iOS5 wish list for the iPhone

Updated since Apple has shown iOS5 at WWDC.  I made out pretty well.

Here are a few things that I would really like to see Apple address with iOS5 and the iPhone.  Many of these will help in the enterprise and some are just general improvements (all my opinions).

  • As mentioned in a previous post – better notification system – Completely revamped.  Finally.
  • Better use of the lock screen.  This ties in to the request for better notifications a little, but those little red numbered balls are useless when you have a PIN set on your phone and you have to unlock it to even get to the home screen.  Give us info on the lock screen. – Yes!
  • Even better could be an external notification of some kind, like an LED, to let me know it is even worth looking at the screen in the first place. – Yes. LED flash for notifications.
  • Over The Air activation.  Please.  Connecting to iTunes is a pain when you are trying to roll out a large number of iPhones and iPads. – Yes!
  • Over The Air iOS upgrades.  Blackberry has been doing this forever and Android supported it from the start. – Yes!
  • Select all capability in email. – Unknown.
  • Please implement the ability to tap on a conference number in a Calendar item and have it dial the number, wait, then dial the extension – including the # character.  Seriously, this is a huge miss when trying to take conference calls on the road.  There is an app that does a decent job of handling this called ApptDialer, but this should be supported natively.  If you don’t understand how useful this is you have never used a Blackberry. – Unknown.  For now ApptDialer is working well.
  • In Contacts, why can’t I look someone up from the Exchange Global Address Book and easily add them to my Contacts.  A simple button that says – add to calendar like others do.  Now I have to sms it to myself. – Unknown.
  • And while we are on the Contacts/Exchange Global Address Book, how about pulling back more information than just name, title, phone number, and email address.  Add the street address as well please. – Unknown.
  • Rework some of the settings for better placement.  Make it easier to enable/disable WiFi and Bluetooth, or at least get them in the same area of the menus.    Move bluetooth up under WiFi in the main settings menu instead of placing it under the General section under settings.  There are times when you need to get to those things quickly so save us a couple of steps. – Unknown.
  • Customization of all sounds.  I can’t believe that I even have to ask for this one.  And let me use any song or sound that I have on the device for any alert or ringtone.  I’ve already paid for the music and I want to use it for any sound that I choose. – Yes!

Those are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head.  Which ones did I miss that you care about?

Score: 6 wishes granted, 5 unknown or no.  Not too bad as the 6 granted are things that I really thought iOS needed, especially after using Blackberry and Android devices.

Dear Microsoft, I’d like Outlook for my mobile please

I know, it’s crazy.  But as I test more and more phones with the need to sync with Microsoft Exchange I realize that the email, calendar, and contact apps that mobile carriers ship with their phones are just not always enough.  The iPhone, Droid 2, Droid X, Droid Pro, HTC Incredible, Blackberry, etc.  I’m not buying any of the old Windows Mobile devices and until Windows Phone 7 without Verizon is a non-starter for me.  Plus, after playing with the Phone 7 for a short time I am not sure everything is baked in there yet either.

So here is my plea – consider the rise of the iPhone and Android as an opportunity.  I’m not asking for anything for free.  I’ll pay.  Just give us Outlook for mobiles and put an end to the misery of trying to get ActiveSync to work correctly for direct push for all devices.  Help us open an email that has an embedded email inside of it and actually be able to read the embedded email.  Help us move messages between folders.  Help us not only accept a meeting request but also add a comment.  Help us see contacts along with their pictures. Help us forward meeting requests to others.  Help us always access the GAL.  Help us see shared contacts that are in public folders.  The list goes on.

I know that there are partial solutions out there and that this is now a consumer driven world, but those consumer diven devices have invaded our enterprises and users want many of the features that I listed.  I realize that its probably never going to happen, but there may be money here.  Oh, and please hurry as I am an Exchange upgrade away from just delivering all of this along with OCS integration using Project GoldenGate.  I have almost all of the pieces in place and will quickly virtualize an environment to support it.  And yes, I realize it is currently a proof of concept, but it is a concept that we will be able to pick up and run with on our own if necessary.

I have long pushed the notion that the client is irrelevant and this will now allow me to push that thinking out to mobile devices as well.

