Inventions – Page 11 – Auxiliary Memory

The iPad and Screen Evolution

I got to play with an iPad today for the first time. It was beautiful. I’m going to have a hard time keeping my resolution to not buy one before the second generation comes out. I’ve been trying to find a carry around the house computer for years. I tried a Kindle, iPod touch and a Toshiba netbook. I sold my Kindle to a bookworm friend, and my other two devices just sit around losing battery charge. I use each occasionally, but they have the wrong size screens.

I liked the Kindle for reading fiction, but I wanted something to read electronic magazines, RSS feeds and the Internet while reclined in my La-Z-Boy. The iPod touch lets me read stuff the Kindle didn’t plus my Kindle fiction, but the screen is too small. I installed several ebook reader programs on my netbook, but 10.1” landscape screen is all wrong. Seeing the 9.7” inch portrait screen of the iPad today convinced me it was near perfect for electronic magazines, RSS feeds and Internet reading, and probably for fiction too. It was heavier than I expected, and that might be a drawback. But it was damn close to what I want.

The iPad should do a lot to eliminate paper, which is one of my environmental goals. The iPad also well illustrates the role and purpose of the computer screen. The small screen on the iPhone/iPod touch is perfect for carrying around all the time. The interface is tuned to it’s 3.5” screen. iPhone apps that aren’t rewritten for the 9.7” iPad screen will miss their mark. Putting Windows 7 on a 10.1” netbook screen just isn’t right either. Tiny desktop applications don’t cut it, they need to be redesigned to the screen real estate.

For example, Windows Media Center works great on my 52” television screen. It’s an application designed to work on a TV screen with viewers across the room. It doesn’t need a keyboard. Using regular Windows apps on my big TV is clunky. I can make browsing OK with IE 8 by using the Zoom magnification, so I can play music and read Engadget or Slashdot from the couch, but some pages like Pandora just doesn’t resize or work well on the big screen.

It would be damn cool if Pandora, Rhapsody and Lala all were rewritten to run inside of Windows Media Center. In fact, it would be extremely neat if there was a version of IE for Windows Media Player so I could browse the web with just a clicker. It would need a virtual keyboard like the iPad/iPhone, but that’s doable.

Back in the 1990s pundits started talking about digital convergence. They expected TVs and computers to merge, and that’s rapidly happening, but I don’t think they planned for giant screen TVs. Nor did they expect the convergence with telephones, GPSes and books, or even game machines. Now it’s all a matter of fitting the task to the screen size:

Screen Size	Device	Best Use
1-2”	MP3	Music Audiobooks Voice Recording
2-4”	Phone Camera Video Cam Portable Game	Smartphone GPS Photography Videography Games
5-6”	Ebook	Fiction
9-11”	Tablet	Nonfiction Magazines RSS feeds Photos Games
10-16”	Netbook Notebook	Work on the go
18-24”	Desktop	Work at the desk
26-60”	Television	TV Movies Music Home video Internet TV
> 60”	Projector	Lectures Education

You can watch video on all these screen sizes, and even use all of them with computer applications or games. Telephone features like video conferencing, Skype and web cams have moved to the various screen sizes. I think the iPad has been in development since before the advent of netbooks, and I bet Steve Jobs was sick to see them succeed because that 9-11” screen size was territory ripe for exploitation. I tend to think tablets will win out in that form factor and 12-13” will become the ultimate netbook size for extreme road warriors who want to type on the go, while 16” will be the common size for notebooks. I expect 24” to become the ultimate size for desktop machines, although I’ve discovered I like having two monitors at work, one in portrait and the other in landscape.

Now, is there room for a new form factor and unique applications? I don’t know. Will the future just be ones of refining these screen territories? And will there be some repositioning of functions? Do you need a smartphone if you carry around an iPad? Would a dumb phone be good enough? Some people like everything on one device, like an iPhone, but I prefer the right tool for the job. The iPod Nano is perfect for audio books. They are harder to use on the iPhone. Time will tell how everything shakes out, but I think screen size will be the factor that will determine the ultimate use of each device.

