Living with the iPhone

These are the days I dread, but like in some sense. Release day for an iPhone firmware update. This always happens: I'm on my way out the door to work and want to synch my iPhone just to update any playlists or iCal entries when "BAM" - an update is available, "would you like to download now?" iTunes asks invitingly.

Of course I do, even though I have no idea what the difference between 2.0.1 to 2.0.2 is, it's just that it's better, right? (I would hope so, but take it on blind faith that something is improved). Also, a .1 of an update shouldn't be too big or involved, right? No, I always overestimate how long an update takes. In this case it's about 250 MB and about 10 minutes (so far), this includes the time to download, install, and not to mention a just-in-case-all-else-fails backup. Well, the benefit is that this install limbo period forces you to wait, pause and even take time to blog. A nice moment of calm in my day. In my case it means my commute is actually shorter because I would have missed all the rush hour traffic. (Tell that to my boss!) But also, let's hope this .1 of an update is worth the .2 of an hour that I've devoted to it. (or .3, or .4 of an hour...)

The whole Freeiphoneswap.com process (see part 1) got me worrying and thinking about fraud. And, with frustrations about the iPhone's battery common among bloggers and friends alike, you know there is a lawsuit looming out there as some plaintiff-side law firm will want to take Apple to task for allegedly misrepresenting the iPhone's battery life (both the first generation and 3G). Whether these would-be rentseekers have a claim a jury would buy will be seen.

But thinking about it, Apple says this about the iPhone's battery life:

Talk time: Up to 5 hours on 3G Up to 10 hours on 2G

Standby time: Up to 300 hours

Internet use: Up to 5 hours on 3G; Up to 6 hours on Wi-Fi

Video playback: Up to 7 hours

Audio playback: Up to 24 hours

All of this with a whole bunch of footnoted caveats about testing being one pre-production models in May 2008 with this feature turned off, that one turned on, and that fact that no animals were harmed. But did they take into account all these 2.0 applications? The fact that people would be using their iPhones to do a lot more than talk, surf the new slowly, email or text? Probably not. All of these footnotes are probably enough of a caveat, c-y-a claim for Apple to argue that they never intended for anyone to rely on these estimates or that they made a warranty about battery life, i.e., no fraud, false promise or negligent misrepresentation, essentially, buyer beware. And with that, it'd be hard to muster a claim of fraud. In any case, legal or otherwise, Apple's claims about battery life didn't seem amount to very much. Just in case, these are the elements of fraud in California:

The tort of deceit or fraud requires: (a) misrepresentation (false representation, concealment, or nondisclosure); (b) knowledge of falsity (or 'scienter'); (c) intent to defraud, i.e., to induce reliance; (d) justifiable reliance; and (e) resulting damage. Engalla v. Permanente Medical Group, Inc., 15 Cal.4th 951, 974 (1997).

Apple has, however, put this page up with tips and suggestions about extending battery time, is this all they're going to do? Well, the jury's out on that one.

Money talks especially when news of the economy tanking is constant. So, with this thinking in mind, I scuttled the idea of giving my 1st generation iPhone to my grandpa. It's dreadful to think of (1) the hassle and how long it would have taken to go into an AT&T store to swap his Nokia, invariably, AT&T will something screw up, it's just a question of how badly they do; and, (2) how much more adding a 2nd iPhone data plan would be. It just didn't make economic sense to get him an iPhone as the ability to change the user interface into traditional Chinese characters couldn't balance out the increased monthly bills from AT&T. I'll be on the look-out for a Chinese language cell phone, or ones with instruction books in Chinese at the very least.

The decision was sealed when I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the second market (not a gray market as the NYTimes calls it) price for a first generation 8-gig iPhone was $250 - well in excess of the $100 I had thought I could get. I underestimated how the first generation iPhone's unlockability made it much more valuable, well, at least until someone unlocks the 3G generation.

Freeiphoneswap.com had been running full-page newspaper ads and was featured on the NYTimes. Logon to Swap's site, enter your details, mail off your iPhone and wait for a check for $150, $250 or $350 depending on your iPhone's capacity. So, I logged on to their website, entered my details, got a FedEx label from them, affixed it to a padded envelope and mailed it off to Randomtown, New Jersey, a week ago and waited. During that time, my thoughts drifted towards the refrain: in tough economic times scammers become all the more aggressive...." But, this proved irrational as I now have a check in hand.

Cash money from iphoneswapcom for first generation iPhones.

Sure Freeiphoneswap.com's name may seem confusing (there's no requirement you buy a new one) and while it's website has a certain fly-by-night feel, it appears to check out. I hope the check is worth the paper it's printed on and you bet I'll be cashing this one right away. And, whether it's actually valid legal tender supported by liquid funds remains to be seen as the check arrived in a handwritten envelope and was also handwritten itself. But Freeiphoneswap.com performed everything it promised within the timeframe it promised. Now, as for promises made and kept, Part 2 of this post considers the iPhone's battery life after 2.0...

