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After a long writing hiatus, I’m finally back. I spent the last month in Zambia—the cradle of the AIDS orphan crisis in Africa. There are things that I saw, places that I went, and tears that I shed that I will never forget. Loving children that have been abused, alone, and destitute. Loving orphans that have never been loved.

I took over 4000 RAW photos on the trip, taking up a mammoth 33GB of space—all thanks to my little friend. I am working on a website that will attempt to give you a glimpse into the hearts and minds of the orphans in Zambia. Seeing the things I saw and that broke my heart. More on that later.

Coming home, I opened up NetNewsWire for the first time, and was greeted with 2600 RSS items. A lot of these stories may be “old news”, but there are a few that jumped out at me, and that I wanted to share a couple thoughts on:

• The highly anticipated 3G iPhone has been announced. Really, the big news wasn’t the actual hardware of the new phone, as much as it was the deals that were made. Having a $199 entry price point and launching it in 22 different countries will definitely drive sales through the roof.
• Along with the announcement of the 3G iPhone, came the news that the iPhone is finally coming to Canada—with Rogers. I freaked out a bit when I saw the expensive data prices Rogers wanted to charge, but after the introduction of limited-time offer of 6GB of data for $30/month—more than the 5GB soft-cap on AT&T’s “unlimited” data plan in the US—the iPhone is finally affordable in Canada. And now, I’ll be picking up a black 16-gigger of my own come Friday.
• As I wrote about previously, the biggest news out of WWDC this year was Apple’s new initiative into MobileMe. Apple has covered most of my concerns with Living in the Cloud, by allowing you to access your data via native applications on an iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac, or PC, as well as providing an elegant web interface to use when necessary. While it’s not free, it’s definitely worth the $99 a year.
• Kyle Baxter from TightWind published a very thought-provoking post on Apple’s shift in focus with the introduction of MobileMe. Definitely worth a read.
• The AppStore is set to launch on Friday with thousands of applications ranging from twitter clients to games to excel editors. Gruber nails it when he writes that the AppStore is what makes the iPhone into a platform, and that’s the bigger story than the 3G iPhone.
• Apple sold their 5 Billionth song on iTunes in June. Great. Now, when can we get iTunes Plus standardized across the whole store?
• Any camera-lovers out there have to be drooling over the Nikon D700. For $3000 you are getting the photo-quality of a D3, in the size of a D300. This is the first full-frame DSLR in it’s price range. Canon better react quick; they are falling behind fast.
• Data Robotics unveiled the second-generation FireWire 800 Drobo. Faster, quieter, and FireWire 800. Exactly what I’ve been waiting for. I’m getting one.

Apple has done it again.

They released an under-featured, 1.0 product into an over-saturated market, and managed to dominate the competition. They saw the junk that was coming out of the phone industry. They saw the feature bloat. They saw the hardware developers that didn’t know a thing about writing good software. And they said, “we can do better”.

And they did.

With the iPhone, they have done in 8 months, what Microsoft or RIM or Nokia or Palm did not do in 10 years. They didn’t just reinvent the phone, or revolutionize the iPod. They created the next-generation of the Internet. The internet that lives in your pocket. Already, they have garnered over 70% of the mobile Internet-browsing market with only 4 million phones sold.

On March 6th, Apple did it again. I think Fake Steve said it best:

I mean 29 June 2007 might be the day the world changed, but today it just changed again. BlackBerry is dead. Microsoft is dead. Windows Mobile is dead. Amazon is dead. Kindle is dead. Nokia is dead. Motorola was already dead but now they are even more dead. Google’s Android is dead. Samsung is dead. LG is dead. Sony is dead. UTStarcom is dead. We’ve thrown $100 million into an iFund so people can build iApps to sell on iTunes and give us 30% of their iMoney. The coming onslaught of new applications will make iPhone the only smart phone that anyone in the entire world will ever want to use.

With the iPhone SDK, Apple did everything right. Through classes like UIKit, Apple has given developers access to every aspect of the phone - wifi, camera, and EDGE - as well as providing them with technologies like Core Animation and Core Location to help them create the best possible applications.

Apple could have just taken the easy way out. They could have kept the iPhone a proprietary phone with a heavily crippled SDK, and lackluster developer support. On the contrary, they provided a full development kit with all the applications needed for designing, coding, analyzing, and testing iPhone apps.

They even created a whole new framework known as Cocoa Touch, that will allow developers to create applications that integrate with the built-in iPhone apps, and respond to a slew of multi-touch gestures.

They managed to give developers all this control, while ensuring a safe and sandboxed environment. It sure took Apple a long time, but it was definitely worth the (very long) wait.

Before the SDK, the iPhone was simply a phone, an iPod, and a mobile Internet browser. With the SDK however (which is a free update to all iPhone users), the iPhone now becomes a powerful computer in your pocket. It is a killer gaming platform. It is a medical research assistant. It is a business communicator and organizer. It is a digital communicator. It is iPhone.

