@mjoe /anto

A plea from the web developers… I’m sure every other company out that has a web product knows what I’m talking about. 100s of hours wasted (!) on making sure the site works fine on those browsers that are not compliant with the standards. Please help the developers.

Yes — I’m a part of the Cult! Even though the first generation of Apple products are not to be bought, I went for it. To talk about something in detail you have to know in and out (you always can read about it), but then when it comes to an experience you have to experience it to talk about it. This product might be one of the most hyped launches of this decade (atleast in the USA) So it is worth the hype? Is it a really a great product? Will it revolutionize the mobile industry? You decide… but here is my take on it.

People have waited in line for weeks, days, even traded $800 for the first in line without knowing much details and wanting spend $100,000 in iPhones. Even a Mayor and not to mention some celebrities like Whoopi Golberg waiting in line. I was lucky, walked straight in to the Apple store at Palo alto around 10:30PM on Friday and out in 10 minutes with an iPhone

I’m sure you must have read about it a lot, The internet is filled literally overflowing with details and review of the iPhone. This for the most part are things that are not clearly mentioned or clarified.

First for the good stuff. The product as such is just as expected from any Apple product. Great built quality, sleek and simple. The best part of the device is the User Experience. There has been mobile phones for decades now, but Apple has thought through the usage of a typical phone and a lot of User Experience is built around it making it one of the best for mobile phone. Though there are so many things that are great about the interface, there are few things that really sucks (atleast for me)

• It takes more taps than most of the phones to dial a number, or even call someone in you address book. This being a Phone, should have been a lot easier and straight.
• When you receive a call, you have to wonder what you should be doing to attend the call (if the phone is in locked mode) — yes you have to slide to unlock to attend the call. This sounds OK but surely not when you are driving (!). Now if you were using the device and you recieve a call then its easy with just a tap. (Confused of what I’m talking about — take a look)

Other than these two(making and recieving a call) issues which are really the most important features of the device, there are great things about it. Most of you would like the interface as a gadget.

15 Things you SHOULD know about the iPhone.

1. This is an ATT/cingular only, though it is a Quad band phone (not sure if it wrok worldwide)
2. The iPhone has to be activated otherwise its next to useless(even if you are an existing customer)
3. Activation requires a 2 years service agreement for NEW and EXISTING customers.
4. You need the latest version of iTunes to activate(Linux fanboys look for a Mac or a Windows PC)
5. You HAVE TO have choose a data plan to activate the iPhone (special cheaper data plans for iPhones only from ATT/Cingular & might work out to be cheaper if you already have a data plan)
6. The device has EDGE and no 3G Connectivity, it turns out to be OK since it has the built-in WiFi
7. Battery life is great — no complaints there!
8. The Bluetooth — forget it, this is only for the bluetooth headsets and thats it. Nothing else can be done with that
9. Though the device has a great browser and WiFi built in you can not buy songs from iTunes directly from the device!(atleast not now)
10. The iPhone headset jack is not the same as you think. This does NOT work with you existing headsets or any third part headsets (unless you go for a connector)
11. There is no Accidental or Theft Insurance on this device from ATT/cingular and comes standard with apple’s one year warranty.
12. There is no expansion slot of any kind, you can NOT expand the memory with any card other than what is has(4 or 8GB).
13. Not all iPod accessories will work with the iPhone.
14. iPhone is NOT supported on the 64bit Windows be it XP or Vista — details here
15. Beware its an iPhone, Use with caution and in secrecy, you might get mugged!

Technical Specifications:

Apple has published some details about this but not the CORE details. Here are the information that you might not be aware of. Source: engadget

• ARM1176JZF chip with TrustZone (enables trusted computing environment for media, apps, network, OS, etc. — very bad for hackers)
• Can vary in clock speed up to 700MHz or more, depending on implementation
• ARM Intelligent Energy Manager (claimed to reduce power consumption 25-50% in portables)
• 16K / 16K cache
• Features vector floating point coprocessor (”for embedded 3D-graphics”)
• ARM Jazelle enabled for embedded Java execution
• SIMD, high perf integer CPU (8-stage pipeline, 675 Dhrystone, 2.1 MIPS)
• 0.45 mW/MHz power draw (with cache)

What to expect and when?

Its been hardly days since its launch and the iPhone Restore image is now available on the internet [via engadget], it will not take long for those curious boys to hack it out.

• iChat on iPhone (anytime soon — might be just a Software update)
• 3G and Europe & Other country availability (sooner than we thought)
• More Capacity (12, 16 and may be 32Gigs — who knows)
• Support for 3rd part tools
• Skype for iPhone (never pay to call)

and even more. Oh by the way for people all over the world (it’s funny most of the US people think they are the world — that’s OK) it pays off, I’m sure you can use the iPhone with any carrier in no less than 3 months from now. Let the hacking begin

You know, those days when no one had any information about you except the government, your family and friends.. those days are gone. Today the internet keeps outgrowing itself every other minute. Google for instance which was a simple algorithm for search by two students is now the most used search engine in the world. So does google care about your privacy?

You might think everything is private! who knows. Sure enough you must have read about all those law suits that various companies are piling against people like you and me and going after those internet giants like google, yahoo, my space and sites that has your data (so called private).

Today i just landed on this video that talks all about “privacy & google”, take a look

Again, these are opinions and study done by specific groups or individuals, in any case they have a point. Let’s say search for any of your friend’s name  or yourself for that matter on google,you might be surprised at what you find online.

You must have heard about the new Airbus A380, but Airbus also updated their website recently. I was just browsing through and landed on this Quicktime 360 degree view of the cabin, not sure which model this is, but sure was amazing.

Not just the interiors, but take a look at the quality of the video, I was looking at it on my 24″ wide screen monitor and  even then the qualiy was just amazing.

Peep in [Airbus]

Well, I was overwhelmed by the fact that my name and site (http://onlyumpc.com) has appeared on the BBC.

This was more like thoughts on the UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) that Mark asked me about which got published as an article about the time when CeBIT was getting to a close.

Check out the article at here