Bernard Meisler

Everything about the iPad looks great! But when you look under the hood, you see the screen resolution is a mere 1024 x 768, or 132 pixels/inch. Man, that is not good for a reading device. In comparison, the iPhone is 163 pixels/inch, the Droid is 267 pixels/inch. What a disappointment!

Hopefully the 2nd generation will be HD resolution – which would be nice for movies too. At 132 ppi, I doubt you’d be comfortable reading too long. Gives Amazon some time to update the Kindle…

In AS2, we can use the movieclip method getBounds returns 4 values: xMin, xMax, yMin and yMax, which can be traced like so:

var bounds:Object = this.getBounds(this._parent);
    for (var i in bounds) {
    trace(i+" --> "+bounds[i]);
}

I’m getting the dimensions of the movieclip my current clip (this) is attached to. The trace reveals:

yMax --> 167.65
yMin --> 103
xMax --> 789.95
xMin --> 725.3

(I’m animating a basketball of a radius of 40, which is inside the parent clip – so its bounds change as the ball moves. In this case we can see the clip is about 64 pixels wide and high by subtracting xMin and yMin from xMax and yMax respectively).

OK, now, to do the same thing in AS3 we write:

var bounds:Object = this.getBounds(this.parent);
trace("Basketball:::handleMovement::bounds: " + bounds);

The trace reveals:

Basketball:::handleMovement::bounds: (x=673, y=84.3, w=53.10000000000002, h=53.10000000000001)

More or less the same thing – in this case, the parent is 53 x 53 pixels. Note that the value x is the same as xMin in AS2, and y is the same as yMin in AS2. So you think we could add w and h to them respectively to derive xMax and yMax, something like this:

var xMax = bounds.x + bounds.w;

Try it and you’ll get this compilation error:

ReferenceError: Error #1069: Property w not found on flash.geom.Rectangle and there is no default value.

You need to use the bounds.width property (because getBounds() now returns a Rectangle, not an Object with properties), like so:

var yMax = bounds.x + bounds.width;

I mean, that wouldn’t bother me too much except – WTF does it trace “bounds.h” and “bounds.w”? Nice to see that when Macromedia and Adobe merged, they kept on the Department of Doing Stupid Crap that Makes No Sense…

Man this one was nasty! The artist I work with was supplying me with fla files containing MovieClips. I’d copy and paste his MCs from his fla into my main fla. Up till this week there was no problem doing this. All of a sudden, I was no longer able to programtically use his MCs! If I added a linkage property to a MC named Basketball,  and did the standard:

var myClip:MovieClip = new Basketball();

When I tried to compile the fla, it would stop on the 2nd frame and become completely unresponsive. The elements for the 2nd frame didn’t complete loading. Note this was not the same as a fla that didn’t compile right, where the playback head continously loops through the movie. I’ve never seen a movie break in this way.

Even weirder, these clips would also break the fla if they were added to the timeline!

I tried building my fla from scratch. Didn’t work. I should also note that I was able to compile and run the artist’s fla files on my machine, no problem. So there was no corruption on my machine, my copy of CS4, or in either of our fla files.

Here’s the hack that solved the problem:

I copied and pasted his MCs into an intermediate fla file and saved. I was then able to copy and paste these MCs into my main fla, use them in the timeline, or add them programatically. Weird. FWIW, he’s on a PC, I’m on a Mac – although again, transferring files has worked fine for 5 months now till this week. Thought I’d post it in case anybody else was suffering. Macromedia lives!

I’m sure I’m late to this party…but what the heck, I just installed Ubuntu 9.10 on an old laptop (Dell Inspiron 700m) and it’s great! The laptop, which was a nifty little machine 4 years ago (12″ screen, 2Gig proc, 1Gig RAM) was so slow it was useless – I mean, it took 30 seconds to open a window. Way too much software installed over the years – not only hulking monsters like Creative Suite, VB Studio and .NET but kids’s games and lots of little 3rd party apps too. Anyway, I wiped the hard drive and re-installed XP. For some reason, some parts didn’t load, and I couldn’t set the proper screen resolution, or connect wirelessly to the Internetz to download the missing pieces. I stopped at that point cause I could sense a 3-hour tech support call with Dell/MS coming up.

