner in the dark (literally) with a small sample of his session on being a geek in the great outdoors.
If you see me at Macworld, please say hi. I may even have a few tickets to Cirque du Mac to hand out.
It’s a rare opportunity when my love of technology and my love of the great outdoors align, so I was thrilled when I was asked to deliver a seminar on “High Tech Camping” at next week’s Macworld | iWorld event in San Francisco.
If you’re coming to the event, I certainly hope you’ll consider attending my session. Camping geeks are as enthusiastic about their gadgets as technology geeks, and the two fields are converging in some pretty interesting ways, mostly thanks to the portability and versatility of the iPhone and iPad. Here’s a taste of what I mean.
Let’s start with navigation. Sure, the iPhone has a built-in compass, but I’m not here to try to sell you on using it — let’s face it; it’s pretty flaky. I’ll opt for a “real” compass any day, liquid filled, mind you, and if I’m expressing a preference, I’ll take a mirror compass; they allow you to see your bearing and line up your target at the same time. The mirrored top also acts as a lid to protect your compass and it’s compact enough that there’s no real advantage to leaving it behind in favor of the app on your iPhone.
If we’re talking GPS receiver, though, I’ll choose the iPhone over a dedicated unit — at least for casual camping. Sure, a dedicated GPSr’s battery will probably last longer, but the some of the offerings on the app store so good I actually prefer them to a standalone device. My favorite, hands down, is MotionX GPS. It was one of the early arrivals on the app store and it’s been improving ever since. In addition to the usual features like being able to set waypoints and record tracks, it lets you choose from a variety of maps, track your altitude, add photos, share waypoints on your favorite social media network and more. And while a decent GPSr will set you back $300 or more, MotionX GPS is sale-priced at a ridiculously low $1.99 — and it’s a universal app.
The SPOT Connect device can be a life saver — literally. It allows you to use your iPhone to communicate to rescue teams or the folks back home using satellites when there’s no cell coverage. It’s pricey, but for serious outdoor adventurers who frequent remote locations, it could be the best investment they ever made.
There are dozens — maybe hundreds of apps that can be tremendously useful in the great outdoors — everything from apps that help you identify birds to apps that help you identify poisonous plants. There are even apps that will help you with first aid in case you didn’t do so well identifying the poisonous plants. And if you’re a star gazer, you already know how many more stars shine on a dark backcountry night; and you can name every one of them if you have an app for that. (I like Star Walk; $2.99 on the App Store.)
So what’s a gadget-loving camper to do when your iPhone battery barely lasts through the day, let alone a busy weekend of star charting and bird watching? A good solar panel and an external battery can ensure your iDevice has enough juice to do it all. My favorite combination is from a company called GoalZero: their monocrystalline solar panels are much more efficient than panels of old, and their Guide10 battery pack uses rechargeable AA batteries, meaning you can bring multiple sets of batteries to power your device even if there’s not enough sun.
Finally, on the non-Apple front, here’s one of the coolest ways I’ve seen to purify water yet. Traditionally, there have been three ways to ensure water is safe to drink: boil it, treat it chemically or filter it. All have their downsides: boiling water takes a long time and leaves you with hot, often flat-tasting water; iodine pills and other chemical treatments leave a bad taste; and pumping can be slow, labor-intensive and subject to clogging.
A company called SteriPEN added a fourth method: purifying by ultraviolet light. It looks like something straight out of Star Trek: a small device about the size of a travel tube of toothpaste, with a glass rod on the end. Immerse the rod in water and it lights up. Less than a minute later, you have water that’s safe to drink, with over 99.9% of bacteria, viruses and protozoa eliminated, seemingly by magic. (Depending on the condition of the water, you might want to remove sediment or other particles by filtering them through a bandana or coffee filter first.) What’s even cooler is that SteriPEN’s newest model features a USB-rechargeable battery, so you can use your solar panel to charge it too.
I’ll be talking about a lot more at my seminar, so I hope lots of TMO readers will be able to join me. It’s a session that probably wouldn’t have been possible without the new direction of Macworld | iWorld, so I’m very eager to see how it’s received.
Oh, and one more thing: Go to this article on The Mac Observer and you can get $15 off an iFan pass.
I hope to see you there!
“The Great (Geek) Outdoors: Using your high-tech gear to get more out of your high adventure outings”
Friday, January 27th
10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
[I neglected to link to this post I wrote over at The Mac Observer, but as I watched my son synching his new iPod touch over WiFi this Christmas, these thoughts came back to me; I figured they should be here as well. – Editor.]
Apple released iOS 5.0.1 yesterday, mainly to address battery issues and add multi-touch gestures to the original iPad. The most remarkable feature of the update, though, had nothing to do with what it contained and everything to do with how it was delivered: the update was the first to be delivered and installed over the air (OTA), with no tethering to a computer (indeed, no computer at all) required.
