• Elegant map SND music onto 3d graph = formal beauty
• Rigorous sound thoroughly mapped, accuracy
• Playful repetition, subversion, change, stillness
• Virtual mid 90s = early WWW years, music extrapolated into digital space, felt at best not as airless, dessicated but as limitless, alien, thrilling // exemplary: Jacob’s Optical Stairway, latterly: SND
• Syncopated UKG DNA, beats dance
• Inverted SND share heritage of UKG w/ D-step, function as latter’s mirror image (percussive action)
• Radical no bass, mind over matter (or vice-versa perhaps)

SND/mark fell
snd@discogs
makesnd.com

My previous phone was a four year old Nokia a friend gave me – it was small, light and did calls and texts fine… Three years ago I bought a secondhand Sony Clie PDA (just when Sony stopped making PDAs). At that time I was doing large numbers of music reviews and wanted a combined device to listen and write on. Turned out I had to buy third party software to do so and neither the stylus nor the built-in physical keyboard were particularly satisfying in use. I persisted for quite a while with it. The Clie did however have a memory stick reader and bluetooth so I could catch up on reading by transfering PDFs and text files I’d saved on my laptop.

The iPhone is a thing of wonder, but it’s also very much a version one product for the reasons detailed below. It may be that I’m mistaken in some of these observations, but I did purchase and download a copy of the David Pogue’s Missing Manual for iPhone to assist me in identifying some of the less obvious details (which it mostly failed to do).

Bad Stuff

• Lack of note syncing. You can write notes in Mail and on the iPhone but neither will update – only way is to email notes. Not the end of the world, but not great.
• Limited Mail functionality. I expected the iPhone to mirror my MacBook Pro’s (MBP) setup complete with rules and subfolders. Instead it places all emails under particular email accounts in no apparent order (though I’d guess it’s by date/time). That’s pretty annoying if you get 50+ emails (personal, business and mailing lists) in multiple accounts each day. As part of this I expected that if I deleted an email from my MBP it would not download later to the iPhone. It does and then I have to delete it there again. Speaking of deleting… it’s a huge pain because each email has to be individually erased with a two part gesture that doesn’t always work. Engadget however have seen v2 of the iPhone software is going to sort this – thank goodness!
• Safari bookmark syncing seems to be one way. I first began to note items I’ve seen in RSS feeds by emailing them to myself so I could access from the MBP. Each time I did this from Safari it would open up a new email which was too much hassle for more than a very small number of items. So I began to bookmark in Safari thinking that these would sync back to the MBP to view. Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but the sync appears to be one way, from the MBP to the iPhone. Ouch. I’ve since discovered that starring newsfeed entries in Google Reader enables me to refer to them in Firefox and I’m fine with that solution.
• Safari has to reload pages if it’s quit to access another iPhone programme. This is annoying if I’m out of signal range as I can’t then access previously loaded content until I’m back in signal range. Some of us take the underground which makes this a significant issue.
• Safari quits fairly often. Accessing straightforward websites like muse-ings (which uses a standard blogger template) and Lovefilm results in repeated crashes to the point where I’ve given up visiting them outside of Google Reader.
• PDF functionality is almost non-existent. The only way to read PDFs is to email them to yourself. One advantage of a pocket-size multimedia device is the opportunity to catch up on reading while on the move (see above point). When switching to other applications in the middle of a PDF means returning to Mail then reopening the PDF and finding your place as it doesn’t otherwise remember it.
• No eBook functionality. I want to read books on my iPhone! Sending a short PDF by email to my phone is okay, but scrolling through anything longer like a short story or novel to find my place is so laborious it’s a non-starter. ‘Books‘ looks promising, but I don’t want to jailbreak my phone. As sites like The Burgomeister’s Books provide digital copies of Borges, Pynchon, Ballard and the like, I’d love to carry a mini reference library around with me. Currently not possible, but I’ll be buying the first decent application once it’s available. BTW don’t get me started on the likes of the lame Penguin implementation which demands installation of PC-only Microsoft Reader… Oh and there’s an interesting discussion of the iPhone as eBook reader on O’Reilly.
  Update: further investigation reveals Reader by (db)element, a free service that allows users to upload books, save and format them to read in the iPhone’s browser. The site enables users to resize text and, crucially, bookmark their place to return to later. The downside unfortunately remains that you have to have access to the net as the books are stored remotely – if you’re on the underground or out of network range you can’t read your books… Still, it’s a great little service