Then I decided to install Ubuntu Linux, which I’d heard great things about. Long story short, it rocks! Install took about 30 minutes (as opposed to a couple of hours for XP), went without a hitch. Comes preinstalled with all the most important open-source apps, including Firefox and OpenOffice. Amazingly, took just a few clicks to:

• connect to my wireless network (always a bear on XP)
• connect wirelessly to my printer
• connect wirelessly to my mac for file transfer

In other words, not only was it much easier to use than my PC, setting this stuff up was easier than on a Mac! Not to mention that the speed on this thing is like greased lightening!

The downside: you have to download updates to get the music player to play MP3/AAC files. This entailed going into the command line – but just one line of code was needed:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

That’s not so bad – even I can handle that! This is opposed to the last time I messed with a Linux desktop (KDE), almost five years ago, and gave up in frustration because everything after installation required lots of time spent in the command line and I was unable to install/get up and running with most of the apps I wanted, never mind get a working Internetz connection.

The other caveat is that there’s very little/no support for commercial apps, so I could never use this machine for work purposes. Interestingly, Adobe is working on a Linux version of Flash builder, but I found it very difficult to install (frankly I made it about halfway through the minefield before I gave up – involved running shell scripts, changing file permissions, having just the right version of Eclipse and Java installed in just the right order – the sort of nonsense that reminded me of my last attempts to use Linux).

Anyway, without too much mess or fuss, I’ve got an excellent Netbook! I always liked the form factor of this Dell (it’s very small and light), and I can easily carry it around the house, sit on the couch and surf, as opposed to my main machine, a MacBook Pro which has got all sorts of external monitors/printers/hard drives/etc plugged in. Great for surfing the web, listening to music, getting email. A perfect extra machine, or a first machine for kids or grandma, or anybody who only needs basic tasks on a computer.

If desktop Linux keeps making strides like they’ve made in the last five years, and ever gets proper, easy support for commercial apps (Wine is still nasty), I say watch out MS. You too, Apple…

Launched another new game for AddictingGames.com this week, the Tiger Parking Slam. Over 700,000 hits so far, not bad for a game we put together in 3 days…

Well I’ve been rocking the Droid for two weeks now (and yeah, I’m gonna keep it!), so I figured I should make one final post concerning what I still like about it (or like even more), what’s starting to bug me, and what I miss about the iPhone. I also wanted to address the hit piece in Barrons last week, Avoid the Droid?, which stated, among other things, “It’s less intuitive, attractive and functional [than the iPhone]. It doesn’t sync music from computers, and it disappoints even as a basic phone.”

My greatest happiness is derived from the evil overlords of the Verizon network. Despite the diss of the phone’s voice quality in the Barron’s article (they compared the Droid’s voice quality to a Verizon Samsung phone, NOT an iPhone), I’m much happier with the Droid than the iPhone for both voice quality and reception – two separate issues oftentimes not treated as such. My friends say things like, “Hey, you answered your phone!” and (surprised) “I can hear you pretty good!” I can make and receive calls from both of my SF work locations (which I could not do with the iPhone), as well as being able to surf web, get texts and emails, etc (iPhone again failed me here). My wife has a Samsung Alias, which is a GREAT phone as far as voice quality goes – using it is how I realized how bad the iPhone quality is – and the Droid is probably not as good as the Samsung. But saying it’s a poor telephone is a bit much, especially when comparing it to the iPhone, which is actually a glorified answering machine.

I’d agree with the Barron’s review that the general Droid UX is not up to snuff with the iPhone – but then again, what is? Using an iPhone gives you a warm and cozy feeling – everything more or less works as you’d expect and is easy to figure out – Apple’s strong point across the board. The Droid is definitely less intuitive and less consistent. I like the dedicated back button, but both it and the menu button seem to work differently depending on context and app you’re in. For instance, it took me a while to figure out that when you click the magnifying glass to open up the url location field and the virtual keyboard, pressing the back button closes the virtual keyboard and shows you your bookmarks.

