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Early this week I got Apple TV device through one of my friend who came from USA. Before getting a Kinect I was using XBOX 360 in my Bedroom to access Digital Media. But once Kinect came I had to move XBOX, Kinect & LED TV to my Study room. So I got Apple TV to fill this need.
The first impression you get after you open the package with the $99 device is how small & cute it is. The device on the sides came with a Black Tape stuck all around, so for few minutes I was wondering why there are no ports or even power socket. The remote is even more smaller & unbelievably thinner. Hat’s off to Apple on the minimalist design.
 
Apple TV allows you to access YouTube Videos (Favourites & Most Popular), Movies & TV shows from iTunes & Digital Media (Photos, Music & Videos) that you have stored in your Home PC (or Mac) in iTunes libraries. The device has no hard-disk or any other drive, so no noise or heating. The device runs iOS (as in iPhone & iPad), so Indic Language (like Tamil) files names appear legibly. You also get an iPhone app “Remote” that allows you to manage any iTunes Library including Apple TV from your iPhone – quite convenient and thoughtful. The app (unlike Logitech Harmony app) is minimalist and easy to configure & use.
While accessing Music & Videos the experience is great thanks to iTunes. But when it comes to Pictures the experience nose-dives due to same iTunes & its poor Pictures management support. I have like 15,000 pictures in my PC, neatly organized into folders like Personal, Events, Travel, Family, Friends and so on, with each of them having sub-folders for each year in which the photos were taken. It took a long time before Apple TV could showed the first photo, then it displayed all the 15,000 photos in one go – how can you scroll through thousands of photos?. There was no way for me to sort/group/search for a particular album or year or keyword. After some time I gave up the fruitless exercise and took my son to my PC where I showed the photos he wanted to see. I am at loss at why even after 10 Versions iTunes doesn’t have proper features to add/delete/edit pictures, categorize them into folders/sub-folders and so on. If there is one thing I hate in iPhone & iTunes it is Pictures management.
Read about my experience with Google TV here.
I have been using iPhone3G from Dec ‘08 (exactly two years) and I got so used to it. By far it is the best device to do email, browsing, twitter, facebook and above all to make/receive calls & messages. It is very hard to imagine a mobile before iPhone, that’s the impact it has had on me. The upgrade to iOS 4.0 turned out to be a double-edged sword. On one hand, the device started to support display of Tamil language natively in all applications – messaging, contacts, email, browsing, twitter & more. On the other hand, the device became very sluggish. Clicking on contacts or messages app will take solid 10-20 seconds to load up. I talked to my friend Muthu Nedumaran (the man behind the Tamil fonts that got shipped in iOS 4.0 and Mac OS) who advised me to upgrade to iPhone 4.
I guess due to poor sales of iPhone in general in India, iPhone 4 is not released yet here. After some research the best place to buy an iPhone4 turned out to be Singapore, as by law there TELCOs can’t network lock a device. The device bought in Singapore should work with Vodafone India and anyway since I have a iPhone3G plan with them, data also should work. After further research on the web, I learned that you can’t buy iPhone4 from any Apple stores in Singapore or from TELCOs like Singtel, who sell only with singapore mobile contracts. Apple Singapore recommends you buy from its online store and have it shipped to any address in Singapore. That’s what I did, I gave the house address of my Uncle in Singapore. After few phone calls he made to confirm my India credit card to them, the device got delivered in few days, in time for me to pick up during my trip last week there. The device (iPhone4 32GB), Black Bumper and AppleCare 2 year protection plan together costed me SG$1195 (nearly Rs.41825).
After coming back to Chennai, I had to cross one last hurdle which was to get a MicroSIM. It was not available from Vodafone Chennai, but a trip to a corner mobile store and Rs.100 got my regular SIM cut into a MicroSIM. Finally, I got my iPhone4 working and I love it. Much better speed than 3G due to the 1Ghz Processor, the retina display is gorgeous, noise cancellation feature even on noisy airports is awesome – worth every cent of upgrade. After upgrading to iPhone4, apart from loading my regular apps I use ( Twitter, FaceBook, LIFCO Tamil Dictionary, Dictionary.com, Wikipedia, Kindle) I was able to load VLC Media Player (Free) which only runs on iPhone4 or iPad. This meant I can select any of my WMV (Windows Media) videos into iTunes, have them synced to my iPhone4 and play them with VLC Player.
I love my iPhone and the ease with which it syncs music, videos, Podcasts & Contacts/Mails/Tasks (from Exchange Server through Microsoft ActiveSync). The only pain has been iTunes software which is cumbersome especially since I use it in Windows. Getting photos organized in iTunes is the most limited. In Windows I can only sync one folder (why on earth I can’t select multiple folders?) or use Adobe PhotoShop Elements.
