Phanfare Blog » Apple

New version of Phanfare Photon – But it’s not all good

Andrew Erlichson — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:53:53 +0000

There is a new version of Phanfare Photon for the iPhone available in the app store. This version fixes the nasty bug where you get knocked offline because you created an album when your default music pref was null.

However, this version also removes our super cool image import flow and replaces it with the default image import picker. That picker forces you to import one image at a time and is much slower. You also can’t choose what album the image goes into.

We removed our custom import flow and associated user interface screen at Apple’s request. Apparently, their developer agreement changed and they no longer permit modifying that flow or allowing us to access the camera roll except through their interfaces.

While we understand the need to enforce standards and keep the platform stable, there is no doubt that Apple has failed to provide alternative methods that work as well as the ones developed by third parties, like ourselves.

It is our hope that Apple will eventually modify the rules to allow extension and customization such as we provided, or improve the native interfaces to provide the same interface. Until such time, any third party camera application for the iPhone can’t provide an experience that matches what Apple provides in their built in app.

Phanfare Photon synchronizes your media wirelessly to your iPhone and provides a full set of management and editing tools. Hence, it provides features and functionality unmatched by Apple’s built in app or their MobileMe service. But prohibiting us from modifying the camera to take photos as quickly as the built in camera app or allow fast import from the camera roll means that Phanfare Photon’s utility for capturing photos from the iPhone is somewhat limited.

This turns out not to be a huge deal for Phanfare customers, most of whom own digital SLRs and find that the iPhone is much more interesting as a multimedia display and management device than as a capture device.

We can’t possibly divine Apple’s motives for creating the set of rules that they did. The iPhone ecosystem is enormous and successful. There are over 100,000 apps. They could be trying to impede competitors to the built in iPhone experience, or they could be trying to keep the platform stable and not care what the impact is on camera apps. Unlike many out there, I think it is their right to do whatever they want with their platform.

If you don’t like what they are doing, let them know, because we have little say here. We try to follow the rules, support the platform and Apple ultimately decides what gets accepted into the app store.

It’s kind of funny, because the iPhone was a huge step forward for developers in opening up a mobile handset to third party development. Compare how open the platform is to what it was like under the old regime convincing Verizon that you wanted to go ‘on deck’ in their terrible ‘get it now’ experience. Walt Mossberg used to refer to Verizon and the other service providers as “the Soviet Ministries.”

And yet, as much as Apple broke new ground in opening up a mobile platform to developers, there is much left to be desired. For that, we may need to look to Android. Android is not competitive with the iPhone today, in my opinion, but for an app developer the platform is more open and updates can go out with no review. That’s a double edged sword. It means that developers can respond more quickly but it also means that consumers need to be more wary about destabilizing their phone by downloading an app.

We will see how it all plays out. Right now, it seems that Android is providing the open, cross hardware platform that will take longer to mature but may in fact be much larger than the more controlled Apple experience. Apple is very good at providing a strong paternal hand in crafting experiences that are seamless from end to end. The iPod and iTunes is a great example. But control by its very nature stifles innovation and drives up costs. There is a good chance that it will be Android that powers the majority of the smart phones in 5 years. If so, it will be another example where Apple led and then left open the door for someone else to be the market share leader with a lower cost solution that is more open, has a bigger ecosystem and more rough edges.

Print photos at home from your iPhone with Phanfare Photon

Andrew Erlichson — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:56:15 +0000

We are announcing today that we have updated Phanfare Photon for the iPhone to enable home printing to HP printers. The updated version of the iPhone app is available in the app store now.

We worked with HP to get this all working. We are the first app outside of HP’s iPrint Photo that will allow you to print directly from the iPhone via Wi-Fi.

For Phanfare customers, Phanfare Photon wirelessly syncs your entire photo and video collection to your iPhone, enabling you to print any photo.

Phanfare Photon also allows you to order prints by mail – but that has been true for a while.

Phanfare Photon for the iPhone is our sandbox for showing how we believe connected digital cameras should work in the future. Every photo and video you take automatically floats up the cloud and every photo and video you have ever taken is available for viewing on the camera.

Truth is, most of our customers have digital SLRs, so they are more likely to view their photos and videos on their iPhone than take new ones, but we find our customers do take a small percent of their photos using their iPhone. And it is nice to be able to get a print in pinch.

This release talks about home printing, but of course, if you have a network connected HP printer at work, it works there too.

