editor

You don't have to plonk down the $100 to develop your app. You're free to sign up for the Developers program and benefit from the thousands of pages and hours of video tutorials that Apple provides, and download the entire iPhone SDK for free. This way you can see if app development is really something you want to get into. Once you've created your app, then you have to pay the $100 for full membership to get your app listed.

My first apartment was 400 sqft (Charleston). My second was palatial at around 500 (Cincinnati). After that, I had an 830, a 1,200, a 1,450 (all Houston). Then I started downsizing, with an 800, a 930, and a 475. I'm in 620 now, and it feels very comfortable (especially after 475). It's really all about how the apartment is designed, rather than the actual square feet. The 475 in Chicago felt way bigger than the 500 in Cincinnati, or even the 830 in Houston. Nothing will ever compete with the 1,450, though. I needed two Roombas to keep that hardwood floor clean. Two people can live very comfortably in 475 square feet. 350 is pushing it, it smacks of SRO. But a roomy hotel room is about 400 sqft. Add a few feet more for closet and kitchen, and you're home!

If there are so many Wal-Marts in such a small area, would the result be LESS traffic at each individual location? It's not like people are going to fly down from Wal-Martless places like Chicago to shop in the Heights. Aren't you just taking the existing number of Wal-Mart customers, and spreading them out across more stores?

From the +/- ratings, or the quotations, or both?

We have a winner!

It's that mansion and windmill in the earlier photos. The park where that was shot used to be a private estate, but the county bought it and now it's public. The county rents the mansion out for weddings and conferences and stuff, while the rest of the property is open to anyone.

It's been my observation so far that it mostly rains at night and in the early morning, then clears up. I think it's only rained all day once or twice. Florida is like that too, but since it's also hot and muggy and dangerous, it gets to be called the "Sunshine State," while this area is the "So Moist That Moss Grows on the Streets State."

Nope. That's an office building with a bunch of architects and engineers in it. Yeah, some days it's like that. At least my camera sees it that way. I might start leaving the polarizing filter off, though I do love when a blue sky fades to black.

Yes. I have. it's not an easy thing. I taught myself web coding (HTML, PHP, MySQL, etc...) to build my web sites. I know C from college. iPhone apps are coded in something similar to Objective C++, but with a bunch of other utilities that help out. I understand the concept of code abstraction, but iPhone apps seem to take it to an extreme. A simple "Hello, World" app could have nine lines of code spread out across five different windows. I'm sure it makes sense when you're doing larger apps, but I had a hard time wrapping my brain around it and I gave up. On a tangent to your tangent, there will be a HAIF:app available soon. I didn't code it, someone else did. It even has push alerts.

I agree. Though, I don't think it's necessarily something we can blame iPhones for. The only time I ever drove off the road was before I had a cell phone when I was checking the directions I'd written down on a small piece of paper. On a more important note-------- I got an e-mail today stating that my iPhone 4 has shipped. That's 10 days ahead of schedule. I should get it Friday.

Here are some pictures of Bellevue, Washington. Geographically, it's a suburb of Seattle; though I've met several older people who don't realize that, and think Bellevue is just another neighborhood of the city. I don't know if that feeling is widespread, or not. It's very clean. Very quiet. The population is 30% foreign-born (Indian, Pakistani, Japanese mostly). The big companies are Microsoft, Eddie Bauer, CoinStar, and Paccar. it's a tech hub, as well. It's the headquarters of Expedia, Infospace, Drugstore.com, T-Mobile USA, HTC's American operations, and a bunch of video game companies. The architecture is half way between traditional glass-and-steel, and the emerging Pacific Northwest school. I live in one of these buildings. See if you can guess which one.

Found this interesting article listing the 10 largest construction projects in the world. I find it interesting that about half are traditional construction (cities, buildings, etc...) and half are environmental projects.