Newly minted iPhone 'owners' with the Facebook app

(Credit: Kevin Ho)

This morning Facebook told me that 27 of my friends had downloaded the iPhone Facebook application. 27 out of 300+ is a good chunk of people and speaks to the fact that more and more people are getting iPhones. Of course, this is only if they can be patient to wait at least 2+ hours in line and if a given Apple/AT&T store actually has them in stock. It's hard to imagine that this has been going on for at least two weeks.

Anyway, I clicked the link to see who actually downloaded the Facebook iPhone app. Not surprisingly, they were overwhelmingly male techie types. But, looking at the roster of friends, I was surprised to see some of my iPhone-less friends there. For example, John and Jesse do not have iPhones, but, according to Facebook, they do indeed have one. I know that these two didn't wait in line for 2 hours to get one. Did they get one magically? What these two really did was to check Facebook messages or send updates on someone else's iPhone. But having done so, they've been imputed iPhone ownership by Facebook.

This bug is indicative of the buggy nature of the iPhone Facebook app. After an update last week, I've noticed that the app has crashed more frequently. Taking and sending pictures to Facebook is dicey. Forget the geo-tagging feature. Friend status updates are now for "unknowns." Somehow "unknown" is fitting given that the most random people from high school (and sometimes their mothers) who I don't recalling ever talking to, are now sending friend requests; I may have known them 10 years ago, but now? There must be a fix coming, right? Hopefully they can merge the elegant mobile version of Facebook into the clunkier app version.

Who are these people? The iPhone Facebook app keeps me guessing who my friends are

But, what's more unnerving is that as iPhones and Facebook become more ubiquitous, storing more information about you, tracking your data and processing them as cookies for targeted ads, you have to wonder. Other people whom you haven't seen in years are, well, looking you up (depending on your privacy settings of course). While it may not be a big deal attributing iPhone ownership to those who don't have them, other possibilities with more significant consequences loom that may mistakenly send the wrong message to the world.

Instead of trying to scrawl down lyrics, doing a search on Google (only to be lead to some bizarre lyric website repository that may or may not work, all the while offering me free ringtones and ceaseless pop-up ads), with Shazam's app, I've actually found songs by, well, listening to them. Shazam is slick. You hear a song, start the app, hold your iPhone's mic up to the sound source and viola! It's been 'tagged' and identified like a wild bird you caught on Animal Planet. Another app by Midomi even lets you hum a tune in, search by title, artist and even lets you listen to samples.

Sending the sample for off-site sonic analysis, querying the proper artist remotely, album art and sending a response back to your iPhone in less than 10 seconds is pretty dang slick. The sample time itself is only about 12 seconds! Once you get your result, you can bookmark it, and, if you're in a WiFi hotspot, launch iTunes to buy the song. Most popular songs are on these services. Shazam doesn't work in loud places like clubs, bars or restaurants, but works well in cars or at home.

What these services haven't been able to do, however, is to analyze classical music. I've tried a few times. Shazam says the Beethoven Fifth Symhony is "unrecognized." What would Ludwig say? After humming the piece into Midomi, I got the strangest country folk song in response. This isn't surprising. There are very long phrases in classical music and it makes even die-hard fans puzzle as to "what was that piece?" Having these services decipher classical music presents a lot of challenges. First, recordings of pieces are almost nearly indistinguishable especially if you only had a 12-second sample of them. Also, unlike pop music, where there is one artist performing one song (sure there are cover versions), with classical you have hundreds of ensembles, conductors and performers spanning 50 years of audio recording doing the same 'song' over and over again. For example, there are more than 200 recordings of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony alone!

When (or if) classical music can be deciphered by these types of services it will probably be a great engineering feat. Progress, if this is ever attempted, would probably be incremental. First, identifying a particular symphony, concerto or quartet is, in itself, very difficult. Next, identifying the particular recording will be staggering. All those ensembles and conductors perform pieces many times over leading to various versions and editions that would be a morass of data to sort through. While there's probably not a market demand for this type of service or application, it may serve as Shazam or Midomi's Everest.

Ni hao? The iPhone's Chinese language support screen.

(Credit: Kevin Ho)

One solution to the what-to-do-with-the-iPhone-1.0 dilemma that occurred to me over lunch with my grandpa on Tuesday (in San Francisco's Chinatown no less) was to give him my old iPhone 1.0.

My grandfather is an immigrant and a jolly, happy type who stays vibrant by talking with his friends from church or with family members. But because English is not his first language and because he's not as tech-savvy as his grandchildren, he has often found dealing with a typical cell phone difficult. The technology gap, generation gap, and language gap all posed by a typical cell phone's user interface (Nokia in this case) were oftentimes frustrating. After all, who can remember to press UP and * to unlock a phone?

With the iPhone's 2.0 firmware, with international language support (including simplified and traditional Chinese) and with the easy interface, however, the path was clear. After showing him and asking him if he understood what the menus meant on my iPhone 3G (as a test run), we were convinced that it was time for him to upgrade to an iPhone--and that a 1.0 iPhone would be more than fine.

