Tag: apple

Why Kindle ?

I have my Kindle 2 for over a year now and since the launch of iPad in April, people keep asking me a boring question, that is – “Why Kindle ?”. And of course, the question always follow by another equally boring one, that is – “Why not iPad ?”. In most cases, I answer the two questions with another question – “How many books have you read in the past 12 months ?”.

“Errh … may be one or two.” is the typical answer. And I think they answer their own questions.

Late last month, Amazon launched the Kindle 3 and Jeff Bezos was interviewed by the acclaimed interviewer and broadcast journalist, Charlie Rose. And now I know, what’s the best answer to these questions.

Straight from Jeff Bezos:

“I would say something though like we’re trying to get out of the way.  We’re not trying to create an experience.  We want the author to create the experience.  You know, if you’re going to read Nabokov or Hemmingway or we want us creating the experience for.  That’s not our job.  Our job is to provide the convenience.  That you can get books in 60 seconds, that you can carry your whole library with you so that you don’t get hand strain, so the device doesn’t get hot in your hands, so that it doesn’t cause eye strain, so that the battery life lasts a month, so you never get battery anxiety …

Now people say why don’t you add a touch screen?  Well, the reason we don’t want a touch screen is if we’re going down that decision path, we say, okay, a touch screen and the current technology for touch screens — it’s called capacitive touch — it’s a layer that goes on top of that display.
 It adds glare.  The first thing that you do when you add a touch display is that you add a little extra layer of glass or plastic and a little bit of glare.  So it’s very easy from an engineering point of view to add a touch screen but it’s not the right thing if you’re making no compromises and that’s our point of view on this.  We want a device that’s for uncompromised reading and guess what?  Our approach is working.”

Yes, if you read lots of books a year, in long-form reading style, then you need Kindle. Period.

10 steps to migrate your iPhone 3G / 3GS to iPhone 4

So you have decided to go for the iPhone 4 after all the reviews of exciting features (if you are an Apple fanboy) and news / blogs about the antennagate (and you really don’t care). Here are the steps you need to do to migrate your trusty iPhone 3G / 3GS to the iPhone 4.

  1. Make sure your old iPhone has performed a complete backup via the iTunes
  2. If you’re using Kindle for iPhone, deregister the device (from within the application).
  3. Make sure you have Internet connection, such that iTunes can access iTunes store. Connect your new iPhone 4 to your PC running iTunes and register your new iPhone 4, with your Apple ID.
  4. Since your iPhone 4 come with iOS 4.0 only, download and install the iOS 4.0.1, thru the iTunes (so pretty much automatically)
  5. Restore the content / applications / setting from the iTunes backup image to your new phone
  6. Check all the settings to see things are in good order. Check all the email accounts / applications, by running each of the applications once and enter application-dependent password again (if neccessary).
  7. If your old phone has upgraded to iOS 4.x and you have created folders. Bad news, you have to organize the folders and applications in your new iPhone again. Somehow the restoration will migrate the folders but not moving the applications to the right folder as set up in your old phone.
  8. Install the iPhone case program (program ended) application to your iPhone. Run the application with appropriate Apple ID password, and pick the case you like. For review and photos of the cases, here is a good resource.
  9. Erase the iPhone 3G content via Settings / General / Reset / “Erase all content and settings”, confirm two times and it’s done (it will take long time to finish the erase, however). Now you can pass the phone to your friends or family members.
  10. Very last step, install some good looking wallpapers like I did in the new iPhone 4:

iPad vs. iPhone + Kindle

I use iPhone and Kindle 2 heavily and I also have iPod, MacBook etc. Even though I am not really a super fanboy of Apple … still, I thought a tablet from Apple is something I was waiting for, until I see the iPad today.

It’s thin, it’s beeeeautiful, and the user interface is certainly sleeeek. But wait, where are the new new things ? In fact,

  • There is no phone – sure, I can make VOIP phone call … but why ?
  • No camera – so no snapshots, no video phone conference / calls, no augmented reality applications,
  • No multitasking – I cannot download videos while I am doing something else,
  • No HDMI output – I cannot use it as the Youtube video station for my TV,
  • No Flash support – I guess I have to wait for HTML 5 websites … but again, why ?

You know, I thought Apple would announce a super new way to browse magazines and newspaper with iPad that can save the publishing industry, but no, again probably need to wait for some super-duper iPad application to do that. So is the iBooks really better than Kindle for iPhone ? Who knows …

And seriously, how can you hold this device for hours to read a book (my Kindle 2 can easily do that, and the battery can last for two weeks) ? And how can you take this from your home to your office, or your frequent coffee shop without adding a cover / bag ?

So far, really, I can think of only one big big reason to get one … that is if I want to share my photos with my friends and family, on the road.

Video from Engadget.com.

http://www.viddler.com/simple_on_site/51b063e8

From Commodore 64 to Apple MacBook

I think most, if not all, computer geeks’ dream personal computer is one with an apple logo stamps on it … they may use a Windows PC at work, on the road or at home but in their dream they want to buy an Apple computer. Windows PCs are good machines actually, but they just don’t have the style, personality and cult. 

I am the same as any other geeks except the fact that I bought mine 26 years late. Because somehow, 26 years ago, I bought myself the Commodore 64 insteal of the Apple II / III. Anyway, no matter it’s a Windows PC or Apple MacBook, I still have the same question – why is it so difficult to make these all work together ?