The King Of Queens Brunch
Brunching at Yer Man's Irish Pub in Glendale, NY. I'm told that this place (in its 1990's incarnation) was the establishing shot for the neigborhood bar in "The King Of Queens."
Sent from my iPhoneComments [0]
Google Nav (review on Sun-Times.com!) and the importance of voice
Just in case you missed it, my review of Google Maps Navigation went up on the Sun-Times site on Friday:
http://bit.ly/4dS2fC My verdict? I liked it a lot. It's not a great navigation app, but it's a good one. And as a free download or an app that comes pre-installed on your phone, it defines the minimum number of features and minimum level of usability that all commercial GPS systems must have from this point onward. Even if you don't use it yourself, you'll benefit from its presence in the marketplace. (Assuming that Google Maps Navigation doesn't drive all commercial GPS apps out of business. Which it won't.) My biggest complaint about the app is the voice it uses for the turn-by-turn directions. It's utterly horrifying. It's flat and robotic and it mispronounces things like crazy. I quickly went from "what was that?" to "what the **** was that?!?" and often, I had to look at the screen to find out just to figure out what my next turn was supposed to be. Worst, it's painful to listen to. An hour or two of driving actually left me with a headache. No adjustment of volume in the Droid phone or my car stereo could help this voice any. The only solution was to turn the damned feature off completely. It's not really the Google Nav team's fault. It relies on the built-in speech synthesis of the handset the app is running on. And apparently, whoever did the speech system of the Android 2.0 OS never bothered to actually listen to its output. ("Why bother?" he said, tapping an enormous spreadsheet with one hand while gesturing towards the Ph.D on his wall with the other. "The math says that this voice sounds exactly like Kathleen Turner in 'Romancing The Stone'. You can't argue with numbers.") It ignores a crucial lesson of software and hardware design. The closer a feature is to the user, the more important it is. As the developer of a new word processor, you might be very proud of a feature that highlights phrases like "...you lying, two-faced, pigeon-toed sock-knocking dwit-wad" and suggests softer language. But it shouldn't be buried inside a pane inside a dialog under the "tools" menu. Unless there's a nice button in the toolbar labeled "Extend Career..." your work was a complete waste of time. The speech system in Google Maps Navigation is technically more informative than that of my favorite iPhone app, Motion-X GPS. Motion-X will tell you "Turn right in 200 feet." Google Nav says "In 200 feet, turn right onto Washington Street." Ah, but it'll be "Washing-STONE Street." And I probably won't even hear it because I would have turned the sound off to prevent me from twisting the steering wheel and crashing into the closest bridge abutment. An expensive move, but far less painful than listening to Google Nav's voice. Motion-X is sweet, soothing, mellifluous. "Thank you, Magic Voice," I say, after a contented little sigh. On paper, it's inferior. But in practice, it's absolutely better than Google Nav. It's a primary means of interaction between the software and the user. It's an area in which "limited features DONE EXACTLY RIGHT" is better than "more features, executed in a half-assed manner." I'm catching up on Project Runway as I write this. I know that I would pay good money for a Tim Gunn GPS voice module. When you're late for an appointment and tearing though a complex tangle of streets you've never seen before, what you want most of all is something that's supportive, encouraging, optimistic, and helpful. That's Tim Gunn, down to the leather soles of his simple but stylish shoes. Dinnnng! "I love the fact that you're a risk-taker. But you've sort of lost me here. Can I offer some advice, which you're free to ignore? I'd proceed 200 feet, then take a right onto Moody Street. ...All right? I'll let you get to it. I have _complete_ confidence in you..." Yes, these lines were all taken verbatim from the past ten minutes of the show. If Tim Gunn can't record a custom voice for my GPS app, can I at least pay him a retainer to simply call me every week on Deadline Day, and ask me how the work is going?Comments [2]
My Bloodletting Workstation (panorama)
Not much to do while donating platelets. No pain or discomfort. Occasionally the machine inflatestge blue rubber bulb to signal that it wants you to squeeze.
Otherwise, you just relax and entertain yourself. There's a DVD player and a movie library. I bring a notebook, a media library, and my MiFi.-- A. Sent from my iPhone
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Tweetie, Too?
"You know, there's a whole new version of Tweetie out."