I tried a Quick ‘n’ Dirty method to circumvent this, by using a less known capability in Windows (and in UNIX flavours) called Symbolic Links (Hard Links) which makes a folder along with its contents appear in multiple places. This is something like Shortcuts on steroids. You can create these Symbolic Links only from Command Line and there is no option for it from Windows Explorer, as it can lead to unintended behaviour for average users – I learned it the hard way later. I used this free program called “SymLinker” to create the Symbolic Links. The idea was to create one folder called say “iPhone Albums” under Pictures folder in Windows 7, map it in iTunes (Device->Photos tab) as the folder to sync photos from. Then create symbolic links for each of the many folders where you have the photos you want to be synced.
I mapped about 6 to 7 folders that had hundreds of photos each, everything worked just fine and I got all the albums synced fine. The next day (after I rebooted my machine), I couldn’t get iTunes to launch at all. I tried install/uninstall, deleting and recreating my Windows user profile and so on. Finally I had to restore from my Windows Backup *System Restore* to an earlier day and get iTunes working again. I am not sure whether the problem in iTunes was caused by using Symbolic links, but I guess it is safer not to try it. Having burned my fingers, I have bought Adobe PhotoShop Elements 9.0 for my desktop PC where I have all my photos – I will post that experience in a later post.
One of the strengths of iPhone is the now famous iTunes store, which helps you buy applications/music/movies/TV shows seamlessly. Lot of companies have tried the concept (which is not new) as old as 10-15 years back, for example Microsoft has tried it multiple times (Zune, Windows Player) in the past. The winning difference has been the flawless execution and the simplicity that Apple has delivered. Apple has managed to satisfy both ends – with their clout they got the big media companies to sign uniform pricing’s and they also made it easy to get the casual developer on-board. The formula from Apple was simple – you make the application, we manage the hosting, delivery, installation, payment gateways, legal/taxation, etc. The developer gets 70%, Apple gets 30% – a neat deal for both parties. And Apple’s new iPhone OS3 is pushing the envelope much further – check out this cool preview of iPhone OS 3 or here in YouTube.
Few months after my purchase of my iPhone, I searched for some applications. I found thousands of applications in their store, but I was looking for something that will be useful for me and not clutter my phone. A phone for me primarily is for Voice, SMS, Camera, email & web browsing (in that order of priority). I was not sure on the number of applications that will be available for India – as so far many of the American companies have avoided dealing with copyright/licensing/taxation trouble for India market. They feel the trouble is not worth for the size of the Indian market for these (how wrong they are). Traditionally Indian mobile users have not followed the global trend (and other advanced Asian markets like Korea and Japan) in purchase of applications, games, music & movies, but that I think is due to content for their taste not being available. Since iPhone store is one of the biggest USP’s of iPhone and buying apps is not popular in India is probably a reason for iPhone being sold only 20,000 units in India since its launch.
In iPhone store I found a plethora of apps to be bought for India, there was no shortage – I have tried few iPhone apps and the shopping experience from the phone was seamless. No punching of credit cards (you do that when you create your iTunes account in the web) and no multiple confirmations/redirections/instructions. You click on buy, then install and you are done.
The apps I use regularly are two (both free)- TwitterFon and Skype (recently released). I also bought a Tetris game for $4.99. Regarding the apps, I found TwitterFon to be very convenient to use, I am finding myself twittering more when I am outside the office – waiting for something in a queue or participating like y’day in a boring session for CIOs by IBM India. About Skype for iPhone it is great to note that in India it works over both Wi-Fi and 2G connections. The quality of Skype calls using iPhone is great and the convenience of speaking with a mobile phone anyday for me is better than a headset or holding a USB Skype phone.
 For little more than a year I was using HTC S710, as my usage of emails grew after my company moved to Exchange Server the phone was feeling to be too small & slow – it was time for a new phone for me. After waiting for few months (iPhone got released in India around Aug ’08) and deciding between Sony Ericsson X1, Samsung Omnia & HTC Touch Pro, I went with the original and the popular Apple iPhone 3G. After the purchase of iPhone in Dec ’08, and playing around with the phone for few minutes wiped away all my doubts about iPhone. It is the best Smartphone out there in market. It is going to take Symbian (OS that powers Nokia) & Windows Mobile (OS that powers HTC, Omnia and X1) few revisions before they can catch up with the ease of use and ergonomics of iPhone.
The purchase itself was different from other phone purchases I have made. I had to go to Vodafone store (no one else seems to be selling it) in T.Nagar (Chennai) and pay Rs.26,400 by credit card (only CC and Cash, no cheques – even though our company has over 30 post-paid connections with Vodafone), I had to read and sign a 7-page license agreement from Apple – promising that you will never download pirated content, you will indemnify Apple for any claims out of usage of iPhone and the likes. I learned that my exiting data plan with Vodafone will not work with iPhone, I had to opt for a different iPhone dataplan at Rs.499/699 per month (which will not work on other phones, so you need to have two plans at the same time if you want to use in different phones). The phone’s packaging was minimal. It seems the small pin (like a office paper clip) that you need to use to remove SIM card from the phone if lost will cost you Rs.500! . The sales guy informed me that the phone comes with warranty against any manufacturing defect, but if I happen to drop the phone and anything other an air-crack happens, it can’t be repaired and I better throw the phone in the nearest trash can.
