Kindles, iPhones, and AppleTVs
Devices that I’d never have thought would be hits are. To me the Kindle looks ungainly, it’s LCD too slow refreshing, and why would I read on that rather than a book? Yet, according to Amazon, it’s a hit. They are selling more than they can make.
Ditto the Apple TV. (Or, if you’re reading on Safari, TV) Underpowered (although at least it now has 5.1 sound). With HD content that is better than cable or dish, but not in the same ball park as HD-DVD or BluRay. At best an excuse to use Netflix to rip DVDs.
And the iPhone, as cool as it looks, has little RAM, no cut and paste, no spreadsheet, and won’t have 3rd party applications until June.
So have any of you consumed?
Here’s why I’m waiting.
It seems to me that all these are classic 1st generation devices. They are proof of concepts that will undergo a significant retooling. Remember the 1st gen iPod? Cool, yet limited. (The spin wheel literally was a wheel rather than the touchpad like the 2cd gen through 5th gen iPods) The 2cd gen iPod had most of the same features but everything seemed to work better.
I think this is true of all the above devices. We’ll get a 2cd gen Kindle that isn’t so ass-ugly. That doesn’t have some of the silly limits for blog reading. Of course I still won’t get one. (See below) But I can pretty well guarantee that now Amazon knows there is a market that they’ll do a better job.
Same with the TV. (Yeah, I know it’s technically 2cd gen - but the hardware is identical. All Apple did was write the proper driver to do 5.1 sound and allow 720p video downloads) I can pretty well guarantee that there will be a TV with BluRay drive coming out sometime before Christmas. Probably in September.
And the iPhone? We know the SDK is out now and by probably June or July there will start to be useful 3rd party applications. Some say this may end up being the best gaming platform since the hardware is a tad more heady than the PSP. (Although the RAM, the RAM…) There are strong signs that the 2.0 version will have a much faster network than EDGE. (And AT&T has my whole area here along the Wasatch Front ready for higher bandwidth) Plus I expect more storage, cut & paste, not to mention more refinement.
So why buy now? I’m pretty comfortable waiting. My iPod Nano does the job at the gym. (Although an iPhone with a bunch of movies would be nice to use instead of DVDs on long drives for the kids)
Plus, I’m pretty convinced that Apple will target the kindle with the new iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s just too good a market to pass up. The real question is whether Amazon would sell eBooks to anything but the Kindle. (Maybe I’m wrong - but from the pages I see they all only work on a Kindle. Not even on a Sony eBook reader.) Would Apple do books? Maybe…
So here’s my question. How many of you have these devices? (Kindle, TV, iPod Touch, iPhone) Do you wish you waited? Were they worth going 1st gen? Would a 2cd gen with more features tempt you?
I have none of them. I waited until the day of the aTV 2.0 announcement and then bought a TiVo HD. No regrets, and I’m only using an antenna. Well, technically I’m using a paperclip and I get perfect HD channels that look better than anything cable or satellite offers.
I keep running into people that have HDTVs that don’t use their tuners. I don’t get it. Free super sharp HD content and you ignore it?
Comment by a random John — March 23, 2008 @ 10:22 pm
It’s easier, frankly, to use ones Dish. I couldn’t see any difference between what came through the antenna and what Dish supplied for the same channels. (I did test) The problem with the antenna is that I have two toddlers who find rabbit ears an irresistible temptation.
Comment by Clark — March 23, 2008 @ 10:34 pm
I bought the original iPod when it first came out. I had the first generation. I thought it was wonderful, as limited as it was by being the first. I’ve been a fan of the iPod ever since. But I think now I no longer want to get an iPod, because I have the iPhone.
