iOS 7 Better Have…

There are some things iOS7 had better have before I consider shelling out the bucks for the next new iPhone. Here’s my iOS bucket list:

• I need a way to import a high quality greeting to my voicemail. Hardline dialing and recording a new greeting is NOT Apple-worthy. I don’t mind recoding to the Voice Memo app or on my Mac. I just ought to be able to import a sound file as my greeting dangit!
• I expect a way to SEND my voicemails to my iCloud account as email attachments. Or create a rule that does it automatically.
• I expect a way to FORWARD voicemails to other iOS devices as messages. I can send a picture/video via MMS… Why not a voicemail attachment?
• I expect a heckuva LOT more out of Siri. It’s more useless than the Maps app right now.
• Maps is borked. Now that Google Maps app is on the App Store… I’m going back to what works. Still love you Apple. Just need excellent Maps when I need a map.
• Something’s still not quite right about Contact sync between iPhone, Mac laptop and iCloud. I have duplicates of many contacts in the order of 19 to upwards of 30 of the same person. There needs to be a super easy way to purge duplicates. Contact management shouldn’t be this nasty a chore.
• Speaking of chores… Apple got the Notes app sync PERFECTLY across devices. It’s not broke. Don’t fix it. Replicate it’s success for the other devices.
• Facetime is such a great idea. I’ve tried and tried and tried to Facetime on our local wireless LAN. Each time it rings once (so I know the call is coming through) and then indicates I’m busy to the other devices. Needs to be easier.
• The new messaging works pretty swank too. Not sure how they’d improve it just now.
• Can we PLEASE just sync up our phones to Time Machine? Pretty please?
• Passbook is freakin awesome! A killer, kick ass kind of awesome. The world is ready (it just doesn’t know it yet).
• Airplay = way awesome.
• Safari “Reader Mode” is slick. Wish there was a way to make Siri read the content while I’m driving or otherwise occupied. That’s one thing I love about Alex on my Mac.
• Photo streams to my AppleTV is not quite as straight forward an intuitive as I would expect from Apple. Needs Improvement.
• Newsstand is a useless icon on my phone deck. Please, let me delete it or file it in another folder.
• Faxing from my phone should be a no brainer easier than anything to do.
• Finally, PRINTING. Guys. C’mon. Really? Printing is right up there with copy and paste. We’ve been doing this a long time. Why can’t we seem to get this right?

iOS is a super platform. So good in fact that in our household we’re getting device confused. I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve swiped our fingers across the screen of the laptop or the iMac. It’s silly really that we’ve become so accustomed to iOS that is’s bleeding over into how we interact with the other computers around us.

 

 

New Safari Seed Posted

Safari for Mac OS X Leopard Seed 9B4009a (only compatible with the 10.5.2 seed) was posted to the ADC recently (link here). This simply means there’s an update coming to the stage sometime soon. Keep your eyes peeled and your software update pinging for updates. As for details of what’s new… It’s downloading in the background now so there’s not much for me to tell about it. There is a ReadMe file. Pretty sure it’s not OK for me to divulge the details due to developer NDA.

The latest public release version of Safari is 3.0.4. This updater (which contains PPC and a Universal versions) takes it to 3.1.0.

I’m generally lukewarm on Safari. Yes, it’s fast. Yes, it’s nicely integrated into the OS (syncing to .mac and all). IMHO it has some serious limitations in the ‘extensions’ department though (comparatively few exist). I’ve extended FireFox to the point I’m no longer sure what’s stock and what’s not. Anyway, it’s not a slight toward Safari. Truth be told, I’m hopeful the Safari browser will find a way to surge past FireFox as I’ve built quite a bunch of bookmarks on the iPhone which makes for a pain to keep sync’d with FireFox. I’d prefer to consolidate all that stuff (or have an app in the middle arbitrating and unifying the various bits from here and there).

Safari RSS v. Google Reader (PIX)

The undisputed heavy-weight contender of the world… Is Google Reader.

Call me a pessimist. Call me a Doubting Thomas. Mr. Scoble was right. Google Reader has it all over Safari, endo, NetNewsWire, even some other things I tried that can’t quite be disclosed until some time in October (wink, wink).

Starting fresh with Google Reader is super easy. Migrating from a heavily entrenched position in Safari isn’t hard either. It’s the mental and emotional migration of going from the one thing to something world better that takes a big leap of faith. How’d I make the break? Follow along:

1. I first had to realize there was a problem. Safari RSS is actually quite good – up to a point. Past the 300 feed mark (or so) it just gets a little dicey and unpredictable. My biggest complaint was seeing updated feed notices despite the feeds not having been updated. That one thing precipitated the fall.
2. Admitting there might just be something better.
3. Downloading and evaluating the options.
4. Swapping horses.

