The World of Scott Mindeaux

Another Kickstarter Find: Sensu Brush

I have been on the hunt for various styli (stylus plural) for my iPad and iPhone. I just received my Jot stylus from Adonit (another Kickstarter venture) and will review soon. In the meantime, here is a true brush for the artist in you and your iPad:

You can visit the Kickstarter site for Sensu at:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/797362124/sensu-brush-a-true-painting-experience-on-your-ipa?ref=live

Apple’s Bumper Better Than I Thought

So my free iPhone 4 case came in today. I opted for an Apple Bumper. I went this route because I didn’t want to cover the iPhone in a case per se. The bumper was also my least favorite as it just looked like a giant rubber band. Much to my surprise, this “rubber band” was actually good looking, made from good materials and works!

The band is comprised of rubber, plastic and I think metal. Where the volume buttons and power switch are metal, the top and bottom of the rim is made from rubber to give it a grip to whatever surface it is on and the remainder is a shiny plastic. The band fits around the iPhone very snugly. The only pain is that the cut out for the silence button makes it difficult to get to the switch. That aside, i like my case. There is enough of a lip on both the back and front that I can lay my phone down on any surface and the glass itself doesn’t touch the surface. For over a month I have always cringed   I laid my phone down on a table.

Antenna-Gate

So, here’s the deal.

Can I replicate the antenna problem on the iPhone 4?

Yes.

Has it been a problem for me?

No.

Is the drop in bars ever resulted in a dropped call for me?

No.

Do I believe that most smartphones experience the attentena problem?

Not sure, but yes. I’ve have gone on youtube and other smartphones seem to drop bars too.

Will I be returning my phone cuz of the antenna problem?

No.

The news and media has grabbed onto this story and has run with it. Do I think that the stories and the hype blew this out of proportion?

Yes.

Do the problems exist?

Yes, for some. For most others, no.

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Now, I have downloaded the new iOS 4.01 update. I now only have 3-4 bars at home and at work instead of the 5 I had before. I can still make calls, I can still download emails, I can access iTunes – everything I was able to do before. I’m also l0oking forward to my free case!

So here’s the bottom line. Apple has sold 3 million iPhones in 3 weeks, many of which are still on backorder with eager owners waiting. Actual calls logged into tech support and Genius Bar visits is less than .55 % of units sold.  1/2 a percent folks. Additional calls lost on the iPhone 4 over the iPhone 3Gs – less than 1 more than the iPhone 3Gs per 100 calls dropped.

Is there really a huge problem here? Why aren’t there droves of people returning their phones? There has always been a 14 day return period for any phone from AT&T, so where are the returns? Apple will do one better and is offering FULL refunds if you truly are unhappy with your phone. Bottom line, if you don’t want to buy one, no one is forcing you to.

iPhone 4 – A Camera for Foodies?

This is a reprint from my foodblog, Foodie In Disguise…

So as many of you know, I’m a computer geek by day. I thought it would be appropriate to do some testing with the new 5 megapixel camera on the back of Apple’s new iPhone 4. Previous to the iPhone 4 I had the iPhone 3G. With the 3G, I did not have tap-to-focus capability and this camera didn’t perform well in dark settings. Close up photos of food was even more problematic as the camera could not focus. In fact, I purchased a case that had a built-in macro lens (Griffin Technology’s Clarifi Case for the iPhone 3G and 3GS) that I could slide over the iPhone’s camera and take macro shots. This certainly was much better than anything and for almost 2 years I have used my 3G for photos. If you are a regular reader to FID, a good portion of the food photos are taken with my old iPhone 3G.

So, was I excited when Apple announced a better camera? Oh yes. Below in the photo gallery, I selected some photos that I recently took for some recipe testing I was working on for a client. I was impressed by the quality of the photos, especially up close. I’m sorry I don’t have my old iPhone 3G or I would have done some side-by-side comparisons – but honestly, the iPhone 3G would not have been able to get as close as I did with the iPhone 4.

Now, let me say that the photos in this set were taken under better than average lighting conditions. The burger and onion ring shots were taken after sunset with nearby overhead lighting. I will try to take some photos this weekend in deliberate dark locations and see how the pictures come out.