58 days with the iPad and it finally happened

Life with the iPad has gone really, really well. Performance is great, size is great, screen is really nice, the lack of Flash hasn’t hurt me at all…and then it happened. We started researching new cars and for the first time since owning the iPad and it became very difficult to do without Flash.

I get it, I’ve been an OS X user for 8 or 9 years now and I know what the Flash player can do. The CPU goes up, the fans kick in, and the performance goes down. I’ve been there many times. But even if the world decided to make html5 a killer Flash replacement it would not change over night. I would like to make the decision on running Flash or not. It ends up that I do want the “complete” web experience and good or bad, Flash is a part of that.

It’s a shame that Apple didn’t take the approach or working with Adobe to improve the Flash experience instead of an outright ban. Maybe all of that past Windows preference by Adobe had something to do with it. Steve has made his position clear I guess, but tonight was the first time that i had to use something other than my iPad to use the web and that is unfortunate.

iPad One Month Later

So here we are, a little more than a month after the release of the wifi iPad models and it’s still going strong for me. Since the release on 4/3 I have tried to use the iPad for my only computer at home and I’ve been (mostly) successful. After using the iPad exclusively for a couple of weeks I handed my MacBook Pro over to my wife and I haven’t had any regrets. Whether the iPad will work exclusively for you is an individual decision, but I thought I would post some of the things that work well, and some that need a little more work.  One thing that really surprised me – I apparently need Flash a lot less than I thought I did.  I don’t think I have run in to a single issue in the past month where the lack of Flash has caused me a problem.

The good:

  • The battery life is amazing
  • The size and weight work out really well
  • The screen is beautiful, sharp, and bright
  • The on screen keyboard is way better than I better than I expected
  • Apps written for the iPad look very nice

The other:

  • No wireless sync, so you have to activate and occasionally connect to a computer.  This is why I said “mostly” above.  You still need a computer to activate.
  • The screen is a magnet for finger prints. The good news is you only see them when the screen is off or dark.
  • iBooks has set the standard for how to turn a page. Now go make that work for the built in calendar and contacts applications. All developers should implement this, I don’t want to hit a next button to turn a page again.
  • No alarm. I know, I complained about this before, but it really makes no sense that this is not included with this thing. I know there are third party alarms available, but you have to have them running (which I do) but if that alarm app crashes for unknown reasons overnight you are going to be late for work. Trust me, I speak from experience on this one.
  • I still want a customizable home screen so that I can display a clock with an alarm, the current weather, the forecast, and maybe a news feed or 2. Call it nightstand mode.  Is that so much to ask?

Overall I do enjoy using the iPad. As someone who has been in the IT field for almost 26 years I did not think this was going to work for me. But I was wrong and the iPad has worked out just fine. But, and here is the important part, I still ace access to another computer if i need to access a little heavier lifting, like Skype. Other than that I am full time iPad. I think my next move is the 3G model so I can stop using the Verizon mifi when away from wifi, but you can’t find one anywhere.

It’s funny, but giving my MacBook Pro to my wife was a huge upgrade from her older G4 PowerBook, so she was immediately happy with the additional performance. But guess what she reaches for when she wants to use a computer? Correct, the same thing my youngest daughter reaches for, my iPad. I think the wireless thin client – I mean, the wireless tablet – I mean, the wireless iPad, could push the whole “home server” market a little further, but the safer bet is probably that the iPad makes for an excellent thin client for cloud computer.

Thoughts on the iPad

You have to give Apple credit for one thing at least – they certainly know how to get press coverage when they want to announce something.  I won’t get in to all of the specs since you can go read about them here, but I have been asked about the iPad enough that I thought I would just put together a quick post with some of my thoughts.

For all of you uber-geeks out there this may not be for you.  You wanted power – lot’s of power – in a small package.  You wanted something like a MacBook Pro screen without the rest of the computer.  You probably wanted it to run OS X.  You wanted full support for Flash.  You wanted a camera in the front for video conferencing and a camera on the back so that you could take pictures.  You wanted GPS.  You wanted an OLED screen.  You wanted multitasking.  You probably expected all of this with 4+ hours of battery life.  AT&T?!  Are you kidding me?  No wonder you are so upset about this thing.  And what’s with the name?  Even my wife thinks this thing is stupid.

