The Apple Dashboard (not the OS X one)

A while back I wrote about how Apple getting into the car industry is something I would have loved to see happen, even if it is a farfetched idea. However, I think there is a case to be made for Apple to involve themselves with car dashboards.

As Scott Hanselman pointed out so well, car computers stink. Still, a lot of people want to use their phones on drives to and from work. The problem for Apple is that a problem with the car console could well be interpreted as a problem with the phone by consumers, and definitely a disadvantage if a Samsung phone works better.

It’s in Apple’s interest to create a painless and futureproof solution for iPhone vehicle connectivity. Consider iTunes and Windows - it wasn’t in Apple’s best interest to make iTunes on Windows until they realized it improved the experience greatly for iPod owners who had PC’s. I’ll bet most people who own cars with a wonderful iPhone interface would consider an iPhone before anything else, though it wouldn’t have the same drastic effect as iTunes on Windows did surely.

Consider that automakers will have a lot to gain from advertising their Apple iCar interface (or whatever the name would be). They’d probably pay Apple enough to do it that Apple might be able to justify putting resources towards it. Also, Apple doesn’t need to really make money from it - just improving the experience for iPhone users is significant. Of course, frustrating Android users wouldn’t hurt them either.

I wouldn’t say Apple needs to do this, but with 100 billion in the bank Apple doesn’t need to do diddly-squat. I think it’s an idea at least worth considering for Apple, though.

On a note from personal experience, I myself only had a CD player in my car when I got it, but I replaced it with a Pioneer DEH-6300UB. Turns out it’s a pretty decent option for iPhone connectivity. No Bluetooth¹, but works seamlessly with the Pandora iPhone app, in addition to other music apps with no problems or hassles. The RGB backlighting that let it match my car’s interior color and brightness is a pretty cool trick too.

Restriction Woes

So Matthew Inman and MG Siegler both gave up in frustration trying to get Game of Thrones legally, without paying $100/month for an unused cable subscription. I now have a similar story that I want to relate.

I’m a graduate of Ferris State University, a college in Michigan’s central lower peninsula. The college’s best sports team is their Division I hockey team, and somehow they managed to get into the regional NCAA hockey semifinals. This is not something they do often, so of course me and my alumni friends in the area all wanted to see the game.

Problem is, the game was only being shown on ESPN3 and ESPN U. So we had four options:

1. Go watch it on cable. Problem is, only one of us had cable, and she did not have the above channels with the package she had, and even if one of us was crazy enough to sign up for cable just for the game, it was the weekend and would not have been available in time.
2. Go watch it live. While not normally practical, the game was actually taking place at an arena about ten minutes away from us. Unfortunately none of us could justify spending $40 per person on tickets.¹
3. Stream it from ESPN.com.
4. Pirate it.

We tried option 3 first. ESPN has their WatchESPN site, where they stream all their events online. However, there are restrictions. You need to have a cable account from one of the participating cable providers.

Our one cable-owning friend was sure that if she entered her cable account credentials she would get charged for the service, so that option did not exist. It would have been nice if ESPN had done a good job of clarifying that it’s free. However, there seemed to be another option:

Non-participating TV provider customers have access to ESPN3 programming online only at WatchESPN.com, as long as they subscribe to a participating high speed internet service provider.

Ignoring the disturbing net-neutrality implications of restricting video to certain ISP’s, this seemed to be the way in. Since the game was on ESPN3 and several of us had internet accounts through one of the listed service providers, we should have been set, right? Nope. Nobody’s account credentials worked with the site. So now we have restrictions on the site that block legitimate existing customers, too.

We attempted option 4 as well, but as it turns out, Game of Thrones is a bit easier to access than a live stream of a Ferris/Cornell hockey game. This did not pan out, seemingly leaving us with no recourse.

Finally, one of the group told us he had Comcast account credentials that we didn’t know about. I saw a review saying that Comcast didn’t work with the site, but we tried it anyway, and sure enough it worked! We got to see the game, and see our team win a place at the Frozen Four.

This was only possible because one of us happened to be spending a thousand dollars a year on a cable subscription. That we used for one game.

I don’t know about you, but this just seems like a terrible situation. It’s mostly college students who want to see these games. They’re poor these days. They shouldn’t need premium subscriptions to cable to see their team play.

The new iPhone… number unconfirmed

The iPhone 4S took some heat for being a “minor upgrade”, and Apple appears to have responded by removing the number entirely from the newest iPad. So, will they do that with the newest iPhone? In theory that’s the best thing for them to do, but there’s a problem.

Numeric version names on Apple products are actually something Apple rarely did after Steve Jobs returned. It never happened in Macs after the Intel transition. It never happened on the iPod line, even the iPod touch, though sometimes they might get an extra name like the iPod Video. So seeing numeric versions on the iPhone and iPad is unusual, and now appears to be a mistake.

Killing it from the iPad is easy. Instead of being the iPad 3, it’s now the 3rd-generation iPad. If you do that to the iPhone 5, though, it becomes… what?

You see, there have already been five iPhone iterations: original, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4S. The iPhone 5 would actually be the 6th-generation phone. If you didn’t count the 3GS and 4S, then it’s the 4th-generation.

Apple will still need to refer to the specific type for compatibility concerns. There might be some clues, though. Consider this image below taken from the page for the Apple Digital AV Adapter:

Notice that it says “iPad 2 2nd Generation”. What if the graphics after the next iPhone say “iPhone 6th Generation”, then “iPhone 4S 5th Generation”? It’s a bit awkward, but it seems to be what they’re hinting at with their naming scheme.

Or, they could just call it the 4GS and make everyone’s brain hurt. You never really know for sure with Apple.

Das Keyboard Ultimate S

My new keyboard came in - the infamous Das Keyboard. In fact, I got the especially infamous “Ultimate S” unlabelled key edition. And it came in when I was at work too, which gave me the opportunity to use it to terrorize the office I was in.

My first impression of this keyboard is that it’s significantly better than the current wired Apple Keyboard that I was using. Which, given the $130 price of this keyboard, it had better be. The keys have a very satisfying feel to them - there is never a time where you wonder for a split-second if you actually pressed a key or not. On top of that, every keypress feels like it has impact, which I love. It makes writing that much more fun. On top of that, the added heft of this keyboard is really useful - there were plenty of times where I would slide the Apple keyboard around accidentally, but not the Das Keyboard.

I’ve been doing fairly well with having no lettering on the keys. Though I only got the unlabelled edition because the labels had an ugly typeface I didn’t like (or at least was used poorly), I was really surprised by how I had less typos by using this keyboard compared to the Apple one. If you’re reluctant to get the Ultimate S because you think you need to look at the keys every once in a while - unless you’re fairly new to typing it’s not something to worry about.

The noise is certainly noticeable, but it’s not ear-shattering. In my office today, those who were there didn’t mind the extra racket coming from my keyboard. That’ll change from person to person, though. If I was buying one for work, I’d get the silent edition, but I’m perfectly happy with the noisy one for home.

I think this makes coding more fun, if not easier because I’m prone to less typos with this compared to an Apple Keyboard. This keyboard and the Logitech Anywhere MX definitely rank as my favorite input combination out of anything I have ever used.