I bought a Blackberry last summer a month before the iPhone came out. I figured I would wait on the iPhone until the second generation just so that they would get all the kinks ironed out. Well a few weeks ago, I dropped my blackberry in water and the screen went black. I used that as the excuse to jump on the iPhone. Of course the water dried off and the blackberry still works, but now I’ve got the iPhone. And I am most pleased with the product. Very very very nicely designed. Does it have kinks? You bet. But stick with the iPhone everybody. Just watch the second and third generations. The potential in the design of the iPhone is phenomenal. I could never go back to the regular iPod (and I’m glad they’re doing the iTouch iPod). I can listen to music like I normally do with an iPod. I can be on the internet, watch Youtube with my daughter on the subway. I do a slideshow of our pictures (to keep her occupied). and I’ve got a phone. Fewer devices to lug around.
So yeah, I’m sold. But I was sold last June when I saw the first ad for the iPhone. It was only a matter of time.
As for the Kindle. I could never use it. For reading books, there’s nothing quite like reading an actual book. Now, if they design the Kindle in the shape of a book, a good hardback (or a paperback for those who like paperbacks), with the ability to zoom in and out so you can read the text big or small, well, then they might snatch me.
As for the Apple TV? I have no practical use for it.
Comment by Dan — March 24, 2008 @ 2:09 am
aRJ, I’m one of those people who isn’t using his tuner. I live far enough into Outer Suburbia that the only way I can get HD OTA is to put a massive aerial antenna on top of my house. It sucks doubly because Verizon says they are currently out of stock on HD DVRs I’ve considered getting a Tivo HD and using cable cards, but that doesn’t sound like the perfect solution either (plus, it costs money). Someday, all that sweet HD will be mine.
Comment by BTD Greg — March 24, 2008 @ 6:42 am
we got our iphones on launch day and have been sold on them ever since. 1g or not, it’s been completely worth it and i can’t imagine going back to a regular cell. even without the potential, the iphone is a pretty cool little machine.
Comment by makakona — March 24, 2008 @ 6:49 am
I love my iPhone. It might be 1G, but it is light years ahead of any of the crappy phones ATT, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc offer.
I was in need of a new phone and I wanted to get the new video iPod…which basically created the perfect storm to buy a iPhone.
Plus, everything that that you mention the iPhone is missing (besides the faster speed) will be updated via iTunes upgrade for free.
Comment by CWeingarten — March 24, 2008 @ 7:22 am
I don’t think the speed is going to be fixed through software. I think you’ll need to upgrade to the next generation iPhone to latch on to the upgraded speed.
Comment by Dan — March 24, 2008 @ 7:29 am
I am gearing up for a move overseas, and the prospect of not having HD programming hurt a little bit. But, then the Apple TV announced its new upgrades, and I am intrigued. I have yet to take the plunge, but am leaning towards picking it up. When I consider the fact that I won’t be paying the $50/month on cable TV, DVR, HD programming, etc. it is not that cost prohibitive. And, my HD-DVD player has now joined Beta in the AV trash heap…
Comment by Hayes — March 24, 2008 @ 7:32 am
I couldn’t see any difference between what came through the antenna and what Dish supplied for the same channels.
Aren’t you the person that complains that aTV isn’t really HD? I’m under the impression that sat “HD” is downsampled below 720p and is highly compressed. The times I’ve seen it the artifacts have been distracting. If I’m wrong please let me know.
Comment by a random John — March 24, 2008 @ 8:47 am
i like the idea of the appletv but am not quite yet ready to buy. i love the idea of an easy interface to allow me to play music through my tv/surround sound system since i am currently using a mediacenter pc attached to my tv and have to use a keyboard to navigate itunes.
i want the appletv to be able to replace my mediacenter, but it’s missing a few things. the main one is support for media codecs other than quicktime (as in xvid, divx, etc.). i know that there are hacks to make this possible, but i’m not quite willing to do that yet. but a reasonably priced appletv w/ an internal blu-ray drive and xvid/divx support and i’d buy it in a second.
Comment by mike d. — March 24, 2008 @ 8:48 am
We’d need the largest antenna know to man to get a good signal. I tried with a $70 antenna from Best Buy, and we couldn’t get anything. So I guess the HD tuner is great if you live in the city, but we have to stick with Dish Network for now.
