Living with the iPhone

After the California primary earlier this year where my touchscreen voting machine literally rebooted in mid-vote, this time around I was wondering what California and/or San Francisco election officials would do. Sure, my buggy e-voting machine did have a paper receipt behind glass next to the machine that looked to have captured my choices accurately, but the whole experience was not particularly reassuring. What about those folks in states that do NOT have a paper record next to the machine?

This election, with all the hype, all the California propositions that really matter, is one where an independent record could be vital. (Of course, this is San Francisco, so it may be a bit of overkill) This is, after all, one of the most important elections in recent times. At least those of us under 35 seems to think so.

So, I was somewhat delighted/relieved to see paper ballots with a Sequoia Optical Voting machine at my precinct. Because I was the first one in line, I watched the workers setup the ballots, the folders and the boxes for the dreaded provisional ballots. The iPhone's camera allowed me to record my vote for any disputed election ballot issues that may or may not arise. So, while my vote may have been case in a 1.0 manner because the powers that be deemed 2.0 election machines dodgy, I used the iPhone's camera (which could still use a flash incidentally) not only to record the moment for posterity, but also to actually provide a record of my vote.

As per usual, at the most inopportune time when I was already running late, I decided to sync my iPhone as I was getting ready to leave home today. Like clockwork, iTunes asks me if I'd like to update to Firmware 2.1. Would I? Unlike last time, I actually downloaded the update and took off to make my a Saturday class.

During a break, my fellow iPhone-laden class attendees got out their iPhones to check email, text messages and voicemail and the discussion turned to Firmware 2.1.

"Did you get it?" one fellow classmate asked eagerly.

Some of us had, and others, like me, had not. The only visual difference the few of us noted was that the iPod's song listings now listed the artists as well as the song title. But it was funny that we were talking about a firmware update like schoolgirls gossiping as the discussion quickly shifted to cool iPhone applications. Seismographs to levels to games....

On the way home, however, I ran into two of my friends who work at an Apple Store here in the Bay Area. One is a general floor rep and the other a Genius Bar rep. Both were touting the update as getting a new iPhone (essentially making the life of the Genius Bar rep a whole lot easier, me mused).

From what I've gathered from everyone I talked to today about the update (the whole point of non-geeky types talking about a firmware update is not lost on me) is the following: Somehow, Apple has increased 3G performance AND improved battery life in one fell swoop. Perhaps, some theorized, Firmware 2.1 has addressed 3G network access issues that drains battery life. Whether this involves AT&T slackening 3G access standards or if the change is on Apple's end doesn't really matter to me. The details behind the conclusion aren't critical to a lay user like me and my classmates. We saw a Firmware 2.0 iPhone placed next to a 2.1 and noting that 3G reception on the 2.0 was 2 bars while the 2.1 iPhone had 5 bars. Really? More bars everywhere for everyone AT&T?

Can't wait to see if this Firmware update finally makes good on AT&T's slogan of 'fewer calls dropped,' which has, thus far, rung hollow with the iPhone 3G.

In a crazy world, Apple would announce a "we-are-so-sorry" iPhone swap today: All first generation iPhone owners and all new iPhone 3G owners would be given a new free iPhone Plutonium, which, of course, has endless battery life. Perhaps this massive reset could be founded by the liquidation of Halliburton or perhaps as part of a massive government effort to promote consumer-spending, oh wait, that was Fannie May and Freddie Mac....

Stranger things have happened. What's the line? We can only hope for change?

But seriously folks, the biggest complaint I've seen (and experienced) is dismal battery life. By the end of a typical day's usage, the iPhone 3G battery is craving to be recharged after a few hours of standby and a just a few calls. This is pretty subpar, even for the most ardent of iPhone devotee.

A close second gripe: (and perhaps an even more fundamental flaw) is the "Call Failed" message that is much more common now than with the first generation iPhone. Apparently, this is based on the iPhone searching for a 3G network in favor over the EDGE network and not being able to do it quickly enough. AT&T and Apple point fingers at each other while we wait.

Anyway, Apple has defied expectations before and may well do so today. After all, they are the company that has bucked economic pessimism by creating hardware that sells. Let's hope they can keep their growing customer base with something more useful than iTunes 8.0.

The whole Freeiphoneswap.com process (see part 1) got me worrying and thinking about fraud. And, with frustrations about the iPhone's battery common among bloggers and friends alike, you know there is a lawsuit looming out there as some plaintiff-side law firm will want to take Apple to task for allegedly misrepresenting the iPhone's battery life (both the first generation and 3G). Whether these would-be rentseekers have a claim a jury would buy will be seen.