None of the photo’s below had any retouching or brightness level changes done in Photoshop. These are the raw images as they came off the iPhone 4 directly. No digital zoom was used as the iPhone 4 is capable of 5x digital zoom. The tap-to-focus capability allows you to tap on the screen and the camera will focus on that point. Focusing also adjusts exposure and white balance automatically. If you notice in the Endive Taco shows, there is a shot with the blue chips as the focal and the endives as the other focal point. The brightness levels are different as the lighting towards the back of the dish was different from the front.

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I’m quite happy with the photos. Now I use my iPhone camera when I’m out doing restaurant reviews or pictures on-the-fly. I just bought a Canon Rebel XSi and still have my trusty Canon Powershot G2.

First Impressions on my iPhone4

So I was one of those lucky souls that got their iPhone4 a day early. FedEx’s tracking system was being bombarded with requests and was no longer providing updated tracking information the morning of the 23rd.

At about 10:23am, FedEx was knocking at my door so I rushed to the door (I was on the phone with BofA) and opened the door to find the FedEx guy wiht a small box, he asked if I was Scott Mindeaux, I said yes and he handed me the box after a scribble on his pad.

I opened the box and was trembling with joy. Could this be real?? Yes it was and once cupped in my hand I knew it was real. This is one nice piece of hardware. Solid, feels good in the hand. I really wanted a White iPhone, but those were no where to be found – and according to reports on MacRumors and MacNN, they won’t be available to the public until mid-July. The phone is enclosed in glass and a band of stainless steel wraps around the unit. It’s very contemporary and despite having hard edges, it’s an elegant design.

I powered up the unit and the icon asking for a connection cable was on the screen. They unit launched iTunes and asked me for my number and other pieces of identification to verify that I was an existing AT&T customer. After about 3 minutes, my system started to come to life. My apps were being installed and then a previous backup files were also being uploaded. Within about 12 minutes, it was done.

I unplugged and the first thing I did? A FaceTime call with my friend in DC, Scott Shumaker. This was magical indeed. His face appeared and mine did too in the corner and was started talking and throwing back “no way’s” to each other. We flipped our cameras to the back side camera to show the other view. THis image was crisp and there was no apparent lag. It will be interesting to see after the other 600,000 or so users get their phones activated how well FaceTime works. Seeing Scott on the screen was very kewl. THIS was Star Trek!

Some some things to note so far:

Call reception and quality was about the same as my 3G

Speakers “seem” like they are a bit louder

There were/are reports of signal loss when being held – I personally experienced this yesterday and there is a drop in bars when held by the stainless steel. However, when I release the signal bars come back.

Thankfully, I don’t have any of the yellow blotches in the lower righthand corner

This display is SICK! I struggled looking to see if I could see pixels with the naked eye. I played a few videos on it and it is brilliant!

I already fallen in love with the folder system – this makes like easier for sure!

I have taken a few photos, but the real test will be when I do a restaurant review. I’m looking forward to touch focus and if it can handle low light environments. On my 3G I bought a case that had a sliding macro lens for close up photos. I was told I won’t be needing it with this phone. I’ll let you know how it goes. As far as regular photos, they are crisp and look great!

I have taken a few movies with the phone but have yet to export and view them on an HD monitor – more on this later…

Did I tell you this unit is fast??? It is very responsive and the most notable of this speed is the ability to take successive photos in a row with the iPhone4.

I didn’t think I would actually “read” books on here, but I downloaded iBooks and can I say it looks great? I found myself reading a book when going to bed last night.

The only “multi-tasking app” I have loaded right now is Pandora. As more apps become iOS4 compliant there will be more apps that take advantage of multi-tasking

On a side note, my NetShare app (which was banned from the iPhone 2 years ago) still works…kinda. It works for a minute then the app quits. If I relaunch it, it works for another minute then craps out again. Oh well, if I “really” need tethering, I’ll have to use AT&T’s option for tethering at $10 a month with bluetooth or usb connection.

Having a unified email box is nice too.

More to come later….

Guess What’s On Its Way?

Well after 15-16 hours of trying and trying to place my order online, I finally got thru and today I get notification that my iPhone 4 is on its way and on-time for a June 23rd delivery by 10:30am.

June 23?

That’s a whole day earlier than the worldwide announcement date of June 24. I’m sure some executive order form the Stevester’s Desk will inevitably make my delivery date June 24.

But what a wonder and joy if it really came on June 24!