  

• No Flash. Yes, yes I know it’s a battery drain, but I want the option to be able to visit my photography galleries (built in Lightroom’s Flash format), Flickr, etc even if it does use up my battery more quickly.
• Wired syncing only. I don’t want to have to find my lead to sync with the MBP. Annoying.
• Headphones. Apart from the recessed socket for which I had to buy an adaptor for my Ultimate Ears super.fi 5EB (ahem) headphones, I do like the mic functionality on the headphones lead, but the quality of the sound for music reproduction is atrocious and thus makes them unusable. I wish there was a third party solution to combine mic with my other headphones.
  
  
  
  Update: found it at the Apple Store and bought one, manufacturer is Shure. Only downside is length of wiring, but I have deliciously powerful headphones and all the functionality of the original, crappy Apple iPhone ones.
• No copy and paste. Would be very useful in a number of places, particularly notes to enable reordering of to dos, etc.
• Some visual feedback annoying in current format. The iPhone provides very similar visual feedback to things like increasing and decreasing the volume. The problem is that the message is too large and takes slightly too long to fade away. Whilst it’s visible it obscures anything you’re trying to look at. Either make it smaller, put it to one side, make it more transparent or/and fade it more quickly.
• Waking. Why do I have to press a physical button and also slide to unlock? Surely the pressing of the button should suffice. I don’t see why this is a two step process.
• Connecting. I received my iPhone on a Sunday morning. I wasn’t able to register until Sunday evening because 02 were upgrading their servers. Disappointing. The next weekend we went to Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast. Although the hotel’s wireless connection provided trouble-free access, Edge and the phone connection were intermittent at best and frequently reported ‘no connection’. Same experience next weekend in Blakeney, north Norfolk. Occasionally when I’m at home (with wireless internet clearly available on the MB and MBP), my iPhone opts for Edge and I have to manually remind it that I’ve a network available via the Settings. Not a biggie, but mildly annoying.
• Camera. Is decent enough in good light. Shame there’s no video, but not a big deal. My main problem with the camera is the lack of a physical exposure button which makes taking many pictures difficult. Forget taking the standard ‘me and my friends’ shot as it’s virtually impossible. This could be easily solved by providing the countdown functionality afforded by Photobooth.
• Physical design. Is gorgeous, but as with so much Apple hardware, it’s easily damaged. Within 5 days of getting my iPhone I’d dropped it twice. I don’t consider myself to be an overly-clumsy soul, but the case is so smooth it very easily slips out of my fingers. It now has two small scratches on the glass and a small chip from the lip of the headphone socket :-( iPhone sleeve ordered and on its way… Update: sleeves proved too fugly. I’m now resigned to being very careful in handling it. I did, however, buy a screen cover which is virtually invisible, but does make the screen less prone to grease build-up.
• Little bits and bobs of badness:
  • Slideshow crashes after three images.
  • Maps has crashed a few times.
  • I’ve had to force reboot the whole iPhone four times so far and force quit some apps a number of times.
  • I’ve given up on trying to log into my LoveFilm account.
  • Data roaming should be easier to access.

Good stuff

• Films. Using the inestimable Handbrake I’ve ripped the two DVDs of Kraftwerk’s Minimum Maximum, Brothers Quays’ short films, Last Year at Marienbad, THX 1138, Ivan’s Childhood, The Conversation. They all look absolutely fantastic on the iPhone screen.
  