But there is a different demographic that Apple is aware of and they don’t care about most of that stuff.  They love what their iPod Touch can do and they just wish it had a larger screen.  Maybe they would have liked to have the Touch but the screen was just too small (trust me, hit 40 and reading small screens starts to get interesting).  They would be happy reading their “newspaper” online with this thing.  eBooks?  Sure, why not?  It’s not open like Android.  They don’t care.  Truly they don’t.  They don’t understand vendor lock-in and they really don’t care as long as it does the things that they want it to do.

I think of it kind of like the Nintendo Wii.  The Wii is the least powerful game console out there.  The XBox 360 and the PS3 just crush the Wii’s hardware specs.  The XBox 360 and the PS3 are both capable of doing much more than just games, yet somehow the Wii just keeps chugging along and is one of the most popular game consoles around.  I know a ton of people that have one.  But the serious gamers I know have the XBox 360, PS3, or use a Windows PC.  The Wii is accessible and easily used by the masses.  The interface and controller require very little thought – you can just pick up the controller and play most games.

Personally, I fit more in to the geek category than the non-geek category but I am sure that I will buy one.  I’ll buy it because I love technology and like to think that I occasionally understand where things are headed – and I don’t think this is such a bad product at all.  Just like the iPhone and iTunes before it, the apps and the acceptance will come.  I’m even dumb enough to think that we could still see some changes to it for the launch.  Maybe that camera will show up as well as a new version of the OS that will allow multitasking.  Remember, this is Apple’s chip in this thing so we really don’t know what it can, and cannot do yet.

I’m certainly not right all of the time, and many of the smartest people on the Internet (as well as my wife) seem to think that this one falls short, but I still believe that the iPad will do very well.  I would be surprised if Apple sells less than 2-3 million of them by the end of this year.  And maybe, just maybe, as technology continues to advance and costs come down, Apple will give us some of those MacBook components in a tablet form – including the OS.  Until then, I can see no reason why they would be willing to cannibalize their laptop sales by giving us everything that we really wanted in a tablet.

The iPad is the iPod Touch for an entire generation that has a lot of disposable income and needs reading glasses.  You already know them because they raised you as children and are now showing up on Facebook in droves.

OS X Mail and I: We’re on a break

I’ve been fighting an issue with OS X’s Mail application and it has finally driven us apart. You see, I have a bunch of friends that like to send me email with various jokes in the form of video attachment and the problem is that once I open the email, Mail takes the CPU on my MacBook Pro to the ceiling and the fan kicks in. Eventually the only way to stop it is to force quit Mail and restart it.

But lately even that isn’t taking care of it. I’ve tried rebuilding the mailbox that I use via imap with gmail but that only lasts for a short while. So until I get this one figured out Mail and I are on a break. I have turned to Microsoft Entourage and things seem to be fine. I know many really dislike Entourage, but I’ve had pretty good success with it in the past as I used to use it to connect to an Exchange2003 server with work.

Back to the internets to see if I can find the solution.

Five Dice officially on the iPhone

The main reason I had a jailbroken iPod Touch is because I really liked the game Five Dice.  Five Dice is an excellent version of the old dice game called Yahtzee.  I was hoping that the developer would bring it to the App store once version 2.0 of the software was out and they came through.

This is not the exact same game that was available for free if you were jailbroken.  This version has a lot more polish and the graphics are very professional.  The game play is very smooth and the little touches of animation are pretty slick.  Another big difference is that the game is no longer free – it costs $3.99.

I’m sure there will be people that enjoyed the jailbroken version complaining about the costs, but I think it is definitely worth the few bucks it costs.  The game is every bit as polished as any other professionally developed game and I see no issue with the developers getting paid for their work. 3.99 – what’s that – a cup of fancy coffee or a pack of cigarettes?

Hopefully they will make a ton of money from this little application and put some of it back in to the game to provide over the air multi player capability.  That would be pretty cool.

If you grew up playing the game Yahtzee you should take a chance and spend the few bucks it costs to try it out.  It’s definitely worth it.

Apple doing the right thing by communicating

In infrastructure we face outages of systems at any time.  When people can’t get to their applications, data, or email one of the most important things we can do is to communicate openly and honestly with them until the issue is resolved.  People tend to be a little more understanding of the issue if they at least have some idea of what is going on.