This last one required just a modicum of work. Download Safari2OPML, run it, open up Google Reader (in Firefox… my Safari install is partially borked and doesn’t play nicely with http upload… which could also explain some of the ass pain I’m having with Safari in general… I digress.)

 

Upload the resulting OPML file to Reader.

Enjoy.

Now, you’re really not done. I mean, where do you go from here? Sure you add more feeds. But, what if you want to read content offline? No problem. Google Reader has Gears under the hood which syncs for offline enjoyment (AS LONG AS YOU’RE NOT USING SAFARI 3.0.3). There are hints at the Google Gears site Safari support is not far off. Well, OK, we’ll not hold our breath.

Firefox works just peachy with Gears. So, not only is Safari RSS out… Safari is out (for the time being). Apple’s also hiring a Safari Evangelist. At least they recognize the need…

The Downfall. Safari as RSS Reader, Part II

I’m abadoning Safari as my RSS reader. Yes, I know, I’ve written several times Safari was my favorite child. Lately though, and quite inexplicably, Safari has been exhibiting repetitive repetitive disorder. Meaning, it keeps telling me about feeds I’ve already read. A waste of my time. (Even a year ago Safari had cracks in the armor.)

Second, Apple’s putting RSS into Mail.app for Leopard. This isn’t some kind of secret bit of news. Steve Jobs demo’d it on stage at WWDC07. It’s supposedly not the default method of capturing/reading feeds. But why, if I’m exposed to feeds in a browser, would I want to read them in my mail application? That’s just weird.

So, I’m either going with Google Reader (highly likely) or NetNewsWire or Endo. Since it’s been a while what’s the take on the Mac’s RSS feed reading landscape. (offline reading’s not important to me at all – when I’m on a plane I’m working on code).

Now, this also hints at something more ominous… I just realized Safari has lost a LOT of value to me. I have Firefox, Opera, Webkit and Camino installed. (No way Flock comes back onto my Mac) I’ll probably even consider buying OmniWeb (in fact, the demo is downloading in the background).

Adieu Safari.

Google Gears for WebKit (aka Safari)

Requires XCode and a Mac obviously. Hell yes! Will post more once I’ve done the nasty bits first. So excited I just had to blog it RFN. XCode is free. So, head on over to Apple Developer Connection and roll your own.

Safari As RSS Reader

Safari’s not giving up it’s secrets easily. I still like it far better than any of the options. Better than Google Reader. Better than NetNewsWire.

Occassionally, very rarely, I catch a glimpse of something it does I haven’t seen it do before. And, it gave up one more ghost to me today.

While reading Ross Mayfield’s entry on Pownce delivered by RSS to my Safari 2.0.4 browser… I noticed there were “friends” listed in the rightmost column (see picture to left). Those aren’t coming from my computer. Those are coming from Mr. Mayfield. How’s he doing that?! Hell, how can I do that?! Not because I want or need to. Just because I’m curious.

I have a gazillion feeds I keep up with in Safari. It serves me very well. So, when it does something special and out of the ordinary… I’m curious as hell WHY. Anyone want to take a crack at this? It seems Typepad blogs are the only recipients (or causal generators) of this out of the ordinary behavior. Interesting. What is Typepad doing so out of the norm? I’d really like to know.

iPhoney Goes 1.1. iPhone RSS News.

Marketcircle’s updated their iPhone emulator (iPhoney) to version 1.1.

MacRumors reports Apple has an AJAX/Web 2.0 RSS reader in the works specifically for iPhone. Safari gets a big thumbs down. However, iPhoney (using the iPhone agent string) doesn’t get turned away… Nothing is currently served up. But, no “go away” message either. Wish there was some way to ‘view source’.

AJ, how about it?

NICE! iPhone Emulator

MarketCircle’s used the latest WebKit distro to create an iPhone emulator. So far as I know, there’s nothing else out there like it.

FYI – Agent string doesn’t register on your server log files like an iPhone. Suppose you could mod that though…Way to go AJ & Team! ~ hat tip to Jill (my hero!) 

[EDIT - It's just been updated to 1.1 and even kinda works with Apple's dedicated iPhone app.]

OSX on iPhone and Google Gears

Since the SDK for iPhone is Web 2.0… I’m wondering if Gears is going to work any better at launch with Safari than it doesn’t now. (Yeah, you read that right… Gears no workie with Safari 3. Although DOES workie with WebKit nightly builds. Hmmm…)

My suspicion is initially no probably not. But it makes a lot of sense and I can think of at least one app I’d like to deploy RFN.

If you haven’t tinkered with Gears yet… Allow me to recommend a pretty nifty example of what it’s capable of. First, you have to have installed FireFox 1.5+ or IE 6+. Runs on Mac 10.2+, Linux and Windows. Second, Download Gears. Third, visit Remember the Milk.

