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The iPhone’s Shrinking Niche

Diagonal Image Sizes: HTC One Max (5.9), HTC One (4.8), iPhone 5s (4.0) The iPhone 6 is rumored to have a 4.7 inch screen, bringing it into line with Android’s standard size.

Yesterday I went down to the Sprint store to pick up a replacement for my Android HTC One smartphone and came away with a sense that Apple’s iPhone has become a niche product.

My HTC One had developed an annoying inability to focus across it’s entire field of view so they replaced it. The new one works fine, thanks.

While they were loading my contacts in my phone, which was unnecessary since they’re backed up to my Google account, I browsed the displays and see if I could generate some techno-lust for a new phone. While there were Android phones in a wide range of sizes, from minis like Samsung’s Galaxy S4 mini (4.3” Super AMOLED display (960x 540)) to “Phablets,” like the LG Flex with its brilliant curved 6.0″ HD OLED Screen, I decided I was still happy with my current phone.

But I was dismayed by the iPhone offerings. Granted, there’s only one company putting out the iPhone, so they only need one display rather than the side by side displays for largely equivalent products from HTC, Motorola, Samsung, and Sprint, but instead of the range of phones available within each of those brands, Apple’s idea of variety gives you options in color, metal or plastic, and some performance specs.

All with a screen size that hasn’t changed much since it was an iPod. Granted that its resolution has been jumped up from the original 320×480 to 640 x 1136, but still only managing a 4 inch diagonal on the iPhone 5. Of course, Apple’s nobody’s fool, and it looks very much like their next phone, the iPhone 6, will have a 4.7 inch display, much more in line with the majority of Android devices.

But even so, Apple is playing catch-up.

The problem with cosying up to early adopting hipsters is that you build a barrier between yourself and the great unwashed, which may not be up for paying premium prices for the first ever gizmo, but make up for it by buying a lot more when the product becomes commoditized.

While I was entering the store, a sales rep was explaining to the guy in in front of me in the intake queue how he could free up memory on his phone, explaining some of the Android features at the same time, with the caveat, “Unless you switch over to an iPhone.”

To which he burst out with, “Hell no.” More of a wry disclaimer than a rant, but pretty much the last word on the subject.

Links / References

http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2014/04/24/the-sleek-large-screen-iphone-6-emerges-as-the-leaks-suddenly-get-physical/

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Post by Ernest Lilley.

When Did the Smartphone Get So Smart?

Walter Pidgeon tries on the Krell Brain Booster in the 1956 Sci-Fi classic “Forbidden Planet.” Though it increased his already considerable intelligence to astounding levels, it also unleashed the dark side in his subconscious. Let’s hope smartphones use their power for good, rather than evil.(photo: MGM)

IBM brought a touchscreen phone named Simon with more than phone functions to the market in 1994. Nokia produced the Nokia 9000, a clam-shell phone/PDA with a keyboard in 1996, which was, at the time, their best selling phone. But it wasn’t until the 1997 that Nokia called the GS 88 “Penelope,” the successor to the 9000 a “smartphone,” coining the term that would describe all phones with computing capabilities built in from then on. That’s the official story, and it’s factual, but I think it’s off the mark.

The Way of The Dinosaurs

The GS 88 was smart, certainly, and a phone, arguably, but its clamshell with a keyboard format showed its mini-computer heritage, coming out of “palmtop” computers like the HP100 LX and the Psion MXs, which were trying hard to be laptop computers you could fit in a pocket, though it had to be a big pocket. They were an attempt to get around the size and weight of early laptops in a time when the concept of something like an ultra-book was still in the realm of science fiction. While palmtop computers were a good idea, they never really caught on, and represent a branch of computer evolution that went the way of the dinosaurs. Like many techie folks, I’m fond of dinosaurs, and I was very fond of my palmtop computer, and sorry to see it die off. But it did, and we (mostly) moved on.
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Being an Ernest CAD with SketchUp

Ever since my original copy of Micrgrapx Designer dies, I’ve been bereft of a tool to make up plans with. Not, conquer the world plans, I make them up in my head. Plans for gizmos and gadgets, and boxes. I really like making boxes.

Box making runs in my family. My great great grandfather owned the Bosworth Box and Casket factory in Bristol, Vt., and my grandfather, who claimed that his being an orthopedic surgeon was just another way of saying carpenter, loved knocking things together out of plywood. So did Frank Lloyd Wright, by the way, and so do I

Fine woodworking isn’t lost on me, exactly, but give me a few carefully cut sheets of ply, my right anble clamps box clamps and I’ll make you something useful, if not truely wonderful.

Complicated stuff requires real planning and I used to use a graphics program that made drawing dimensioned plans pretty easy…until it died in the relentless march of computer upgrades.

24’x72″ Windowseat with Storage, created in SketchUp by Ernest Lilley

A while back Google had put out a free 3-D drawing program called SketchUp, and I’d given it a few tries but always found myself spinning around some axis not sure which was was up and really frustrated. But the other day EJ took leave of her senses and suggested that if I wanted, I might make a windowseat for the top of the stairs, as long as I made it look like real furniture.

Oh boy. Suddenly I needed to plan like a pro. Back to another round of beating my head against SketchUp. Actually, I gave it a shot with Adobe Illustrator first, but came away pretty certain that was a bad idea. So, I downloaded SketchUp, now owned by Trimble, but still free, unless you want the “Pro” version, and fired it up. In no time at all I was hopelessly lost.

OK, not hopelessly lost. In fact I’d managed to beat it into snarling submission, if not actual cooperation, but clearly I was doing it the hard way. So I went looking for videos on cabinetmaking and SketchUp, and found some great resources. At least I think they’re great, but since I only watched the first two videos on any given site before smacking my head and going, “Doh!” it’s hard to be sure.

The good news is that I’m now pretty proficient with this, as witnessed by the image of the not-yet-realized-in-actual-wood windowseat in the picture above. I even used the program to map the actual texture of the woven storage boxes from a catalog image onto the 3D blocks.

Now all I have to do is get up the courage to actually buy some materials and start cutting.

By the way, it’s not just about my box making mania, 3D printing is just around the corner, and SketchUp is just the tool you need to created shapes for that. Which I’m sure I’ll be doing before long.

Links / References

Timble SketchUp: http://www.sketchup.com/
SketchUp for Woodworkers: http://sketchupforwoodworkers.com/

Annual DC Craft Show Outing

Three Rice Bowls by Jim and Renee Engebretson

While we never miss the Alexandria art fair which winds up and down King Street each year, we’ve never made it to the much bigger DC Craft Fair, though we’ve heard good things about it, and both of us love this sort of art.

This Sunday 11/18 EJ and I are planning on a trip in to DC to grab brunch near the convention center and do some craft browsing. We’re not making a formal group outing of this, but anyone who wants to come and join us is more than welcome. We should be showing up just about noon on Sunday.

Hopefully they’ll let me bring my camera, so even if you can’t join us you can see some cool stuff.

25th Annual Washington Craft Show
November 16, 17, 18, 2012
Walter E. Washington Convention Center
(Admission: $15)

Claudia Cahill: Maps of Fantasy @ the Library of Congress

being Ernest

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