Seeing Apple start to communicate on the recent MobileMe issues is a great start and I hope they start to be more open with any system issues they are facing to help keep everyone more current with information.

Resetting my expectations with the App store and syncing

I realized a mistake I have been making with purchasing applications from the iTunes App store and the iPhone.  I thought it would work like this:

  • Purchase an application from iTunes and it would then sync with the phone – check.
  • Check for updates to purchased applications with iTunes and have those updated applications sync to the phone – check.
  • Purchase an application using the iPhone and have it sync back to iTunes – check.  Well, that’s how I thought it worked once.
At some point iTunes must have stopped asking me if I wanted to transfer purchases from the phone to the computer and I never noticed, so I kept expecting the apps I was downloading using the phone were getting back to the computer.  Whenever I would then check for updates to applications that I had read were updated, iTunes would never show that any updates were available, but those same applications would show available updates on the AppStore on the phone.  Weird.
Then it hit me, these apps aren’t copying successfully from phone to computer and I started looking around.  All I had to do was right click on the iPhone listed under the Devices section of iTunes and select transfer purchases and everything copied to the computer as expected.
Now that I understand that syncing may not transfer purchases I know how to handle this and figured there may be others out there that are seeing the same thing and wondered why things seem out of sync with application updates between iTunes and their iPhone or iPod Touch.

The unintentional iPhone 2.0 beta tester – part 2

Continued from Part 1

Thankfully I was able to get her phone operational again by holding down the button at the top edge of the phone until it asked me if I wanted to power it off.  I powered it off and back on again and all seemed fine, but I lost just a tiny bit of confidence at that point in time, kind of like when a car has an issue and you never quite trust it again.  It happened to me a few more times that night – some times it would let me power it off and some times I would have to hold that top button and the button on the front at the same time until the phone reset itself.  More recently none of those tricks seemed to work and I had to do the top and front button reset dance numerous times before the phone finally came to life.  That one was really scary.

I am not a stranger to computers and failure.  I am in my 22nd year in infrastructure and see bugs all of the time.  But this one hurt a little somewhere deep inside because, like many, I had fallen in to the fuzzy, happy world where Apple would never, ever make mistakes like this.  And this was just one little piece of the issues that would rock my happy little Apple world and slap me right back in to reality, where you remember that these are things engineered, designed, coded, and tested by humans.  Humans are imperfect and make mistakes, and now the entire world knows that Apple makes them as well – Activation, 2.0, MobileMe,  Welcome to the real world Apple.  That’s a lot of things happening at the same time that should have been avoided.  It will be interesting to see if Apple learns anything from this.  Scaling is hard.  Enterprises are hard.

The 2.0 software and the App store are an amazing example of systems and integration.  But they are not perfect.  I have applications crash on me all the time.  I actually blame Apple for most of these as I don’t believe any application’s crash should be able to take down the phone’s OS, but it sure seems like that happens a lot.  Those apps that just crash back to the icon screen I believe are probably the developer’s issue to resolve, but the rest should sit firmly on Apple’s shoulders.  If you are running applications from the App store I would encourage you to check for any updates daily.  The developers seem to be working hard to get any bugs eliminated and I have seen a ton of updates to applications over the last 2 weeks.

I don’t know if Apple has a beta program for these developers and their testers, but they need to get one in place if it doesn’t exist.  Right now we, the people, are Apple’s beta testers and that would bother me a little less if I hadn’t paid 10 bucks for that privilege on my Touch and if Apple would have just stated that initially.  Let’s be honest, Apple still would have picked up thousands and thousands of people that would be willing to test their software – and probably pay for the privilege.  But, no application crash should ever take down the entire phone.  Period.  

It’s probably a good thing that Apple is out of iPhones all over the country or this could be a bigger black eye than it already is.  It will be interesting to see how many people stay up late at night clicking that Check Now button in iTunes when the next release rolls around.  Apple, we need 2.0.1 or 2.1 or what ever you are going to call it, soon.

What do you think, will you be cautious the next time Apple releases something or will you move ahead as you normally do because it is the next great thing from Apple?