[EDIT: Jason Essington of Wyoming has confirmed the install on WebKit works fine. Must now delve deeper 'cause as y'all know... below Safari lurks a beastie called WebKit. If it works there... it's going to work just fine on the iPhone eventually. PROVIDED download/install works as I would hope. Will know on June 29 as it is now added mighty high to my list of iPhone to-do's. Linus intimates Safari compatibility is coming - listen to the mp3]

Technorati Tags: Google Gears, iPhone, Safari, WebKit

Crouching Leopard. Hidden Features.

No, this is not a spoiler posting. I’m pondering what other of the hidden features might leap out at us. What they might (or hopefully, might not) be. The role of Apple’s Developers and how that could change in the near future based on things like Google Gears. The real gem of my screed is at the very end.

Please, consider adding the gwhiz blog to your RSS feed reading. Thanks!

First up? Everyone’s favorite (and hopefully, first) non-Apple app they run to when they buy a new Mac… QuickSilver. Apple has this quirky habit of glomming onto other people’s REALLY good ideas and making them, well, their own. I’m specifcally calling to mind things like Watson (aka Apple’s Sherlock), Konfabulator (aka Widgets) or VirtueDesktop (aka Leopard Spaces). I’m sure there are more which are not top of mind. I can only hope Apple doesn’t do to Black Tree’s QuickSilver or Delicious Monster what they’ve done to these other of their innovative developers.

Have to plead ignorance here… Do Sun, Microsoft or Linux pull these kinds of stunts with their OS builds? Swiping from their developers I mean…

The flip side of that is Apple does do right by some of their developers. CoverFlow for instance. Which seems to be taking more and more prominent positioning in their lineup with the new CoverFlow powered Finder.

Second up – Open Sourcing. When Apple’s not being strongly influenced by the innovations of others (pat on back, nicely politely put) they’re doing some MARVELOUS stuff with open source bedrock. CalDAV. Mongrel. SquirrelMail. Ruby. Java. Blojsom. Some of the Teams components in Leopard Server we’ve been told in the public forum are based on lots of open source goodness. So, please, despite all my dissing on Apple this week… I can diss my own family. Someone else pulls that crap and I’m all over them I LOVE Apple. I simply want to see them do right by their developers. I recall someone suggesting Apple’s coming up short in this regard (must look at my CoComment threads - yep, it was The Scobleizer). I happen to think that’s spot on the money.

Which brings me to the third and final point. I’ve been an Apple Developer since I left Apple in 1994. Before that I was firmly in the camp of Apple’s internal developers as one of their “Systems Engineers” (what a GREAT job during such a DARK period… jogs self back to present). Ahem. We were secretive then and that was under Spindler and Amelio. I can only imagine how things have changed under Mr. We Will NEVER Do A Video Ipod. That’s all good and fine and I can certainly appreciate the mystique that promotes. Still, when you’re a developer and you’re trying to build the next best thing to page swapping… well, secrets kinda crimp your style.

This is one of the dirty little secrets of the Mac developer community. We have to route around Apple. Read another way, we have to route around the damage. On the one hand they say they love their developers. And, to a degree I believe them. But, then they do things that don’t match up with their declaration of love. The big example I wave around is probably the most important. I’m not the worlds best coder. I’m largely self-taught. Once upon a time I was among the first hundred or so Newton Messagepad developers. Even then (much as today) there has not been a place for Apple’s Developers to swap experience outside of the WWDC meeting. (EDIT: appears I didn’t finish out the thought… Apple is putting their developers in a position to go akimbo to their NDAs by talking outside of channels)

Why, in this day and age, can’t Apple break off a nice little chunk of their Web Crossing Forum software and make a petri dish for us? That way the conversation is contained in a hermetically sealed space. Apple can control the inning and outing of information. And, most importantly, we developers can discuss stuff like Leopard’s upcoming features under the watchful eye of Apple (but we both know I was thinking Mordor). I want to become a better developer. I want to hire people who share their coding talents with others (net “givers”, not net “takers”).

Anyway… I’m looking at Leopard (OSX in general) imagining all it can become and the pace at which it could get there. Apple’s not doing the platform any favors and they risk losing fine and innovative developers like Mark at ClamXav (and aspiring ones like me) who are expanding the utility of the platform more out of a sense of cause and community than anything. Hopefully, Apple swings closer to the middle for the sake of the platform rather than hang out in the relative safety of the cloister in Cupertino.

One more thing (ouch!)… IF Apple’s approach to developing for the iPhone is really (and I’m skeptical) centered on web deployable apps AND Google’s Gears is emerging as the take-your-web-apps-offline king of the heap AND Google and Apple are deep under the sheets THEN don’t you think it is reasonable to expect some day things like the iPhone and OSX even will no longer require an installed app? Think about that one and get back to me.