Wow. So the iPhone 4 camera is fantastic, in my opinion. Only surpassed by the freakin’ gorgeous Retina Display. I think it actually looks better than the iPad, despite being a fraction of the size. I really hope they bring this new display technology to the iPad, and maybe even someday to their laptops. I’ve never seen a screen so crisp and bright.

Anyway, back to the camera. Here’s a very rudimentary example of a photo and a video taken with the iPhone 4 camera (the 5MP back camera, not the front facing). The original jpeg was a little too large to upload within WordPress, so there is a tiny bit of compression on the photo. And below is a link to the Quicktime video (mov) file.

iPhone 4 Video Test

Granted, I’m not sure how much compression is being applied via the standard WordPress “crunching” phase, but all I can say is the photos and videos look fantastic (especially when viewed on the previously mentioned Retina Display). If you’ve got the means and can find one, run out and buy one of these little bastards now!

Photo from Apple.com

While technically the App Store is about the simplest way I can think of to handle distribution of apps to iOS devices, its success could be (maybe already starting to be) its biggest downfall. With now over 150k iOS apps (including over 10k iPad ‘enhanced’ ones), finding good apps amongst the junk is starting to get a little overwhelming. Yes, I can easily see the “Top Apps for this…” and “Top Apps for that…” lists, staff picks, newest, browse by category and search, I still don’t find “viewing 1-30 of 2,112″ to be encouraging when I’m browsing around. I’m finding myself hitting the web and going to iPad/iPhone app review websites. And one other (non-Apple) annoyance – companies *ahem* EA *ahem* that treat the iPad versions of their apps as completely separate entities from the iPhone versions. So I shell out $10 for the iPhone version of Scrabble (which is now on sale for $3), and then I have to spend another $10 for the iPad version. I’m the first to agree the iPad version is awesome, looks great, etc. – but another full game? Seems like their gouging me a little. End rant.

A few additional observations. Pros: have I said how awesome this display is?; customizing the ‘desktop’ and lock screens is a nice touch; apps that have been written/upgraded specifically for the iPad look fantastic; the processor is blazing – fast enough to almost feel like the OS has multitasking; battery life has been stellar so far – still 40%+ after a good 6 hours or more of use; orientation switching is pretty much instant – no delay like on the iPhone (sometimes); scrolling through a 3000+ photo library is absolutely smooth, no stuttering or anything.

And a couple of cons: app that have not been updated for the iPad look pretty shitty; display is a fingerprint magnet (but really only noticeable when it’s off); app store can be overwhelming (see above); speaker could be a little louder; I still think this thing could be an inch bigger and still be successful.

Not really a con since it is being addressed in iOS4, but this interface will really benefit from the ability to create folders full of apps. At the start of day 2, I was thinking how great a camera would’ve been. But now I’m wondering if I would really use it that much. It’s a tablet, so I don’t see me holding it up to take a photo very often.

More updates and some app reviews coming later…

Photo from Apple.com

So I am in the fortunate position of being able to test out my wife’s iPad. I just got it synced for the first time with my iTunes account, installed the existing apps from my iPhone (i haven’t bought any new apps yet), and am now charging it. I’m writing this on the WordPress app, which is surprisingly a heck of a lot better using the iPad’s virtual keyboard than trying to bang out any amount of substantial text on my iPhone.

The first thing I want to find out is if I’d actually use one of these things. Being the owner of a MacBook and an iPhone, I’m having a little trouble finding out exactly how I’d use this for anything other than entertainment. However, I can already see that it’s not to shabby for writing me some blog posts.

Other initial impressions in the brief two hours I’ve been using it: screen is gorgeous; touch sensitivity seems much more responsive than my phone, probably because of the larger screen; I wouldn’t mind if the whole thing was an inch or two bigger because my hands feel just a tad large, making typing a little odd because they cover up a large portion of the keyboard; it’s really, really lightweight; and it’s worth repeating – the screen is gorgeous.

That’s all for now. Looking forward to trying outcome iPad-specific apps tomorrow. I think this WordPress app is the same one on my phone, so I’d think its resolution would be doubled (or scaled up in some way), but I can’t tell. Everything is crystal clear, and the menus have reconfigured themselves to be more inline with the layout of the iPad. I’ll have to check it out in more detail tomorrow…

Thought I’d throw together a quick post about how I got Facebook’s new “like” button (plugin?) to function correctly at work. I haven’t implemented it on this site yet, because conceptually, it’s more suited to relating a person’s interests to places or objects – like a favorite vacation spot or a good book.

Let me back up a sec. A few days ago Facebook unveiled their strategy for socializing the web. From what I can gather, everything keys off of a new ‘open standard’ called The Open Graph Protocol. The official definition: “The Open Graph protocol enables any web page to become a rich object in a social graph. For instance, this is used on Facebook to enable any web page to have the same functionality as a Facebook Page.”

To facilitate this movement, Facebook has released a bunch of Social Plugins allowing web developers to drop in a few lines of code and easily get some basic social networking functionality quickly. I haven’t tried them all, so I’m just going to focus on the one I spent the better part of two days working with, the Like Button.