JWH – 4/8/10

Repairing Broken iPhones

Everyone loves their iPhones, and until they drop their iPhone and smash the glass screen, they won’t know just how much they really love their iPhone and how much they can hate Apple and AT&T. The iPhone isn’t engineered to be repaired, and its especially not designed for the average user to repair. It could have been. Until people get addicted to smart phones, and learn how easy it is to break them, and how expensive they are to replace, they’ll never ask why they can’t be repaired. They should be easy to repair, but they aren’t. Our throw-away society doesn’t promote that. It’s a shame, because these elegant devices could have been easily engineered to allow owners to replace a broken screen, or a broken screen/LCD combo. Actually, the glass touch screen and LCD should be one unit that could be quickly replaced with only a small screwdriver, for about $30-40, or at a repair shop for $60-70.

I’m a computer guy at work, so people tend to bring me their smart phones to configure for the Exchange server or ask for help and advice even though it’s not part of my job. And some people have a knack for breaking their smart phones repeatedly. The other day a young woman brought me her shattered iPhone and a repair kit she had bought online. I told her I had no experience at repairing iPhones, couldn’t guarantee my work and iPhones weren’t designed to be opened by users. She had seen several films on Youtube and urged me to try. So I did – and we almost succeeded.

It’s an extremely tedious process to replace the glass touch screen on an iPhone, and we succeeded, but unfortunately, in the process we damaged the LCD. One online repair site kept telling us to use a hair dryer to soften the glue that holds the glass screen to the frame. They should have warned us not to use the hair dryer before we had gotten the frame off the phone. Here’s the best Youtube video we found. It runs 5 parts. Watch all 5 parts before thinking about doing this repair. This video does cover the missing steps that other videos and web sites don’t cover, which is how to carefully remove the broken screen from the thin frame, and then how to remove all the old adhesive. Even if you don’t need to repair an iPhone, these videos are an education in how smart phones are put together.

The iPhone I was working on was the third one this lady had dropped, and understandably AT&T wasn’t going to replace it. They wanted $199 and two more years. But since this woman is a poor graduate student, she couldn’t afford the price of replacement. She started looking around the net and found various repair kits and videos. Don’t be fooled, these are not easy and cheap solutions. You can also shop around and find repair services that run $60-250 to repair an iPhone, including at your Apple Store for $199. I would really advise using one of these services before going to the do-it-yourself route unless you are very patient, have great skills dealing with small parts, and are willing to risk failure. We got everything back together and working but the LCD was blurry because of heat damage, so she had to order a replacement LCD.

The young woman I was helping is buying a second touch screen now because the first one got a tiny crack in our first repair that got much larger in the second LCD repair, which she had found a Mac repair guy to help her with, and then got completely damaged in her day-to-day use. I’m not sure these glass touch screen replacements are as sturdy as the original Apple screens. She wants me to help her with the third repair, but I’m mentioning this because they teach another lesson. If you start fixing iPhones, you’ll probably have to keep fixing them. I’m urging the young woman to hone these skills herself if she remains poor and keeps breaking her phone.

Another warning, it takes a lot of careful pressure to disassemble an iPhone and reassemble it, and you’re working with two very delicate parts: the touch screen and the LCD. If you break your iPhone regularly, developing the skills to replace the touch screen or LCD might be worth pursuing, otherwise, I’d recommend paying a service company to do the job and hopefully get a repair warranty.

Also the repairs are iffy at best because they require taking glued together parts apart, and then reassembling them with bits of two-side adhesive, and the results aren’t as solid as the original glued assembly. They phones really were NOT meant to be repaired, but sadly they are easily broken.

The iPhone is a beautiful device on the outside, but on the inside its just a bunch of ordinary parts. It’s a shame that it wasn’t designed in a modular fashion so replacing the screen/LCD only involved a few screws. Ditto for the battery and memory. If we’re going to save mother nature we need to build machines that last and are repairable. The current design of the iPhone is obviously meant to sell more iPhones, and keep users tied to contracts.