Apple responds to the FCC – 11.2 minutes to review an app

Andrew Erlichson — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:44:47 +0000

Apple responded to the FCC’s questions today about the rejection of Google Voice. It’s an interesting read, especially for Apple watchers like us. Apple loves secrecy and the letter is surprisingly open and forthright.

The details of why the rejected Google Voice are not all that surprising and will certainly be discussed by everyone endlessly. I am more interested in the review process since we go through it regularly.

In their response, Apple discloses that there are 40 full time reviewers dealing with 8500 new apps and updates per week. If you assume that Apple is neither falling behind nor catching up, that means that they spend 11.2 minutes reviewing each app (40 people working 40 hrs per week processing 8500 items per week – the average wait time of 14 days is not relevant to the calculation of throughput if my recollection of queuing theory is correct).

Apple said that every app is reviewed by two people, so that means that a reviewer has about 5 minutes to review an app. If true, the level of quality in the app store is remarkable since it takes us a lot longer than 5 minutes to QA an update of Phanfare Photon before we send it to Apple. It also means that Apple certainly relies on some degree of automation to test apps and make sure they conform in various ways. For example, I would guess that they check for the use of undocumented frameworks programatically.

Apple also states that they have reviewed about 200,000 apps in a little more than a year. But at 8500 apps per week, they are on a run rate of 442,000 apps per year, so the number of app submissions is accelerating.

Do it yourself whole house sound

Andrew Erlichson — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:54:10 +0000

Whole house sound is awesome. It allows you to put music in your living room, in your family room and in your backyard. Great for parties. But systems to do whole house sound are pretty expensive, and their interfaces tend to be clunky.

But wait, there is a better way. Using an iPhone or iPod touch, a computer and a Apple Airport Express, you can setup a super cool whole house sound system all controlled by your iPhone or iPod Touch. Most people don’t seem to know how it all fits together. Here is the recipe.

First, put your music in iTunes. This is pretty easy for most people. For people my age (40s) you probably have a bunch of CDs and you probably already imported them into iTunes. If not, do that now.

Buy an Apple Airport Express for $99. This little gadget, about the size and shape of small pack of Kraft American Cheese will allow you to connect your stereo to iTunes. The Airport Express has an audio out port that runs both analog and digital PCM. You just need the right cable.

The Airport Express is a versatile little box. It can be a client to your Ethernet network, a client to your Wi-Fi network, or create a Wi-Fi cloud. It can also be a print server, but we won’t talk about that today.

Most people don’t have ethernet near their living room stereo, but do have a WiFi network in their home. Configure the Airport Express to be a client to your WiFi network using Airport Utility.

Once on the network, you can enable music sharing using Airport Utility. And once you do that, the AirPort express will show up within iTunes on your desktop.

You will need to connect the audio out port on the Airport Express to your stereo. Turn on the stereo and choose the input you selected (say Aux 1). No go back to iTunes and in the bottom right, you can choose the Airport Express as a target.

Next step, download the free Apple Remote app from the Apple App store. Using that app, you can control iTunes on your desktop. Hence, from your iPod Touch or iPhone, you can choose what music to play on your stereo. Brilliant.

You can target multiple Airport Express devices from iTunes. For each zone, for example the backyard, you just need an amplifier and two speakers. You can tell iTunes to play to all zones simultaneously.

Provided you already own a computer and stereo amplifier, you can setup this system for under $400. I put links above to cheap cables. Don’t be fooled into buy the Monster versions, especially if you buy a digital cable. if you hear sound, it works.

Open Questions with the Apple Tablet

Andrew Erlichson — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:44:50 +0000

I believe Apple will do a tablet computer that has a virtual keyboard. The product will have approximately a 9 inch screen, be designed to sit on a kitchen counter, have a fold out back foot that will allow it stand up like a picture frame, and also be comfortable to use on a couch.

The computer will run a variant of the iPhone OS. It will include WiFi, bluetooth and 2 USB ports. It won’t contain a 3G radio. Good chance it includes an ethernet port. For most consumers, that tablet will be the only computing device they need. Like an iPhone or touch, it will not expose the user to the memory hierarchy or the file system because well designed consumer devices never do. Nevertheless, there are challenges and open questions.

