Jesse Ross | jesseross.com

I got my G1 on Tuesday, and two days in, I already love it. It’s largely eliminated my need to carry my iPod touch with me everywhere. Sure, there are problems, and I’m constantly comparing it to the aforementioned gadget, but most of the issues I find with it (with the notable exception of multi-touch) look to be resolvable with software.

My biggest issue so far is that it’s really, really easy to get lost. The screen transitions so readily apparent in the iPhone are truly useful, giving you a sense of flow and sequencing that make the system feel much more physical and navigable. I don’t know what degree of difficulty there would be in trying to get something similar implemented in Android, but it should definitely be doable now that the system has been open sourced. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that very feature built into Android version 2.0.

I also find myself not very keen on all the buttons on the chin of the device. The iPhone shows us you can get away with just two physical buttons (Home and Power/Lock/Sleep), and taking a cue from that design would have been nice. I have to admit, the scrollball is a nice input mechanism, but I would have preferred that be the only addition above the two buttons of the iPhone. The Menu button is a constant source of consternation for new users, as everyone I’ve let play with my phone gets totally confused when they try to figure out how to input a URL in the browser. One could argue it’s a case of having been trained by Apple’s devices, but I think there is an obvious disconnect between the locus of attention (the address bar) and the physical button at the other end of the device you have to click on to interact with it. Again, it’s resolvable in software, but only if developers eschew the Menu button.

Speaking of the address bar, a non-physical keyboard would be handy at times… I find myself missing it, but that feels more like a UI convention I’ve become accustomed to with my iPod, than an actual limitation of the device.

Enough complaints, though… what’s good? The Google apps integration is seriously top notch. My email always hits my phone first, before it hits either my desktop or my iPod email client, and IM and search are really well done. The Market is good, comparable to the App Store, and will only get better as we get more apps (someone build a better Wikipedia browser than what’s up there now and I will be forever in your debt… oh, and I could use a PDF reader while you’re at it…). The fact that it has removable storage means I can make this device grow with my disk usage, and SD cards will only get cheaper and higher capacity.

Overall, it’s a solid device, and I’m happy with the fact that it’s open source and that it has a much more open development and distribution model than the iPhone. Of course, you have to do development in Java instead of Objective-C, and you don’t have the benefit of Xcode or Interface Builder, so whether that development is even worth doing is another question.

The only thought that I have left after playing with this device for two days is…

How does not having a non-carrier based Android device affect Google’s potential developer base… and when are we going to see the iPod touch equivalent of the G1?

And lo, The Great Googley One said unto me, “I bring to you a phone, a phone powered by open source, which you will still pay through the nose for, because the telecom companies are greedy, greedy bastards, but nevertheless, a phone that will let you easily add new applications, and share those applications with the world, in a share-y, share-y, love-y, love-y, socialist-y sort of way, and it will not be an iPhone, but it will at least provide a decent alternative, and it will not force you to switch to Ma Bell.”

And thus, I bought said phone, and I will patiently wait until October 22nd, when it appears at my door, as if delivered from the loving hands of The Great Google itself. And in my waiting, I will learn the SDK and develop applications. And it will be good.

Did anyone else notice, with the introductions of the new iPods today, that you can no longer get a white iPod? Silver, yes. Black, yes. I mean, you can even get a teal nano. But no white.

White was Apple. White defined the iPod.

Honestly, I’m a bit saddened by this.

And yet… I can’t help but want this:

Everyone who knows me knows I have little love for Microsoft. In general, their products are low quality, poorly designed, crammed with useless features, overpriced and bent on preserving their monopoly status. Well, today I’m forced to rethink my image of Microsoft.

Surface is a table-top multi-touch computer. Now, that’s nothing that hasn’t been seen before, on YouTube videos and science fiction movies. We all knew it was coming. What is really refreshing to see with Microsoft’s version is the interface. It’s clean, it’s smart, and it’s obvious. They did a really, really good job. I am, quite honestly, floored that this coming from the same people who brought us Office. Congrats, Microsoft — good work! I really hope this technology takes off — it really will revolutionize a lot of the everyday aspects of our life.

