Typing a password on a small keyboard is typically a chore. I have used a variety of mobile devices in my career and have always dreaded typing in passwords.
While the iPhone is not as easy as your full keyboard it is easier than any other mobile device you probably have ever used.
First, the iPhone pops up a large rendition of the key tapped. This makes it easy to change your mind if you have tapped the wrong key. This is easier than a chiclet keyboard like that of a Blackberry which makes you commit to the key that is depressed.
Second, the iPhone displays bullets in the password field like it should. But it displays the actual character of the last key tapped so that the user can hit the backspace key.
Congratulations to the great user interface developers at Apple.
Newt Gingrich wrote a great editorial in the Wall Street Journal recently that includes 7 “achievements” that he thinks should be offered as prizes similar to the X Prize Foundation’s prizes. Personally, I think the idea of prizes to drive innovation is great and wish that the government would do this on a regular basis. Newt’s list is a great first start and there are probably others but if we have too many it would dilute the importance of the targeted list.
I do question Mr. Gingrich’s 7th item. While certainly noble in intent, it doesn’t appear that it is measurable enough to warrant a big prize. Perhaps a prize for the public school system that gets 99% of their non-special needs kids to some extremely high level of attainment on a standardized test. If we use the SAT as an example, the school system that can get 99% of their kids to over 600 on the SAT test (the average is 515 out of a possible 700 and that was for college bound seniors - the challenge would be for ALL students in a public school organization).
I tend to agree with The Fishbowl that it would be great to have a try-before-you-buy at the Apple iPhone store. It would help alleviate the fear factor of hitting BUY when looking for an application for the phone.
I think the only saving grace to not having this capability is the very easy comments feature in the store. A few weeks ago, when the iPhone was first coming out, it was all a crapshoot as to the quality of the software. Now that every application has a couple dozen comments, the cream easily floats to the top.
I also wish that Apple would require their vendors to have a better website to explain the apps. In some cases, the sites are incredibly bare and almost non-existent.
I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.
I wrote about Iranian flogging almost a year ago. It still is disgusting although I guess it is getting slightly better. At least now they are “reviewing” the sentences of “death by stoning” and commuted some of the sentences.
According to the BBC, it is rare for someone to be stoned to death - they haven’t done it in a year. A YEAR?!?!? For a country the size of California, that seems like fairly recent behavior.
How do you stone someone “Iranian style”? Here is what the BBC reported:
The country’s penal code stipulates that before carrying out the punishment, men should be buried up to their waists and women up to their chests. The stones used must be large enough to cause the condemned pain, but not sufficient to kill immediately.
So if the stones don’t kill immediately that means it takes several strikes to do the deed.
I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.
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I think most people miss the point (although Mr. Will probably comes the closest to getting it right, in my opinion). In most Parliamentary Government systems, the voters elect the Parliament and they, in turn, elect the Prime Minister (in the UK countries this is slightly different in that the Monarch actually appoints the PM but in modern history the Monarch appoints the choice of the Parliament). So in this government, the Prime Minister serves at the pleasure of the Parliament.
I have used other phones with virtual keyboards. Most of these phones have been Windows Mobile based. One of the complaints that I have always had was when I had to press other keys after the phone call. You know what I mean, you need to press 1 or 0 to reach someone else of maybe press pound.
In most virtual keyboards, the screen is dimmed after the phone is connected to save power. This is true of the iPhone as well but since the iPhone senses motion it realizes that you have moved it from your ear, so the display lights up again so you can type.
This is one of the reason that the iPhone is easily the best phone I have ever owned.
However, the management of application icons leaves a lot to be desired.
First of all, it is not possible to name the different screens. So while it is possible to congregate all of your games onto a particular screen, there is no way to name this screen and jump instantly to it.
Second, whenever you update an application to its next revision (and at this early stage, this happens a lot) the icon will jump back to the earliest possible spot. This means that when you do an update, the icon forgets where you first put it (as in the games screen described above) and sticks it on the very first screen of the phone. If there are no more open spots on that first screen, it puts it on the second screen (and so on). This makes it tedious to reorganize your applications as developers work out bugs in their early versions.
I own a first generation iPhone. While I have considered buying a new 3G version, I really don’t know why I should spend more money. I am very happy with the speed of my present phone as it does email and newsfeeds plenty fast.
The really great thing about the new operating system of the phone is the cool apps that are starting to come out. For instance, it has a FREE Wordpress management tool and I am using it to write this column.
I will write more about my iPhone in the coming days. Subscribe to my feed to follow the discussion.
In my opinion the best way to quickly drop the price of crude oil is to announce that the US is going to build 30 nuclear reactors in the next decade.
This would send a strong message to the world community that we are serious about energy independence. One of the big perils with electric cars is the lack of availability of infrastructure to charge them.
We need to stabilize the world energy market and this would show everyone that we see serious about getting our house in order.
I know that John McCain has advocated a similar suggestion but I haven’t heard anything of this from Obama.