What’s needed is a smart phone that’s completely modular in design so it can be easily repaired and upgraded, and one that isn’t tied to any phone service. Phone and broadband data service is expensive because the cost of the phones are subsidized in the contracts. We need to separate the phone from the service. Remember when AT&T owned your household phones?** Remember how cheap phones got once we got to own our own phones? There’s no reason why smart phones should cost as much as they do other than that’s what the industry wants. Cell phones are a commodity sold in the millions, so they should be cheap to make. I’m hoping Android phones will bring down the price of the smart phone and the monthly cost of broadband service.

I hope we can get phone makers to go green by making their phones repairable. The iPhone I worked on should have had the touch screen and LCD as one solid piece that snaps onto the phone body, held in place by four tiny screws. If the user breaks their phone, just buy that piece and replace it. That way the phone could last years, making it a much greener device.

JWH – 2/6/10

**Kids, a long time ago phones were rented from Ma Bell, the affectionate name we gave AT&T, and when you cancelled your phone service you had to give back the phone. This was before cell phones. Most homes had only one phone, and it was tied to the wall with a stout wire. Kids and parents would fight over sharing the phone. Oh, and it came in one color, black.

Books versus Ebooks

I love science fiction and futuristic ideas. I love computers and neat gadgets. I love reading. So, you’d think I’d love ebook readers. I’ve owned several, including a Kindle, but I’ve sold or given them away. I’m still anxious to have another ebook reader, but I’m not so much waiting for the ultimate ebook reader as I’m waiting for the revolution in publishing that will create super-books that have to be read on an ebook reader. Right now ebook readers have a few conveniences that might appeal to some bookworms, like being able to change the font size, carry many books around at once, going green and saving trees, but for the most part, reading an ebook isn’t different from reading an old fashion book.

What I want is an ebook like the magical books we see in Harry Potter movies, where the pages have moving photos and words and letters dance with animation. I love reading about science and history and I believe that adding multimedia to the words I read would create a quantum leap in learning fun. Actually, web pages are heading more in this direction than ebook pages. Take for instance my blog here. I can add videos, photos, maps, music to my page to spice it up. I can link to other pages all over the web. These additions are still clunky, so the page isn’t seamlessly animated like a book in a Harry Potter story, but I’m sure WordPress.com is working on that.

Last year I was at a book giveaway where I picked up several modern high school textbooks. They were stunning productions, taking the potential of the printed page further than I’ve ever seen before. No current ebook reader can come close to duplicating what they can. If the iPad had a 15” screen it could, and if the layout was adapted, its 9.7” screen, it could theoretically compete well. The iPad represents a new generation of ebook readers, and it has the potential for being a fantastic device. Will it become the fabled Dynabook, we’ll have to wait and see. Tablet computers have been around for awhile, but no one has really programmed the content to showcase the design. The iPhone is a huge success because programmers maximized the design of their networked programs for the 3.5” screen.

Whether writers and publishers jump on the tablet ebook potential is a whole other story. I was thinking about buying a Kindle 2 or a Sony ebook reader, but after seeing the iPad I doubt I will. The iPad’s larger full color screen, able to show high definition video, play sound, and computer animation makes me think I could have a Harry Potter magical book. But remember, the iPad is worthless without the content. I’m surprised Steve Jobs didn’t commission a writer to produce an ebook that showcased the iPad’s real potential. If I was just going to read novels, I’d get a Kindle.

I recently reviewed The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong. It has 34 pages of footnote citations. I own this book in hardback and unabridged audio. I’d like to have an iPad edition that has both the text and audio narration built in, and hyperlinks to the full pertinent portion of the texts to all the footnote references. Armstrong summarizes the work of hundreds of individuals over thousands of years. I’d like links to their original work (it should all be in the public domain). Also, if her research for the book included documentaries and interviews, I’d like the videos and sound recordings added.