Regarding the features of the phone, enough has been talked by reporters around the world. I would like to highlight few of my experiences.
| Positives |
Negatives |
| Browsing in Safari browser is the best you can ask for in a mobile device. Fantastic, all my favourite web pages appear flawlessly. |
Though a Tamil font seems to be in-built, Apple Advanced Font-Rendering (AAT) seems to be missing. So Tamil pages are rendered illegible. |
| Stocks, Weather, Maps – all applets seems to be aware of India and displays appropriate information for Chennai. Yahoo!’s Weather applet is much better than what you see on their website |
No SMS Forward, little irritating |
| Battery life is decent, with 2 days of battery life for minimal usage, with Wi-Fi at default settings. One full day of battery life even on heavy browsing, Talk and Wi-Fi and Edge turned ON |
No Contact’s (Address book) forward, a practical use-case missing. Should be easy for Apple to implement in a future software upgrade. |
| YouTube functionality, Camera, iPOD are all cool apps to have |
No built-in software to create Word/Excel/Powerpoint files and no Adobe Flash support. |
Highlights - Apart from the positives above, few other points impressed me the most and they are:
1. My company uses RADIUS certificates based authentication implemented at the Windows Server 2003 level for Wi-Fi security. Even on a Windows Mobile (better integration between Microsoft Products) you can’t connect that easily to these Wi-Fi access points. With iPhone it was seamless. It automatically detected that I had this authentication method, prompted for my Domain Credentials, downloaded & installed the certificate. Everything worked flawlessly. More over with half-a-dozen Wi-Fi AP’s that I have configured across my office, house, relative’s houses where I frequent – the overall Wi-Fi experience has been outstanding. Even with-in my office just as I get out of Wi-Fi zone, it seamlessly moves to EDGE (Cellular network) and back.
2. The design idea of having a Toggle switch in the side for Silent mode – brilliant. Other than this and Volume Control (two buttons on side) everything else in iPhone is touch. It is not practical to access your phone through Touch when it is in your pocket and you want to turn it to Silent when you are in a meeting. And having it as a Toggle switch, you can easily feel / see whether your phone is in Silent or not. And you can configure when in Silent mode whether the phone should vibrate or not.
3. The Exchange Server integration through ActiveSync is outstanding. Next to having Outlook 2007 client this is the best client software for Exchange server – period!. It is so good that nowadays I hardly bring home my laptop to work on emails.
4. The firmware upgrade process through iTunes software is extremely easy. I have my reservations in general about iTunes software, but the updates to the phone through this has been implemented very well. Other OEM’s should learn to mimic this.
5. The MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint & Adobe PDF viewers that are built-in are much usable. I could open the most complex Excel Sheets and Word documents that I received in the last few weeks at it and it opened all of them without any fuss. What is better is that the viewer supports the latest MS Office formats (Word 2007, Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007).
Blank screen bug
I was wanting to do this post for over a month now, but it didn’t make it. Today my phone had its first serious problem – suddenly the display and touch were not working entirely. I guess it was to do with a video I was downloading from YouTube with the built-in app. When it gets a call though it was ringing, I was not able to pickup the call. Any number of Power button presses, Home button presses didn’t help. I started to feel worried that it had developed a hardware problem and I had to give it to Vodafone/Apple for servicing. That’s when I searched and found this page which had a solution to the same problem. The solution is to keep pressing both the Home and the Power ON button for 10 seconds and the device will do a reset.
 Early this week Apple released their Safari browser for Windows. Safari is a neat, standards compliant web browser and I feel its arrival for Windows is definitely an important step. You might think the usefulness or the need for yet another browser. Look at it this way – with Web becoming ever more intervened with our lifes, innovation in the browser space is super critical. Personally, I love Internet Explorer and I think IE 8.0 will be a technically advanced browser with dominant market share, but still we cannot leave the fate of web to just two companies – Microsoft & Mozilla. Recently AOL closed for good Netscape, of course Netscape has in real terms died several years back itself. This leaves us with only one other credible competition which is from Opera but Opera never managed to garner any significant user base in the PC. So Apple coming in to this space should be welcomed.
While we welcome Apple, their entry has not been without controversies. Mozilla CEO John Lilly has taken serious objections to Apple offering the new browser to Windows users via Apple Software Update which is part of iTunes & QuickTime Player. This means several millions of iTunes & QuickTime Player users will without there knowledge get Safari, there by increasing the surface area of attacks on their PC. I agree 100% with the objections raised by Mozilla CEO on this that it undermines the trust users will have on software. Adding on to this, is Apple’s licensing terms for Safari which permits you to install this only on “a single Apple-labeled computer at a time”. This is weird considering Apple never makes or sells any Windows PC, so you will never get a legal way to install Safari. While Register in UK and many in blogosphere are making fun of this, I guess this is more a goof-up and a human error (copy and paste problem) from Apple’s legal team and sure to be corrected out in days.
Finally, when I tried to install Safari in Vista x64 I get the following file corrupt error. I tried downloading half-a-dozen times from IE, Firefox, FDM – same error. It installs fine in a Windows XP x86 machine. Seems Apple has some more work to do.
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