After my son accidentally destroyed our Car dvd a few days ago, we’re pretty close to taking the plunge in an Apple TV. We’d just rip all of our dvd’s to the desktop down in the basement, and it sounds like it will do exactly what we want . I don’t have much of a home theater to speak of, and I’ve been able to tell the difference between 720 and 1080 on our plasma, so it’s shortcomings don’t really bother me. Plus it’s cheap compared to the other solutions I’ve looked at.
Comment by jjohnsen — March 24, 2008 @ 8:49 am
The baseline version of the appleTV is cheaper than a BluRay player…granted, it ain’t 1080p, but, I don’t have a 1080p HDTV right now (alas, have a Sharp Aquos from 2006 that is 1080i).
Mike, you’re right. The apple TV is short a few features of being a true media center…and, that is a draw back that i am considering as well. I imagine over the next 12-24 months, we will see some dramatic shifts for media centers and what they can do. I know it will be awhile yet, but I think the cable box is a thing of the past.
To buy or not to buy…
Comment by Hayes — March 24, 2008 @ 9:47 am
On the iPhone - the RAM issue (128M) can’t be resolved via software upgrade nor will the 3G issue.
The issue with the video on the TV is more compression than anything. The resolution issue is a secondary one. So all those effects aren’t really due to being 720p or 1080p. Some channels (i.e. CBS) are 1080p but have compression artifacts as well. How many artifacts you get depends upon the compression level. So if you play a channel like say DiscoveryHD you’ll get a ton of artifacts even though I believe it is at least 720p if not 1080p.
Comment by Clark — March 24, 2008 @ 10:37 am
Mike, while I don’t have an TV (option-shift-k for you Mac users) I believe the hacks are pretty simple and consist primarily of enabling ssh and then copying over the standard drivers (Perian) from your Mac that lets quicktime play other formats.
Comment by Clark — March 24, 2008 @ 10:39 am
jjohnsen,
I have ripped all of our kiddie DVDs using Handbrake and they now live on the iPod. Children do not touch DVDs at our house.
I also have a DVD player that will play Divx files from a USB attached hard drive but I haven’t bothered to put movies on it. The interface is too clunky.
Comment by a random John — March 24, 2008 @ 10:49 am
Dan and Clark, please reread my post. I said that the speed issue won’t be cured by software upgrade. Only the other points (spreadsheet, cut and paste) can.
Comment by CWeingarten — March 24, 2008 @ 11:06 am
clark, do you know if the appletv hacks are easy for users of windows pc’s as well (not a mac guy)? also do you actually have to open the appletv case to do the hacks, or anything else that would void the warranty?
Comment by mike d. — March 24, 2008 @ 11:09 am
I was given an iPod Touch for Christmas (from my boss). It’s cool but my kids took my earbuds and I basically stopped using it and ended up giving it to my son. He’s installed all kinds of little games on it. Only thing I was using it for was Internet when I was stuck somewhere waiting for kids, and most of the time couldn’t get connected to anyone’s wifi.
I don’t have or want a cell phone (gave the one I got to my daughter).
Comment by Susan M — March 24, 2008 @ 11:27 am
Clark, I believe Dish and DirecTV are mostly 720p. Based on a recent news article, it appears that they’ve convinced the FCC to let them further delay implementation of full HD on their systems.
Comment by Supergenius — March 24, 2008 @ 11:31 am
I have an iPod Touch and I love it. I use it all day long. I can wake up in the morning, sit up in bed & quickly check the weather, my e-mail and the stock market. I use it when I want to check something out on wikipedia and others are using the computers, or look up an ingredient or cooking technique without leaving the kitchen. It’s great for waiting: airports, in the car, at the dentist, etc, etc. I realize that you can do all these things with a laptop, but those don’t fit in my pocket.