Now if we find out that once it comes out that it’s also secure and uses open protocols and standards, I’ll really be blown away.

Yay! Another post from my all-command-line OpenBSD system, which, today, I modified to use my wireless card.

Today I blasted away my Ubuntu install and got, with some help from my friend Adam, OpenBSD installed. He’s gonna give me a little bit of much-needed hardcore *nix training.

My first lesson will be learning to love the command line. That’s how this post is currently being written, in a little text-only web browser called links. This is gonna be a fun, fun ride ;)

Put simply:

Nintendo got it. Apple don’t.

I got to try two new toys today: The MacBook and the DS Lite. I stopped off at the Apple store today on my way home from work, mostly since I hadn’t had a chance to see the MacBooks up close yet. And, let me just say, I was not impressed. Previously, I had been drooling over the black MacBook, and was even considering getting one, but now that I’ve looked at it, I’m reconsidering. The new keyboard doesn’t bother me — it’s a bit weird, true, but it’s not uncomfortable. But it really isn’t that attractive. The black plastic looks cheap — the ThinkPad I’m writing this on right now is of a much higher quality. Maybe if they had gone glossy with it, like the white MacBooks and the iPods, it would be a different story. But the matte black just doesn’t work. My other big complaint is the screen. Why, oh why, did they go glossy. The colors may be brighter, but at the expense that the screen reflects everything. It’s bad both functionally and aesthetically; it really does serve to cheapen the perceived quality of the machine from me, and makes it feel just like every other PC laptop out there. I don’t know what Apple is thinking, but I hope they don’t continue this trend.

Nintendo on the other hand is doing awesome. The DS Lite is simply amazing. I’m getting one the first chance I have. The case is simple beautiful — I read a comment by someone today that it looks as if it had been designed by Jonathan Ive, and it really does. It feels like Apple hardware. And, as icing on the cake, I got to try it for the first time while playing the New Super Mario Bros. There’s nothing like feeling like you’re 7 again to give you the warm fuzzies about a device.

I’m soooooo happy. I finally solved the "clickable trackpad" issue. It seems I just had to change a setting in my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. To the section for my Synaptics Touchpad, I added:

	Option 		"TouchpadOff" 		"2"

so that the full section looks like this:

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Synaptics Touchpad"
	Driver		"synaptics"
	Option		"SendCoreEvents"	"true"
	Option		"Device"		"/dev/psaux"
	Option		"Protocol"		"auto-dev"
	Option		"HorizScrollDelta"	"0"
	Option 		"TouchpadOff" 		"2"
EndSection

That "feature" is surely the worst feature ever added to a laptop, and you have no idea how glad I am to be rid of it. Via

Went awesome. It picked up everything I’ve tested so far. I had issues with the Live CD not seeing my wireless card, but the installation did, so I’m golden. I’ve been quite impressed by this system. I’m totally loving the monitor resolution (1400×1050) and big screen (14″), and, like I said earlier, this is just a really responsive system. Call me a satisfied customer.

About the only things still driving me crazy are the whole “clickable trackpad” issue and the strangeness I’ve been having with Firefox. Apparently there is some kind of issue with Firestarter, the firewall software, and there are a bunch of sites that I can’t hit at all, Google being one of them. It’s very irregular — every so often I can get through, but most of the time it just times out. Pretty annoying, so I’m upgrading to the latest version of Ubuntu, which hasn’t been officially released yet, to see if that clears up this issue. It might make everything go totally to hell. We’ll find out soon, I guess.

Got my ThinkPad today. Promptly removed the Windows sticker and did some general clean-up on it. Overall, I’m quite impressed so far. I’ve been playing with the Ubuntu Live CD on it, and it’s AMAZINGLY responsive. Good work, IBM.

On the aesthetics side, I’m also pretty pleased. Granted, there are maybe to many levers and knobs, and those multi-colored buttons are still kind of weird, but it’s bordering on sexy. What really gets me are the flecks of magnesium on the cover. Very, very nice touch, both visually and functionally. It almost makes me believe that this is what a NeXT laptop might have looked like.

More news to come as I get Ubuntu installed. Stay tuned.