Will the device come with a bluetooth keyboard or will that be optional? I think it will be a lot more versatile for counter use if it has a keyboard. Will it take a mouse? new pointing device? or will you just tap on it? I think it will optionally take a mouse.
Will they extend the iPhone OS to support multiple logins? Is the device designed to be a single user device, like an iPhone, or a multi-user device, like a personal computer? I suspect that many home users share a single login, so the answer of how to best address allowing two different people to read email and have their own bookmarks is not obvious. And remember that on the tablet, people will likely use the Apple mail app, not a web browser, to read email.
For Photography is it client or host? Will they do a version of iPhoto for the tablet? Will they put in all the USB code and acquisition stuff to allow acquiring photos from a digital camera to the tablet? Will an iPhone be able to sync with the tablet, or do they view the tablet as a client that is either left unsynched or syncs with a personsal computer? I think the iPhoto model is entirely broken so you really need to pick your poison on this one. More on this below.
What about iTunes? can you sync your iPod to the tablet or is the tablet a client?
How will they allow all existing apps to run on the larger screen? Two major options here: have each app run in a little gadget window that is the size of an iPhone or redesign apps to run full screen. I think they do both. They run iPhone apps in compatibility mode in a little gadget window but most Apple apps will be redesigned to use the full screen. Given the design philosophy of iPhone apps, they could just encourage apps to build views with multiple long columns across the page, the right hand columns being deeper in to the hiearchy than the left columns (like the column view in finder).

I have long thought that iTunes should be a caching client that you can login to from anywhere and get to all music you purchased plus imported. Ditto with iPhoto (this is the Phanfare solution).

Using that model, both phones and the tablet would be clients to the cloud and the phone would sync wirelessly with the cloud even for music (as Phanfare Photon on the phone does for photos).

As they say, the devil is in the details and it will be interesting to see how Apple executes the product. I imagine a raging debate within Apple about whether people wil be presented with a “login” screen on the tablet and encouraged to “add users.”

If Apple really comes out with the tablet in October, as rumored, then I think they will do the expedient thing. That means that the tablet will be just like a phone and will need to sync with iTunes on a PC or Mac to get to its music. The one feature I expect they will add is network sync over wifi. They already have this feature in the Apple TV product, so no big deal porting it to the tablet.

I love my new Verizon iPhone

Andrew Erlichson — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:10:35 +0000

I am traveling down Interstate 91 South in New Hampshire, returning from my 20th Dartmouth Reunion, enjoying pretty decent data access on my iPhone 3G, even though there is zero ATT service on this stretch of the road. I am getting a few hundred kilobits/second.

Ok, there is one small detail I a left out. I am using a MiFi 2200 Wi-Fi hotspot in the car. This little device, smaller than a deck of cards, connects to the Verizon data network, establishes and EvDO connection, and puts up Wi-Fi cloud around itself.

Using the MiFi, my iPhone is essentially a Verizon iPhone. I use data more than voice, so this really does bring the better Verizon coverage to my iPhone. The device is battery operated, although you can plug it in or attach it via USB to a charging source, such as the 12-volt adapter in the car.

No doubt, this is an expensive solution. The Verizon EvDO card is over $60/month. But, truth-be-told, I have had EvDO service for over 4 years now since I find it useful when traveling. The sad truth is that while the ATT 3G network is faster than the Verizon data network when it is available, it is often not available.

When we hike out west I like having the security of a cell phone when we are on the trail. This is the first summer in 11 years where I don’t own a Verizon cell phone, and it will be nice to have the security of the Verizon network while using my iPhone.

The Mi-Fi is not perfect. I found that after being idle for several hours, it turns off the Wi-Fi network and hence essentially needs to be rebooted before you can use connected devices again. But given that it is close at hand, this is not too much of an inconvenience.

As an added bonus, the Mi-Fi supports up to 5 devices (a limitation probably imposed by Verizon) and so my laptop and my old iPhone, which is now the family iPod Touch, can also be on the network.

Carrying your own personal Wi-Fi cloud has never been easier. You could do it using a variety of devices for the past few years, but they were big and clunky and required multiple pieces of hardware. The Mi-Fi gives you a very convenient form-factor and built in battery that makes the concept significantly more useful. And by letting you share the expensive EvDo connection, it also makes Verizon’s EvDo service more economical.

Garmin disrupted by the iPhone

Andrew Erlichson — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:13:15 +0000

The iPhone has GPS built in with maps from google. That probably has Garmin worrying, but the truth is that the iPhone does not work all that well for street by street driving directions that it is replacing a Nuvi for most road warriors or busy moms. The Garmin device is cheaper to own (no recurring contract) than an iPhone and works really well.

