HTC and Samsung have also produced the most compelling second tier SmartPhones.  I have to admit that the I wish I had the cash to buy and test these other devices.  I have seen the HTC Incredible and it is a compelling SmartPhone, I would also have liked to see the Droid X, HTC Evo, and the Galaxy S phones up close.

We have seen false starts [JooJoo - discontinued] and demo’s [PlayBook]; however, only one company has a compelling Slate [or Tablet] product.  Samsung has released the Galaxy Tab, the only real contender in the Slate market.  I would love to have one of these to test and use for a month or two.  I really like the form and think that it could be a very useful and usable device.  I also think that its 7″ and 16:9 screen size is a useful size.  In other places … Archos has a few devices yet, because they do not have the same footprint or power in the US market, they have gone mostly unnoticed by the populace.

We have several other Slate devices that are rumored to be coming soon; however, all I am seeing is VaporWare.

The desktop computer market is becoming old hat.  I will agree that they are needed in the business world, but I can actually see more people moving to a Slate PC for everyday usage.  I know that I could go Slate for 85% to 95% of the things that I do, if I have a 3G [or4G] connection.  I have to admit that with a few specialized Apps and more HTML5-based websites … I could be quite happy.  I don’t have a problem syncing my Slate to a central or main PC, especially if it provides a full hard drive back up.  I would love to see Wi-Fi Syncing for everything but OS updates.

I believe the Touch Interface will start to migrate into a whole lot of places and many of them will be places it doesn’t belong.  A few places I would like to see a Touch Interface is on a fridge with weather and some other applications – grocery lists and meal planning options to name a two more.  Another place could be bathroom mirrors with a built in floor scale and historical medical data.  I would be happy to stand on a scale/device that could read Weight, BMI, Blood Pressure, among other bio-readings.

Well, 2011 dawns and 2010 has waned.  What will happen this year in Technology … is anybody’s guess … unless you work for Apple!

iron wil

But so far, failure.

I have used both of these Apps on my iPhone and they are nice on the couch and I will probably set them up with the iMac and use that when we are watching TV shows or movies from the couch.  It is not a great tool for sitting and working with my MacBook like I would a mouse.

I have to say that for a standard mouse replacement this blows … big time!!!

I think that it will only fit that remote use like the Mac Mini I keep thinking about for my media center.

iron wil

I can see replacing my 13″ MacBook with the iPad and using my iMac to do the heavy lifting.  I can see using Dropbox and Evernote even more.  I can see converting all my current OOo [OpenOffice] documents to iWork which means that it easily justifies the expense [not that I consider iWork expensive].  In fact, I think that I could buy 1 iPad for each of my family members and then set up accounts on our iMac as the kids get older.  This would allow my boys to each have one for online games and Apps and their own music selections.

While my personal transition to eBooks has been slow, this may entice me to make that move.  I am using Stanza on my iPhone & it isn’t really a compelling experience.  I also don’t have a lot of reading time and find that Audible is a better resource for me right now.  I hope that this iBook software allows for marking and notes because that would be a big failure right out of the gate if it wasn’t included.  I hope that Amazon gets on board like Audible has with Audiobooks available via iTunes; especially if they can keep the books at the low cost they already are for Kindle owners.

I think this beats the NetBook model hands down even if it isn’t quite what I thought it would end up being. Now, a few weeks ago I published my own predictions for the iPad.

I predicted that Apple would release a multi-touch device similar to the JooJoo [aka CrunchPad] that ran Apps, eBooks, with WiFi/3G, iTunes, a built in battery, Lala, and the content aspects of the Sports Illustrated Tablet demo.  I was right on some items and we could still see Lala become part of the service package MobileMe [I was not the first to suggest this].  I will admit that I am still blown away.  I love the device and look forward to heading into town in 60 Days and testing one out.  I think I will have to get a sitter & take the wife to a movie to justify the whole thing.

I know that many people will not get it until they see others using it and that I can understand.  It was the same way with the Kindle and other devices.  I didn’t get the iPod until I owned one.  Yeah, until I owned one and then I felt dumb because I had not invested in it before then.  It was a mind blowing music experience and since then, I have bought a couple dozen albums.

New Prediction, iSlate with Inkwell for writing with a finger or 3rd party stylus.  This will be more like the Axiotron ModBook.  It will be slide between the iPad and MacBook.

iron wil

I have 1 major problem and two real irritations.  First Bluetooth, I have a BlueAnt X5i that works better with my iPhone than my MacBook [13" Black Late 2007].  I have discovered that my iPhone has a bit of a problem.  If I let the headset die while connected to the phone I lose all sound.  I turned the Bluetooth off and back on then off again, but that didn’t work.  I had to power-cycle the device [No, I didn't try a soft reset which might have worked].  I had to run the battery down before I got the audio back.  It was really annoying.

Second, I was using my headset to listen to music in the office and turned off the Bluetooth [on the phone] before turning off the headset.  I lost all audio again, I was frustrated; but then reconnected them and I was able to listen to the audio through the X5i.  I then turned it off and then turned off the Bluetooth [on the phone].  My audio returned.

Sheesh, can’t they just release the audio channel when Bluetooth is turned off???

Okay, this relates to both iTunes and the iPhone.  Why does the software not remember my Account Password?!?!?  I don’t understand what is wrong or not working in iTunes or the iPhone App [Store]?  Why does the software not save the password even when the check box is selected in iTunes and why does the iPhone App [Store] or iTunes App.  This seems pretty simple to me, it is MY phone and MY account, if content is downloaded it is going to be . . . where . . . on my iPhone!!!  I tried several tricks from The MacCast and still iTunes doesn’t save my password for downloading new Apps or Digital content.

I realize that Apple & Mr. Jobs have their way of doing things; however, this doesn’t meet the simplicity rule that Apple likes to apply to almost everything else they do.  I really like the simplicity model that is used in many things; yet, this seems like something that would make sense.  Make it a feature and allow users to turn it off and on, so I can decide if I want to save the password or not.

Oh, yeah and don’t forget to make a check box area for Audiobooks so that I can decide what Audiobooks I put on my iPhone or iPod!!!  Seriously, I have a dozen Audiobooks on my phone & I know that I can delete them from iTunes; but I would rather just control them like other media on my devices.

No, I still love my iPhone and am happy with it . . . let’s keep it simple Apple!!!

This rant is now over.

iron wil

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iron wil

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iron wil

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iron wil

This does not happen with every App and so, I would recommend doing full back-ups and not making the same mistake that I made.  I am about 90% of the way there. I have to manually add my calendar items back into iCal and I have to figure out a way to recover my data from my Treo without losing it.  Because of the 1Password problem, I am having to go back through and add items to 1Password manually, but that is less of a problem than the passwords I didn’t have in the HTML file I exported about 2 weeks ago.

So, the #1 lesson from this experience?  Make sure you have good back-ups before you monkey with your system.  Man, what a bad example to set . . . well, I ain’t perfect.

iron wil