Blue Chi’s

I have access to the beta releases of iOS because I have a developer account at Apple and I’ve been using the beta version of iOS 5 for a while now on my iPad – it is pretty cool, I don’t like installing beta versions of the OS on my iPhone because I use that all the time and I can’t risk having a buggy operating system on it, so I’m looking forward to see the official version out and have that on my iPhone.

One of the biggest highlights of the new iOS is new way it handles notifications, prior to iOS 5 notifications were restricted to blue warning messages and a number indicator on the application icon – it was very easy to miss out notifications if you have too many and you can’t choose to keep a notification highlighted while you do something else to come back to it later. The new notification system is very similar to what they have on the android, but it is still not as intuitive because there is no indicator on the actual home screen after you hide the initial notification widget and you will have to expand the notification panel to check if you have anything pending there. It is still a great improvement.

iCloud is one of the other big additions to iOS, I’m not thrilled about what it does to contacts, mail, and calendar because I already have all of that synced using Google services and iCloud can’t compete with that because Google services are not locked to any specific platform. However, I’m very excited about the other aspects of iCloud like the Photostream feature which works like a charm – once you set it up every single picture you save on your iOS device gets synced to the stream which you should be able to have synced with other iOS devices and iPhoto on the Mac OSX.

The new Messages system is also another excellent feature which I can’t to have on my iPhone, instead of using WhatsApp or any other IM application service we will be able to use something native on the device, however, I’m not sure if it will be able to provide me with all the features that WhatsApp provides – such as indicating whether or not the user actually opened the message, show when that person was last online, and indicate whether or not he is typing on his phone at that moment. Of course WhatsApp is also cross platform so it runs on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and even Nokia devices nowadays. It’ll be impossible for iOS Messages to compete with that, but at least now we have another option to communicate with those who don’t have WhatsApp. A great thing about iMessages is that you can set up multiple email accounts to use to have people contact you through and this email account does not have to be your Apple account email address.

There are may other features such as Twitter integration, the new redesigned Safari, new redesign Music App and other new features in iOS 5 that are pretty nice. This should be a great OS when it finally comes out.

(Photo Credits: ukslim)

I’ll be attending a legislative fellowship program at the Congress for the whole of May. This program is sponsored by the US Department of State. I’ve never been to the states before so I’m really looking forward to it. I’m checking the forecast and it looks like it might still rain a bit even though it’s technically spring now! I’ll keep you guys updated on Twitter and here.

I’m a bit bummed cause I just started updating the Omani Cuisine again, and now I’ll be away for a whole other month. You guys will just have to wait for me to come back to get you the latest reviews on restaurants in town.

Oh and by the way, for those who didn’t figure it out, my previous post describing a day with my iPad was totally fictional, it was written before it actually came out. The funny thing is that I STILL haven’t got one yet, I will be buying one from the states while I’m there though.

The alarm on my iPad woke me at 6.30am, I pushed my pillow against my back as I sat lazily in bed, pulled my iPad from the bed side and disabled the alarm. I instantly launched the new multi-column TweetDeck on the iPad to see what the guys are up this morning. I exit the application and see that there are no new message badges on my Mail application, thanks to my awesome Gmail filters all the crap people send me gets sorted into various folders and skips my inbox. I jump out of bed, grab my towel and head to the shower.

***

7.00am: I am having my famous Jordans Country Crisp cereal, I work the cereal with my spoon as I read my RSS feeds on the laid down iPad, suddenly an alert appears on the screen saying that I have a meeting today at 8am. I saved this event on Google Calendar, but it of course syncs with my iPad live. I throw my cereal bowl in the kitchen, slide the iPad in its foofbag and ran to work.

***

09.00am:  my meeting is over, I go back to my office to check on my files, as I walk there I remember that I now can check the list of my in-progress files on the iPad using Google Docs, I do that and see that I have left one of the files with the advisor to sign the letter, I make a detour to check on what happened with that, the advisor had already signed the letter, I take it from his office, give to the DG and change the status of the file directly from my iPad.

***

10.00am: I am in my colleagues office and one of her neighbours asks if I can check the letter for the file we are working on together, I ask her to send it to me by email, on my iPad I open that Word file on Google Docs, make changes directly to the letter right then and there and send it back to her in 5 minutes. She is very impressed by the way I work and thinks that I come from the future.

***

11.00am: I have this new proposal to make the DG for making monthly statistics reports that breaks down the performance of each department on its own, the idea is to have visual graphs such as pie charts and bar charts. I have already collected some data from previous months and created the graphs and report. I go to the DGs office and impress him with my presentation skills on the iPad as slides magically flow with gestures of my fingers. He instantly buys my proposal and asks me to coordinate with the secretaries to collect the data needed for these reports.

***

12.00pm: I am frustrated by some clauses in this huge construction contract I am supposed to review – I remember that I recently bought a digital Kindle copy of a new Construction Law book from Amazon which I can read on my iPad. I pull the iPad and launch the Kindle App, I open the book and search for the chapter on the same clause I am studying right now, I read up a little bit and note some of the possible variations for such a clause. I make some comments based on what I just read and then mark the file as done on my Google Docs log sheet.

***

03:00pm: I’m done with work and supposed to go out for lunch at a new restaurant, I am not sure of the location, but my friend is already there, so he sends me an email with a Google Earth link to the spot. I have my Mifi with me so I open up Google Maps on it and see exactly where the restaurant is. It sucks a little bit that I don’t have the 3G version which has actual GPS capabilities, but I guess you can’t just have everything.