But having the iPod has also totally made me want a MacBook Air. I can see where Apple is going with it– I think it would be a great transition item between the simplicity and portability of an iPod Touch and a desk-based iMac. And I want the Apple TV thing too, but actually I’m not quite sure why…
Comment by C Jones — March 24, 2008 @ 11:37 am
That’s my plan (after a little more investigation to amke sure it works). Rip everything in handbrake and let it sit on an old PC downstairs and never have anyone touch physical media again. I can’t remember the last time I touched a music cd, I’d love it to be the same with movies.
Comment by jjohnsen — March 24, 2008 @ 11:53 am
I still don’t even have a basic cell phone. Stuff like this is so far out of my mind I’m barely aware it exists.
Comment by Ivan Wolfe — March 24, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
“Based on a recent news article, it appears that they’ve convinced the FCC to let them further delay implementation of full HD on their systems.”
Can I get a ruling from the officials on this statement please?
1) Since when is 720P not “full HD”? “Full HD seems to be a marketing ploy by TV makers to get people to buy 1080P-capable sets, even if the TV itself is too small to tell the difference.
2) As far as I know, the FCC isn’t mandating 1080P anytime in the near or foreseeable future. It’s mandating digital TV signals, which is something completely different from TV resolution.
Comment by BTD Greg — March 24, 2008 @ 12:43 pm
BTD Greg,
Does Wikipedia count as an official?
If so, I present you with HD-lite!
Comment by a random John — March 24, 2008 @ 1:08 pm
But HD-Lite refers to actually reducing the resolution, but still calling it “HD.” HD-Lite shouldn’t refer to true 720P or 1080i transmissions, IFAIK.
To be clear, my position is that 720P, 1080i and 1080P, provided that the full resolution of those standards is being met.
Comment by BTD Greg — March 24, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
Mike, I believe you need a Mac to do the TV hacks since it involves copying files from your Mac to the TV. I’m pretty sure you need an external USB drive formatted HFS to get the TV to allow ssh access as well.
Steve, I believe that Dish has a mix of 1080i and 720p channels. I’m fairly certain a bunch of the Zoom channels on Dish are 1080i. I know all the DiscoveryHD channels are 1080i with 5.1 sound. (They state that here) The Dish DVR will also scan and record via an antenna as well. (I actually tried this and it integrates seemlessly)
I did make a typo. I wrote 1080p but no one does that right now. NBC and CBS broadcast at 1080i and Dish does that as well.
The problem is that they’d almost be better with 720p and less compression since they compress the stuff to hell so whenever there is movement you get a lot of blocky artifacts that put it down to nearly SD quality.
Comment by Clark — March 24, 2008 @ 1:28 pm
What about bit rates? Color depths? Frame rates? There are a lot of variables and different devices/services each try to find a way to optimize. Some do better than others.
Comment by a random John — March 24, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
Here’s someone who agrees with me re: “Full HD”:
Comment by BTD Greg — March 24, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
The iPhone’s been great for me. On top of the iPod and phone functionalities, I use text messaging, internet, calendar, contacts, stocks, camera and maps (with live traffic data)on a daily basis.It’s all seamlessly integrating. To complain about lack of “cut and paste” seems strange. And the storage is plenty unless you’re using it as a hard drive to store entire libraries — I keep 20 or so albums, a couple of movies, and tons of pictures on it and the storage has never been a problem. My 30 gigs of music live on my external hard drive at home.
My only wish is that it will become compatible with MLB Audio’s streaming gamecasts.
Comment by Greg — March 24, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
BTD Greg,
And what are we to feel about TV makers that have been selling panels at 720p that are in fact 1024×768 rather than 1280×720?
Comment by a random John — March 24, 2008 @ 3:01 pm
arJ,
I have no opinion about that. Most 720P seem to actually be 1024×768 (which, as I understand it, means fewer vertical lines, but more horizontal lines, right?). Seems to be an accepted practice, though I’m ready to be persuaded if there is some sort of controversy about this.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I did recently buy a 42″ Panasonic 720p/1080i TV with the understanding that 1080p wouldn’t really make a difference.)