Speaking of the browser, it crashes a lot, and has a funny way of telling you. When it can’t get a connection, and you try to press the “go” button, click one of your bookmarks, it “buzzes” you, a small vibration Android refers to as “Haptic feedback.” The bad part is, it will keep buzzing you, then will finally put up a dialog box saying something to the effect that the browser can’t make a connection. When you press the cancel button, the browser works again.

I don’t like the email client for reading my non-Google email accounts. Perhaps there’s a better 3rd party solution. The gmail client is solic, but it’s hard to scroll – when you make a downward swiping motion, the phone keeps thinking you’re clicking on a particular message to read it, and it will open up that message. A pain when you’re trying to find an email from yesterday. This lack of sensitivity in the touch screen is probably my main complaint about the Droid. Not to mention no “pinching”, just double-taps to increase/decrease the resolution. The iPhone wins this one hands down.

For the most part, the Android apps store is way behind iPhone, but for the most part, I don’t care. The only app I really miss – a lot – is the Kindle. I loved reading via Kindle on the iPhone. Strangely enough, a number of iPhone users I mentioned this to didn’t even know it existed! Oh well, hopefully Amazon will get on the ball soon and deliver an Android version. On the other hand, the Android implementation of Google maps is fantastic, much better than the iPhone maps. And if you get bored of Earth (as I so often do), you can check out the amazing Google Sky Maps – “discover and browse the night sky just by pointing your phone to space.” It works. Awesome fun.

I couldn’t disagree more with the Barron’s complaint about the difficulty of syncing music. First of all, once you use the free third-party app doubleTwist, syncing is better than with just plain iTunes (which leaves a lot to be desired), as you don’t need to make playlists anymore. You can also easily copy music from the Droid to your (or any) computer! The real failing (which is entirely Apple’s fault) is that videos and music bought from the iTunes store do not work on any non-Apple devices. Everyone should write Apple a nasty letter about that, especially since Steve Jobs claims that Apple doesn’t like DRM.

But forget about media for a moment, I’m loving not having to sync the phone at all for my contacts and calendar info! I’ve installed my Google calendar on my MacBook Pro’s copy of iCal. When I make an addition to the iCal calendar now, it shows up automatically on the phone! I’m using more and more Google apps – Reader, Finance, etc – and not having to sync at all is great. My iPhone always seemed to mess up my contacts and calendar, and I don’t miss having to sync frequently at all. It also bothered me how it would automatically open iPhoto everytime I plugged the iPhone in my Mac, even if I didn’t have photos I wanted to import, but it wouldn’t open iTunes automatically even though you couldn’t do any real syncing without it. I love auto-syncing!

One last word about Apple being a pain the ass – I’ve not had the time to do any Android development beyond a Hello World tutorial, but Google is making it much easier to join the Android development program. They charge $25, instead of $100 that Apple demands, plus they don’t ask you to fax them your articles of incorporation as Apple does, and take a month getting back to you! A nice metaphor for the general openness of Android and the Droid and the walled garden of Apple.

The bottom line – if they had iPhone on Verizon, that would be my choice. But they don’t, and I got tired of waiting for it, so I’m happy with my Droid. How happy? Well, my original intention was to get a Droid and also carry around an iPod touch for media and general usability for web surfing, whenever I was near a WiFi connection. It didn’t take more than 2 or 3 days to decide to foregoe the iPod touch (in a classic Apple move of planned obsolescence, of which they are the masters, the iPod touch does not have a camera!) And of course, both the Droid – with its interchangeable battery and memory card – and Android the OS – will continue to get better and better – this is Google after all, not those clowns at Palm…

Summary:

Both the Droid and the iPhone are excellent portable internet devices/mini-computers, but I give the edge to the Droid because of the better network. Droid is a much better phone, but not as good a media player. So it depends on your needs – if, like me, you’re more concerned with the phone and coverage than with general user experience excellence and need for a media player, the Droid is the clear winner.

