iPhone Coverart Fail

Ok, this was really just a reason for me to play with my camera, iMovie, and YouTube uploading, but an annoying bug none the less.

The coverart that is displayed does not match the track that is playing. Switch to coverflow and the coverart is correct. Switch back and it is still wrong. Flip to the details and the mini coverart is correct. Odd. I think this has been there for quite a few spins of the firmware.

And note to self, small text overlays don't encode well at YouTube quality :) That fail is all on me.

CRbus Update

Public transit in Cedar Rapids had a bit of a shakeup this year. With all-time record flooding in the city, our Ground Transportation center was damaged, as well as many of the neighborhoods that the buses blaze through (and some of the buses themselves).

The city has made the best of what they have. This includes a new hub at Parking Lot 44, south of the regular GTC. It also includes some new stops, less frequent buses, but also later running buses.

My iPhone optimized Cedar Rapids bus schedule, CRbus, is now up to date with the schedules posted on August 22nd. Sorry for the delay. I wasn't riding the bus much in the last few months, so it wasn't a priority for me. [CRbus was launched here]

Let me know if you find any errors in the data. The city doesn't provide the data in an easily consumable format, so there's a lot of hand editing involved.

iPhone Remote Review

iPhone 2.0 software is out and that means your iPhone can now be a remote. Yes, with Apple's Remote application, you can use the iPhone to control iTunes on your computer, and better yet, your Apple TV.

I'm loving this app so far. Setup is very easy. You use the same PIN entry that you use to create a relationship between your Apple TV and the computers in your network. Once you are setup, you get a familiar iPod-like set of menus on the iPhone. The only difference is that when you pick something to play, sound and video start on the Apple TV, rather than the iPhone.


It is interesting that the playlist interface is a bit different from the one you get with the traditional iPod controls.

Other things to note

• No, you can't stream from your library to your phone using this app.


• You can view ratings of your library content, but you can't set new ratings with the Remote app.


• Coverart and track info is displayed so this is the perfect party controller. You never have to leave the poker table to figure out which song is playing or start something else on request. If you are progressing through a playlist, the coverart will just update for you. Turn off power savings and hang your phone on the wall next to the stereo so your guests know what is playing.


• Elapsed track time does display. Very nice.


• It has search!


• Regular remotes still work. Get in a remote battle with your family members.


• Coverflow does not work in Remote


• You can spend as long as you like selecting something new from the Remote interface without stopping what is playing on the Apple TV. This is especially valuable when viewing movies because normally the Apple TV will stop playing the movie completely when you jump into the menu system.


• Sadly, you can crash the Apple TV using the Remote program. It doesn't happen often, but I have done it.


• Best of all, it is free

Hooray for Trism

iPhone 2.0 software is out and somehow I managed to get upgraded this morning amongst the melting Apple servers. I'm a little underwhelmed with the selection of apps in the app store so far. I figured there would be dozens I would want to try and buy. There aren't, yet.

I was looking for a good puzzle game though. I came across Trism. Looked like something I'd enjoy. Match up tiles. Things slide around. Bonuses for large matches. Hold on, what's this. Color blind mode!. I was already leaning towards buying this game and color blind mode, with letters along with the color, put me right over the top.

Huge thanks to the developer, Demiforce, for including a color blind mode. It is much appreciated and resulted in a sale of your game.

One final thanks to Apple for building in a screenshot function in the 2.0 software. Hold home and hit sleep/wake. I love it.

BTW, the game is lots of fun too.

Apple Dogfooding

Apple has been seeing great success with Safari on the iPhone, but there's always room for improvement. On a recent trip to Chicago, I wanted to visit a local Apple retail store. The problem is that there are 7 of them in Illinois and I couldn't really tell you right off which one was close to me.

I was easily able to hit the retail site in Safari and figure out the store I wanted to visit, but then the gotchas started. The iPhone doesn't have copy/paste. Google Maps on the iPhone is superb, but you have to get the address in there. To transfer addresses from the web to Google Maps you have to play a game to have the people around you each remember a portion of the address and feed it back to you once you are on the maps screen.