Imagine apps like Skitch and Delicious Library and PhotoBooth and GarageBand for the iPhone. Suddenly, the iPhone has an infinite number of uses. Businesses will love it. Universities will love it. Consumers will love it. In many ways, the announcement of the SDK is almost bigger than the actual iPhone itself.

Why?

I’ve written about it before. It’s a growing trend this year. Software is more important than hardware. We saw it with both the AppleTV and the iPhone updates at Macworld. Apple added functionality to both of these devices without actually changing the hardware.

And now with the SDK, this is truer than ever. The hardware of the iPhone has had the ability to do all these things the entire time, but just now the software is being released that will make that possible.

Shawn Blanc:

After watching the apps get demonstrated I had this “my iPhone is a sleeper agent” sort of feeling. Realizing there is way more under the hood which I, as a user, haven’t fully had the chance to experience yet. [...] I don’t have to buy another $500 phone.

The first version of the iPhone may very well be the greatest 1.0 gadget released in history.

This is an ongoing trend that I think we’ll see more of in the future. The software is simply catching up to the hardware.

The single biggest realization I had while watching the SDK event was that Apple listens to their customers. Although they still love to keep secrets and build up rumors, they are listening to their users. They gave businesses all the enterprise features they wanted for the iPhone - even Microsoft ActiveSync compatibility. They gave developers an entire development kit with APIs and classes that will help to make the absolute best third-party iPhone apps. And they gave all of their existing costumers a free upgrade to version 2.0 of the iPhone (which, I’m sure will include even more, great new features).

The iPhone SDK has changed the state of the iPhone platform. Now, the iPhone has more potential than any other device on the market, and is positioned to take over the mobile landscape. The only question left in my mind, is when can I get one of these in Canada?

If you’ve been following me on twitter, you’ve heard about my newest toy - a 500GB Time Capsule. My initial impressions of the device are very positive, and I will hopefully have a full review up by week.

In the meantime, I decided to test this device to it’s limits. I attempted to initiate a Time Machine backup from the mailbox at the end of my street. Watch the video to see what happens.

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Every once in awhile, a revolutionary new product comes along that changes everything.

The Macintosh changed the entire computer industry, by bringing personal computers into homes and offices everywhere. The iPod changed the way people listened to music, and sparked a whole new generation of digital media devices. And the iPhone has totally revolutionized the way people think about their phones. None of these products were perfect, but they were all revolutionary.

And I believe that a revolution is happening again - this time, in laptops.

As computer technology continues to become faster, smaller, and more power efficient, laptop manufacturers seem to be at a stand-still. Laptops today looks the same as they did last year and the year before that. With all these advances in technology, where are the benefits for the consumer? A 200Mhz clock speed bump? An extra 512MB of RAM? Does seconds of time saved really help the average consumer do more with their computer?

Having had the chance to try out a MacBook Air at my local Apple Store, I can truthfully say that I have seen the future of laptops. Forget the specs for a minute. Forget the lack of a FireWire port, and an optical drive. Forget the 13″ screen and the price. The MacBook Air is perfect in every single way. Everything is thought out. It feels solid, but light. It feels small, but spacious. This is the future of laptops.

You heard me right. A 1.6Ghz laptop is the catalyst for a whole new generation of laptops. Many people simply don’t get it. “Why pay more…for less?”

What they don’t realize, is that the value of a product is not in the number of features it has, but in how the features are integrated, and what experience that provides for the user.
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Recently, I have begun to think about the world we live in and the technology that we use. Everything is moving at such an incredibly fast pace that it’s a challenge even to keep up. Between computers and consumer electronics and TVs, it’s impossible to be on the cutting edge for long. With the advent of the Internet, people all around the world are connected in ways they never could have before. I just want to take a moment to set back and look at where we are. I want to look at the State of Technology.

When I look upon our world, the first thing I see is the “tech-spec generation”. We are the generation that looks at all the technical aspects of a piece of hardware or software. We have begun to devalue elegant, simple, and beautiful products. We are too consumed with the numbers, that we are missing the true value of the technology. Risking sounding like an Apple fanboy, I’m going to bring up the MacBook Air. Look at this device - thinner than my iPod, and perfectly thought-out. It is a marvel of design. From the backlit keyboard, to the magnetic latch, to the specially designed Magsafe adapter. But people complain. “It’s underpowered.” “It doesn’t have an optical drive.” “It doesn’t have an Ethernet port.”

Underpowered? Apple fit a dual-core processor in something as thin as a pencil! The majority of the people I know only use their computers for email, web browsing, IM, and maybe video chats. They want to organize their pictures, and they want to be able to type documents. And the MacBook Air does just that. The problem is, most people think they need a super-computer. I understand that many people with specialized careers do need the power, but the average consumer doesn’t. The MacBook Air is as powerful as the PowerMac G5’s of old - the same machines that they edited movies such as “King Kong” on. Technology has moved to the place where the tech specs don’t matter anymore. Sure, the geeks will compare and analyze and talk about the minuscule 50Mhz differences, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. We have moved past the numbers to a place where it is not a matter of what machine you have, but what you do with it.
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I woke up this morning to a surprise in my inbox. Jon-Michael Deldin had written me a rather lengthy response to a blog post I had written last week on learning to code. I love getting feedback from readers, especially 1000+ word emails written at 2:00 in the morning. Jon-Michael went into extreme detail on how to begin coding, and where to learn the languages. Take a minute out of your day, and read it through. You won’t regret it.