"Like Button" on an external site when you're logged into Facebook

You’re given two options for implementation: a basic button via an iframe or a more robust version using Facebook’s XFBML tag (which requires using Facebook’s Javascript SDK). I played around with the iframe method first, but had trouble getting it to work with urls containing multiple query variables (ie. http://www.mysite.com/?var1=X&var2=Y, etc.). The iframe calls a php script from Facebook, passing the current url (the page being ‘liked’) as a GET parameter already. So no matter how I tried to encode the url, the page being ‘liked’ always got chopped off after the first variable (meaning http://www.mysite.com/?var1=X&var2=Y and http://www.mysite.com/?var1=X&var2=Z both ended up being http://www.mysite.com/?var1=X).

After I've clicked "Like", the button looks like this.

After banging my head on that for a few hours, I tried the XFBML method. This method passes the url as a string, so it worked as-is with no encoding. I was also able to get the dynamic meta tags working so when you “like” something on our site, you get the product’s name, short description, a photo and so on. My advice is definitely to go the XFBML route if you’re able. But if you’re looking for a quick way to get up and running (and you don’t have urls with query strings), you can easily get ready-made code with Facebook’s Like Button wizard.

This is what shows up on my Facebook profile after I clicked the "Like" button.

You can see other sites starting to implement these buttons in various ways, such as IMDB, CNN and others. Say what you will about Facebook taking over the internet with these new strategic maneuver, but it’s pretty slick when you get it all working.

UPDATE: While this worked great, it only works in Safari (and maybe Chrome). All versions of IE and Firefox I could find simply don’t show anything at all. No errors, but no “Like” button either. Back to the drawing board…

UPDATE 2: Ok, got this working in all browsers now for the most part. The trick lies in the initial html tag. You need to make sure to add two namespace attributes: xmlns:fb=”http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml” xmlns:og=”http://opengraph.org/schema/” Once I added those in, everything worked in IE, Firefox, etc. Only problem I’m still working on is that some urls are still getting truncated at the first “&=”. Can’t determine a pattern yet…

Anyway, I’ve had several pair of standard headphones over the years. Most last 6-8 months and then start crapping out, so I was looking to move to something a little more high-end. Granted, at $120 (much, much less after my Best Buy Reward Zone certificates) there are definitely more expensive headsets on the market, but I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than $20-30 bucks for a pair. “You get what you pay for” really applies in this case. I was between these and a pair of Turtle Beach Ear Force X31 headphones for $99. The X31s were wireless, but only really worked on the xBox. The AX 720s were wired, but worked with PS3, xBox, PC and Mac. So far, I can only speak to how they work with the xBox – and they are awesome.

Out of the box you get the headphones, a detachable microphone and a small amplifier. You plug the amp into an AC outlet, the xBox into the amp, and the headphones into one of the inputs on the front of the amp. I think you can plug in two different inputs, but not sure how you switch between them. A big plus is that you can connect the audio via digital optical (easy to do on the PS3, and easy on the xBox – with an additional cable). The headphones have a pretty generous 12′+ cord, so snaking it around my office to keep it hidden was easy. There’s a small controller built into the headphone cable to control game audio and voice audio (if using the microphone). There’s also a jack where you can plug an included cable into the xBox controller so you can chat on xBox Live. There’s also a usb jack on the hub which you can use to enable the microphone on the PS3 and PC/Mac.

I chose to forego the wireless capability (I read a few reviews where the audio was a little spotty on the X31s) in favor of the variety of connectivity options. I’m looking forward to hooking this up to my Boxee-powered MacBook Pro to see how they work. All in all, they seem to be like a really solid investment. Audio is crisp, lots of connectivity options, and they are really comfortable – even after a couple hours of straight use. If you’re looking for a gaming or computer headset, I’d recommend spending the extra cash. These are definitely a step up from the $20 throw-aways.

Second – I stumbled across a presentation by software architect Blaise Aguera y Arcas from a recent TED Conference. This is another instance where pictures are worth a thousand words. Watch the 8-minute video presentation and you’ll see some of the most amazing applications of mapping, user-generated content, geodata, metadata and much more. Blaise starts with an overhead map, very reminiscent of a Google map. Then he starts zooming in and changing his perspective, so you’re now looking at a 3d representation of the cityscape, with buildings being rendered as what seems like real 3d models. Then he shows some crazy stuff with flickr photo integration, some live video streaming, etc. Finally, he points his view up into the clouds and boom – the sky darkens and is full of constellations. Who knows if/when we’ll see this technology in mass markets, but this demo completely knocked me off my seat. Plus, I also enjoyed Blaise’s nonchalant, “my team and i have been playing with this” attitude.

Anyway, I’m very excited to see these two projects grow and develop. Just as I was ready to completely write off Microsoft as a company that lacks “it” and is always playing catch-up, something like these things pop up. Bravo, MS – hopefully you won’t crap out make me regret saying this.

So, a couple of days after the iPad announcement I headed to Best Buy and picked up an Asus Eee PC Netbook. It was $299 (quite a bit less with gift cards and reward certificates). Quick rundown of the specs:

• 1.6Ghz Intel Atom
• 1 GB RAM (which I upgraded to 2G)
• 160GB hard drive
• 10.1″ widescreen display

It came with Windows 7 Starter (complete with 3 simultaneous app limit and inability to change the desktop wallpaper) which I upgraded to Windows 7 Professional. It’s a pretty snappy little beast. Best feature I’ve found is the insane battery life. I’ve can surf the web with a few odds and ends (IM, etc.) for 3 or 4 hours and still have 30% battery left. Pretty crazy. Anyway, here are a couple pics (from Best Buy).

In the meantime, I’ll be surfing the interwebs on this bad boy until the next Apple announcement…