I'd expect Apple to integrate this a little tighter. Perhaps they embed some geocode or microformats that Safari would know to pass to Google Maps. This is the kind of delight feature that Apple fans have come to expect ;)

Update
I found a workaround. It still isn't ideal, but better than nothing. With the address onscreen in Safari, select the search icon. You can now type in the address that you can see through the shaded screen. When you search, Google will give you the Google Maps link at the top of your search results. If you select that link in Safari, the iPhone will launch Google Maps within the iPhone, not Safari. This is what I want, but with the extra step of reentering the address. As Josh mentioned in the comments, a context menu like you get in the desktop Safari with the option to "Search in Google" would be an even better answer. The end game is still a one click map-to-this.

CRbus

In my previous post, I mentioned I was working on an app for the iPhone. It's done and here it is. It's called CRbus and is an iPhone optimized view of the Cedar Rapids public transit schedule.

The app took about an hour from start to finish thanks to the great iUI framework. The data in the app took much, much longer. At the start I wrote a quick Perl script to take pasted data from the official PDFs and package it for inclusion in the app. That worked fine, other than there were a bunch of special cases in the data that I didn't want to spend the time handling in my code. I didn't think this would be a big deal, and it wasn't, until I got to those special cases and found I need a lot of hand tweaking of my data (boo). That's all done and the app is ready for use.

If you want to give this a try, you don't have to have an iPhone. Firefox and Safari will run it fine. Just hit the CRbus URL and then drag your window into the shape of an iPhone (hint: tall rectangle) to get the experience. You start with a list of routes. Follow a route to get a list of stops. Follow a stop to get the times. You can follow the bread crumb arrows at the top back up the tree.

This is just a bare bones version of what the app could be. Obvious features would include Google Maps and Transit integration, syncing with the clock in the iPhone, and even (currently disabled) next/previous stop jumps that you'll see at the bottom of the pages. We'll see if I ever get motivated to add any of those :)

Hello World - iPhone Style

I'm excited about mobile development again. I'm eagerly awaiting the iPhone SDK and while I wait, I figured I'd at least try some iPhone development in its current, web development, form.

I'll post about what I made in a future post. For now, I just wanted to link to some of the things that got me going.

Apple has some great developer resources, including the iPhone Dev Center. I'm not sure why they hide them all behind a login curtain, but they do. Once you create (or buy) an ADC login, you can access 2 hours worth of videos about iPhone development. The videos range from UI elements to how to simplify your app for smaller form factors. Even if you have no interest in Apple and the iPhone, you might enjoy the usability aspects of the talks. Most of the concepts apply to Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, and other mobile development. If you watch and it all seems like common sense to you, good, you are better off than most developers that build UIs.

If you're ready to start building right away, look no further than iUI. iUI is a great framework to build web based apps that look native to the iPhone. Within an hour, I was able to build a great looking, highly functional, app using iUI. I tweaked the included CSS a bit to include some further button samples I found at the iPhone Dev Center. Thanks go to Joe Hewitt for his work on iUI.

Finally, if you want to follow some discussion and get some links to other apps people have built for the iPhone, head over to the iPhoneWebDev Google Group.

Tick tock on the SDK clock.

iPhone - Successful Before Shipping

Apple's iPhone ships this week. It may make Apple a lot of money, it may not, that's not the topic here. The great thing about the iPhone is that it has been successful in pushing the tech industry without ever selling a single one.

Is everything new on the iPhone? Of course not. Only the uninformed and blinded fans don't realize that the iPhone contains a lot of technology already in use in many other phones. However, the iPhone is doing some things different, and here are a few of the items that I think will benefit the industry.

• No scrollbars - Real estate on mobile devices is very limited. Apple is bolding ditching the desktop and mouse UI and relying on finger flicks for scrolling. I don't know about you, but hitting arrows the size of the text on a keyboard key, next to a screen bezel is not an easy task. Both Windows Mobile and Palm OS use scrollbars. It will be interesting to see how OS X without scrollbars works.



• Alphabet scrollers - This is new to me at least. The alphabet down the side of the screen allows more precise scrolling while still saving scroll bar space.



• Contact based dialing - The iPhone brings focus to calling people based on their contact info primarily and their phone number as a last resort. Yes, please.



• Simple call management - Putting people on hold, swapping calls, merging for a conference call. These are all a button push away. My home phone and desk phone are all capable of these, but I never use them because I can't remember the steps. Something about pressing flash for 1 second, then hanging up, and something. Who's on the other line? I have no idea, I don't have that information available to me. The iPhone looks amazing in this regard.



