Oatmeal Stout – Justin Thorp’s blog

So this morning I waited in line to get the brand new iPhone 3G.  For those of you who just have to know, I opted for the black 16 gig version.

One reason why I wanted to upgrade was that 3G unlocks a lot of options for you that you don’t get with EDGE.  You’re naturally going to be able to download more data to your phone A LOT faster.

I had downloaded the Pandora Radio iPhone App to my older phone but there were constant delays in playing songs as the phone had to catch up with the song it was downloading.

Now on the iPhone 3G, I can listen to music on Pandora seamlessly just as if I was listening to Pandora from my computer.    This is GAME CHANGING.

I already hardly ever listened to the radio.  I think this seals the deal.

The thing I want next is for my friends at ODEO to create an iPhone app so that I can stream audio podcasts write to my iPhone.  I travel a lot and I’d love to be able to download the TWiT podcasts write to my iPhone without having to sync up with my computer.

Then… I’d be able to have the equivalent of both  new radio music and talk programming right at the command of my finger tips in my iPhone.  WAY cool!!!!

So… what do you think of the Pandora Radio App?  Do you more so prefer the Last FM or AOL Radio iPhone Apps?  Do you prefer listening to the radio?  If so, why?

Seems like a lot of companies are jumping on the “We have to create an iPhone App bandwagon”, whether it makes sense or not.

Well I want to give my congratulations to Digg.com for resisting the urge.  They have alternatively updated their mobile Web site.

It’s even easier to access Digg on the go with the new mobile version of Digg. This enhanced version – found at m.digg.com – is perfect for phones that support the full web browsing experience, such as a Treo, Blackberry or that new iPhone you just waited in line all morning to get.

That’s right. There is one Web site that will work on a Treo, Blackberry or an iPhone.

Now don’t get me wrong.  There are definitely use cases where it makes more sense to create an iPhone app.  Due to the lack of Flash support for Safari on the iPhone, if you wanna create a game or use audio or video, it’d make more sense to create an iPhone app.

If you wanna use the GPS/Location based services, the camera, or the accelerometer, it’d make more sense to create an iPhone app.  I do ask though… couldn’t standard API calls be created that makes it possible for these to be accessed from the browser?

So on the way back from a meeting in the SOMA neighborhood of San Francisco, I strolled by the flag ship Apple Store on Market Street.  On my way to the meeting I noticed that the “We’re out of the iPhone 3G” sign was gone so I thought maybe I could stop in and pick one up on my way back.

Much to my surprise.  There was a line going down the block.  One person mentioned that they had been there for two hours.

That’s CRAZY.  The phone has been out for a week and folks are still queing up for 2 hours?!?!?  NUTS!

My first gen iPhone is good enough that I’m not going to wait in that long of a line.

So… yesterday, when I found the link to get early access to the iPhone 2.0 software, of course I tried it and loaded it up right away.  (Yes, I am that guy.)

I then proceeded to download a bunch of apps to my phone.

Now there are just some apps that I don’t get why they are apps.  For example, there is Facebook and the New York Times.  Their iPhone apps are almost exactly the same as their iPhone Web site.

As the implementations of mobile Web browsers improve across mobile phones, increasing the use of new Web technologies (better CSS and JavaScript), there is a chance you’ll be able to use the iPhone Web site again.

I can’t imagine that Apple will ever license the iPhone OS so you’ll never be able to see your iPhone app used on anything but an iPhone.

Now I can understand Sega’s Super Monkeyball.  That is a REALLY fun game for the iPhone.  I can’t imagine you’ll be able to do that with a browser for a long long long time so I understand if you wanna make that an iPhone app.

But… why does Twitteriffic need to be an iPhone app? Didn’t we get EXACTLY the same thing with Hahlo?  Actually, I think Hahlo has more and better functionality.

With iPhone 3G, a lot of the speed, responsiveness, and interactivity issues with iPhone Web sites should be resolved.

Yeah… so when you start to think about time and resources around whether your company should build an iPhone app, ask yourself whether or not you’re doing it because it’s cool or you’ll get a lot of people to use it.