But most of all I’d want two extras that I haven’t seen before, even on the web. First, since the book is about The Bible, I’d like her annotation of The Bible presented and for each verse I tap with my finger I’d want Armstrong’s text related to that passage, and a listing of links to all the people who offered commentary on that verse that Armstrong reviewed. Second, I want a time-line. Armstrong is summarizing thousands of years, so I’d like a year by year listing of when various portions of The Bible was written, related history happened, or commentary took place. That way I could read the text of Armstrong’s book in three orders: As it was published in print, in time order, and in Bible passage order.

I’m sure other people can think of other features to add to this super-book version. For example, having a fun trivia type game to test me on content would be an another extra feature. Hell, another cool idea just popped into my mind. Since The Bible has spawned endless denominations of Judaism and Christianity, I’d like a family tree of denominations showing how each sect got started and by whom. All the philosophers and theologians Armstrong mentions created a spider web of interconnected ideas, with many branches forming new churches.

Essentially what I’m asking for is what’s already in the book that Armstrong wrote and her notes, annotated with what she read and studied to write the book. I’m just asking to see the same information from a variety of angles, and to follow different paths through the information. For example, Armstrong gives us a taste for many Christian thinkers, like Origen, but because her book is short, she flies by these philosophers rather fast. Including the Wikipedia entry for each person mentioned would also be helpful. This is the second book I finished this month that mentions the Christian theologian and heretic Origen, the other being The Rise and Fall of Alexandria by Justin Pollard and Howard Reid. Neither paint him as well as his Wikipedia entry.

This would not be practical as a printed book. I’m not even sure if EPUB formatting can handle it. But when publishers start selling books like this, then people will see the obvious value of an ebook reader like the iPad. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the iPad is special. I think HP, Asus, Acer, Toshiba, Samsung, MSI and other computer makers will quickly take over the market and create iPad like devices that are better and cheaper. They might all be called iPads, like all copiers are called Xerox machines.

Ebooks should revolutionize the textbook and non-fiction book industry. Each book should have multiple ways to read through the content, and reading might take place with the eyes or ears or both. Can you imagine a fully multimedia math book? Or what about textbooks for studying French and Spanish? What about a detailed history of astronomy?

So far I’ve been talking about super-books. But what if a publisher took the 10 best books on a subject, like The Bible, and blended them together to for a super-super-book? Certain books would have fantastic synergy is woven together. This would be perfect for college courses too. Also, use the same techniques to annotate fiction. Imagine what could be done with On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

The reason why ebook readers haven’t been convincing buys to many bookworms yet, is because they haven’t presented the potential of Reading 2.0. Or is it Reading 14.0 by now?

JWH – 1/31/10

Libraries in the Age of iPads

If everyone owned an iPad would we need libraries? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating the demolition of libraries, but with the advent of the internet and ebooks talk about the death of newspapers, magazines and books get more common every year. If we don’t need those physical objects anymore, why do we need a building and institution to maintain them? Think about it. If books, magazines and newspapers disappear from our houses and move into Kindles, Nooks, and iPads, why would we go to the library? Why would we go to bookstores, new or used?

Modern libraries are about more than books, patrons also check out movies, audiobooks, music, and periodicals. But all of those media types are now available on the iPad. I know older people who grew up with libraries will immediate protest, but remember, us older folk are a dying breed and the up and coming generations are gadget afflicted.

Libraries used to be storehouses of knowledge and librarians worked to collect and preserve the printed word. That’s still true of academic libraries, but public libraries have moved into an era of supplying what their patrons want, so as soon as a book is ignored for a specific period of time, it gets jettisoned from the collection. Most people think of libraries as free books, free movies, free music albums, and free magazines and newspapers. I think a lot of people think we should have libraries to provide a cultural outlet for the poor. But the internet provides more free stuff to read and watch.

The death of libraries is pretty much unthinkable now, but don’t be surprise when city bean counters start making suggestions about closing them. I grew up loving libraries, and even worked in public and academic libraries. They don’t seem as crowded with patrons as they used be. I hardly go to the library anymore myself, not since the internet. I saw the video of Steve Jobs presenting the iPad and showing off its ebook features and it struck me that devices like the iPad will be the library of the future. When I was growing up futurists would talk about having a handheld device with the Library of Congress in it. We’re getting spookily close, aren’t we?