Network connectivity does not yet enhance driving GPS navigators enough to make the iPhone a win there. The GPS implementation in the iPhone is slow to lock the satellite and is not well designed to use on your windshield.

Geocaching is a different story.

I have been geocaching for a few years now with my kids. For those not familiar with geocaching, it is a global treasure hunt where people hide little caches, list their GPS coordinates on geocaching.com, and then wait for people to find them. Geocaching is a lot of fun, and it can be challenging if you choose caches that include difficult terrain or a well hidden location.

To geocache, I would go to geocaching.com, find a cache that looks interesting, attach my Garmin GPS 60CSx, and download the waypoint for the cache, print out the description and hints, and then drive to the trailhead.

The 60CSx is an amazing GPS device. It is waterproof, durable, daylight readable and includes a magnetic compass so that it can tell you, even when standing still, how far away the cache is and in what direction to move.

Recently, Groundspeak, which runs Geocaching.com, came out with a Geocaching iPhone app. That app will find nearby caches based on your location, giving you the description, the hints and the ability to log field notes, all from the iPhone. You can navigate to the cache via google maps and once close by, use their simulated compass (only works when moving) to head to the hide location.

Geocaching is never quite as easy as it sounds. Even my Garmin will only isolate you to a 1000 square foot area, so you need to do some hunting. Hence, the limited accuracy of the iPhone GPS is a not a major liability. The Geocaching app on the iPhone offers an amazingly good Geocaching experience. You don’t need to plan ahead and load waypoints using a USB cable, and the built in maps support means that locally you can pretty much use Google maps on the iphone to get to the trailhead.

Of course, the iPhone is not as good a GPS device as my Garmin device, but the GPS part is good enough, and the supporting information and wireless network access to the data makes it more convenient. If a user already has an iPhone, then using it is cheaper (Geocaching app is $9.99) than buying a Garmin device. High end geocaching users probably won’t be satisfied with the iPhone geocaching experience, but it is cheaper and offers attributes the traditional solution does not. And its getting better fast. Does that sound like disruptive technology? You bet.

The iPhone is deeply disruptive to Garmin’s geocaching market. What’s worse for Garmin, they have no consumer-friendly way of adding networking to their handheld devices. They already learned that nobody will pay a subscription fee for their real-time traffic reports. They will find out that nobody will pay a subscription fee to get a data plan for their Nuvi either.

What is garmin to do? Well, to some extent, there is nothing they can do. they are going to lose the casual Geocaching market to GPS-enabled smart phones. They can try to come out with a smartphone, but this is pretty far from their knitting.

I think the only solution is to camp out at the high end and at least produce a device that is as useful as the iPhone for geocaching for those willing to pay. To do that, I would suggest they handle the data network access like the Amazon Kindle.

Rather than charge a subscription fee, let users browse for geocaches on the Garmin handheld for free. Then if the consumers wants to reveal the actual coordinates of the cache, charge a small transaction free of $1 that includes the cost of the network bandwidth. This is how Amazon handles the wireless charges for book deliver on the Kindle. Makes perfect sense.

I would be willing to pay a a small fee to get a superior GPS experience and all the ancillary geocaching information. The other obvious option is to try to create ad-supported wireless networking for the Garmin Nuvi. I doubt it would pay the freight today for access to the cell phone networks.

The iPhone (and other smartphones) won’t just disrupt the portable handheld Geocaching GPS market. They will also disrupt the point and shoot photography market for similar reasons (this is where Phanfare comes in). Canon is going to have a hard time getting consumers to pay a monthly subscription fee to get access to a data network to move their photos and video to and from the cloud, but that is exactly the convenience that smartphones are going to offer. And given that the trend is toward unlimited data plans, the bandwidth required is already sunk cost to the consumer.

Mobile photography is not very threatening to dedicated point and shoot cameras today and Canon is not much worried. Garmin is probably not seeing too many people forgo handheld GPS units for geocaching today either – but check back in two years. Things will be very different.

Photography apps on the Apple iPhone

Andrew Erlichson — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:00:40 +0000

Apple recently lifted the NDA that prevented us from commenting on the iPhone platform. Practically speaking, that prevented us from saying anything negative. We have already said lots of positive things about the iPhone platform.

Overall, the platform lives up to the hype. The touch interface is ground breaking and the UI sets the bar to a new level for mobile devices.

Our goal with the iPhone is to transform it into a full-featured wireless camera. Most of that is just a small matter of programming. But there is one area where we and every other photography app is hobbled, and that is in the camera controller.