Comment by BTD Greg — March 24, 2008 @ 3:14 pm
in regards to hd-lite, i currently have hd programming from dishnetwork, and although i think the quality is acceptable, it definitely is not as good as OTA HDTV. i think it’s largely a bandwidth issue, and so with the available bandwidth they either could offer higher quality and less channels, or lower quality and more channels. i’m personally okay w/ a larger variety of HD programming.
as for 1080p vs 720p, i think you won’t notice the difference on anything smaller than 42″. but if you’re going for a bigger tv then why not? prices are dropping so fast. right now you can actually buy a 47″ 1080p toshiba from costco.com for $1299. but it’s definitely not a big enough deal to throw out your 2 year old 720p.
and i don’t think there’s actually such a thing as a 720p/1080i tv. if your native resolution for horizontal lines is 720 or 768 the 1080i signal would be downgraded to 720p.
Comment by mike d. — March 24, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
Greg, the reason cut and paste is a big thing is that I might open up a spreadsheet in Google Office or some other such thing and want to paste into an email a selection from it. Or else I’m looking up some piece of equipment I want to order and need confirmation from someone else via email. These are all things I do pretty regularly. It’s those business type workflows that I’d really want the iPhone to be able to do.
Mike, regarding Dish, the non-Zoom networks (i.e. DiscoveryHD and others) definitely aren’t as good as the big four (NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox) However I don’t see any difference between my local CBS via the satellite and via over the air. There seems to be no additional compression that I can see.
My big complaint is that I watch Discovery Channels a lot and they are compressed to hell. It’s very jarring.
My second complaint is that the local ABC affiliate doesn’t broadcast in HD and Dish won’t let me receive ABC from some other state. It’s pretty annoying everytime Lost comes on and I’m seeing a 4:3 SD picture.
Mike, most 1080i sets can also do 720p. Although there aren’t really a whole lot of 1080i sets out there. With 1080i you will see a lot of flickering artifacts which is annoying. Most 1080p sets will convert fairly well 1080i to 1080p. (i.e. de-interlace) The only place I see interlacing artifacts is with DVDs. (Especially animated Disney films)
Comment by Clark — March 24, 2008 @ 8:00 pm
So is there no one with a Kindle?
Comment by Clark — March 24, 2008 @ 8:00 pm
BTW - anyone thinking of getting a Kindle might wish to check out this collection of eBooks. Not as extensive as Amazon’s offerings but a surprising number of books that you could just as easily read on an iPhone.
Comment by Clark — March 25, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
We bought a Kindle at work (I have a cool job — want a Wii? Sure, we can buy that. I don’t rate an iPhone, although others in my group do.) The interface is awful. The form factor is almost right, but off just enough that it’s annoying. The page blinks while “turning” (an artifact of the e-Ink technology — all of the pixels have to be reset apparently). Page turns are fast, but not quite fast enough.
And yet, for all of its flaws, you can see how this is a compelling product. You can download content over their wireless network anywhere you can get a signal, which likely means at the beach, in the airport, at the doctor’s office, almost anywhere. The catalog is surprisingly deep. The screen resolution is more than adequate, and the e-ink screen is surprisingly readable — a much nicer experience than reading a backlit screen. If I traveled a lot for business, I’d definitely buy one for myself. You can load your own content onto it as well, so anything you can get from gutenberg.org is usable.
Reading on an iPhone seems possible, but only for light reading. I have my scriptures loaded on my Sansa e200 mp3 player, thanks to Rockbox. It’s great for reading a few minutes at a time, but the Kindle is a different experience entirely.
Comment by Bryce I — March 25, 2008 @ 9:08 pm
I haven’t played with a Kindle but I did play with the Sony eBook readers which uses the same screen. It is very readable but also annoying. (No anti-aliasing, for insance)
Comment by Clark — March 25, 2008 @ 9:15 pm
The problem that I’ve seen with e-Ink is that it does not completely reset. You can see a ghost of the previous page. This is very distracting to me.
Comment by a random John — March 26, 2008 @ 3:34 pm
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