Regret, Avoided; Opportunity, Missed

Well, today Apple held the WWDC Keynote address and unveiled their latest iteration of the iPhone hardware and (newly-renamed) iOS 4.  There were, as usual, the applause and cheering that Steve Jobs has come to expect of his keynote crowds.  I was able to avoid any potential buyer's remorse and Jobs missed a huge opportunity for a great announcement setup.

Jobs started off by covering some of the statistics with regard to the iPhone, iPad and the application store for their mobile stores.  He also discussed their new advertising platform for those devices that they hope will make themselves, and the application developers, even more rich (The Fugitive reference).  Then he went on to cover the main event.

The phone itself is largely what we'd been hearing about for weeks, especially after the prototype was purchased by a rumor site.  It's using the same (or similar) chip to the iPad, developed in house and has a substantially upgraded screen that packs a lot more pixels in, apparently.

What I thought was going to be the best part about the keynote, though, didn't happen, but it was perfectly set up to occur.  I'll explain.  When Jobs was demonstrating the new screen, he was going to have a side-by-side comparison between the screen of the previous iPhone and the iPhone 4.  Jobs makes mention of the network being unpredictable.  Asks people to get off of the WiFi (which I thought was a slight jab at the Google IO keynote a few weeks ago).  Later on, in another demonstration, more connectivity issues.  I had everything that would happen next mapped out in my mind.

The Steve shakes his head and sighs in exasperation while a sympathetic and loving crowd looks on.  "Can anyone help me?" he might ask.  Cut to stage left.  Ivan Seidenber, CEO of Verizon, strides confidently on stage.  "Maybe I can help, Steve."  "Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenber? How can you help?" "Well, I know that you've been having some network issues for, well, a while, and I think it's finally time that we joined forces.  We can show the world exactly what the best hardware, software and network can look like when they're together at last." "I think I'd like that, Ivan.  I think I'd like that a lot, but keep in mind that from now on, I own you." "Yes, sir." "Thanks for playing."  Then there'd be a freeze frame of everyone laughing at Ivan.

It was perfectly scripted.  It just didn't turn out that way.  So, here we are; mostly minor-sounding upgrades to a three-year-old device with a new form factor.  And the same horrible network that's been hampering it all along.  And here I am without the test I had been wanting.  The test to figure out if it was strictly wanting the openness of the Android which fulfills the philosophical arguments of freedom and choice, or if it was simply a case of justifying second best.  I still feel as though I would have gone with Android.  I have become more jaded with each Jobs keynote, picking it apart and taking everything he says with a China-sized grain of salt.  He's trying to get his followers to be excited about adding in features that have been available everywhere else for years, but they only become "innovative" when they come to Apple.  Multi-tasking, folders, WiFi video chat.  These are not new things.  They're just new to Apple.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go listen to Pandora while writing an email on my phone, which I've been able to do from day one.

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The Potential for Regret

In my original statement on why I was going with and Android phone I talked about being fed up with waiting for the iPhone to be on Verizon along with Apple's overly-vigorous control of what is allowed to go on the platform.  I purposely and happily went with the Incredible and haven't regretted it.  At least, yet.  This upcoming Monday is Apple's World Wide Developer Conference.  It has traditionally been at these Conferences, specifically the keynote address, that Apple has announced the latest version of the iPhone.  There has been speculation for a long time that one of the announcements this year will be the inclusion of Verizon as a carrier for the iPhone.

This has started me wondering:  How much of my decision to go with the Incredible had to do with the stronger philosophical alignment that I have with the Android platform and how much was because it was already on my preferred carrier?  When the iPhone does come to Verizon (it seems fairly certain that it will, at least eventually) will I regret jumping in with Android?

If Monday comes with the announcement of the iPhone on Verizon, we'll find out how that makes me feel.  My thinking right now is that I'll still be fine with my decision.  I'm free to do with my phone what I want to do.  I'm free to develop software for the platform and not have to cross my fingers that Uncle Steve will approve the application.  However, I also admit that if Monday comes and goes without any official word of the iPhone coming to Verizon I will breath a bit of a sigh of relief because then I won't have to be confronted with the possibility of being disappointed.  I like not having to be confronted with my feelings.

Like the rest of the world, we'll just have to wait and see.

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Something's Developing

As many of you know, I am a professional geek who writes software for a living.  There's a lot more that goes in to my job, but for the most part, that's it in a nutshell.  One of the side effects of doing that for a living is that occasionally, I'll get an idea in my head and start figuring out how I'd program my way to a solution.  Only rarely, however, am I driving to actually start writing code.  This is normally because I find other things to distract myself.  However, a friend of mine said something as we were talking bout phones that stuck with me, so I decided to look in to what it would take to start making programs for the Android platform.  Turns out, not really that much.

Here's what you need in a nutshell:

1. Java Development Kit - This doesn't just mean that your computer is capable of running Java programs.  It means that you're capable of developing Java programs.  Java is a programming language that is object-oriented (which means that you think of everything in the software as an "object" and each object has certain attributes and capabilities) and tends to be pretty good for embedded platforms.  It's also pretty widely-used.  The download is freely available from Sun.
2. Some way to edit Java programs.  What Android (and, frankly, almost everyone else) recommends is using Eclipse.  It's a bit of a resource-intensive program, but for what it does, it does it well.
3. The Android development kit.  This is where you get the tools for writing specifically for the Android platform.  This includes the interface to the OS along with essentially a virtual phone to be running your software in (which you can see above).
4. Programming ability.  This wouldn't be absolutely necessary, I suppose, but it sure doesn't hurt.  I haven't really written much Java code in the past several years, but it has some strong similarities to the languages I normally write software in (C/C++).

After getting everything installed and set up, I was actually able to get a program running pretty quickly.  I'm interested to see if everything I want to do will be possible with Android.  It means digging around a bit with the documentation to find out what function calls I need to do, but it should be interesting.  I don't want to talk too much about what I hope to actually accomplish, but it will hopefully help with my biggest complaint about the phone so far.  I'll be sure to keep you posted.

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