If you use the built in camera on the iPhone, it has a shot to shot time of about 3 seconds. This is not groundbreaking compared to a point and shoot camera from Nikon or Canon, but it is tolerable for many situations. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to use the same camera controller that Apple uses for its built in camera. Instead, we are forced to use a different camera controller class (this is all software) that calls the real camera controller behind the scenes. The result is awful.

Compared to the native camera controller, the one we must use has a shot to shot time of 14 seconds. You can background some of that and get it down to 9 seconds, but do that at your own peril because the camera controller also uses a lot of memory and as any iPhone developer knows, if you run out of memory, the operating system kills the app.

The shot to shot latency is not the only issue. We are also forced into an “official” workflow for the digital camera that involves a common interface that says “use photo” and “retake” after each photo. The built in camera app that Apple wrote that uses the native camera controller skips that annoying step. We can’t skip it.

The solution is to let developers use the native camera controller. Sure there is no default shutter effect or shutter sound, but that is fine with us. We can innovate there and have our own unique experience.

The iPhone is the first smartphone with a UI so good that it could possibly replace the point and shoot camera for many situations. But to realize the full potential of the platform we must be allowed to use the native camera controller libraries.

My iPhone 3G finally arrived!

Andrew Erlichson — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:22:03 +0000

After months of carrying around an iPhone 3G with the 3G turned off because the battery only lasted until 2pm, I eagerly installed the 2.1 iPhone firmware on friday hoping that the tantalizing tidbit in the release notes that battery life might be increased for “some users” would apply to me.

Since then, I have had the 3G network turned on and I am happy to report that the battery life is much better.

At the same time, as I waited nearly 3 hours for my phone to back itself up while tethered to my Thinkpad on friday, I could not help but think that this was a painful transition for a new product with high consumer volume. Updating firmware on my electronic equipment is like breathing to me, but for most people, this would be considered a major hassle.

Nevertheless, the iPhone 3G with the 2.1 firmware is awesome and Phanfare runs great on it. Now if Apple could just give me a universal search feature on the phone…

Geotagging comes to Phanfare

Andrew Erlichson — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:25:08 +0000

We are pleased to announce the introduction of Geotagging support within Phanfare so that you know where photos were taken.

Phanfare records the GPS coordinates of any photo with GPS information in the EXIF header. The process is fully automatic and compatible with cameras that support geotagging of images (such as the iPhone) and with the Eye-Fi Wi-fi enabled SD memory cards that geotag images automatically.

We automatically geotag any photos sent from the iPhone with the Phanfare iPhone app. On the web, you can click on “View Map” when viewing photos to see the location on a Google Map. On the iPhone within Safari click on the little globe in the upper right hand corner of the image.

We plan to do other things with the geodata over time. Here is the fine print on the new geotagging feature:

Showing location is enabled for new albums but not existing albums. This is for privacy reasons. You can turn on geotagging support for older albums on an album by album basis.
You can turn off showing map location on a per album basis. Click on album options within the web client.
You can control whether new albums are created with geo tagging support enabled within settings
We have been recording the GPS info from iPhoto images for at least a month so if you have older iPhone photos, they are geotagged. You just need to enable showing the info for the album.
You can view the location of a photo on an iPhone as well.
You can’t set the coordinates of a photo from within Phanfare. The photo has to have been tagged outside of Phanfare.

We released a few other features yesterday as well:

A new table of contents design that handles large accounts much better and pages in albums. This design is turned off by default for existing users so you will need to enable it manually in settings
You can now post a comment or send a message to the author when viewing photos and videos on your iPhone
We fixed the Phanfare facebook app to work properly with the new facebook. You can even move the Phanfare widget from your Boxes page to your main profile page.

There are also numerous small bug fixes in this release. Let us know how you like it.

Phanfare iPhone App Version 1.3 Released

Andrew Erlichson — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:24:00 +0000

We released version 1.3 of the Phanfare iPhone App that focuses on rounding out the sharing features available from the application.

You can now add friends and family from the app
You can accept connection requests from the app
Your Phanfare newsfeed, telling you about photos and videos in your circle, is now available from the app.
You can signup for Phanfare from the app; not important to existing users but great for new users.

As always, you can view your own photos, create albums, set security on new albums and caption your photos. Videos don’t play within the app, although they do play if you browse to your account using Safari on the iPhone.