  
  
• Speakers. The sound quality is of course poor, but I get to act like a yoof and listen to Grime (currently really enjoying Durrty Goodz) on the top deck of the bus. Yes, I’m joking.
• Screen. It’s much easier to read that the MBP screen in bright daylight. Not sure why this is, but reading from it isn’t difficult. On the other hand trying to take pictures in bright light is difficult.
• iPod. Coverflow. Sigh… :-) Oh and I’ve just discovered a lovely new feature! I listen to a lot of instrumental music, but a minute ago I chose to listen to Kraftwerk’s The Mix. I tapped on the album cover and without any input from me it displayed the lyrics to the currently playing song (The Robots) as well as the progress bar. Very nice.
• Phone. A pleasure to use.
• Safari RSS reader is too basic. I tried continuing to use my current setup of browser-based Bloglines and Vienna (a good open source RSS reader) on the MBP. This didn’t really work satisfactorily. So I migrated to Google Reader and haven’t looked back – it’s a great application, particularly the ‘mark as read when scrolling past’ feature and Google’s ability to translate everything into mobile-friendly formatting. Speaking of which, while iPhone’s Safari is very impressive, I much prefer Google’s reformatted version for ease of use and ability to access content (and not be prey to style).
• iTunes Music Store. Suffice to say I’ve just bought my first album in mp3 download format (Benga’s Diary of an Afro Warrior). Very easy to use, pleasing ability to quickly listen to 30 second samples. I’ve used this version much more frequently than the one on my MBP already. Tip: the final Cabaret Voltaire (double) album is available at the moment for £4.93 – it’s called The Conversation and it’s brilliant. Update: the Benga album disappeared mysteriously from my iPhone, but the Apple Store were very helpful in restoring it. (Odd given that the default advice is if you haven’t backed it up you’ll have to repurchase…) I did realise, however, that iTMS MP3s are ripped at only 120kbps (AAC) which is rather below my 192kbps policy. That hasn’t stopped me downloading the odd rare thing like the Von Südenfed remixes from the band’s 12″s.
• Mobile internet. Once I’d sorted myself out with Google Reader (see above) I became an impressed, happy bunny. It’s very, very impressive.
• Ease of use. Okay it’s a cliche by now, but the interface is mostly an absolute pleasure and encourages use of the iPhone wherever possible.
• Maps. Lovely stuff, particularly in v1.5 allowing location, bookmarks, etc. I wish and think Google really should facilitate tight integration with public transport systems re providing directions not just for cars… I’ve bookmarked tfl.gov.uk, but it’s an extra few steps…

Things I’d like to see

Apart from addressing the issues referred to above

• A voice memo/general recording app would be great – three quick clicks (or perhaps one long click) on the headphone remote would trigger record, three more would cease recording. MP3 named by default with time and date and added to iPod in a playlist called ‘voice memo’.
• I’d LOVE to be able to play tunes off the iPhone into my stereo via my Airport Express (even if it proved a significant memory drain).
• I’d like to see my encrypted password app (Wallet) ported.
• eBook reader as referred to above.

Conclusion

For many of the above ‘bad reasons’ I can’t wait for June to arrive to start purchasing third party apps to address these issues. No wonder Apple released the SDK, I assume their in-house resources were insufficient to develop proper applications in these areas. v2 of the iPhone OS looks heavily weighted towards accessing the corporate market which isn’t of much interest to the likes of me. It might look like the bad stuff significantly outweighs the good stuff, but in fact I’m tremendously happy with my iPhone – it really is a gorgeous, brilliantly-conceived device and, for the most part, a pleasure to use. Lack of 3G hasn’t proved that big a deal, I mostly use the web via mobile access pages (Google Reader, Wikipedia’s search page, etc) and these are small-footprint portals which are generally quick to load.

Thank you Is :-) Oh and thank you Joski for giving me the small Nokia which provided me with so many years of reliable service!