Actually, it is with Apple's blessing. I downloaded an app perfectly legally from the iTunes app store that enables this. It helps that I have iTunes accounts in many countries, and you can sync purchased items from up to five countries on a device. Your experience is different than mine. I have a number of apps that have been removed from the iTunes app store, and they all continue to work perfectly. I did a Google search, and according to what I found in Engadget and elsewhere, Apple has never remote killed an application. Google, on the other hand, has remote killed several apps from people's phones. What apps did you have removed from your phone by Apple? I'd like to know so I can better understand what's happening and protect myself. Citation needed. You don't need to believe Apple marketing. Just Google it. There are dozens and dozens of studies by security companies around the world that state that OS X is safer than Windows. Or just count the number of viruses and worms there are that affect Windows boxes, and compare it with the number that affect Macintoshes. But I think we're straying from the mobile discussion here.

One of them is Google. Just type your conversion into the search bar.

Danger Will Robinson! Danger! Check to see if you need to make adjustments to your data plan before you go. I downloaded a PDF in Toronto and got charged over $400 in data roaming.

I think you've actually made the opposite point. When I want to find a DQ, I use the Google Maps app on my smartphone. It's a little more complicated than that. For the most part, the highest quality apps will evolve in the ecosystem that allows their authors to make money with them. You can have a million apps in an app store, but if there's no reasonable, secure, reliable way for the authors to get paid, then all you're going to have are apps from hobbyists. Both Apple and Google realize this and that's why we have AdMob from Google, and iAds from Apple. In terms of going backward, yes, you will increasingly see content available exclusively in "app" format, especially with the advent of the iPad, and the inevitable clones to come. This is because making money on the web is hard. Between site scrapers, ad-blockers, and people outright stealing your content, more and more of the web is going behind paywalls, or into app stores. Is it a step backwards? Yes. Is it necessary for content producers to stay in business? Yes. Who is there to blame? The smug, selfish, self-riteous people who block ads, steal content, and believe that they are somehow "entitled" to it. So, the next time your favorite web site starts making you pay for content, or puts some content exclusively on an app for a platform you don't have, check to see if you have an ad-blocker installed, and then go blame yourself. You just got what you deserve.

Once there are a few 4G phones available running on the Clear network, Comcast will start offering cell phone service. Comcast partially owns Clear to pursue this strategy so that AT&T can no longer kill it with the "mobile" portion of bundling.

Nope. And for people like that, there's the Jitterbug. I wouldn't have a cell phone, except that my wife insists she be able to get in touch with me "in case of emergency." My thought is that if it's an emergency, she should call 911, not me. But then, during TS Allison the cell phones did come in very useful -- her car flooded out a few blocks from our home and she was able to call me and I came to get her. You don't necessarily NEED a lot of things in life, but they help to improve you quality of life. If you have a craving for DQ, then yes. Especially since in some cities phone books are no longer being distributed. If you're going some place you've never been, then yes. If you never leave your neighborhood, then you're probably OK. If you have a craving for gay fellas, then yes. I'll be sure to stay off your lawn.

I just came across this on Hack-a-Day. it's a wish list for Android 3.0. I was surprised by some of their gripes, like

There are plenty of sub-$100/month smartphone plans. I pay something like $70/month for my iPhone. I looked into moving it to T-Mobile a few months ago, and the price would have been around $50/month. Yeah, I had one of those, too. Not my own -- it was assigned to me by my employer. I can't believe I didn't lose more weight dragging that thing, plus a giant 2-way radio, plus a Marantz around with me everywhere I went.

Now that RedScare's got me thinking about grandpa cell phones, it reminds me of the phone I miss the most: This is a picture of the Ericsson GH688. I had the AMPS version through Cincinnati Bell (roamed on AT&T among others). Loved that phone. Dragged it all across the country and was able to make phone calls while people standing next to me were getting "No Service" because it was analog. I eventually dumped it when I started traveling internationally and needed GSM capability.