But thinking about it, Apple says this about the iPhone's battery life:

Talk time: Up to 5 hours on 3G Up to 10 hours on 2G

Standby time: Up to 300 hours

Internet use: Up to 5 hours on 3G; Up to 6 hours on Wi-Fi

Video playback: Up to 7 hours

Audio playback: Up to 24 hours

All of this with a whole bunch of footnoted caveats about testing being one pre-production models in May 2008 with this feature turned off, that one turned on, and that fact that no animals were harmed. But did they take into account all these 2.0 applications? The fact that people would be using their iPhones to do a lot more than talk, surf the new slowly, email or text? Probably not. All of these footnotes are probably enough of a caveat, c-y-a claim for Apple to argue that they never intended for anyone to rely on these estimates or that they made a warranty about battery life, i.e., no fraud, false promise or negligent misrepresentation, essentially, buyer beware. And with that, it'd be hard to muster a claim of fraud. In any case, legal or otherwise, Apple's claims about battery life didn't seem amount to very much. Just in case, these are the elements of fraud in California:

The tort of deceit or fraud requires: (a) misrepresentation (false representation, concealment, or nondisclosure); (b) knowledge of falsity (or 'scienter'); (c) intent to defraud, i.e., to induce reliance; (d) justifiable reliance; and (e) resulting damage. Engalla v. Permanente Medical Group, Inc., 15 Cal.4th 951, 974 (1997).

Apple has, however, put this page up with tips and suggestions about extending battery time, is this all they're going to do? Well, the jury's out on that one.

Money talks especially when news of the economy tanking is constant. So, with this thinking in mind, I scuttled the idea of giving my 1st generation iPhone to my grandpa. It's dreadful to think of (1) the hassle and how long it would have taken to go into an AT&T store to swap his Nokia, invariably, AT&T will something screw up, it's just a question of how badly they do; and, (2) how much more adding a 2nd iPhone data plan would be. It just didn't make economic sense to get him an iPhone as the ability to change the user interface into traditional Chinese characters couldn't balance out the increased monthly bills from AT&T. I'll be on the look-out for a Chinese language cell phone, or ones with instruction books in Chinese at the very least.

The decision was sealed when I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the second market (not a gray market as the NYTimes calls it) price for a first generation 8-gig iPhone was $250 - well in excess of the $100 I had thought I could get. I underestimated how the first generation iPhone's unlockability made it much more valuable, well, at least until someone unlocks the 3G generation.

Freeiphoneswap.com had been running full-page newspaper ads and was featured on the NYTimes. Logon to Swap's site, enter your details, mail off your iPhone and wait for a check for $150, $250 or $350 depending on your iPhone's capacity. So, I logged on to their website, entered my details, got a FedEx label from them, affixed it to a padded envelope and mailed it off to Randomtown, New Jersey, a week ago and waited. During that time, my thoughts drifted towards the refrain: in tough economic times scammers become all the more aggressive...." But, this proved irrational as I now have a check in hand.

Sure Freeiphoneswap.com's name may seem confusing (there's no requirement you buy a new one) and while it's website has a certain fly-by-night feel, it appears to check out. I hope the check is worth the paper it's printed on and you bet I'll be cashing this one right away. And, whether it's actually valid legal tender supported by liquid funds remains to be seen as the check arrived in a handwritten envelope and was also handwritten itself. But Freeiphoneswap.com performed everything it promised within the timeframe it promised. Now, as for promises made and kept, Part 2 of this post considers the iPhone's battery life after 2.0...

This morning Facebook told me that 27 of my friends had downloaded the iPhone Facebook application. 27 out of 300+ is a good chunk of people and speaks to the fact that more and more people are getting iPhones. Of course, this is only if they can be patient to wait at least 2+ hours in line and if a given Apple/AT&T store actually has them in stock. It's hard to imagine that this has been going on for at least two weeks.

Anyway, I clicked the link to see who actually downloaded the Facebook iPhone app. Not surprisingly, they were overwhelmingly male techie types. But, looking at the roster of friends, I was surprised to see some of my iPhone-less friends there. For example, John and Jesse do not have iPhones, but, according to Facebook, they do indeed have one. I know that these two didn't wait in line for 2 hours to get one. Did they get one magically? What these two really did was to check Facebook messages or send updates on someone else's iPhone. But having done so, they've been imputed iPhone ownership by Facebook.

This bug is indicative of the buggy nature of the iPhone Facebook app. After an update last week, I've noticed that the app has crashed more frequently. Taking and sending pictures to Facebook is dicey. Forget the geo-tagging feature. Friend status updates are now for "unknowns." Somehow "unknown" is fitting given that the most random people from high school (and sometimes their mothers) who I don't recalling ever talking to, are now sending friend requests; I may have known them 10 years ago, but now? There must be a fix coming, right? Hopefully they can merge the elegant mobile version of Facebook into the clunkier app version.

