Gizmodo, your Thrive review doesn't Jive...

Gizmodo has a so-called "review" of the Thrive here:
http://gizmodo.com/5822445/toshiba-thrive-do-big-tablets-need-love-too-no


The central argument seems to be that it's not an iPad. This is, not surprisingly for an Android tablet, absolutely true. I shall now mock the reviewer's mockery in my best tongue-in-cheek, yet still righteously indignant, satirical prose. Caveat lector!


Widescreen-a-phobia!
For example, the widescreen tablet is chided for "somehow" being at once wider and shorter (in landscape orientation) than a 4:3 aspect ratio iPad. The abject horror is completely overwhelming. Perhaps all video content is formatted for the average 1950s-era TV, and this widescreen fad is about to die out. Somehow, said inherent widescreen-ness also makes it completely untenable to use the tablet in portrait orientation, where the usability is vastly superior than a 3:4 screen for most e-books, any 8.5x11 PDF pages, and even certain webpages (*cough*, like Gizmodo, *cough*) that assume that people stopped buying monitors in 1999 because 4:3 CRTs running at 800x600 are the flippin' bees knees. But, I digress... Oh, yeah, because it's narrower in portrait mode, thumb-typing is easier. That is, if you choose not to just use Swype, which is also included...


Port ability vs. portability?
The principal argument against the ports is that their presence renders the tablet "more like a PC".  As in, there's an HDMI output that allows you to plug it into your HDTV and play your movies without the need for a $100 peripheral (I'm looking at you, Apple TV). Better yet, you can plug it into your friends' TVs without having to bring along your $100 peripheral...  


Or perhaps, the criticism is levied specifically against the USB host port. After all, consider the following choice quote:

"I just know that in my entire history as a tablet-owner, I've not once cursed the gods at my lack of a USB port. Because tablets aren't laptops."

Insight at its finest, right? That USB port would enable you to plug in a USB thumb drive where your buddy has an MP3 or a photo that they want to share. It must be so much nicer to plug the drive into your computer, and use iTunes to copy onto your tablet instead of just plugging in the USB key and accessing the content -- especially when you're out and about. Definitely not the kind of thing that has any utility...


Similarly, since the SD card slot is built in, you can carry a metric arse-load of content spread across multiple easy-to-pack cards. The alternative of carrying a computer, firing up iTunes, and downloading different content to the device certainly seems more "magical" and "revolutionary", doesn't it. You're right, Brian, tablets are not laptops.  But, methinks that you shouldn't have to carry both if you want to access more content than fits on the devices's internal storage. 


Or maybe, like me, you take the occasional photograph. If you shoot on SD cards, you can just plug in your SD/SDHC/SDXC card and start browsing away -- swipe, pinch to zoom, etc. If you shoot on CF, your USB card reader can be attached just as easily. Damn, that sounds horrible, doesn't it.  I'd totally much rather sync everything into iPhoto before I can even look at it on the large high-res screen on my tablet. Oh, sorry, I forgot about that adapter kit thingy -- it looks way more convenient. I mean, who wouldn't want one of them 'donks hanging out of their dock port just so that they could read an SD card or attach the camera directly to the USB port? Samsung aped Apple in this regard, so the Galaxy tab must be awesome; oh, wait, I forgot -- it's widescreen. Game, set, and match to the iPad, for a certainty!


Convenient oversights?
In the amazingly insightful claim that the ports make it thick, the "reviewer" also completely misses the fact that a portion of the thickness can be attributed to the design decision that allows the back cover to be removed. Doing so reveals the battery which can also be -- horror of all horrors -- removed and swapped. Nobody could possibly imagine a scenario where a dock connector wouldn't present itself to recharge the battery, could they? I'll give you a hint. They could, and they have, and fairly often.


The rear-facing camera is mentioned, but not the front-facing camera.  The fact that Google Talk is fully video-enabled and enables communication with far more people than the narrow demographic that has access to "FaceTime". Heck, even those crazy open source/Linux people can use the Google Talk! The name isn't nearly as catchy, though. 


Docked for docking?
The reviewer somewhat implicitly mocks the concept of using a USB keyboard with a tablet; but last time I checked, $20 USB keyboards were more affordable than $60 bluetooth ones (which also work, including the Apple one) or proprietary $70 solutions. I mean, nobody would ever consider having their tablet docked and using a keyboard to enable things like composing a long e-mail without having to resort to the on-screen keyboard, right?