This is not new to Android users, but it was a welcome event for iOS users. Since I heard about the update on Twitter before my devices notified me, I didn’t get to see how the update might have announced itself (it at all.) Once I knew about it, though, it was a simple matter to go to Settings: General: Software Update, where my iPhone 4 — and, later, iPad 1 — dutifully notified me there was an update available. Both my devices were almost fully charged, so I ignored the warning about plugging into a power source, and the updates downloaded and installed without a hitch.
Another new update method got considerably less attention yesterday. Apple released version 7.6 of its Airport software. Just for fun, I fired up the new iOS Airport Utility on my iPad, and sure enough, the app informed me of the available update and allowed me to install it without having to go to my Mac at all.
I suppose the Airport update shouldn’t have seemed all that amazing — after all, it’s a remote update whether it’s done from the iPad or a Mac. But this is the one that gave me the bigger “living in the future” feeling. One that reinforced the notion that my iPhone and iPad are not just satellite device for my Mac. They are peers, and in more and more instances, provide a better experience than those “real” computers.
I’ll be speaking at Macworld|iWorld again this year, with a session I’m very excited about. “Camping Tech: The Great Geek Outdoors” will feature ways to use your high tech devices to get more out of your next camping trip.
From the session description:
Can high adventure and high tech coincide? This fun and lively session will show you how to integrate technology to make camping easier, safer, more convenient and even more fun. You’ll learn about useful iOS apps that can be even better than the traditional ones they replace (or enhance); how to find and stay on the trail; how to show the outside world what a great time you’re having; how to identify all those extra stars you see in the country; impress friends with your knot-tying skills; find a Geocache; perform First Aid; call for help even when reception is poor; make sure your iPhone lasts throughout your whole adventure and more.
I’ve written about the subject from the opposite side, but I do a lot more camping with my gadgets than without, and it’s a subject near and dear to my heart. The session will on Friday, January 27th from 10:00-10:45 Pacific Time in the “Tech Talks” track. You can register on the Macworld|iWorld site, and if get any discount offers, I’ll be sure to post them here.
Adobe has announced it will cease development on Mobile Flash. Arguments about proprietary technologies vs. open standards aside (but still valid), Adobe is finally admitting what Apple and other critics have been saying all along: Flash just doesn’t work well on mobile devices.
The end result of this will be the marginalization of Flash on the desktop/laptop as well — it simply won’t make sense for most developers to create two versions of their offerings, especially as mobile devices increase as a percentage of web traffic. The converse was true, too. Had Apple relented and supported Flash on iOS, there would have been no incentive for developers to offer standards-based versions of their sites and we’d all be enduring a much poorer experience.
You can read about the decision on Adobe’s blog, but good luck finding the facts in the obfuscated marketing speak that passes for a post. Instead, read ZDNet’s Jason Perlow, who broke the story earlier today.
“Visionary” video from Microsoft. I don’t hate these in general as much as Gruber does, but this one is just soulless. Unlike AT&T’s “You will” ads that showed specific ways new technology would enrich our lives (send a fax from the beach, kiss your kid goodnight via video chat, pay your toll without stopping), this video is little more than a coat of futuristic paint over things we can already do — mainly centered around sharing data (OK, the cloud), along with some UI effects left over from “Minority Report.” There’s nothing new here, but Microsoft is presenting it all as something they are in the process of inventing. In the meantime, as I watched the video (or tried to), I was doing many of the things it promised on my iPhone.
Today.
I’ve been around tech a long time now, but I have to admit I was having trouble finding some of iOS’s new features. Here are a few of the less obvious (to me, at least):
I’ll keep posting these as I discover or learn about them.
[UPDATE:] Apple says the next iOS update will restore/enable gestures on the original iPad.
A couple more found features related to weather: In the Notifications page, swipe the local weather display for the six-day outlook. In the Weather app itself, tap (or swipe down) on the six-day outlook to get an hourly forecast.
I’ve been around tech a long time now, but I have to admit I was having trouble finding some of iOS’s new features. Here are a few of the less obvious (to me, at least):
I’ll keep posting these as I discover or learn about them.
[UPDATE:] Apple says the next iOS update will restore/enable gestures on the original iPad.
A couple more found features related to weather: In the Notifications page, swipe the local weather display for the six-day outlook. In the Weather app itself, tap (or swipe down) on the six-day outlook to get an hourly forecast.
I’ve been mentioning the resemblance of Apple’s iPhone 4S’ Siri voice recognition to it’s 1987 concept video (I noted it in my liveblog of the announcement.) What I didn’t notice was the uncanny accuracy of the date in which the fictional Knowledge Navigator was placed.
From Andy Baio’s Waxy.org:
Based on the dates mentioned in the Knowledge Navigator video, it takes place on September 16, 2011. The date on the professor’s calendar is September 16, and he’s looking for a 2006 paper written “about five years ago,” setting the year as 2011.
As I mentioned on Chuck Joiner’s MacJury podcast the night of the iPhone announcements, I’m glad they left out the bow tie, though.
(Via Daring Fireball. Again.)