This release also addresses stability problems in the previous version. The app was dying suddenly when it hit memory limits on the phone. We don’t have complete control over memory usage but we did trim down the footprint a bit. The phone seems to provide less memory to applications after the phone has been running for a period of time. Restarting the phone alleviates the issue.

Apple has publicly said that some of these issues will be addressed in future firmware releases for the iPhone. In the interim, we now show a message if memory is running low to warn you that you will need to serialize your photo taking (we normally overlap more operations to reduce latency).

We will continue to optimize the memory foot print of the Phanfare app to improve its performance and decrease the likelihood it gets killed by the operating system for memory usage. We are also hoping that the underlying iPhone libraries become leaner and faster over time to improve performance.

We would love your feedback on the Phanfare iPhone app. We have a whole list of things we want to do with it, but we don’t see it with fresh eyes as some of you will.

Please comment on this post if you want to discuss the direction of the app.

Phanfare iPhone App Rebuilt – Better, Stronger, Faster

Andrew Erlichson — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:11:14 +0000

We released a new version of the Phanfare iPhone app to the iPhone App Store. This new release offers several new features and other improvements.

See your published albums from within the app. This embeds a web view that will show you your own published content and published content from friends, family and groups. The web view does not show your private content, except that if you take photos on the phone, we do link to a private web view of that album for your convenience.
Import from existing camera albums, limited to 640×480 resolution, which is what the Apple-approved interfaces give us today. We are hoping Apple addresses this in a future release.
Faster image capture. We shaved 7 seconds off the shot to shot time.
Power management features: You can set the app to only upload when on WiFi, greatly increasing your battery life.

This is the view you see after the photo is taken. If you caption it and use it, it is sent in the background to your account. You can change which album it is uploaded to, or add a new album.

Here we are composing a new image while another image uploads in the background.

This is the web view of your albums, embedded within the app. You can get to the photos of your friends and family as well.

We need feedback on the app! Let us know what you think and what you want it to do. We have our own agenda but we want to hear your ideas.

You don’t need a 3G iPhone to use the Phanfare app. Update any original iPhone to Apple’s 2.0 phone software and you are on your way.

Once you start using your iPhone to take photos and automatically upload in the background, you won’t go back.

Why the iPhone Matters

Andrew Erlichson — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:20:16 +0000

My co-founder Mark Heinrich and I have long wondered why consumers buy personal computers. It’s not like they are particularly well designed or easy to use. They are complicated to configure, hard to maintain and a source of great frustration. As products, they are poorly designed and remind me of the early automobiles, which required the owner to know how to perform rudimentary repairs to be sufficiently reliable. In 2 minutes, my child could render a personal computer unbootable by removing important system files. Try doing that to an iPhone. Not possible, it is an appliance.

The reason consumers buy personal computers is that there was nothing better. All devices intended to replace the personal computer, up to now, have been underpowered toys. What self-respecting geek wants a webtv as their computer at home?

Enter the iPhone, and by the iPhone, I don’t really mean the current device phone, but instead the touch based platform and embedded OS that runs on the iPhone. In that, we can see the seeds of the future. A 12 inch tablet-sized version of the iPhone would be a fantastic family computer.

I keep an on old laptop as a kitchen counter. We use it to read mail, keep a calendar, shop, lookup movies, resolve disputes (who was in that movie? ask IMDB) and surf the web. A 12 inch tablet iPhone would be much better for that. We would primarily use it as touch computer, but if we wanted to send a long email, we could use a bluetooth keyboard. And if we wanted to relax on the couch, we would pick it up and use it in our lap.

General purpose computers will continue to be sold of course. But they are most appropriate as engineering workstations, or the power tools of knowledge workers, not for mainstream computing. It was only a matter of time before something replaced the personal computer, and that something is going to be the tablet iPhone (yet to be released).

Will Apple take it all here? I don’t know. Apple has traditionally catered to the high end of the market. My guess is that Microsoft will do a similar device based on their surface computing efforts that will hit a lower price points and might become the mainstream alternative.

To me, it is remarkable that at the exact moment developers have given up writing downloadable apps for Macs and PCs, preferring instead to target the browser, that those same developers are clamoring to write for the iPhone. This proves in my mind that it was never about the web being a superior programming platform. Instead, it was about the web browser creating a walled garden within your frustrating computer that was well behaved and predictable.

And so the pendulum swings back. Personally, I am tremendously excited because I have long thought that while I may need/want a full featured Mac with the ability to bring up a process list and run “ifconfig” on the ethernet interface, my mom does not.

