Thoughts

How about a real Apple TV (an Apple tablet)?

Ligia and I were watching cartoons in bed this morning, on my laptop, and I realized Apple still hasn’t capitalized on the opportunity to create a real Apple TV. Here I was, after having ejected my external drives, disconnected the laptop from its peripherals, taken it off its stand and put it on our bed, when all of this could be handled very simply with a larger iPod — a combination iPod/Apple TV/Apple Cinema Display.

Try as I might, I just can’t watch movies or video content on my iPod. The screen is too small, even though I have an iPod touch. It has no speakers, so I have to use headphones. Clearly, Apple has the technological know-how to put together a really nice Apple TV that’s not yet another box tethered to a TV in the living room, but a display with integrated speakers and the circuitry that allows it to get on my network and access media from various drives, or to play the media I sync to it through iTunes, or to download media from the Internet. And yet, it’s content to charge people for small fry (iPods, hamstrung Apple TVs, etc.) when it comes to personal entertainment devices.

Just think, with a nice LED screen of about 13-17 inches, a touch screen, plenty of onboard storage, a good battery, WiFi, Bluetooth, and speakers, they could have an amazing device that I could take with me wherever I decide to sit in the house or in the yard. I could take it in bed and watch movies without draining my already tired laptop battery, I could take it outside on the patio at night to watch stuff there, etc.

Apple already has all of this technology. Why don’t they put it together?

They have the LED displays already, in their laptops and in their Cinema line.

They have the touch screen capabilities, from the iPod and iPhone.

They have the media playback capabilities and other circuitry from the Apple TV.

They have the amazing batteries from the MacBook Pro line.

The speakers are also from the MacBook Pro line, and they’re some of the best small speakers on the market, if not the best.

People talk about an iTablet, but I’m not really sold on the idea. Yes, if you put all of these components together, you could have an iTablet, but what I want is a larger iPod, or rather a usable, untethered Apple TV with a nice, built-in display and decent battery life. It could look something like this (and no, this isn’t a rendering, it’s a screenshot from Apple’s own website).

Take away the stand, and imagine a nice iPod-like bezel around it, so you can grab it in your hands and hold it. Perhaps it could have some sort of leg that folds out to let it stand on its own, too. This is what I’m looking for. An iPod I can actually watch, anywhere.

Images used courtesy of Apple.

Thoughts

Why not, Apple?

Finally got around to watching the Apple Special Event from 9/9/09, and was very glad to see Steve Jobs back at the helm. As I mulled over what I’d seen, two questions came to mind:

If Apple could place a niftly little camera in the new iPod Nano, why couldn’t they do it sooner for the iPhone? Why so much hedging on that issue? After all, it’s not like video cameras in smartphones were such an exotic item, even back when the first generation iPhones came out.
If the iPod touch and the iPhone are such great gaming platforms, and they run a pared down version of OS X, why can’t I play those same games on my MacBook Pro or my iMac? Granted, I could understand they’re not made for the higher resolutions of a laptop or desktop machine, but still, they’d be running on much better hardware, so they should be screaming fast. Apple’s always had a bad rep for not being a good gaming platform. Seems to me like an easy flick of the switch to let people run those same iPod touch and iPhone games on their Macs and get more bang for their bucks. Or is this coming down the pike in the near future?

Images used courtesy of Apple.

Events

120th Anniversary of the Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower under construction, 1878

Built between 1887 and 1889 by French engineer Gustave Eiffel, the tower has since become the most recognizable landmark (and the most visited) in the world. For its size, the tower is amazingly light — its mass is less than the mass of the air contained in a cylinder of the same size. For its time, the system for joining the metal girders together was truly innovative, and was inspired by the design ideas of a Romanian engineer named Gheorghe Panculescu.

Eiffel Tower Girders, 1889

The shape of the tower was dictated purely by mathematics, and the primary design goal was wind resistance. Eiffel and the other engineers wanted to make sure it could withstand strong winds, being at the time the tallest building in the world. Being a very tall building, made almost entirely of metal, it’s also a very large lightning rod, which attracts amazing lightning bolts, as you can see in this photo from 1902.

Lightning striking the Eiffel Tower, 1902

Also interesting is the use of the tower as a radio antenna. Over time, antennas were mounted to the tower, or the tower itself was used as a large antenna for radio communications. In 1910, the first cosmic rays were observed with the aid of the tower by Father Theodore Wulf. Nowadays, 9 radio and TV stations broadcast content with the aid of the tower.

This year, the French celebrated the tower’s 120th anniversary on Bastille Day. A concert by Johnny Hallyday was held at night, while fireworks blazed forth from the tower. It was an amazing lightshow, captured fittingly by Alta Media Productions and Toys Prophet, two Vimeo users. You can see their videos below. Taken from different vantage points, one focuses on the Paris nightscape and the tower lightshow, while the other captures the interaction of people with the evening’s events.

http://vimeo.com/5621455
Eiffel Tower on Fire from Alta Media Productions on Vimeo.

-SPEED OF LIGHT- ….. ESSAI N°5.1 from toys prophet on Vimeo.

I haven’t yet visited the Eiffel Tower, and I look forward to doing it someday. It’s a structure unlike any other. When you think of it in the context of architectural design, it fits into no category. Its design is pure engineering, with no allowances for the niceties of normal architecture. Sure, it’s been adapted for human use over time, and you can even eat there now, but these are all add-ons, insignificant to the initial design goals. It didn’t fit within the times when it was made, in spite of some of the Victorial wrought iron work it faintly resembles, and it still doesn’t fit within any normal design constraints today, even in post-modernist times. And yet it has become a symbol of architectural design, of Paris, and of French culture, odd as it may be. If nothing else, Gustave Eiffel had serious guts to undertake such a work and to withstand all of the criticism leveled at him during and after the construction of the tower. He was right all along.