Double standards make fine double-edged swords!
While I am also not a fan of built-in apps that I can't uninstall (apart from rooting), there is no small amount of irony in criticizing Toshiba for providing their own AppVendor and BookVendor (which, by the way, are among the many available alternatives you can use, including the Android Market, Amazon, and a host of others). After all, Apple certainly doesn't -- in any way -- encourage you to purchase any content from their first-party stores. This is clearly evidenced by the fact that the iBooks and AppStore links are almost impossible to find, and can be easily removed from an iPad.

Postscript: Back to that widescreen-a-phobia thing...
I could fit three Gizmodos in one browser window! Gotta love that scrolling action, even if you ditch their crap-tacular default view in favor of the "blog" view...

Giz <3 whitespace!

Android client for Blogger

I'm just testing the Android client from my tablet. When moblogging needs supercede tweet capacity, this could prove to be useful...

I finally did some GeoTagging

Went out on the kayak on the body of water formerly know as Town Lake (which now bears the official moniker of Lady Bird Lake). I have a waterproof housing for my Canon PowerShot G10, and have a nice waterproof bag that fits the Droid. So, both key pieces of GeoTagging field technology were safe on the water.

I fired up MyTracks (an Android app) at the dock and ran a GPS trace of the 2 mile bridge-and-back roundtrip. During said trip, I took a few photos of birds, turtles, and the city. So, now I had a set of photos on one device, and some GPS data on a different device. "How ever shall you properly GeoTag the photos and subsequently display them in an interesting or useful manner?," you may ask. "Furthermore," you may point out, "you seem to have forgotten to synchronize the camera's clock with that of the phone/GPS logger." The answer and solution are both relatively easy:

1. Fix the lack of synchronization:
• Later that night, I took simultaneous pictures with the phone's camera and the actual camera. To minimize the difference caused by lag, I "pressed halfway" on both devices and therefore got as close as possible to popping the shutters "at the same time". With the approximations that will happen later, a few hundred milliseconds isn't going to be significant.
• (Subject and actual time relative to the rest of the photos don't matter -- this is just establishing the offset between the two clocks.)
• (NOTE: Simultaneous shooting of a common subject is also a great technique for dealing with situations where there are multiple cameras involved in a shoot.)
2. I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, which makes correcting the time offset simple. In my case the Canon hadn't been adjusted for the end of daylight savings, and was off by a couple of minutes, even if the hour had been correct.
• In Lightroom, I examined the metadata for the phone's version of the "common picture," and noted the capture time.
• I then selected the set of pictures from the Canon -- starting with the "common picture," and Shift-clicking back to the first one in the series that needed to be corrected.
• Lightroom has a function for modifying the date and time, and if you apply a correction to this type of selection, it is clever enough to know that you want to change them all by the same offset, versus setting them all to the same exact time. This is a nice, big, timesaver!
3. Since I was already in Lightroom to fix the captre times, I processed the RAW photos from the Canon, and exported them as JPGs (because most of the cost-effective/free GeoTagging apps don't really handle RAW files).  
4. So, now I had the photos, but I needed the Geo data...
• MyTracks lets you export a GPX trace file to your SD card. 
• Copy that over to your computer because most tagging apps know how to use GPX.
5. I used a Mac app called GPSPhotoLinker to stick the location information into the EXIF data for each JPG file.
• This program lets you load the GPX trace file and the images, and then you can apply the location data either manually or as a batch process. 
• It will also interpolate the location based on the time, and give you a better estimate of the location when there isn't a perfect 1:1 match between the time a picture was captured and when a point in the trace file was recorded. (Of the 13 photos I tagged, only one lined up exactly -- and that was sheer luck.) 
6. So, now I have pictures that are technically GeoTagged, and I can stick them in a traditional gallery. But that's not the best way to benefit from the location data...  
7. Enter JetPhoto Studio, which can not only export a KML file that you can modify to use absolute paths and then overlay on a Google Map (I didn't modify this file, so the pictures use relative paths and don't show up in this view), but also uses this to build a fully functional Google Maps-based web gallery that can be easily uploaded to your site.
8. The results are pretty cool. If you want to see larger renditions, the "traditional gallery" does still have its uses ;^)

My take on the Nexus One "Google Phone"

I think it's an experiment to test the American consumer's tolerance to a more open model for mobile telecommunications. Right now, we generally begrudgingly accept the subsidized phone hardware with a two-year expensive contract model. But, there are already a couple of other similar experiments going on:

• T-Mobile has introduced an alternative set of plans (Even More Plus) wherein you pay more up front for the device,  but get a cheaper monthly rate for the same services. If they would extend the lower pricing but allow you to "bring your own device", that would be nice.
• Nokia is offering their N900 only as  fully unlocked and completely un-subsidized device.