This news came from a friend during dinner. And no, in fact, I _didn't_ know.
http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-iphone/
Sometime during my past two years on Twitter, the service transitioned from Just Another Trendy Social Media Waste Of Time to A Fun Way To Keep Up With Friends to Something Useful to An Important Part Of My Day. At minimum, I enjoy seeing photos of a friend's Halloween costume. And on weeks like this one, when I was posting lots of major pieces to the Sun-Times, it's a big part of my job. I and my editor check things carefully but as always, Twitter is a good copy editor and if any little bugs crept through the firewall (a bad link, an incomplete sentence) I'll know about it inside of twenty minutes and we can apply a fix. I also regularly search for references to my name. It's not an ego thing. After I post a 5,000-word review of a major new product, I check Twitter in the same way that the director, writer and producer of a new musical go to Sardis after opening night and wait for the morning papers to arrive. It's the only way to find out how the piece "played." I did a major roundup of iPhone GPS software that I'm mighty proud of. But I got so many comments asking "What about Navigon?" that I've downloaded this app and will be posting an update with my opinions. Tweetie is my favorite iPhone Twitter client. It's hands-down the most muscular Twitter app for the iPhone. When I need it to be simple, it's simple. And when I unholster my iPhone with a sense of Destiny, I can stride the Twitter landscape akin to a colossus. Version 2.0 is a true marvel. It's become even more of a power tool. Just as nice as its abilities to manage and observe many accounts and goals -- check out the feature list at the developer site; it's a long one -- it features the sort of slick and clever interface ideas that I associate with iPhone software. How do you refresh the list? Pop up a menu? Click a "Refresh" button? Nope: scroll to the very top of the list. The topmost item is connected to the top of the screen with a rubber band. Pull it down, let it "snap" back up, and the app touches base with Twitter.com and refreshes the list. Brilliant!
How the bloody hell was I unaware of this update? It's been out for three weeks!
Simple: the creators of Tweetie -- heartless capitalists who must be acknowledged as the hated oppressors of the freedom-loving proletariat -- felt that it wouldn't be at all out of line to charge $2.99 for this update. They're not wrong. But the iTunes App Store doesn't have any sort of built-in mechanism for "paid" app upgrades. If Atebits had given it away for free and kept the same "product SKU" so to speak, then your iPhone and iTunes would have told me that there was a new edition available, and it would have invited me to download it for free. The developer could only get their $2.99 out of me by releasing Tweetie 2.0 as a new product. Hmm. There must be a better way. Desktop apps do a version check at startup. If you're interested in hearing about the new version, you go to a website and get the sales pitch. This friend of mine who alerted me to 2.0's existence is an app developer. He tells me that this sort of behavior isn't permitted by Apple. I might be misremembering his explanation, but it has to do with a prohibition about products that advertise other products. I must learn about this. Apple's App Approvals process is indeed the great and powerful Wizard of Oz. It makes its pronouncements in the form of a huge green floating head. In truth, it's just some anonymous mousy-looking dude behind a curtain. But it's hard to argue against a huge green floating head. In any event> Yay, Tweetie 2.0. I stopped using my iPhone for a whole week while I deep-tested the new Motorola Droid phone and the Android 2.0 mobile OS. Tweetie 2 is a reminder of why I couldn't be happy with anything less than an iPhone.Comments [10]
Your Spiritual Thought Of The Morning
Busy morning today: something I thought was due on Monday is actually due today at Noon. I'm on it, and it'll be done in time, but it's not the lazy lie-in I had planned after writing about 7,000 words of coverage on the Droid phone.
Nonetheless, it's a busy and hectic morning. I keep needing to break away from the manuscript to check up on silly little details. "Is it 'AppleTV' or 'AppleTV'?" (Space between, yes.) "'iPod HiFi' or 'Hi-Fi'?" (I need to insert hyphens.) "What was the name of the CD player that Apple once sold? AppleCD, wasn't it?" (No, "Apple PowerCD.") Mornings like this put me in a mood of...not Existential Despair. But Spiritual Irkiness. "Why do I bother, o Lord?" I ask. (Buster, my life-sized stuffed Dalmatian doll, sits in for God, as usual. He is stoic and silent.) "Honestly. Does anybody even care?" I sigh. "What's the point of what I do all day?" And then my MacBook goes "blnnnng!" and I tab over to see if my editor is checking in on the manuscript. It is an email from a reader. He has sent me a photo of Carrie Fisher and her double on the set of "Return Of The Jedi," sunbathing in their Slave Leia costumes on Jabba's sandbarge.
Buster the Dalmatian. He is the lamp unto my feet. I return to my labors, my burdens lifted, knowing full well just why I care so damned much about my readers.
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Google Nav est Borked
"I'll take another drive with Google Nav," thought I. "I'll set up my window cam mount so my review can contain vid of the app in action."
Witness the result. Before I've even pulled out if the driveway. And it won't relaunch, and even rebooting the phone doesn't help. Google Maps is now a pretty icon on this Droid and nothing more. I'm sure this won't come up in the review... -- A. Sent from my (fully-armed and operational) iPhoneComments [2]
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