Eiffel Tower by briandeadly on Flickr

Historic photos of the Eiffel Tower used here are public domain, obtained courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Reviews

Hardware review: CableJive's iStubz cable for iPod and iPhone

In May, I mentioned CableJive’s new iStubz sync cable in my review of their SoundDock cable, which I’d purchased last year, and I was contacted by Zack, one of the folks at CableJive, who offered to send me an iStubz cable for review. In the interest of full disclosure, please know that the cable I received was a review sample that I got to keep.

Would I have bought one otherwise? Yes. I think that at $7.95 for the 7cm size or at $8.95 for the 20cm size, these cables are a great deal. They fulfill a real need for those of us with iPods and iPhones — namely the need the declutter our desks. They’re much shorter than the standard sync cable that ships from Apple, they work just as well, they’re made from the same materials — thus, they’re perfect for quickly connecting our Apple peripherals to our laptops.

I got my cable in late May, and have been using it ever since. I opted for the 20cm size. I packed my old sync cable and put it away from the very first day after that. It’s useless to me now. The iStubz cable is much more convenient to use, and in terms of design, it comes closer to Apple’s design philosophy than Apple’s own cable.

The cable I have can be seen the right side of the picture shown above, or in the two photos shown below. The longer cable, the one used to connect the iPhone to the laptop, is the 20cm one, and the shorter cable, the one used to connect the iPod to the laptop, is the 7cm one.

I had some issues with the sturdiness of my 1st gen SoundDock cable, as you can see if you read my review of it, but these iStubz cables are nothing like it. These are mass produced and very likely made to the same quality standards as the Apple sync cables. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re made by the same manufacturer.

I took a couple of photos of my own to show you the difference between the iStubz cables and Apple’s standard sync cable. While I’ll agree that sometimes it’s better to use the standard sync cable, such as when you have a desktop computer with USB ports on the back, in most situations, the iStubz cable is all you need to connect your iPod or iPhone to your laptop.

If you want to buy the iStubz cable, you can get it directly from CableJive.

Lists

Gadget Monday – May 4, 2009

Here is this week’s list of seven cool gadgets. Sorry I couldn’t publish a Gadget Monday edition last week; my schedule was too hectic to accommodate the several hours of research and preparation that are required for each one of these posts.

Sea-Doo Seascooter Explorer

Made for scuba divers, the Seascooter Explorer will pull you through the water at speeds up to 3.3 mph. It has a three-stage speed control, it can dive up to 160 feet, and it’s powered by a rechargeable electric battery that lasts up to two hours. It looks like it’d be fun and easy to use. See the demo video. You can get one for $640.

seascooter-explorer-1

seascooter-explorer-2

seascooter-explorer-3

Lunocet

As long as I’m talking about scuba gear, here’s another cool gadget, the Lunocet. It’s a dolphin-inspired fin for divers that will supposedly allow you to swim at speeds of up to 8 mph underwater. That’s a pretty hefty claim. There’s a demo video on YouTube. I don’t know, with a fin that big, it looks to me like it’d be pretty easy to get muscle cramps if you’re not well trained, and with both feet stuck together onto the fin, you’d be hard-pressed to surface quickly. But, if you know what you’re doing, it should be a pretty cool toy, albeit at the substantial price of $975.

lunocet

[via LikeCool and Lunocet]

Pelican 0450 Mobile Tool Chest

I love tools, and this mobile tool chest from Pelican has me drooling. It’s tough, stackable, can hold up to 150 lbs. of tools, has all sorts of fancy features like pressure equalization valves and the ability to keep tools in place even when it’s turned over, and more. It is somewhat expensive though, at $500.

pelican-0450-mobile-tool-chest-1

pelican-0450-mobile-tool-chest-2

pelican-0450-mobile-tool-chest-3

[via LikeCool]

Rainxchange Rain Barrel by Aquascape

This decorative rain barrel looks great and has a built-in planter on top as well as a spout on its side. It’s an easy way to save money on your water bills and keep your garden irrigated.

rainxchange-rain-barrel-1

rainxchange-rain-barrel-2

[via The Design Blog and Aquascape]

Foldable Director’s Chair

This director’s chair folds up into a messenger bag. It’s available from Hammacher Schlemmer for $130.

messenger-bag-directors-chair

[via The Design Blog]

2D to 3D Coat Tree by Andie Olive

This 2D coat tree is essentially a sticker you place on your wall. It comes with a few hooks that you can install into the wall at specific points where they’re masked by the design, essentially turning the sticker into a usable coat tree. It’s a neat idea, but the price is well-peppered at $109. I guess you’re paying for the design, not the hardware, which is minimal indeed.

2d-to-3d-coat-tree

[via LikeCool]

Brugo Travel Mug

This special mug has a separate top compartment that fills up when you tip the mug, allowing you to cool a small portion of the liquid inside the mug before you drink it. It’s a neat idea. You tilt it, then sip it. There’s a demo video that shows you how this works. It sells for $20.

brugo-mug

[via TrustyPony]

Raoul Pop

One man's life

Tag Archives: design

How about a real Apple TV (an Apple tablet)?

Why not, Apple?

120th Anniversary of the Eiffel Tower

Hardware review: CableJive's iStubz cable for iPod and iPhone