Kudos to Apple for making iPhoto for the iPhone and iPad. Seriously well done. The ease in which you can manipulate images, boosting saturation, adding effects, etc is pretty impressive. The brushes menu is gorgeous and I love the swatches as well.

Some downfalls exist though … every time you go back to the photo library, it seems to update. Boooooo. I have over 4000 photos on my phone. This is painful. PAINFUL. Also, why would you make such an amazing positionable vignette if you can only apply it to black and white photos? It’d be great to burn in color photos as well. Lastly, it seems like some of the filters don’t play nice with others. Why can’t you layer all things available? Why restrict creativity?

I am thoroughly impressed by this initial version and can’t wait to see what the future ones have in store for the blog as well as other photo enthusiasts. Once I switch from .mac I mean MobileMe to iCloud I’ll likely do another post about that integration with journals.

For all intents and purposes, this should be a rant right now. It is, however, somewhat of a reflection on what I love to do and how that sometimes works out poorly.

Last night, around 10pm I started upgrading to iOS 5.0 Beta. I knew that I should have been climbing into bed momentarily, but the temptation for shininess was too great. I had to get it onto my iPhone 4 and iPad. Four hours later, I was crawling into bed with a bricked iPhone and an iPad that was still going through a restoration process. The main culprit, from what I could gather, was not the installation process of the new iOS. It was, instead our internet dropping out RIGHT at a critical moment when iTunes and xCode needed to talk with some Apple server and couldn’t. Thus a communication meltdown led to a late night and early morning breakdown that rivaled … well the last time I tried to do the exact same thing for my iPhone 3Gs.

So it’s my own damn fault that I stayed up late and am exhausted today. No mistake about that one. Spun and I now have a rule that no major technological endeavors will begin after 10pm. This love, hate relationship I have with staying on the cusp of Apple technology is good to a point. However, there comes a time when I need to break free from the chains that tether me to this aging love-affair and do things that are actually important … like snuggle with my wife and sleep a full eight hours. Thankfully, iOS 5 is one step ahead of me by making updates wireless to the cloud. Perhaps we can work a clause into the new rule for unless working from a pillowtop mattress on iCloud tasks. I’m sure she’ll go for it.

As an aside, yes, this photo was one that was somewhat similar ages ago, which was intentional. My phone was in a weird limbo zone where it hadn’t fully been restored as I was walking in. It was half alive, half dead still. As a result, I figured a photo of a former life for the iPhone would be fitting. Also, this is the corner where I laid into a canvasser yesterday for running towards me as I was running up the hill with my skateboard. Cancel, cancel. Love, love.

Just like that, Steve Jobs puts the final nail in Flash’s coffin on the iPhone.  While I respect Apple’s reasoning, it is still terribly frustrating to know that in the end someone is going to be the gatekeeper. Kudos for saving battery life, but why not make a hybrid where people can make their own apps and put them on their own phone, just not submit them to the app store?  If I willingly want to axe my battery life by using a sub-par language, why shouldn’t I be able to on my own device?

Oh, look! More Kool-aid, maybe just one sip …

This is out of control.

Like two lovers who have had a host of squabbles behind closed doors and a few out in public or a pair of cities separated by a river, two of my favorite creative companies are at war. iMudslinging has begun from key supporters in the Adobe side, almost surely forcing Apple’s hand to now nearly entirely shut down the ability for folks like myself to make cool iApps by using AS3.  Yes, I know that it’s a bizarre mutant hybrid language that runs on a platform that isn’t specifically optimized for … well most browsers, phones, etc … but it’s still a valid language that has grown leaps and bounds over the years to something that is quite stunning.  That is of course to say when it’s used for good, not evil.

Flash is New Jersey, really; they can’t call the shots, but they own a HUGE piece of the creative pie.  It had roots in toxic waste, still has some seedy parts to it, but there are a slew of amazing things that have been done via Flash that have advanced the web.

I’ve been working up a couple apps of my own and am sorely disappointed by how this is shaking out.  First, because I’d rather not add Objective C to my list of languages … I’ve got too many things banging around upstairs right now to manage one more.  CS5 was going to be stellar, for me and my own “I bet I could …” mad scientist experiments.  Secondly, I’m upset by the initial response from the Flash community.  Yes, we’re being strong-handed by Apple who is pushing for their own standards and perhaps feels slighted for not being in on previous Adobe love, but if there’s one thing that will not help is thrashing the hell of out an individual or organization who at some point we’d like to work with again.  I speak for myself, not the entire Flash community when I say, “I’d very much like to develop QUALITY apps for the iDevices with a language I know inside and out.” It’s unfortunate that this war has exploded in the 11th hour … essentially just mere days before Adobe’s launch of CS5.  Tomorrow will be interesting, as will the next few days.  Hopefully, the big boys can have a sit-down in some back room over some espresso and maybe a pork sammich and work this thing out.  Perhaps the Big Apple can coexist with Jersey, or perhaps I’ll pick up another trade; welding would be fun to do again.

I’m an Apple fanboy.  Have been for years.  I proudly tote an iPhone 3G[s] around, purchased on the first day it was released, thus replacing the original iPhone, which was purchased the day it was released after sitting in the rain for hours.  I’ve slept on the streets of San Francisco to get a “lucky bag” for the flagship grand opening.  I’ve sat outside of stores waiting for the operating system releases.  I own three generations of laptops, numerous Airports in all shapes, sizes and functions. I will probably get a Mac cursor incorporated into a tattoo at some point.  I preach the gospel of Jobs to those teetering on the brink of pixel salvation.  My mac is an extension of my brain … or at least it was until Snow Leopard came along.

There are so many expletives that I would love to pepper through this post that even Tarantino would be appalled … however, I’ll refrain for the sake of keeping this blog kid friendly.  I will say that my blood is seething with a rage that I’ve only felt when VPN’ing into PCs, experiencing super lag while working, or having connections drop for no particular reason on a regular basis.  This is getting-flicked-in-the-ear and then thwacked-in-the-forehead pissoffery.

Shame on you Apple.  Shame on you for luring loyal fans who gleefully brand themselves with your tempting sexy products.  Shame on you for not testing your product on apps that are one generation back.  For example … say I want to fire up Photoshop CS3, or DreamWeaver, or even  Lightwave 8.5 … *BONK* you’re doing it wrong.  They either hobble along like James Caan after a lovely massage from Kathy Bates or they crash harder than idiots on YouTube.

For an OS release that was touted to be minor modifications and enhancements to make life easier, the $29 for a single copy or $49 for a family license sure sounded appealing.  However, given that now I’m going to have to drop $2k to get my apps up to a working level kind of defeats the purpose of UPgrading.  The least they could have done was put a little M$ decal on the box (or 10) saying “Caution: Snow Leopard doesn’t play nice with elder Leopards” … or “You buy it, you break it.”

I’m leery to throw down that 2k for the sake of a new dot release that will magically fix everything that has been borked, but at the same point, I’m now working with a system that doesn’t like my apps and a lot of promises to folks for production that can’t be met until I either throw down money or ride out the storm.

You had the world eating out of your hand Apple.  Your industrial design, your fanbase and your potential for greatness was limitless … given your recent string of boondoggles, I’m going to step down from my pulpit for a while and wait for you to get your act together before I laud your graces further.

I look forward to the day you can get your ish together and crank out a dot release that magically fixes everything that you decided to fubar, but for now I’ll go back to YouTube to watch those idiots and make myself feel a wee bit better.