I choose to output my pictures to these galleries hosted on my site rather than upload them to my Flickr account for that very reason – Lightroom’s presentation is vastly more attractive and easier to browse than Flickr’s. I really don’t like the way you have to click small thumbnails to view a slightly larger version and then click the tiny ‘view all sizes’ link above an image to view the largest size. I equally dislike the ‘view slideshow’ mode which shows only relatively small versions of images and outside the dark background is the white page. It’s that white page – along with all the screen clutter on the non-slideshow pages – that I dislike most of all:

Admittedly, by publishing privately, I fail to benefit from the social aspect, but oddly enough, I really don’t miss that – what I primarily want from a photo site is the ability to display my pictures in an appropriate way.

My photos can be found here if you fancy a gander.

The middle of last December saw me celebrating two years of being subscribed to Last.FM. To tell the truth, the celebration was only really marked by my taking the above screenshot and promptly forgetting about it. Anyway, here I am now remarking on said event. At that point I’d listened to 42,345 tracks, Kraftwerk was my weekly top artist and my overall top artists were Kraftwerk, Ornette Coleman and Rhythm & Sound. Nothing much has changed since. When I signed up it was rather unattractively called Audio Scrobbler, the service was much less reliable and there was little of the social aspect the site now sports. Mog.com may be snapping at its heels (I’m not a fan of its busy interface), but Last.fm claims 15 million users which should ensure fairly accurate recommendations and neighbour matching.

Computers enable us to undertake an amazing variety of tasks. As part of that, it’s possible to have a large number of programs and windows open at any one time. Apple’s Expose and its forthcoming Spaces are attempts to ease the strain of managing the increasing complexity of multi-tasking at an operating system level. What this post is about is the development of specific applications that allows the user to rid themselves of distractions and focus entirely upon the matter at hand.

My first experience of this occurred a long time ago when I discovered how to work on an image in Photoshop against a black background and with all the palettes hidden by using the tab key. The problem I always found, however, was that accessing tools to work on the chosen image was a little fiddly, as was accessing other images (I know about cmd-tab, but with a lot of open files selection was clumsy). Fast forward quite a few years and the next sight of this radical decluttering came with iPhoto’s full-screen mode. Oddly, this lovely feature is rather difficult to access – as far as I’m aware, it’s only available by right-clicking on an image and choosing ‘Edit using full screen’. No matter, once discovered, you find yourself in a delightfully clear environment with your chosen image displayed at its maximum size, a browsing filmstrip and edit bar display momentarily before sliding off-screen together with the otherwise omnipresent upper menu bar. And with a flick of the cursor they return.

Apple’s pro photography programme, Aperture, follows in iPhoto’s footsteps and its fullscreen mode is similarly a little tucked away. Additionally, once located, it takes some research to discover how to hide the filmstrip browsing menu and it’s rather annoyingly set to reappear by cursor location which means it pops up frequently when it’s not wanted. Surprisingly, given Apple’s generally well-deserved reputation for clean interfaces, it’s Adobe’s interface for its Aperture competitor, Lightroom, that shows how things should be done. I’ve downloaded both apps in beta/demo form and found Lightroom to be far easier to learn without having to resort to the online help system. Accordingly, I was very quickly able to find and utilise the full-screen mode. Menus pleasingly slide out from the sides of the screen or at the touch of a single key (NB, one key e.g. ‘h’ for the adjustments palette, not ‘apple-h’ – making it just that bit easier). The malleability of Lightroom’s interface is a joy – it’s possible to hide and show a variety of elements by cursor movement (e.g. the structural sections Library, Develop, Slideshow, etc). I doff my hat to Adobe.

What these apps are doing, of course, is utilising the metaphor of the darkroom, just as Apple/Xerox Parc exploited the desktop metaphor. So too with the lovely Writeroom. Here is a program that hands the user a piece of paper and a pencil, turns off everything but the desk lamp and literally shoves everything off the desk. You’re alone with your inspiration (let’s hope you have some, otherwise Writeroom will soon become your most despited app!) Metaphors aside, this program darkens your screen and gives you a blinking cursor at the top of the screen. Nothing else. It’s a delightful piece of minimalism and a favourite of mine for getting down to writing without distraction.