Am I crazy?  What do you think?

I’m getting pretty excited for July 11th.  It will be the launch of the new iPhone 3g.  Unfortunately, I think I’m going to be in an airplane all day so I won’t be able to stand in line but that’s not a huge deal.

The new word is that you’ll be able to turn your old iPhone into a wifi iPod, which rocks.

Original iPhone owners who prefer not to give away or sell their old iPhones after upgrading to an iPhone 3G can instead keep their devices and use them as WiFi-enabled iPods, AT&T has confirmed.

This expands my choices for what I want do with my old one.

Are you going to get the new iPhone?  Do you have an old one? What are you going to do with it?

On Monday, geeks from around the world watched with baited breath as Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in addition to announcing the 3G iPhone, gave a status update on iPhone 2.0 which will include 3rd party software apps.

They software apps they demo’d were awesome and showed the amazing breadth of what you’ll be able to do with the iPhone.

BUT… I wonder if all this interest in creating 3rd party software apps for the iPhone will quell interest in creating Web apps.

While the promise of iPhone software apps leaves me with glee, it also kind of bums me out.  Why would you want to create something that can only be used on device?

I can’t imagine that Apple will ever license their iPhone software out to other hardware manufacturers.  If you make a software app for the iPhone, it will always stay on the iPhone.

While the promise of the Web is that if the browser makers and the Web publishers both adhere to standards, you’ll have no problem using the content or application no matter what device your on.

The biggest problem with Web apps on the iPhone 1.0 was that the connection was too slow.  You really desired for better interactivity and response when you did something.  Well, having 3G in the iPhone should fix a lot of this.

I wonder if just like with the computer, where we saw a generation of apps first start off as software and then move to the Web (mail, office productivity), if we’ll see the same with mobile and the iPhone.

What do you think? If you were to create an app for the iPhone would you do it as a software or a Web app?  If software, are you comfortable with being so silo’d?

So yeah… the new version of Google Reader for the iPhone (http://www.google.com/reader/i/) is 10,000x better then the old one.  This makes me SUPER happy because I basically live off of Google Reader.

iPhone users, check it out and tell me what you think.

At WidgetDevCamp, I floated the idea of doing a iPhone SDK Dev Camp. Seems like there was some interest for it then.

Now that the Apple iPhone SDK is out, I’ve already gotten a few folks asking about it. One of the reasons I thought this would be cool is because it’s so new we’d all be starting at the same place.

Drop me a comment if you’d wanna attend this event.

On Friday, I was walking out the door on my way to work and I realized that I hadn’t seen this week’s episode of LOST yet.  I stopped what I was doing ran over to my computer, bought LOST on Apple iTunes, and waited 15 minutes as it downloaded.  I then put it on my iPhone and went about my merry way.

Seems like things just aren’t where they need to be.

I’d get a season pass to LOST on iTunes but I only use laptops and I’m always running out of space on my hard drives.

I want some type of easy media server type of solution that will hold all of my media but when I sync my laptop and my iPhone I can pull media off of the server and put it on my iPhone.

It’d also be nice if there was a way to buy TV shows on the fly from the iPhone so that while I was walking to the subway it could have been downloading.  It’d also be nice if my phone could pull TV shows off of my media server.  I know with current cellular technology this isn’t possible but it’d be nice.

So it seems like everyone and their brother is talking about the Amazon Kindle E-Book reader.  Well, I’m not a fan yet.

1. It’s something else that I have to carry.  Do I wanna carry one more device?
2. It’s expensive.  It’s $400 (well $399).   Is carrying paper books with you that much of a problem?  A big enough problem that it’d be worth $400.
3. If I lose a hardback book, I’ve lost $25.  If I lose the Kindle, I’ve lost $400. (This is speaking from someone who was mugged and got his iPhone stolen.)

I think the future of e-books is the Apple iPhone.  It’s something more people already have.  It’s the most popular device with the biggest screen.  It has a good battery.

The Apple iPhone is also launching it’s SDK in February.  Who’s going to write the e-book reader app come February?