Hi Michael,

If I were starting from scratch today, I’d learn Python. It’s clean, and it’s easy to run (open Terminal.app: Type “python”). Once you’ve learned HTML, you can get started with building a Python site using Django, TurboGears, Plone, etc. With Python, you can do incredibly useful stuff like creating the world’s longest palindrome :P. Python and other high level languages are just gateways to other languages.

For Python books, check out Dive into Python (free download) and Thinking in Python (also free) while you’re waiting for your copy of either Beginning Python: From Novice to Professional or Learning Python to arrive. For book selection, avoid any quick start guides or teach yourself something in x days. They’re terrible and often leave you with a poor introduction to a language. O’Reilly books are good; most Apress books suck, with Beginning Python being an exception; Sam’s and Peachpit books are terrible.

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If you are using a Mac for serious video editing, you’ve most likely moved past iMovie to Final Cut. After Apple announced iMovie ‘08, which was geared towards the first-time video editor, the most viable option for any amateur editor was to upgrade to Final Cut Express for only $200. I got FCE for my birthday this year, and it is miles ahead of iMovie. Of course it has a steeper learning curve, but at the same time it has power that iMovie can’t even come close to matching.

Final Cut Express is technically the stripped-down version of it’s big brother, Final Cut Studio. Final Cut Studio at $1300 is designed for the pro editor, and includes Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, DVD Studio Pro, Color, and Compressor. It is the one-stop suite of video editing applications that are meant for professionals. For the amateur however, all of that is overkill. Final Cut Express has almost all the features of Final Cut Pro, but comes without the rest of the applications in the suite.

Notice how I say “almost”. I’ve been searching all over the Internet for some kind of comparison of what Apple took out of Final Cut Express that is still in Pro. All I’ve found is the lack of support for some high-end video cameras, and lack of batch capturing from tape. However, that doesn’t seem like enough to differentiate the two product lines. Could FCE be Final Cut Pro without the rest of the Studio? If anyone could clear up the differences between FCE and FCP let me know. I’d be interested to see how they stack up feature-wise.

Every year, I find myself looking forward to the Macheist Bundle. Macheist is an event each year where you can win free Mac shareware by completing different missions known as heists. At the end of the event, a bundle of Mac apps is put on sale for a limited time. The apps themselves would cost over $400 if purchased separately, but you can get them all in the bundle for only $49. If you completed all the heists during the event, the bundle would cost you even less - only $39.

Now the bundle is obviously not going to be all things for all people. You may already own some of the apps in the bundle, or have no use for them. But the Macheist Bundle is a great way for switchers to get some great new software for their Macs, and even for long-time users to discover some new software that they’ve never heard of before. I bought the bundle as soon as it was released, and have receipt #67 to prove it. Not all of the apps in the bundle are appealing or necessarily useful to me, however, most of them are surprisingly useful, fun, and have found a home in on my Mac.

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If you haven’t been hiding under a rock for the past couple days, you may have heard of something called CES. The Consumer Electronic Show is the biggest, annual technology show of the year, and it is happening this week in Las Vegas. For the past 11 years, Bill Gates has traditionally presented at the CES opening keynote. As always, Bill got up on stage this year, to introduce this years Consumer Electronic Show. This was his last year doing the keynote, as he is retiring from his daily duties at Microsoft this later this year.

As I sat, watching Microsoft’s live stream of the keynote last night, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu. This CES keynote felt exactly like last years, and the years before that. Bill Gates got on stage, praised the innovation of Microsoft, and touted the stats and figures. Then they demoed Vista, Xbox, Microsoft Surface, and Sync, talked about some future products, and then wrapped it up with a Guitar Hero match. As the keynote finished, I couldn’t help but sit there and think, “Is that it?”. I know I shouldn’t have expected new products, or flashy eye candy, but this keynote was nothing new. Is this all Microsoft, a multi-billion dollar company, had to offer in 2008?

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Twitter. Whether you love it or hate it, hundreds of thousands of users each and every day are consistently answering the question, “What are you doing?”. Over 2007, many developers have used the Twitter API to expand the functionality of the platform. One of the more popular uses of the Twitter API, is to create a desktop Twitter client that will update you whenever one of the people you follow posts an update. For Mac OS X, there are currently two very popular Twitter clients - Twitterrific and Snitter.

Twitterrific, now on version 3, is a very mature Twitter client created by the Icon Factory. It is a native Mac OS X application, and there is currently no Windows version. Snitter, on the other hand is a new competitor in the Twitter client space. It runs on both Mac OS X and Windows through the Adobe AIR runtime environment. Unfortunately, this means that it is not a native application for either operating system. It is also very important to note that Twitterrific’s aim is to bring your tweets to the desktop, while Snitter attempts to be a desktop portal to Twitter. So without further ado, let the ultimate twitter client smackdown begin.

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