Pleased with ourselves, our next problem was that it took us awhile to navigate and convert my iPhone 3G back into English. Even after that switch back every now then (especially with texting), I notice the iPhone slipping back into Chinese mode. It too seems to be stuck in a foreign tongue. But the fact that my grandfather can understand and use an iPhone well enough to help me guess my way back into the English mode is great example of what a universal user interface should be like.

For those of us who have a hard time deciding what to eat or where to dine out, Urbanspoon has made a slot machine/roulette application (complete with 'pull' slot machine sound effects) to help us make a decision on where to eat. The application will determine your location from the GPS feature (which is still a pretty marked and powerful feature to the iPhone 3G that invariably raises privacy issues) and you can select he criteria you want, i.e., neighborhood, cuisine and price. And, for some inexplicable reason, you literally shake the phone to activate the selection feature. The wheels spin and your restaurant is selected (Alternatively, you can push the button too). It's a kind of Magic 8 Ball effect. Strange, but amusing.

Urbanspoon with its gourmet result.

(Credit: Kevin Ho)

All sounds good in theory, but in actual application, it's a little, well, beta. "California cuisine" encompasses a sweeping and surprisingly large number of restaurants. Also, the $$$ price guide is a bit off with some joints being way above and some being way below. And, in terms of content, well, given that San Francisco's Mission District is home to many Top 100 Restaurants, Burger King was definitely a surprise result.

How 1.0 iPhones use battery life with the 2.0 firmware and all those tantalizing applications is something that may be worth considering against the iPhone 3G's voracious appetite for power. During the past weekend, as new applications get tested out, I've seen the iPhone 3G use more and more power with the charge indicator gradually slipping away, ultimately flashing the "low battery" warning. This warning wasn't something common with the 1.0 iPhone I had. In fact, I had never seen that "low battery" indicator even after 7 days of camping-like condition on the AIDS Ride.

Of course, with 3G, improved sound quality, GPS locating, and very loud ringer, it would make sense that battery life would suffer. Short of putting a stick of plutonium in the iPhone 3G, it would seem a safe bet that power chargers will get a good workout with the iPhone 3G. Invariably, battery fatigue will soon follow and Apple will have a secured a revenue stream of captive iPhone users who will eventually shell out $80 for battery replacement. That or third-party chargers for cars (or solar chargers) will see increased sales. Either way, this is where the 3G falls short.

Loopt has an appealing application that allows you to track your friends and allows them to track you on a graphic map. It's kind of like a GPS-sonar radar that I've just discovered on the iPhone 3G. But, is this application really more like an electronic leash? Will your significant other track you? Will moms and dads track their children this year? Yes, Loopt has an extensive privacy policy that discourages/prohibits kids under 14 years old from using the service, but even one of my most 'public' friends (both online and in off-line) was actually hesitant about installing Loopt on his iPhone 3G. Disclosing your location to a third-party seemed to bother him greatly. The thought is that if you're near a store that is having a special you may get an SMS-text bulletin or coupon. The ultimate direct-marketer's dream once Loopt obtains some demographic information. Your movement patterns are one thing, but add-in your physical location, shopping patterns, travel patterns... You've become a human cookie.

To me, it's not necessarily the third-parties I'd be concerned about, but would disclosing your location to first-parties, i.e. your friends and family, be the best thing? We are all entitled to privacy of course. (Well, penumbras of privacy under the Constitution). Some choose to have Dick Cheney-like undisclosed location privacy, while others have Martha Stewart ankle-tracker privacy. But, balancing privacy requires takes a certain amount of prudence (or sanity perhaps) that will evolve as the line between public and private blurs even more. At least, at this point, Loopt allows you to opt out and only updates your location when the application is launched. What happens then you can't opt out any more? That'll throw all of us for a loop. (Sorry for the pun).

Was it worth the wait? The 5-hour phone service/text/data outage? Do you really have to get the new iPhone on the first day? The first weekend? From a rational point of view, the answer is probably not. But, from an admitted early-adopter Apple-phile, a resounding hot tamale train YES is the answer. But, this is not without caveats of course (battery life, hassle, and jittery/buggy application crashes). Overall, the new iPhone 3G is slick. The applications (which work 90 percent of the time) are even slicker (many worth special attention to come in the next few posts). Sound quality is much improved. The handset feels bigger, but is lighter. It's more than a refinement over 1.0, but I wonder if that has to do with the 2.0 firmware update that allows those long-awaited, legitimate third-party application bringing in outside innovation.

iPhone 1.0 say hi to iPhone 3G

(Credit: Kevin Ho)

In any case, with the white 3G version that yours truly got, people stop and notice and ask questions like they did last year. Today, I've already had two people stop and ask about the iPhone when they noticed it wasn't the typical one that we all have grown accustom to seeing. Sure, they've seen iPhone before, but when they spotted this one, which is different (it's white for Pete's sake) they stopped and asked to see it and the new applications with a lot of attention paid to the GPS-maps feature (deservedly so).

The fact that people stop, look and ask, and that there are still long of people willing to spend part of their weekends in line is pretty fascinating - even given the tough economic that 2008 had over 2007. As the Field of Dreams quote goes: If you build it, people will come.