I see this as a way to test the waters and see if we are willing to look to a model more akin to how we deal with our computers and ISPs. Most of us would think it was completely ludicrous if Apple would only sell us a Macbook for $899 with a two-year contract from Time-Warner's Roadrunner division. But somehow we have allowed this business model to prevail for the devices that are always with us. Just replace Macbook with iPhone, $899 with $199, and TW/RR with AT&T if you doubt that statement.

If all of this had been imminent 6 weeks ago, I probably wouldn't have purchased the Droid. I really do like the device, but now I'm stuck with Verizon for 2 years and will have to deal with crazy stuff if my hardware fails during that time. I was also glad that there was no VCast NASCAR that I can't remove from my phone's ROM. That would actually have been a deal-breaker, despite the other compelling features and functionality.

Having a model where I can pick the "best of breed" for the device and the carrier independently -- while finding a way to not get reamed on the price of both -- seems like a fundamentally good thing to me. If this is indeed Google's intent, then I certainly hope it proves to be successful. Outside of things that are essential for functionality, I would prefer if this model also means that no "crap" will be installed on the ROM -- giving the device's owner more control.

ADC2 Winners

Some award-winning Android apps to look at: http://code.google.com/android/adc/gallery_winners.html 

Just a test

Seeing if my moblogging client can handle an image upload...

Note: Picture of Lady Bird Lake, taken with my Droid.

Some Apps for Android - Turbo QuasiReviews

My Tracks -

• What: GPS Track logger, saves statistics and maps -- can upload to MyMaps and Google Docs spreadsheets.
• Pros: Save and review workout data, do GPS data logging for geo-tagging apps (export GPX or KML).
• Cons: GPS-based altitude is pretty poor, and shouldn't really be trusted.
  

Andoku -

• What: Sudoku and some variants. 
• Pros: Easy interface with "pencil marks", variants offer variety. 
• Cons: "only" 100 puzzles of each type/difficulty. (But, by the time you finish them all, will you really remember the solution to the first one? I doubt it...)

Word Wrench -

• What: Anagram-based game, somewhat like "TextTwist"
• Pros: Pauses automatically and resumes nicely. Can change the allotted time.
  
• Cons: Interface it really basic; grays out and makes it hard to see what you missed.

Jewellust -

• What: Similar to Bejeweled, but with some unique power-ups and other features.
• Pros: Every bit as addictive as Bejeweled.
• Cons: Every bit as addictive as Bejeweled.

Pandora (no description necessary, does what you'd expect)

Photoshop.com Mobile - Crop and color-balance on your phone. Great for contact photos, etc.

ConnectBot - ssh/telnet client. Very solid, plenty of screen real estate on my Droid.

ES File Explorer - Local file manager with network SMB share access (nice way to grab files from NAS or upload pix, etc.).

SportsTap - Scores, schedules, etc. Good interface, but refreshes kinda slow...

AndFTP - FTP, SFTP, FTPES client. Seems pretty stable so far.

FTPServer - Exactly what it says. Perhaps a little scary, but good in a pinch, especially if you monitor it and make sure there aren't unexpected users...

Twidroid - Twitter client -- I use a task manager to close it so I don't get alerted by every new Tweet in my little world.

Blogaway - Blogger interface. Basic, but works for simple moblogging (That's a super-compound internet word). Doesn't make urls hot, but does allow picture uploads.

QR Code is fun

QR Codes are pretty neat little 2-D bar codes that are increasingly being used to enable mobile devices to access information quickly. Programs like the Barcode Scanner for Android or similar apps for the iPhone can read and decode these easily. This code, for example, should take you to my Photo Gallery web site.

http://www.lonewolf-digital.com/gallery

Droid

I picked up a Droid at my local Best Buy last night. So far, I absolutely love it - especially vs. my old and busted T-Mobile Wing (HTC / WinMo 6 / EDGE). Verizon is expensive, but map tiles loaded 2-3x faster than a friend's G1. Will compare vs. a MyTouch later tonight...