Cyberward.net

I took this picture, from my iPod, of an iPad showing off my portfolio. It looks amazing. The images are actually sized perfectly for this device. But there was something weird. All the images in the night album, and the occasional other image won’t show. I get the blue image not found icon. Very weird. I wonder if they are exported with some weird settings. Not sure how that happened.

I was also able to confuse the javascript by pressing on the album and next/previous buttons. I will have to take a look at that. As noted yesterday, it doesn’t work well on the iPhone either. I also checked Kelby’s site again, and it looks great too, just not on the iPhone. I am wondering how that device reports it’s screen size. I might just need to look for that browser and then display presized smaller images.

If you want to get a rough idea of what your site would look like on the iPhone, check out iPad Peek. It doesn’t show the broken images like the iPad did, but it will give you a sense of size and how your content will fit. Just enter your site in the address bar at the top.

Are you a photographer with a flash site? Do you know that the iPad, just like the iPhone, will not display flash content? What’s a photographer to do? Scott Kelby looked at this earlier today.

When Kelby first put up his flash portfolio, I decided to create a javascript only portfolio site to do the same thing. See my portfolio here, and my post here.

I think my code is successful, to a certain extent. It works great on the desktop, but doesn’t work as well on the iPhone, and I don’t yet know on the iPad. Need to try that out. Anyone that wants to comment about that, please do.

I think that my issue on the iPhone is the size of the images. I think they need to be smaller to save on bandwidth, and prevent the phone’s browser from having to scale the images so much. That may be the issue on Kelby’s site too, because his new non flash site didn’t work well on the iPhone either. His new portfolio is also a jQuery javascript site done by RC. It was too slow to be useable on my phone. I wonder if image size is the issue there to. Now his site was optimized for the iPad, not the iPhone, but I want mine to work on both. I will need to do some more testing with smaller images to see.

“S” as in Super phone, or at least “S” as in speed. If you missed the WWDC live, you can check the recaps from the live feeds that Ars Technica and Engadget posted.

The highlights are the speed, and the new hardware bits. I don’t find my iPhone to be too slow; more network bound than anything, but I am sure for the folks playing games that the extra speed will be welcomed.

I think the compass sounds interresting, and the ability of the phone to allow accessories will allow TomTom (they demoed the app) to do turn by turn directions. The biggest hardware piece I think is the new camera. Not the most exciting, but now a 3MPix camera that can autofocus (currently fixed) and do macro, and video. Already I heard someone complaining about only 3MPix. COME ON PEOPLE! How big a sensor do you think is in this thing. More pixels than that just equals more noise!

Anyway, they are also talking longer battery life, all fitting into the same size hardware. The 3G version has dropped to $99, and the new 3GS will be available on June 19 (with the iPhone OS 3.0 available June 17). It will be $199 adn $299 for 16meg and 32 meg versions.

I am continually amazed at the applications that are created for a device such as this. I use apps on my phone (not even games) more than I use the phone capabilities. Build it, and they will come.

They also demoed voice control, but I wasn’t sure if that was a 3GS feature, or a OS 3.0 feature. Either way, voice control over not just dialing, but things like iTunes is pretty cool.

There were lots of cool OS 3.0 features demoed. The google maps service will be empedable into other apps with full pan and zoom, custom annotations, current location and geocoding. The ability for iPhones to talk to each other sounds really cool, but the push notifications are what looks to be a great feature. Not sure how it will effect battery life, but having notification from other apps would be great, although as I add more and more poeple to my twitter friends, I am not sure I want to be notified everytime someone tweets!

Find my phone appears to be only for Mobile Me users, but it allows you to locate a missing phone on a map. You can send it a code to have your phone (even if set to not ring) to make a noise. If you are convinced that your phone is gone, you can even send it a code that will wipe all your data.

