DIY true tone flash

So if you've seen the new iPhone's camera, you know it has a "true tone" flash. One is the regular blue and one is yellow for warmer light conditions. Kinda cool. Pros have been balancing the color of their flash for years with gels. You too can do this to your camera phone with these simple instructions.

1. Buy some gels. Back in my day grocery stores used to sell colored cellophane. I didn't see any so I guess this is a "back in my day" story. So instead you can order some from Roscoe. In fact they often have a multi color sampler pack for cheap. The samples are more than enough for your camera.



2. Cut the gel into the right size.  Basically you'll just cut out a square big enough to cover the flash on your camera.

3. Tape it over the flash. Pretty easy, right? But what if you want to switch colors? You can try the Velcro trick. Instead of taping it directly to the phone, tape it to a strip of Velcro. Cut it down to the right size and put another strip of Velcro on the phone. There you go. Customized true tone flash for any camera phone with a flash.

False Flag

I used that website to see if the new iPhone is in stock.  It said the phone was in stock.  I went to the Apple store, because I want to get the trade in credit.  They said they don't have any 5S in stock.  None.  I went home angry.  I checked the website - this time the Apple website - and they said they have it in the store I just returned from.  This is the third time this has happened.  Three strikes and you're out.  Well the first time my mobile carrier went down and they couldn't sell them.  So two stupid strikes.  Maybe it is a sign.

So I'm thinking again about the Android.  I recently read that not only can I ditch the awful iTunes but that you can plug your DSLR directly into your phone and then load the pictures and post them to the webs.  How awesome is that?  For these two things alone it might be worth it.



*sigh*

Wish I could just put Android on the iPhone.  Because nothing beats the iPhone for looks.  If it is just going to live in a case then who cares about little details?  Flat back, flat sides, and rounded edges; just the overall shape is perfect.  Well it also has that awesome camera.  Photo noobs take note:  bigger megapixels are better.  The new iPhone camera has bigger megapixels and the lens has a wider max aperture.  It is possibly the best camera in any cellphone.

Two years is a long time to commit to something.  I would like to have a phone with a bigger keyboard and be able to do some Androidy widgety things.  Maybe Apple Store shenanigans is a sign?

Time to buy a new phone

It's that time of year.  Time for a new phone.  The current Godmachine is the iPhone 4S, so it is time to upgrade.  This year's Apple offering is the iPhone 5S.  It is a nice looking phone, but iOS 7 has a few bad features in with the new features.

But before that, let's take a look back at the first iPhone.



Love or hate them, Apple changed the cellphone market forever.  While they didn't create the first smartphone (and never claimed to), the first iPhone was truly revolutionary.  Look at how phones changed.  I also find it useful to compare this video with Microsoft's response. 


The first thing he has to say is that it isn't a good business phone.  Because back in 2006 the only people who had smartphones like the Palm and the Blackberry were business people who often were assigned their phones by their jobs.  So Ballmer is here thinking that because businesses won't buy them (because they won't be as efficient for typing emails) that they won't sell well.  He doesn't seem to realize the consumer potential.

Okay now let me bitch about the new iPhone!

First they have disabled the music player from playing podcasts.  I hate this "feature" because I listen to a lot of podcasts.  Music podcasts, comedy podcasts, and educational podcasts.  All the while I mix in some regular old music.  Switching apps is a chore and the podcast app sucks.



Pastels?



Yes, pastels!

I give this phone a lot of credit though.  The iPhone is the most stolen cell phone.  Theives target it because of the high resale value.  They call it "Apple picking".  Apple decided to add a fingerprint scanner to stop this.  They didn't have to, and I give them a lot of credit for doing it and making it work fairly well.  If your phone is stolen I imagine it is a race against time between you and the theives to see who can get to a computer first.  You try and get to a computer to brick it.  They try and get to a computer to hack it.  If it takes a few extra hours for them to hack your phone that gives you precious time.

Still, having flaws gives me pause.  Maybe it is time to look around and size up the competitors.

Android phones:

One thing I like about Android phones is that they are so customizable.  You can change just about everything regarding the look and feel of the UI.  In a way, that's part of the problem with these things.  Many of the handset manufacturers have loaded their own UI over Android.  I've played around with a few of these and so far I don't like what they've done.  Maybe the "pure" Android with my own custom crap would be good, but some of these don't look that great - like Touchwiz - and some don't respond so well - like the Nook.

There are some other nice looking features, like freeing me from iTunes (which I still hate) and being able to add widgets.  Because I hate that the lock screen on the iPhone doesn't display the date and there is no way to make it do that.