I’m always interested in browsers, given their central importance for engagement with the online world so I download any that look interesting. Shiira exploits quite a few Apple interface elements (HUD panels, Expose-like multi-page browsing, etc.) and is, I think, the first OS X browser to implement a full-screen mode. A small semi-transparent menu tends to annoyingly open up at any cursor movement and the Aqua scrollbar is intrusive, but otherwise it’s a useful, enjoyable way of browsing the web undistracted.

In information-rich/overload times such as these, resources that act as editorial services become increasingly important. Software that enables focus upon single tasks without distraction (as well as facilitating complex, multi-part activities) is to be welcomed. If anybody is aware of any other decluttering apps, I’d be interested to hear. The likes of DVD Player, Front Row, etc are outside my scope of interest as they’re for passive viewing rather than active task fulfillment – having said that, I can’t resist wistfully mentioning Coverflow, the interface bought up and integrated by Apple into iTunes – the original app offered a glorious, full-screen mode that iTunes hasn’t, yet, implemented – please Apple, bring it back!

I’ve lost the link to the page, but this video serves well enough to show the Zune‘s interface with its fancy schmancy menu animation, crossfades, ability to set background pics, etc. The album browser screen shown above looks much more attractive to me than Apple’s text-based listing. I know that the Zune spreads the same resolution as the iPod’s over a larger area, but – apart from the inevitable battery drain and I’d guess some coarsening of the image – I’d say it looks like a good call, at least from the available screenshots and video. I don’t know about general usability (there seems to be the typical Microsoft over-abundance of options in the video), but the Zune interface makes the iPod’s look just a tad hairshirt and almost as old fashioned as my old Nokia’s black and white screen or Apple OS 9 relative to OS X. When/if Apple finally produces a wide-screen iPod, I hope they either add something like the current photo browser but for album covers or the iTunes 7 coverflow interface.

I find the physical design of the Zune to be quite a bit less attractive than the ‘Pod and the non-scrolling wheel and separate buttons don’t come anywhere near the elegance of Apple’s solution, but the ability to customise the Zune’s screen by adding the aforementioned backgrounds serves to distract from the squareness of the unit quite a bit. I think the ability to share music via wireless is fairly attractive as well: it’s something that as a sad music freak I would like to be easier with the iPod. How often I’d use it in practice I don’t know though, and the fact that most people wouldn’t have this functionality would significantly diminish its attraction – on the other hand, it may serve to bind Zune owners into a more tightly knit group.

Both Apple and Microsoft have their (often crazed) advocates, but the Zune looks like an interesting product to this longtime Apple user.

Well, it was a short-lived affair. I’ve just downgraded after experiencing more than 24 hours of sudden, silent exits. I suspect the problem is something to do with gapless playback. At the end of almost every track the application would hesitate for a moment or two and then quit without warning and without even triggering the send feedback mechanism. I tried all the standard stuff I could think (restarts, log-outs, running in vanilla mode and so forth), but to no avail. So it’s good-bye to wonky coverflow and to wonky album view (or whatever it was called) and hello Source Pane and the spinning Burn Disc icon a la iTunes 6.

De rigeur vertical gradient, lighter at the top, darker at the bottom as per version 6 – replaces previous kitsch-ey stainless steel surface of, if memory serves, version 5. Same light source is applied now to the slider controls which were previously aqua-fied. Aqua remains in the tick box, the dropdown menu for presets and the traffic lights. I wonder whether these elements will be retained or whether Apple’s interface designers are intent upon eradicating colour. If the overall look of iTunes 7 is anything to go by, that does seem to be the case, but one can live in hope. See Final Cut Pro for battleship grey design cues.

