Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

Reading about the poor MIT student who was recently arrested at submachine gunpoint on BoingBoing I saw a few comments that interested me enough to write a brief rebuttal. For example, comment #63 by Jacob Davis:

On another note, to everyone saying, “It’s obviously not a bomb, they should have known better!” : that’s really condescending. My mother doesn’t know what a breadboard is. My neighbors don’t. Several of my friends don’t. I’d wager the great majority of the US doesn’t know, for better or worse. Don’t pretend that everyone else knows what you know, especially when you are judging circumstances after being given all the facts at once in hindsight.

See the problem is that security personnel, if expected to guard against bombs and bombers, should be able to positively recognize bombs. Your mother and neighbors are not airport security officers, military police, or Boston police for exactly that reason; they don’t know what bombs look like.

Then there are comments #7 and #8, which feel like the police brutality (they arrested her outside the airport with force) is justified:

Wow, she sure put the “mor[on]” in sophomore! Maybe for her next art project she can run around the airport screaming “I’m Al Qaida! Look at me! I’m Al Qaida!”

I’d have wished the above moron had written “more[on] in sophomore;” it would have bee more funny. That said, there’s nothing wrong with a geeky girl wearing a hoodie with some blinking LEDs. As far as I know (and I think the statistics support me here) no one has ever died or been injured, directly or indirectly, by an LED. And, I fully support her right to voice her political opinions, even in the airport. Unfortunate the climate these days means wearing we will not be silent arabic / english t-shirts will probably get you detained.

I thought MIT students were supposed to be a bit more intelligent than the rest of us. Walking into an airport with an electronic device strapped to her chest ….. a very stupid action. She is lucky to just be in a cell, but I have a feeling a lot of people (including her) will never understand why, this time, the Boston Police are in the right.

This one is begging for me point out that 99.99998% of people walk around airports with iPods tucked around their chest or body somewhere… and I’m not even going to start counting people with pacemakers, who actually have an electronic device embedded in their chests! An electronic device isn’t a bomb, and if you think airport security can prevent terrorism, you’re wrong.

Finally, on a lighter note, Rob Cockerham’s comment #27 takes the cake, and eats it too:

I can’t believe NBC is promoting Bionic Woman like this. What a terrible idea.

So I’ve had my iPhone for two days, but I can already tell that it’s a love hate relationship. It’s so well designed that I can’t help but love, but at the same time there are just things that don’t work. I’m not talking about the Apple iPhone Bugs List, just things that don’t work the way I want them to.

Unlocking your SIM

First you have to Jailbreak the phone, bypassing activation, then you have update the software on the phone from an Apple restore image, and finally you have to flash the modem firmware. It will take you 1-2 hours if you’re technically stupid and have a Mac OSX unlocking guide or a windows unlocking guide. All this, just to get it working on T-mobile or Verizon.

The headphone jack

So now that you have your $399 iPhone you want to plug your $299 Shure or Bose headphones in. Well guess what, you can’t. The iPhone headphone jack is recessed into the case so that only Apple’s super slim plug can fit in. Your only choice is to perform surgery on your electronics, or buy an adapter:

Your iPhone after headphone accessory

A smart aftermarket accessory maker will find a way to produce a plug that makes the top of the iPhone flush with the case.

Only 8 GB of Flash

The iPod Touch has 16Gb for the same price. As flash memory is rapidly falling per GB, next year should see 16GB iPhones, possibly up to the 32Gb mark. Early adopters will have to wait, however, and live with their paltry 1000 songs and a movie.

Battery Life

The iPhone’s battery dimension are 43.6 x 50.5 x 5.4 mm, and it is rated at 3.7 V and 1400mAh. Yet, with everything (Edge, Wifi, Bluetooth) turned on, it might barely last you five hours. So what should you do? I’ve looked around for higher-rated batteries in those dimensions, and been unable to find anything that perfectly fits… yet. Within a year, I predict 2400-3200 mAh batteries will come on the market to double your battery life.

Telephone contacts formatting

I expect when I enter someone’s name into my phone it will display “Back, First”. However, the iPhone is cool and trendy and omits the comma, leaving you with “Last First”. This is much harder to read.

Now playing

When I hit play on a song, please do not stop it, ever. Not when downloading x, y, or z, on a telephone call, in some random context. I want my music to play!

3rd party apps

Sure, it’s a pain, but once you do unlock and jailbreak your phone you can easily install some pretty cool apps, including a decently accurate faux GPS app from Navizon which triangulates your position from known cell phone towers and then pins you to Google maps:

Your apps know where you are!

Camera

I am really liking the built-in 2MP digital camera and great touch-interface for it that covers the entire display. It blows away every cellphone camera I’ve ever seen, although I know there are some Asian cellphone cams that top even it. It’s nice to see an American manufacturer paying some attention to the cellphone camera.

Coverflow

This is controversial, but coverflow is one of those “I’m better than you features” that you can show off to collective “oooh” and “aaah”. It’s totally useless, but so cool, which counts for a lot.

Visual music browsing

Battery

I just said the battery sucks, but if you do turn off wifi and bluetooth, it tends to last longer than my old iPod. I haven’t been able to drain during my commute to work, at work, and then back home.

I just got home from a weekend at Cornell and promptly canceled my iPod Touch 16Gb order after checking bloglines. Apparently, there are a number of flaws with the new device which outweigh the double capacity it offers at the $399 price point, so I’m going to trade those 8GB for a phone, camera, and email.

Here’s what’s not going so hot with the iPod Touch:

Unlocking, hacking, jailbreak:

According to The Unofficial Apple Weblog, “Jailbreak seems increasingly unlikely at this point.” Without the ability to run custom applications on the touch, there’s absolutely no hope for enhancements that make it as fun or useful as the iPhone. While someone may open it up for hacking in the near future, it’s not happening yet.

Shoddy UI:

Check out this photo of an iPod Touch displaying an iPhone error message. While just a graphical glitch, it doesn’t bode well for PR or the myriad other bugs that we’ll probably start to see cropping up in the Touches soon.

Shoddy manufacturing:

People have been receiving iPhone Touches without OSX installed on them, making their $399 mp3 player a brick in their pockets. Yet another bug.

Missing bazillions of iPhone features:

The list of cut features is long: edge, mail, link sharing, notes, calendar, bluetooth, volume buttons, maps, weather, stocks, a dock, or a camera. Some of these (camera, edge, mail, bluetooth, maps) are deal-breaking features.

Bad sound quality:

It’s been shown that the new 6G iPod Classics have worse sound quality than the 5G line. I don’t know if this affects the Touch or iPhone, but it’s something to keep in mind. Update: According to iFix it, the iPod Touch uses the older, superior Wolfson chipset which doesn’t suffer from this issue.

Screen quality issues:

The iPod touch’s screen has a much worse contrast ratio than the iPhone’s, as seen in this Flickr set, which means a loss of detail and negative black sections on the slightly smaller display.