We're not discussing the market for disposable 1980's-style candybar phones that Nokia dumps on Africa. We're talking about smartphone platforms. There's no need to make up numbers, or guess. Real statistics are available on the internet. In fact, ComScore updated the numbers just two days ago (source): RIM: 42.1% Apple: 25.4% Microsoft: 15.1% Android: 9.0% Palm: 5.4% Nokia is a non-factor in the modern smartphone market. Sure, it has a couple of devices that run older Microsoft mobile OSes, but Nokia is yesterday's news. The only way it stays afloat is by selling pre-paid phones in the third world. Sure, that's one metric. But we weren't discussing who pumps out the largest number of mobile phones. We were talking about innovative platforms in the mobile space. There's a reason that the majority of new phones scramble to copy Android or iPhone, or both. Since you're still focused on Nokia, I'm not sure how having 8% market share among OEM phones counts as being market dominant (source, as of May 7, 2010) Samsung: 21.9% Motorola: 21.9% LG: 21.8% RIM: 8.3% Nokia: 8.3% These are figures for all cell phones in the United States used by people age 13+. It's interesting to note that Nokia is down almost a full percentage point in just four months. I used to have a Symbian phone. Symbian was a great idea, but it came three years too late, and was too slow and buggy for the hardware. Nokia clung to it for way too long. Nokia recently sold its mobile data platform to Renesas. This is the same technology currently used in every data connected Nokia phone. What does that say? It says Nokia's not going to bother competing in the smartphone space, and is going to put everything on non-feature phones in emerging markets. And when that runs dry? Maybe it will go back to logging and making paper. You know me well enough to know that I have a general disdain for technology bloggers. The mobile phone industry is going through its biggest change since the switch from AMPS to digital. Nokia is being left behind.

You're absolutely right. But the problem with the apps that Google killed and the other ones highlighted is that the Android user has no way of knowing that the app is taking their information, or doing other things without their permission. Well-behaved apps always ask for permission, but not all Android apps are well behaved. It's the reason iPhone apps are so heavily sandboxed. This is almost always correct. Hopefully it will be this time, too.

I can when I'm talking about 4G battery life, and there's only one 4G handset in existence. I don't doubt it. But I was talking about 4G phones, not 3G phones. I've been doing that with my original iPhone since 2007. I expect to continue doing that with my new iPhone when it arrives later this month. What was your point? There are currently 229,000 apps in the iTunes US app store. There have been more than 270,000 available so far. I can't speak to the number of apps in the Android app store, but 80,000 sounds about right. You're the first person I've ever heard lauding the quality of the apps in the Android store. Everything I've read to this point has been people lamenting the crapware in there. There are no bogus apps. The problem was developers buying stolen iTunes passwords from Chinese web sites and then using those passwords to purchase their own apps to inflate their rankings in the iTunes store. There's lots of political satire on the iTunes store. Apple filtered out two apps that involved personal attacks and the authors used it as a PR opportunity. Looks like it worked, because you fell for it. I'm more than happy with the way that Apple curates the iTunes store. I don't want to have to wade through pornography when I'm searching for something. Pornography is not part of my life, and is not the part of the majority of Americans' lives. If it was, then Apple would allow it and call it a "business decision." There are no malicious apps. You keep making stuff up. Name one malicious app in the iTunes app store. You can't. The wild west that is the Android app store, on the other hand, has all kinds of bad apps. PBS has an article a few months ago about fake banking apps for Android that pretend to be from your bank, but really just harvest your login and banking and credit card information. Google has already had to pull the kill switch a number of times because of apps that didn't do what they claimed, were taking people's personal information, and doing other nasty things. Apple has never remotely killed a public app. Even apps that were later removed from its store for violating certain rules. From CNet: About 20 percent of the 48,000 apps in the Android marketplace allow a third-party application access to sensitive or private information, according to a report released on Tuesday some of the apps were found to have the ability to do things like make calls and send text messages without requiring interaction from the mobile user. For instance, 5 percent of the apps can place calls to any number and 2 percent can allow an app to send unknown SMS messages to premium numbers that incur expensive charges You seem to have a lot of fears about smartphones. But those fears come from your use of Android. You shouldn't ascribe them to Apple. It's a whole different ecosystem. No phone will ever be everything to everyone. But I feel like we're getting a lot closer now than we were just ten years ago. Or even five years ago. It's interesting to see how the major players have changed from Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorola to HTC, Apple, and RIM. I think that kind of turnover shows healthy competition in the industry.

Three ducks have decided that they're Houston Police cadets. They show up for roll call every day at 6:30am and march with the cadets to the classrooms.