The World of Scott Mindeaux

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….

iPhone4 on June 23? I think so!

Can it be true?

I just got an email from Apple a few minutes ago confirming a June 23rd delivery date…

Is Apple making up for the horrible delays on pre-order day by giving those who got thru a present?

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!

I Relaxed Today Watching Nascar

Yep you read that right. Did you know that back in the early 2000′s I used to like Nascar? Yep. I even collected Nascar die-cast cars for a couple of years. I was doing some recipe testing in the kitchen when I was flipping channels and came across a Nascar race. This was the Pocono Race hosted by Gilette. The race was almost over when I got there, about 5 laps to go. Things got interesting in the last two laps where they called a green checkered flag. There was an incidents just before the 2nd lap and the officials decided to allow the race to continue. Denny Hamlin in Number 11 completed the race, but not before there was a huge crash involving at least 8 cars. The Number 9 car was blocked on a turn and went into the green then he went into traffic causing a pile up. Pretty intense.

Congrats Denny on your win!

Defending a Gay Son

This is a scene from this past week’s episode of Glee. Curt’s dad and Finn’s mom are getting serious and they are moving in together. However, this means Curt and Finn will be sharing a room. Looks like Finn has some issues to deal with. Here, Curt tries to make Finn feel at home and things go awry…

Note: This post is HTML5 friendly. This will play on any iPad, iPhone or any mobile device that doesn’t support Flash.

So it’s Been Over a Week…How’s the iPad?

So alot of readers have been emailing me this past week asking how I like my iPad so far. I wanted to spend at least a week with my iPad before I started putting my thoughts on paper (or on the pad in this case…)

After waking up late on Saturday, April 3, I can still say 10 days later that I’m still a happy iPad owner. Here’s what I have to say so far:

1. Since I got my iPad, I’m using my iPhone for just phone calls now. The experience on the iPad is so much richer. It’s not just the larger screen. Working with iPad developed apps, you find yourself in a different world from your iPhone/iPod.

2. What are my main uses? Email, browsing, note taking and watching movies. When I’m at work it supplements my laptop. I take the iPad to meetings and use that for taking notes. When at my desk I find that I have the mail app open 80% of the time. In addition to Exchange support, I have my MobileMe, GMail and Pop accounts on there. I can check all my email in one place. I don’t have any personal email on my work laptop, so this is perfect. Before the iPad, I had all of these capabilities on my iPhone. Exchange support on my iPhone has allowed me to stay in touch with the office even when I”m at home. There are still many people out there that say that reading email on the iPad can’t be so much different that on the iPhone. That’s probably true. But, I like that I can read my emails without having to resize every time. The speediness of the iPad also allows me to flip thru emails and scroll much faster.

3. Let’s talk about speed. This thing is FAST! Upon the first swipe of your fingers across the screen you know that this is wicked fast. Pull up Google maps and your swiping and pinching and expanding in lightning speed! Its like those multitouch screens on NCIS Los Angeles and CNN.

4. But it’s just a huge iPod Touch right? No. I can’t say enough that this is MORE. Yes, it can run the thousands of apps already written for the iPhone/iPod. But that isn’t where the magic is. The developers that have already written apps specifically for the iPad know where we want to go. I would say that the majority of iPad developers did it right by re-writing the app and taking advantage of larger real estate on the screen. Those that simply “exploded” the app miss the ball. It’s only a matter of time before those same iPhone apps are re-written for the iPad.

Some of my favorite iPad written apps?
WeatherHD - for the simplicity that it is. The subtleness of the videos is awesome
Epicurious – Recipes, recipes – need I say more?
The Elements – the way the Chart of Elements was meant to be shown. I would have taken more interest in science if I had this in high school.
GoSkyWatch – hold your iPad up to the sky and see where the constellations and other heavenly bodies are.
Zinio – my portal so some of my favorite magazines including Macworld and Saveur.
Asphalt5 – I’m not much into games, but I like this driving game as I race against the clock, using my iPad like a steering wheel
Autodesk SketchBook – drawing, layer support. It’s not Photoshop, but it can export to it. Tons of brushes, effect and the ability to have up to 6 layers. WHen you’re done you can export it to Photoshop thru a special interface in iTunes.
Netflix - movies, shows all streamed to my iPad.
ABC Player - all my ABC shows like V, Brothers and Sisters and Flash Forward all streaming to my iPad.

There are so much more! I can RDC into our servers, I can VNC into my Macs at the office. I can stream non-DRM videos from my MacPro at home over the net. Another nice app? Craigsphone. See Craigslist in a way you never have.

So battery life? I can make it thru an entire day on my iPad and still have some room before I plug in at night. It’s nice to know.

So what don’t I like about my iPad?

1. Where is the damn TAB key?
2. It’s hard to hold when its not in a case, its slippery
3. When you have to hold it in a grip in your hand for long periods, it can be taxing.
4. When you hold the iPad like a pad of paper, your thumb is on the “screen”
5. When in landscape mode, you have a close to full size keyboard. Problem is that you want to lay your fingers on the “keys” like a regular keyboard. It took a couple of days to learn to “hover”
6. Some of my favorite iPhone apps haven’t been Padisized yet (is Padisized a word?)

Wishlist?

1. Tab key
2. SD Slot for storage of files
3. There are others, but most will be addressed in 4.0 of the next OS release.

So I mentioned that I don’t use my iPhone that much anymore. That’s not true. I don’t take my iPad everyone I take my iPhone. So when I”m in line at the grocery store or stuck in traffic or out having dinner, the iPad is my bag or at home. Do I wish I had 3G? Sure, but I don’t need it, it would be a nicety. Where I need to get a quick data fix while out n about, I have my iPhone.

There is still so much more to say about the iPad, but my head hurts and my recent sleeping habits make it hard for me to concentrate. I’ll get more of my thoughts down over the next few days.

So overall on a scale of 1 to 10 where do I rate my iPad. I’ll say an 8+. I use it everyday, so it has become a productivity tool for me. App developers are just hitting the tip of the iceberg on what the potential this device can have. I can’t wait!