I can’t believe it has taken so long to get MMS messages on the iPhone, but they will finally be here. Not on June 17 with the new OS, but sometime this summer when AT&T gets around to getting their support for it. Really? Yikes. I don’t suppose that this or AT&T blowing off tethering support all together is going to set that well in Jobs corner office. That’s right, AT&T has chosen to not implement tethering on it’s network. Shakes head. Sees new carrier in Apples future.

Well, looks like I will be doing a sync and update around June 17, but despite the new camera features, I won’t be in line on the 19th. I don’t want to be stuck in an AT&T contract and find out I can switch carriers

Update: Looks like Chase Jarvis is getting one for the camera features, but then again, he takes better pictures with his iPhone than I do with my camera… sigh…

Update: Apples guided tour via video: http://www.apple.com/iphone/guidedtour/

I heard some one once say that if you are a photographer you need to buy a iPhone or a iTouch from Apple. This way, when you are out, or traveling, and run across someone asking what you shoot,  you can simply pop out your device and voila: instant portfolio.

Before I got an iPhone, I thought it sounded it cool, but how could a little screen be of much use? Well, that was before I saw the screen. It is great for showing off your pictures.

I just got some business cards printed up:

I was walking around the office (computer programming day job) and handing them out. People were asking about the type of pictures I took, so I pulled out the iPhone. Nothing like instant ooh’s and aah’s. If someone wanted to see a certain type of picture, I had an album for that. Here is a recent shot:

I find it really easy to get my latest images onto the iPhone. I am using Aperture, but iPhoto would work similar. I create a smart album that collects all the images of a certain type. Could be 5 stars, or tagged as portraits/seniors, etc. Then in iTunes, I select go to the photos page, and select to manually sync pictures. I then select the smart albums I created. Now whenever I update Aperture, it updates the smart albums, and every time I sync, iTunes puts the latest photos on my phone. Simple, instant, up to date, mobile portfolio.

Today, as most Saturdays are, was family day. We went for a bike ride to the park, and a picnic. I pulled Lily in the Burley, and Annie pulled Kate on a trail-a-bike. The only camera I had with me was my iPhone, so I decided to snap a few pictures. Now, how to get these pictures somewhere that someone else can see them. Email? I don’t like doing one at a time, and entering email addresses is a pain.

How about to a web site? My website. Well, if you have an eye-fi card for your camera, you can use their service with the iPhone. What the eye-fi service normally does is sends pictures from your camera through a special wi-fi memory card through your router to their site. From there they can send it back to your computer, or a web site, or both. I have a site using Gallery2 software that they support.

The iPhone app works similar, but you don’t need a wireless card, you already have on in the iPhone. So, the images get sent to eye-fi’s servers, then on to my gallery. Here is the one from today

I think this is pretty cool. The interface is simple. The app displays pictures from your iPhone, and you pick the ones you want to send. You can even see other images that you sent to the service (history). The image you see here is how you select what images to upload.

Over 3G you don’t have the fastest speeds, and if your phone goes to sleep, then the transfer is interrupted, but it does a good job of resuming afterward.

I like that I don’t have to sync the phone, export from iPhoto, and then ftp the images. This is so much easier, and so much more immediate for my family scattered across the continent. The app is simple, and it works. If you have an eye-fi card for a camera, you should definitely try this app.

I really would like a phone/device with a data plan that allows web browsing and running of applications. The recent lifting of the iPhone NDA is really got me wanting an iPhone. If only the data plans didn’t cost another $30 on top of a voice plan… I really like the idea of apps that you can download, and like the idea even more of writing something myself. What you ask? Good question, but it would be fun to try.

Some part of me was holding off (other than price) waiting for the Google Android to see the light of day. The T-Mobile phone (whose network sounds better than AT&T’s) is unfortunately not an iPhone killer. It was disappointing to see this attempt from google fall short. I am also not very impressed that a phone and platform that is supposed to be open has been so restrictive.

Now that the iPhone NDA has lifted, I am getting tempted again. I gave up running linux as a desktop to run a Mac, I may just give up on Android to get an iPhone too.