***

04.00pm: It’s is my first time in restaurant so I think let me to do a Omani Cuisine review, my iPad doesn’t have a camera, so I use my iPhone to take shots of all the dishes and then email them to my iPad. While having our dessert I use the WordPress application to make posts on the go, insert the images in my email inbox to the post, review it one more time and click publish! I really like this restaurant and might come back again to try other items on the menu.

***

05.00pm: I am not going the gym today, I check on Haitham to see if he is willing to chill out in Caribou as usual, he is down for it as usual. He brings along his iPad and we order our drinks, he uses the Photos application to shows me the latest renders of concepts he designed. We chat while we casually tweet and browse the internet. Someone on Twitter suggests a new multiplayer game on the iPad, we both download it and play using ad-hoc mode together. Haitham sucks at videos and I kick his ass so easily.

***

08.00pm: I grab something to eat from McDees on my way back home, I’m pretty sick of it at this stage, but I can’t be bothered to get anything else. I am too lazy to switch on my computer, so I dock my iPad and watch the latest episode of Diggnation as I have my dinner. I wonder why millions of people around the world, including myself, waste our time watching a couple of geeks get drunk and talk about random stuff, thing is it’s really fun to watch!

****

10.00pm: I have no other plans for the day and for some reason I’m pretty exhausted. I decide to read a couple of chapters of the latest Kindle Haruki Murakami book I downloaded from the Amazon on my iPad. I never imagined that I would one day enjoy reading translated literature, but I guess Murakami is really special. I lay on bed and read until I fall asleep.

The recent announcement of the iPad and the experimentation with HTML5 by YouTube and others led people argue about whether or not Flash is necessary, or even good at all, for the Internet. Apple has announced that, just like the iPhone, the iPad will not support Flash. YouTube and a number of websites have started testing the use of HTML5 video instead of Flash to playback web video.

Many people are vocally against Flash because it is a proprietary technology that is controlled by Adobe. People think the web should be built using open standards such as CSS and HTML. Images on the internet do not need a special plug to be played and are placed directly on a web page, the new HTML5 will make it possible to embed a video inside an HTML page the same way an image is placed. As Flash is the most popular method for delivering video on the internet, a lot of people seem to believe that the arrival of HTML5 will be the end of the Flash video era. A number of modern browsers such as Chrome and Safari already support the HTML5 video tag and websites such as YouTube and Vimeo started testing it for delivering video.

There are a lot of compatibility issues with HTML5 video tag and it will take a very long time (years) before it can become a serious alternative for Flash video. The HTML5 video tag enables embedding a video directly onto a web page, but there is no actual standard video format for the web and there is no consistency in the support of video codecs by browsers. The majority of video codecs are restricted by use licenses and no format is currently universally supported.

Apple refuses to have Flash on the iPhone because it fears that it will negatively affect the user experience due to its tendency to consume the system resources, however, all other smart phone platforms (Android, Palm, Windows, and Blackberry) have announced that they will support the new Flash Player 10.1 which has been developed for mobile and touch based navigation in mind. Apple also will not support Flash on its upcoming iPad tablet even though it will come with a new powerful processor that is capable of delivering a desktop like browsing experience.

Instead of waiting for Apple to reconsider its position, Adobe announced that the upcoming version of Adobe Flash Professional, CS5, will enable developers to use Flash CS5 and ActionScript 3.0, the same tools used to create Flash on the web, to create native iPhone applications. This means that Flash developers can use their existing skills and easily create smart mobile phone applications that will run on the iPhone, Android, or the desktop web, using a single SDK with very little changed between each different platform version of the same application.

It must be remembered that Adobe does not make money off the Flash Player, but by selling development tools such as Flash Professional and Photoshop. Adobe creates a number of tools, such as Dreamweaver, that work with web standards such as HTML5. The video tag is very unlikely to have any significant impact of the use of Flash for delivering video on the web anytime soon, and even if it did, it should be remembered that Flash is not just a medium for delivering video, Flash is the most popular method for creating web games and other rich interactive content. Many popular web services such as TweetDeck, Google Streetview, Picnik, are built on Flash and they don’t have anything to do with video.

The fact that the iPhone and the iPad do not support Flash is not the end of Flash, for the real customers of Adobe, the developers, Flash can still be the a good option for developing applications, especially due to the ease at which applications created using Flash can be ported to multiple platforms (including the iPhone) easily!

I have to admit that I am very excited about the recently announced Apple iPad, and just like the majority of people I am not sure if I really need one, but I just want it! I think that it is the best couch/bedside computer, it is just a device you keep at home to check your email while laying in bed or on a coach, maybe carry along when chilling at Caribou while having a cold drink…. damn that sounds cool!

I can’t say that I’m super upset about multitasking, I’ve been using the iPod Touch and iPhone for a while now and I am really not bothered about it all that much. I think that not running Flash in the browser is a drawback, but not a deal breaker for me because I don’t play web Flash games, and because YouTube has its own application.

Strangely my most favourite feature of the iPad is the new calendar, it looks really awesome and makes me think the iPad could be used as a serious office organizer, especially if you sync Google Calendar using Exchange the same way I do using the iPhone.

All of that said, I am going buy one the second it comes out, I am looking forward to read the reviews and see what the developers do with it.. and then I will seriously have to think about whether or not spending money on a coach computer is really a good idea!