• Google maps - Soon all phones will have mapping. Again, this isn't new. Garmin used to make handhelds that included turn by turn directions. Plentry of other phones do as well, but the tight integration is where Apple is pushing the industry. Auto-dialing from map searches. Contact management of businesses. These are the next steps and Apple has them today.



• .com button. This is a first to me. The keyboard on the Safari browser has a .com button. That's brilliant. It would be even better if it used some Google smarts to figure out when the .com needs to be .org or .edu. Tapping in .com is a pain. This makes it less painful. Have you ever seen a .com button on a keyboard before?



• Visual voicemail - I want this at work. I want this at home. This has been needed for years. This will be on all phones within a couple of years if Apple hasn't patented it tight.



• Smarter button locks - * clear to unlock? No thanks. A simple slide of the finger makes sense. I hate the Sony Ericsson phone at work that lectures me everytime I take too many key presses to unlock it. "Next time hit * 1 to unlock". How about next time, you engineer a solution that doesn't require that you remind me how to use it everytime I do.



• Full web browser, multi-touch to the masses, continued music/phone integration based on lessons learned with the ROKR.



• Finally, the price point. We still don't have all of the pricing details, but the iPhone will recalibrate phone pricing. Apple is very successful with setting price points and holding them pretty well. The iPhone's price point clears alot of room for other phone manufacturers to begin making money on phones again. I know many people want free phones, but you get what you pay for. Personally, I'll pay for quality, ease of use, tight integration, and good design. It would be great if the iPhone would slow the yearly churn on cell phones. We have enough old electronics in our landfills.

iPhone Questions

To go along with my hits and misses, I have a few iPhone questions that haven't been fully answered yet.

• Will it be locked down? - Some articles say you can't run your own apps. Some might read in to the statements with a little more hope for loading their own code on their iPhone. From the NY Times article
  

  “These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.”

  
  I see hope in the Widgets. The phone appears to run the same Widgets from the desktop. I'm hoping that Dashcode isn't just for the desktop and will be the vehicle for custom development on the iPhone.


• Is the battery removable? - Most likely, not, and I'm ok with that, but I've talked to some folks that say there is no way they'd get one if it didn't have a second battery option.


• Full use Bluetooth? - Bluetooth headsets are a given. Apple is releasing their own, which is curious. Are they doing this to embed some simpler pairing or did they see an opportunity to design a nice headset. Personally, I think there are quite a few nice headsets on the market. They will have a tough time besting those already in the market. Apple has yet to post any details about their headset. I'm hoping they do that soon.
  
  Beyond headsets, what will we get? A2DP? Dial-up networking? HID? Object push? If A2DP is in there, I think I'll have to buy one, whether or not I want to use the phone portion (more on that in another question). A2DP would also allow for cleaner music sending and control without goofy solutions. Dial-up networking would sure make the data plan worth having. Apple has great Bluetooth networking support in OS X. Macbook + data enabled iPhone = high degree of connectibility. HID would shut up all of the folks that have to have plastic keys to be happy typing. I'd expect mini thumb boards and sewn-in keyboards to show up in droves. Object push would let you make use of that 4/8 GB of flash and get your pictures off without a cable. If it were Apple alone, I think all of this would work. Since this is a phone, I'm more concerned that the carriers will have a hand in blocking some of these features, as they've done in the past.


• Can you buy one without a contract? - Some folks are saying yes because they will be for sale in Apple stores. I don't think that means a darn thing. I'm pretty sure you'll be forced to buy a contract, even though the pricepoint seems to be an unsubsidized price. That's Cingular's payoff for keeping the secret, developing the back end for visual voicemail and generally relaxing their requirements to let Apple do what they want to do with a phone on their network. If the contract is required, I predict tons of cheap iPhones on eBay 2 years from June. People go through phones like bread. "Ohh, you have a RAZR? That's so stale. The KRZR is where it's at, doof!" If Apple doesn't follow on with non-phone widescreen touch iPods, then the used iPhone market is going to be jumping for those that don't care about the phone and just want the rest.


• Can you use it without a SIM? - I think it would be suicide to disable the device if it had no SIM, but who knows when you get mobile carriers involved. I guess we'll see.