In the iPhone we are witnessing the launch of a new consumer computing platform that will be extended by developers all over the world. Let the fun begin.

iPhone vs. Blackberry, Part II

Andrew Erlichson — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 01:51:54 +0000

Just about a year go, I wrote about whether my first generation iPhone could replace my Blackberry. My conclusion at the time was no. Now one year later, I have taken the plunge and moved my 11-year Verizon number to my new 3G iPhone. I did it because I love photography and the new Phanfare app for the iPhone allows me to finally build a wireless camera i can live with.

In the year since I wrote the last article, Apple also fixed a lot about what was broken with the first generation iPhone. They added 3G, they added GPS, they included Exchange integration and they allow you to search your contacts. I have been using the new 3G iPhone in Exchange mode for 3 days. here are the pros and cons relative to a Verizon Blackberry.

The good:

I can delete and file email messages in folders much more efficiently with the iPhone than the Blackberry.
The UI on the iPhone is light years ahead of the Blackberry.
The Apple Remote program that lets you control iTunes is a dream when combined with an Airport express and and amp. Finally, whole house sound that makes sense for parties and won’t break the bank. Thank you Apple!
iPhone does push email in the background, not quite as well as a Blackberry, but competently.
You can respond to email on your iPhone when there is no network present. It queues for later delivery like a Blackberry.
Third party apps are awesome. My personal favorites are the Phanfare app (of course) and the light saber app.
GPS is fast and reliable.

The bad:

You can’t delete or file email when there is no network coverage.
The Blackberry is faster to go from “holster or pocket” to reading email. Blackberry loads faster (but with no animations)
The keyboard for me is still much slower and less accurate than a Blackberry. When I touch type, I look at the display, not the keys. With an iPhone, I must look at the keys because there is no tactile way to feel the keys.
If you respond to email on the iPhone, it does not show as replied within Outlook.
App’s can’t run in the background, so for example, the Phanfare app can’t push photos when you are doing other stuff.
GSM phones cause other electronics to buzz (speakers, for example). Now I have the classic GSM phone buzz coming from my computer speakers when sitting at my desk. CDMA phones don’t have this problem.
No wireless synch of exchange Notes or Tasks. Not a huge thing, but I do use these features.

The ugly:

The iPhone battery life is a total disaster. If you keep 3G on, even if you don’t use a lot of 3G and are out and about, send some email, read a few web pages and make a 10 min phone call, your battery will be dead, dead, dead by 4pm.
The ATT network is horribly under built compared to Verizon in the tri-state area. There are many places where you get no service or a 1 bar, which contributes to battery life problems.
Even in a major metro area like NYC, if you explore a bit (We took i80 out to the Delaware water gap today), you will quickly find that 3G basically only exists up the Turnpike.

Conclusion

So what is the verdict? I am sticking with my iPhone, but it simply can’t by my only phone. No way I can travel into the city and only bring my iPhone. I wound deplete the battery and be very frustrated.

When traveling I find myself stuffing my old Verizon Blackberry into my bag. It has a phone number that nobody knows, but it also has my email, and email is super reliable on the Blackberry.

I used to travel on airplanes with 2 Verizon phones; the Blackberry is horrible in a noisy place. I had a cheapo family share phone I used for those situations. Now I will simply take my Blackberry and my iPhone, but that is a very expensive solution.

The iPhone battery life and the lousy ATT network are the two biggest things holding back the iPhone, especially for serious business use. Remember, the battery on the iPhone can’t be removed. Originally, I thought “big deal.” I never carry a second battery for my Blackberry. But you see, my Verizon Blackberry can easily go 30 hours on a charge, meaning I can get through the day with it.

Cell phones use more power when cell reception is weak, so the bad ATT network certainly contributes to the poor battery life on the iPhone. But i am guessing that if there was a CDMA version of the iPhone running on the Verizon network, it would still be challenged to last a full work day.

A Verizon Blackberry remains the gold standard for reliable wireless email in the United States.

Nevertheless, the iPhone is nothing less than revolutionary. At the exact moment when SW developers have pretty much given up creating downloadable software for Macs and PCs, those same developers are clamoring to write downloadable apps for the iPhone. This is no accident. The iPhone is a new consumer computing platform, one that will enormously successful up and down the food chain.

iPhones for Everyone! (ok, just Phanfare Employees)

Andrew Erlichson — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:13:50 +0000

We braved the masses of Apple fanboys today to get new 3G iPhones for all Phanfare employees. We don’t normally participate in mass hysteria events but we were so excited about the release of the Phanfare app for the iPhone that we could not help ourselves.