The Three Parts of a Smartphone

A smartphone (or, as David Pogue dubbed them in his Droid review last week, “app phones”) are, like Gaul, divided into three parts, though I don’t often hear the discussion put this way:

1. phone

2. internet device/portable mini-computer

3. media player/ipod

So let’s take it point by point:

1. Phone – better than iPhone

Droid is the winner hands down. The coverage of the Verizon Network is much better than AT&T, especially in SF (and NY too they say). I was able to make and receive calls in my office today, huzzah! But there’s more too it than that. The Droid has more volume, both for the phone and the ringer – I could actually hear it ringing in my pocket, when I often couldn’t with the iPhone. Simply put, Droid/Verizon is a runaway winner here. Seems funny to me that this aspect is often given short shrift in review articles. Isn’t the phone the true killer app of a smartphone?

2. Internet Device/Mini Computer – equal (at least) to iPhone

Droid was better than I expected. Some cool Droid features:

1. Can have multiple applications open at the same time. There’s a dedicated “back” button on the Droid, so for example you can be reading an email with an url, click on that url to open the browser, scroll down several screens while reading a blog, then click another url in that page to launch the YouTube dedicated app. After you’re done with the video, you can click the back button to go back to your browser page exactly where you left off, even in the middle of a page, impossible with the iPhone. Another back button click and you’re back where you left off your email app! Very cool.

2. Word completion. Instead of the fascist Apple method (”suggesting” the correct spelling, and foisting it upon you as the default), Droid offers up a row of suggestions based on what you’ve typed so far, that gets more accurate as you continue typing. Very user friendly.

3. Auto-sync with gmail, Google calendars and contacts, etc. If, like me, you’ve been moving towards gmail and other Google apps, this is great. I add a contact on my Droid, open up my contacts on my desktop later, it’s already been synced. If I make an update to my calendar, it will instantly get updated on my wife’s copy of my calendar on Outlook. So this is very nice for mixed Mac-PC environments. I also gotta say I’ve been disappointed with Apple’s Address and iCal apps for a while. They’ve also been finicky about syncing sometimes. It’s great not to have to sync at all!

4. Screen resolution on the Droid is 2x that of the iPhone. Great for reading blogs and web pages.

5. Maps rock. Voice directions with GPS. Very cool.

6. I have to repeat myself, but…it’s all about the Network! iPhone on WiFi is pretty great, but maps are useless if you can’t get a signal. I got a response to my first post from a friend who said, “I never use the phone anyway, it’s just email and text for me 90% of the time.” Sure, but I couldn’t get email or text on my iPhone when I was in my SF office either! You’ve heard the joke about how bad the ATT Network is, right? “There’s a map for that!” (Meaning you need a map to see where you can get service, playing on the iPhone “there’s an app for that” campaign).

7. Let’s not forget that the Droid will – “soon” – support the Flash plug-in. So you’ll be able to visit sites like Hulu, or AddictingGames.com. (The downside of course is those pesky banner ads!)

Here’s where the iPhone wins:

1. General user interaction/”slickness”. C’mon, Apple is the gold standard for UX. I’m getting used to the Droid’s four dedicated hardware buttons, but the Droid interface can be confusing. The iPhone only has one button, and it’s usually obvious how to use it. Apple has got the “it just works” thing in the bag. This is not trivial! The browser “feels” right, while it’s occasionally clunky on the Droid.

2. Touch screen. Droid doesn’t scroll as smoothly and also doesn’t do “pinching” and “spreading” – just expands on a double-click. Every once in a while, the screen seems to scroll by itself. The Droid screen is also a bit frustrating in that it doesn’t feel as accurate as the iPhone – I’ve clicked on the wrong url any number of times now. Maybe it’s just going to take getting used to – I hope so!

3. Apps, of course. The bad news is I’m missing about half of the apps I used to use daily. The good news, to my surprise, is that half of them do exist! And I actually like the Droid version of the Facebook app a lot better. Of course there will be tons more of these coming down the pike. This is not nearly the issue many reviews are making it out to be.