All in all I'm not really sure if the pros of Android outweigh the cons.  Android updates are so disjointed that there is no way to know if your phone will even get the next update.  But I'm sure that the iPhone 5S will get next year's iOS update.  I'm also not sure that I want to spend a lot of time figuring out a new OS and how to customize and maximize the darn thing.

That's just the software.  So the only ones that look like something to compare with the iPhone from a hardware point of view are the HTC One and the Moto X.  Also I'm not into really big screens because I don't carry a purse around, so I'm not interested in things like the Galaxy.  I can't really say if they are better hardware or not.  Pretty good specs.  I'd lean towards the HTC One because of the aluminum body and square edges.  I like that the iPhone lies flat when I set it down and that I can rest it on its side to use the flash as a minilamp.  You'll understand when you get married.

Microsoft phones:

I really wanted to like these.  They seem like they work well.  Like most Microsoft things, they are very poorly marketed.  Remember that commercial that had the thesis that it freed you from your old phone, which was too consuming.


When you watch this commercial, without seeing the Microsoft tag at the very end, it would be easy to imagine this commercial was made by someone who hated smartphones.  Showing you people who loved their phones too much; it was like they were trying to get you to use a new product like google glass or trying to convince you to take a vacation and unplug from the Matrix.  I mean really?  What idiot dreamed this up?  Oh right...

The best quote is from the youtube comments

Great commercial! Really highlights how if you get a Windows Phone you won't even want to use it like those other suckers out there. My friend actually leaves his Windows Phone in a drawer for weeks at a time.

So the actual Windows phone, which they don't even bother to show you in this commercial, isn't bad.  But I don't know if I could ever really like the hub and tiles.  I like that they tried something different.  But if pastels were bad then big color blocks aren't much better.  I'm old and boring and I don't need to have live tiles constantly update.  There won't be updates and that will just depress me and remind me of how boring my life is.

My brother, the other Mister Booze, has one and likes it.  But he likes the XBox live stuff.  I hate games and would have no use for it.  It doesn't look any more customizable than the iPhone.

So it looks like my choices are iPhone or Android - most likely the HTC One - and I'm leaning towards the iPhone.  Maybe if we complain enough Apple will let us customize some more things (remember when they finally gave us custom text tones) and fix the music player.  Remember when the first iPhone came out and you could only sync music, you couldn't even manually manage music?  And it didn't have a landscape keyboard or cut and paste?

Speaking of which, I understand that the young kids stream all their music these days.  And I get that.  I do.  But if you were me you wouldn't stream music either.  I work downtown where the network is bogged down and speeds over the 3G/4G whatever are terrible.  There isn't a free wifi network near my desk.  And I stupidly tried to save a few bucks and dropped my unlimited plan back when I did have a free wifi network at my desk and only used a few hundred meg a month.  And now I'm too cheap to bump up my monthly data plan.  So yeah, stream that music kids.  Grandpa booze over here will be doing it the old fashioned way and upload mp3s to his phone.

Marketing 101

This is my blog and I'll post what I like.  And right now I am obsessed with marketing and smartphones, so this is a rambling smartphone post.

First I like to think that Microsoft has the worst marketing department since General Motors.  I mean what was the Jerry Seinfeld commercial supposed to sell?  It was funny but I didn't get it at all.

So Microsoft released their Windows phone 7 update, called Mango.  I want to start with this as an example of terrible marketing.  The new Windows mobile OS was a huge departure from the old and terrible Windows Mobile OS.  They rethought the mobile platform and came up with a concept of making the GUI like a subway map.  The philosophy led them to a color scheme of solid primary colors and the Metro typeface.  So why didn't they call it Windows Metro?  It makes sense.  It is something that identifies the brand and what it is trying to accomplish.  Calling it Windows Phone 7 leads the average consumer to think it is more of the same old crap rather than something new and different.  Fail.

Mango.  The first thing that mangos spring to mind is that Saturday Night Live skit.  The second is that naming each OS iteration after a fruit is simply copying Google's plan of naming each OS iteration after a confectionery treat.  Mango and guava.  Honeycomb and gingerbread.  I get it.  Second fiddle to Google.  Poor man's Android.  That's what this marketing tells me.

I'm not married to Apple, Lord knows I hate iTunes.  Seriously, they took away the delete key?  I have to click edit -> delete now?  FUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK!!