We arrived at 7am at the Menlo Park Mall in Edison, NJ. The experience did not disappoint. We got there at 7am to find more than 100 people already waiting outside the store.

Most people were waiting for the Apple store versus the ATT store next door. The ATT manager came out and berated the crowd that both his store and the Apple store had the same product. Yeah right. No way we were going to the ATT store when we could go the super-cool Apple store. The Apple employees were handing out Smart Water. The ATT folks were scrambling to find paper cups to hand out tap water.

By 10am somebody had cut in line in front of us. We reported the person to the Mall Police and after a minor confrontation where nobody raised their voice and no force was used, the geek left the line.

Once inside Mecca, we were quickly attended to by a shiny Apple employee wielding a PocketPC based portable Point of Sale device. Oh the irony! It was just around 11am that we got to the point of trying to provision our phones. At that moment, the west coast started selling phones, bringing ATT and Apple’s servers to their knees. It would be another HOUR before we got working phones, all the while waiting for the Pocket PC devices to take our orders.

The final step is to activate via iTunes, something you are supposed to be able to do instore. No dice. iTunes store servers were hopelessly unresponsive. We gave up and went to lunch, devices in hand. Once back at the office we tried repeatedly until the phones activated. Ahhhh.

These photos were taken with the Phanfare app running on a first generation iPhone. And one last thing, the ATT store did run out inventory around 11am as expected.

About 100 people ahead of us at 7am

The first lucky customers to get the phones.

Eureka!

The team gets their phones..slowly.

No joy activating the phone in the store via iTunes. We needed to finish the process back at the office.

Phanfare iPhone app is now available

Andrew Erlichson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:22:42 +0000

I am happy to announce that the Phanfare iPhone app is now available. The Phanfare iPhone app turns your iPhone into a wireless camera. The convenience of being able to shoot photos with a device that is nearly always in your pocket and have them incorporated seamlessly into your permanent online photos albums is hard to beat. The camera on the iPhone won’t be confused with a digital SLR, but as the saying goes, the camera you have with you is always better than the camera you don’t. See a demo of the app in action.

We have focused, initially, on making the Phanfare app a great digital camera with wireless upload. But expect to see updates and improvements as we are strong believers in the importance of the iPhone as a new consumer computing platform. Getting the PC out of the loop in digital photography is the way to go.

We also continue to improve our iPhone web-based viewing experience. It is quite fast and efficient. You can get to it directly from the Phanfare iPhone camera app or browse to www.phanfare.com on your phone. It does not support video yet, but that is coming soon.

To get the new Phanfare iPhone app, just browse to the App store on your iPhone or you can download it directly to iTunes and sync it.

Import from Shutterfly, Snapfish, Kodak and Picasa Web Albums

Andrew Erlichson — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:15:09 +0000

We just released a new version of Phanfare that enables more inputs and outputs so you can access your media any way you want on any device you want.

Import from Shutterfly, Snapfish, Kodak, and Picasa web albums directly into your Phanfare account.
Export from iPhoto to the Phanfare service using our new iPhoto plugin.
Improved iPhone viewing experience. Just browse to Phanfare using Safari on the iPhone.
RSS feeds to follow your Phanfare messages using iGoogle, MyYahoo, Google Reader and similar services.
Media RSS feeds to show your albums on digital photo frames.
Album viewing pages now have links to album editing pages if you are the owner of the album.
Numerous bug fixes and small optimizations including support for Firefox 3.

As always, let us know at support @ phanfare.com or bugs @ phanfare.com if you have trouble using the service or want to report a bug.

Preview of iPhoto plugin for Phanfare

Andrew Erlichson — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:02:28 +0000

For all you Apple iPhoto users out there, we are happy to announce direct support for iPhoto through a plugin that will put Phanfare in the export menu of your iPhoto application.

This is a preview release intended to help us iron out any issues before we more widely advertise the iPhoto plugin in the next Phanfare release.

The iPhoto plugin will allow you to upload any selected images in iPhoto to the Phanfare service directly. you can also create new albums, and control whether or not the album is visible to family and friends.

If you want to import a whole bunch of iPhoto albums to Phanfare at once, while retaining your iPhoto album structure, then please use the Phanfare Mac client and import the albums from that client.