• Can you send music wirelessly? - We all know the Zune can squirt, but will the iPhone? Will you be able to send non-DRM'd files over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or is that part of the no wireless synching that I've heard? Will you be able to send DRM'd music? I can see myself dropping an album or two on a friends computer or work computer to listen with the connected speakers. You auth that machine so it can play that content and then de-auth it when you leave. That's within the bounds of the DRM, as long as you can get the files off of the phone.

Do you have any links to help answer these questions? Leave a link in the comments.

iPhone Misses

To go with the hits, I definitely think the iPhone has a few misses.

• Can't sync over wireless - Please let this be untrue. I've been begging for wireless sync for years now. Now there is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth onboard and still no wireless sync?


• Phone contract - Ugg. I don't have a mobile phone now. This might make me get one, but it still would be nice to have this device for the iPod and communicator functionality without being locked into a contract. I'd prefer it to just be sold as a GSM phone that I can take to the carrier of my choice which might be no carrier at all.


• Can't buy songs from the iTunes store - Again, I want this to be untrue. Think of the thousands of songs a day that will be bought by people at the airport, waiting for the bus, or just hanging out with friends. The impulse buy is quite powerful. Here a track at the club that you love, buy it immediately so you don't forget.


• Development age - Maybe it's just me, but some of the included tech suggests that this has been in development for 2.5 years. EDGE but not 3G could be a deal-breaker for some. Also the 2 megapixel phone seems pretty basic. Again, I don't care that there is a phone at all, but some will complain about the camera. Hopefully the camera has better optics than most mobile phone cameras.


• Different Dock - The pictures of the iPhone in a dock look like it is a different dock than the iPod. What happened to the plastic inserts? It uses an iPod dock connector, but not the dock? That sucks. I hate docks all over my desk and without the ability to wirelessly sync, they force me to have a dock or a hanging cable. Both of those choices are crappy.

Lots are calling the price a miss. I actually called for a $499 price, but that was without a contract. If I'm thinking ahead, I think Apple had to go with that price point to leave room for a $399 100 GB iPod that has widescreen and multi-touch capabilities. If the phone were any cheaper, because of a subsidy from Cingular, people wouldn't be able to get past the mental block of an iPod that costs more than the iPhone with an iPod in it, completely disregarding the 2 year contract lock-in. I think the iPhone is actually going to bring revenue to all of the wireless carriers as folks pay a penalty to break their existing contracts to go with the iPhone.

I also really don't care if it has a removeable battery or not. Many people will, but it is nice to see a 5 hour talk time which is more than many Blackberries which state a 4 hour talk time.

Next up, the questions that I still have about the iPhone.

iPhone Hits

I think Apple has another hit on their hands with the iPhone. Here are some things I think they did right.

• No buttons - I doubt many Blackberry users will switch, but that's ok. I tend to agree with Steve's explanation. Buttons are in the way when you don't need them and when you think of a good interface idea, you have no option but to build new hardware. I like the sleek, simple face. Notice that they still don't have an Apple logo on the front. That makes me happy. I'm also glad to see no number buttons, just like I asked for. If you watch the keynote, Steve refers to dialing a phone number as being "real last century"


• Multi-touch - Wow, wow, wow. We've been getting a taste of this in movies and university research, but to see it in real life use is something to celebrate. Even if the iPhone is a complete flop as a phone, this technology will certainly creep in to lots of other places.


• Focus on contacts, not phone numbers - Yup, phone numbers are stupid. Keep one set of carefully polished contacts and sync them everywhere.


• Awesome unlock - Locking and unlocking phones until know have been a huge pain in the butt. This looks like a perfect solution.


• Dedicated ring/silent switch - Useful


• Flick to scroll - Looks amazing


• Call merging and adding - Yes, yes. Why is this still hard? I have no idea how to operate these functions on my work phone. I use them rarely, but I would like to use them at times if I knew how.


• Visual voicemail - Email inbox style voicemail. Everyone's thought of it. Now we have it.


• iPod dock connector - Reuse existing cables and possibly add-ons.


• Size - Looks like a good form factor. I can't wait to hold one.


• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth - These are must have technologies. I'm hoping for wide Bluetooth profile support.


• Google Maps - Location services are hot. I refuse to ask for directions, so this is great!

Notice I didn't say anything about the camera or texting. I think those will be marginally acceptable. I don't really like cameras in phones in the first place.

Next up, the misses and the questions.