Not relevant to many folks, but important to a geek like me, is that Android apps are written in Java, which I greatly prefer to Objective C (which requires manual garbage collection and uses pointers – the two biggest hassles in programming that Java gets rid of. Not to start a Java vs. C discussion here, but although C is more powerful, 99.9% of the time you don’t need that power and it just gets in your way). I also believe you can program your own apps and just pop them on your phone! Submitting to the Android Marketplace is optional! I’ll post more about this in the future as I explore it.

3. Media Player/iPod – iPhone wins

Well, the iPhone is, as Steve Jobs said, the best iPod, so of course it wins here. If you’ve bought a lot of music or video from the iTunes store, remember, due to Apple’s evil DRM policy, you can’t play that stuff on any non-Apple devices! It’s as if a CD put out by Sony would only play on Sony stereos. Boo Apple, boo!

The surprise here was how good the Droid was. I downloaded a free utility, doubleTwist, that makes syncing a breeze. (It’s such a useful app I understand people are using it with iPhones too!). One of the things that really bothered my about iTunes was a couple of versions ago, they started forcing you to put songs into playlists to sync. You could either automatically sync your entire library, manage it manually, or aut0-sync playlists you created. DoubleTwist allows you to drag-and-drop albums as well as playlists, so I’ve been discovering music I’d forgotten about ’cause I’d never gotten around to turning it into a playlist!

Bottom Line:

The Droid is an excellent phone and portable internet device and a serviceable media player. If you live in an area with good AT&T coverage and have an iPhone, you should probably stick with it. But if your phone/network coverage is spotty, and you’re tired of carrying around a glorified answering machine, and/or your iPhone contract is up, I think you, like me, will be very happy with your Droid. “It’s the second best smartphone around, on the best network around“. Read the rest of this entry »

Unbelievably, the reception/voice quality of my iPhone 3Gs was even worse than my original iPhone (2G). Even with 3 bars showing, I was unable to make or receive calls. When I switched off 3G, I was able to make and receive calls, but people sounded like they had mouths full of gravel.

How bad was it? So bad that right after work, I went to the Apple Store and returned the phone and cancelled my ATT service. In typical Apple fashion, this was easy-peasy lemon squeezy. Got apoligies for my troubles, they scanned the phone and I was done, released from ATT bondage in a few minutes. Loved the device, hated the service.

Slightly OT, I installed the Android SDK on my Mac last night. Not exactly hard, but not exactly easy if your terminal skills have gotten a bit rusty (since I only do it once a year or so, I can never remember how to set Paths, edit the .bash_profile files, etc – I’m gonna post about this soon). What’s cool about Android apps is that they’re written in Java – what a relief after (trying to) delving into Objective C, the iPhone language. Looking forward to writing my first Android app…

I went home and ordered my Droid online, which lead to the nightmare known as Verizon customer service. I’ll leave this for the next post, but I believe I finally got everything resolved and should have my Droid tomorrow.

No Internet Connection

Please check your WiFi or cellular data network and try again.

This is the message I’m getting when trying to connect to the Kindle app, Facebook app, email, etc. This is with between 2 and 5 bars in 3G mode! WTD!!! (What the devil?)

First round of iPhone 3GS. Got a call this morning that I was unable to pick up (was about to park). A couple of observations – the ringer was much louder – that’s good! I was also impressed that I was receiving a call inside a parking garage – go 3G network go! Sadly I was unable to pick up as I was driving so I’ll have to wait to see about the voice quality.

An hour later, at work, I got the dread ATT “feature” – while showing 3 bars on the 3GS network, my phone started buzzing – yup, somebody had called 10 minutes earlier and once again, it didn’t go through. When I tried to retrieve the voice mail, I got an “unable to connect to network” message. Yuck. Thinking strongly about the Verizon Droid right now. Great as my experience has been so far with the 3GS – in every respect other than as a phone – I need a phone, NOT a portable answering machine!