The book is evolving too. When it escapes the limitation of the page, adding multimedia and hypertext the book will no longer fit on a library shelf. Printed books, newspapers and magazines might become extinct, but imagine what will replace them. There is no reason to make a distinction between newspapers and magazines anymore. That might become true for books and novels too. Newspapers used to be frequently published information printed on cheap paper. Magazines and journals had longer periods between publication and were printed on better paper, suitable for long term storage in libraries.

The electronic page is not limited by time, paper quality or cost of printing. Newspapers and magazines use to be text plus photographs. Electronic publication is text plus photographs, video, sound recording, animation and other multimedia. Go look at the iPad video and tell me if kids will even want to go to the library or read books and magazines. And what about you?

I like the name iPad, just one vowel different from the iPod, but many of my friends have expressed a dislike for the name, and some of my women friends tell me the name brings up bad connotations with them. I think Steve Jobs should have named it the iLibrary.

JWH – 1/28/10

Predicting the Apple Tablet

The computer press is buzzing with rumors of an Apple tablet computer. I don’t think anyone knows anything for sure, and I expect Steve Jobs to wow people when he finally announces whatever he plans to show off as his next big product. It may be a tablet computer, or it might be something surprisingly different. Most people speculate it will be something to compete against netbooks and ebook readers, both of which are hot products that Apple currently doesn’t compete against. A lot of rumor sites show an artist conception of a giant iPod touch like device. Some sites are even predicting it will cost $800-900 dollars.

Well, if the Apple tablet is to compete against netbooks and ebooks the price needs to be a whole lot closer to $400. I do think a touch screen tablet is the perfect competition to a netbook, but I’m not sure about such a device replacing ebooks. Maybe for reading magazines, newspapers and web content, but not for reading fiction. Think about it, reading fiction is something people do for hours on end, and imagine holding a heavy device that long? I think the Kindle and Nook are too big. My ideal ebook would be mostly screen, about the size between a mass market paperback page and a trade paperback page, weigh next to nothing, be extremely durable, and cheap enough so I wouldn’t be afraid to carry it everywhere I go. That doesn’t describe any of the Apple tablet rumors.

If a new Apple device is going to be rolled out it must not compete with the iPhone or the MacBook, and that puts it squarely into the netbook space. Netbooks have keyboards and work just like bigger computers. A tablet doesn’t. So how many of your everyday routines can be enhanced by a 10 inch touch screen? For me, that would be something to replace magazines and newspapers. If bookworms balk at paying $260 for an ebook reader to make novel reading easier, will newshounds accept spending $800 to make reading the news easier? Not me.

You can get a 22” LCD monitor for around $200, and sometimes a lot less. For reading the New York Times, magazines and blogs, I’d love to have a monitor I could hold in my lap and read while sitting in my La-Z-Boy. A 10-12” screen would probably be ideal, but it must be thin and very light. It doesn’t need to be a computer, but just a reader, maybe just a portable Acrobat reader. And I don’t want to pay more than the cost of a monitor to have a monitor I can hold in my lap to read.

I’m not sure I’d even want video and music from such a device, especially if it will raise the price significantly. I just want to read what I normally sit at the computer and read, but in a comfortable chair. My Zune, iPod Nano and Sansa Clip are perfect for audiobooks and music. My iPod touch mostly goes untouched. My netbook mostly goes untouched. I just don’t do that much on the go computing.

The iPhone was brilliant. The iPod was brilliant. Do we really need the iTablet? How many more useful devices can we use? Steve Jobs does have an amazing track record of creating devices we didn’t have before but can’t live without now: Apple II, Mac, iPod and iPhone. But I prefer a PC to a Mac. The Sansa Clip is easier to carry than my iPod Nano or touch, and even though I’d love an iPhone I won’t spend the money. The $64,000 question is whether or not Steve Jobs will announce something I will run out and buy. I’d own a Mac if they were cheaper, so I’m guessing I’ll be waiting on the HP tablet computer.

JWH – 1/7/10