But, what's more unnerving is that as iPhones and Facebook become more ubiquitous, storing more information about you, tracking your data and processing them as cookies for targeted ads, you have to wonder. Other people whom you haven't seen in years are, well, looking you up (depending on your privacy settings of course). While it may not be a big deal attributing iPhone ownership to those who don't have them, other possibilities with more significant consequences loom that may mistakenly send the wrong message to the world.

Instead of trying to scrawl down lyrics, doing a search on Google (only to be lead to some bizarre lyric website repository that may or may not work, all the while offering me free ringtones and ceaseless pop-up ads), with Shazam's app, I've actually found songs by, well, listening to them. Shazam is slick. You hear a song, start the app, hold your iPhone's mic up to the sound source and viola! It's been 'tagged' and identified like a wild bird you caught on Animal Planet. Another app by Midomi even lets you hum a tune in, search by title, artist and even lets you listen to samples.

Sending the sample for off-site sonic analysis, querying the proper artist remotely, album art and sending a response back to your iPhone in less than 10 seconds is pretty dang slick. The sample time itself is only about 12 seconds! Once you get your result, you can bookmark it, and, if you're in a WiFi hotspot, launch iTunes to buy the song. Most popular songs are on these services. Shazam doesn't work in loud places like clubs, bars or restaurants, but works well in cars or at home.

What these services haven't been able to do, however, is to analyze classical music. I've tried a few times. Shazam says the Beethoven Fifth Symhony is "unrecognized." What would Ludwig say? After humming the piece into Midomi, I got the strangest country folk song in response. This isn't surprising. There are very long phrases in classical music and it makes even die-hard fans puzzle as to "what was that piece?" Having these services decipher classical music presents a lot of challenges. First, recordings of pieces are almost nearly indistinguishable especially if you only had a 12-second sample of them. Also, unlike pop music, where there is one artist performing one song (sure there are cover versions), with classical you have hundreds of ensembles, conductors and performers spanning 50 years of audio recording doing the same 'song' over and over again. For example, there are more than 200 recordings of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony alone!

When (or if) classical music can be deciphered by these types of services it will probably be a great engineering feat. Progress, if this is ever attempted, would probably be incremental. First, identifying a particular symphony, concerto or quartet is, in itself, very difficult. Next, identifying the particular recording will be staggering. All those ensembles and conductors perform pieces many times over leading to various versions and editions that would be a morass of data to sort through. While there's probably not a market demand for this type of service or application, it may serve as Shazam or Midomi's Everest.

One solution to the what-to-do-with-the-iPhone-1.0 dilemma that occurred to me over lunch with my grandpa on Tuesday (in San Francisco's Chinatown no less) was to give him my old iPhone 1.0.

My grandfather is an immigrant and a jolly, happy type who stays vibrant by talking with his friends from church or with family members. But because English is not his first language and because he's not as tech-savvy as his grandchildren, he has often found dealing with a typical cell phone difficult. The technology gap, generation gap, and language gap all posed by a typical cell phone's user interface (Nokia in this case) were oftentimes frustrating. After all, who can remember to press UP and * to unlock a phone?

With the iPhone's 2.0 firmware, with international language support (including simplified and traditional Chinese) and with the easy interface, however, the path was clear. After showing him and asking him if he understood what the menus meant on my iPhone 3G (as a test run), we were convinced that it was time for him to upgrade to an iPhone--and that a 1.0 iPhone would be more than fine.

Pleased with ourselves, our next problem was that it took us awhile to navigate and convert my iPhone 3G back into English. Even after that switch back every now then (especially with texting), I notice the iPhone slipping back into Chinese mode. It too seems to be stuck in a foreign tongue. But the fact that my grandfather can understand and use an iPhone well enough to help me guess my way back into the English mode is great example of what a universal user interface should be like.

For those of us who have a hard time deciding what to eat or where to dine out, Urbanspoon has made a slot machine/roulette application (complete with 'pull' slot machine sound effects) to help us make a decision on where to eat. The application will determine your location from the GPS feature (which is still a pretty marked and powerful feature to the iPhone 3G that invariably raises privacy issues) and you can select he criteria you want, i.e., neighborhood, cuisine and price. And, for some inexplicable reason, you literally shake the phone to activate the selection feature. The wheels spin and your restaurant is selected (Alternatively, you can push the button too). It's a kind of Magic 8 Ball effect. Strange, but amusing.

All sounds good in theory, but in actual application, it's a little, well, beta. "California cuisine" encompasses a sweeping and surprisingly large number of restaurants. Also, the $$$ price guide is a bit off with some joints being way above and some being way below. And, in terms of content, well, given that San Francisco's Mission District is home to many Top 100 Restaurants, Burger King was definitely a surprise result.