Still Apple has some of the best marketing around.  Just look at the iPhone marketing.  It is brilliant in its simplicity.  A close up of the actual phone with a hand model demonstrating the phone's ease of use.  In contrast Microsoft tried to market 7 by showing people spending too much time looking at their screens.  How does Microsoft's phone do better?  I don't know because the commercial didn't show me.  Just showed a bunch of iPhone losers looking at their screens instead of talking to girls.  Doesn't exactly sell me on the hub crap.

When I survey the smartphone market I think about what phone I'll buy next.  I love my 3GS and see no reason to upgrade anytime soon.  It still does all the things I want and none of the new phones, including the iPhone 4, do things significantly better.  But I know that one day it will break and it will be time for an upgrade.  A friend has an Android and I like the widget thing.  Very useful.  Maybe the new iOS 5 will match the widgets.  The Mango has live updates on their icons, seemingly similar to widgets.  Which one looks the best?  Not RIM.  Buhzing!

Would I buy a Windows Metro phone?  Maybe.  I think marketing plays a big role right now, since other smartphones have finally caught up with the iPhone.  I've researched this probably more carefully than most consumers, and there is a lot to like about Metro.  The problem is that they don't do a very good job at showing people what there is to like about Metro.  Androids have marketed well by showing that they have better hardware than the iPhone but comparable features from the OS.  In some ways slightly better, for example cordless syncing.  So while the Android ecosystem is incredibly diverse in terms of OS versions and hardware iterations, consumers at least know something about the brand.  And this brings us back to marketing 101.

Will Windows Metro flourish or flounder?  I can't tell right now.  There is a lot to like about the OS, but a few problems, and a lot of hardware question marks.  But what I can tell is that the marketing for this product is fairly poor and this will hurt sales.  That will limit developer participation, which in turn reinforces poor sales.  My own humble policy recommendation is to rename it Metro, and work closely with the handset manufacturers to market and brand the Metro phone ecosystem as its own thing, and then advertise all the ways that Metro gives you the best combination of hardware and user experience.  This isn't a profound insight, this is Marketing 101.

I paint

The evolution of my art on the godmachine



First attempt



Second attempt



It seems to have lost something in compression





This is what I get for listening to too much Ahab and reading too much Lovecraft







There will probably be a lot more of this, since I am short at the office.

Prognostication

I have a prediction. I predict that, by this time next year, Apple will have released the Iphone 4G. It will be the first 4G Iphone, and it will be on the Verizon network. It will be a boon for Apple by expanding the potential clients from the limited AT&T base, and also a big increase in speed from the 3G network. So what is the price of Verizon doing right now?

You forgot the phone

As you may know, I have been waiting for an iphone for 2 years. I was waiting for my Verizon contract to expire. I was also hoping that a solid competitor would arise. Some challengers emerged, but nothing as good as the real thing. The touch screen, the GPS, the Wi-Fi, the interface, etc. etc.

Microsoft has announced a new Zune that has an iphone-like form factor. It has everything that is needed to go toe to toe with the iphone except for one thing...the phone. Seriously, how hard is it to put a phone in a goddamn Zune? I'm sure Sprint would pay you to do it. What's the hold up? I always felt that the mp3 player market was a dead end market, seeing as everyone has a cellphone anyways. Shit, they're even giving phones to children. If I was a child I know my parents would never give me a damn cellphone.


Looks like an iphone to me. Does it come with bluescreen of death?

The ennui of the iphone

For a long time I really wanted an iphone. It had everything I wanted. It was a cell phone. It was an mp3 player. It was a GPS navigation unit. It was a WiFi web browser. It was a camera. It was all things to all people.

But it was too expensive. I am but a poor man, and buying one would require a 2 year contract with AT&T's expensive data plan.

I had high hopes for Verizon to unveil an iphone killer. They have some tough numbers, but their arsenal comes with a similar pricetag.

My goal had been to get an all in one, price be damned. But price cannot be damned, as I am now pinching pennies with my early retirement.

So now, instead of whining about the phone I can't have, I'll opine on the future of phones. These smartphones will be the death of Microsoft. They were stupid for not jumping into smartphones in a stronger way earlier. Sure, they have Windows Mobile. But no one likes Windows Mobile, and it is losing market share among smartphones. Meanwhile the try to sell the Zune, a product that is stodgy in appearance and does not include a phone or any other selling feature. It is a good ipod killer, but ipods are basically dead anyways.

If someone would sell the iphone with a dataplan that is really cheap, I would buy it. I don't need that much data per month. Much as I opt for the lowest number of minutes in my cell phone plan, I would get a sparse data plan, if such a thing were offered. Until the wireless providers come up with a reasonable plan, I'll have to wait and pine for an all in one. Damn them.