• right away in front of me, but I also want to see album art properly. I know, I want my cake and eat it. (This is the reason I don’t use the Quicksilver iTunes interface – too much scrolling – all well and good if you know exactly what you want to play, but who does very often – my experience is that more than half the time I just fancy listening to some music, but don’t know what.) Here’s what I’d like to see:
  • Either an interface that reflected the current Finder column view so that you made your choice of Genre (or chosen alternative) then followed through to Artist > Album. I’ve sketched this out before, but with iTunes 7, my updated, preferred option would be:
  • The aforementioned column view or retain the current multi-column browser interface, but when the album (or playlist or whatever) has been chosen and is being played, coverflow appears to display all the cover against the lovely, rather dramatic – and slightly chilly – black background, plus to the side the details of the album including performers, production, etc. gleaned from the tab of the MP3 file or preferably from a separate, but linked file.
  • Then again, I’ve just spotted that this is possible, which is quite nice (thought note still the acres of wasted space):
• 
  • Unfortunately, as soon I steer away from it or quit and restart iTunes the folder size reverts to the original, tiny version. Relevant tags: ‘irritating’, ‘frustrating’.
• Whatever, coverflow really doesn’t currently meet my requirements, at least as far as I can see – when choosing coverflow, I’m forced into a consecutive list view in the lower pane, there’s no chance to access the genre/artist/album view simultaneously. Shame.
• What’s also weird is that if I choose to play one album in the new ‘grouped with artwork’ view, it continues to play the next album in the list after the chosen one has finished. Not nice at all. It should stop at the end of the chosen album. This seems not properly thought out, but on the evidence of previous iTunes development, it may be a long time before it’s addressed.
• Interestly Daring Fireball has just written this in a post about the shuffle: “My cheap little Shuffle is far and away my favorite iPod. It ends up that the shuffle mode’s randomizer does a better job picking music I want to hear than I do. When I pick music manually, I tend to keep picking the same music I just listened to yesterday, and I bore myself.” I don’t have this exact problem, but I’d like a more intelligent way of suggesting albums than the random shuffle approach.
• The iTunes Store – like the screenshots of the movie store (apparently US-only until ’07) is a lively, colourful place – shame something similar can’t be done for iTunes – why can’t we have something like Last.FM’s Dashboard for iTunes with thumbnails of recently played album, long unplayed, random (or weighted) suggestion based upon what you’ve been listening to recently), etc – all from the tracking info iTunes already logs and customisable for the user.
• Another improvement still lacking is that if you navigate away from the playing track to check something about another album, then switch to a different app and pause the music, you lose the current track entirely. This is another one of those basic things that seems daft to see in an app at version 7.
• Still no interface for viewing lyrics (or whatever other data you’ve added) of the currently playing song without going into Get Information for the particular track and choosing the appropriate tab. Strange that this was added (in version 5?), but not fully exploited – could be a great feature, but currently seems like a forgotten impulse. Same goes for the ability to add multiple Artwork to each track.
• iTunes does still seem to be more of a resource hog, still getting spinning beachballs from time to time and coverflow artwork sometimes takes a moment to load.
• I’ve had to restart the app a few times to rid the interface of ugly blurring on the column titles, as illustrated below:

• And finally, now that iTunes is a storefront for movies, TV, audiobooks etc, why’s it still being called iTunes? It’s similarly position to the UK’s now weirdly named ‘Carphone Warehouse‘.
• All in all, I’m still underwhelmed. The problem with iTunes is that, yes, it’s fairly configurable, but I still have infinitely less choice in terms of interface than I do if I were buying audio playback hardware where a wide range of manufacturers and designers – from Bang and Olufsen to Amstrad (…) to NAD, etc – are all working towards the best marriage of sound quality and ergonomic design. Also the best (well you know what I mean) efforts of the creative visual teams behind the music are not being interfered with by the playback device – with a CD, I can still see all the details as intended (by the record company at least…) I wish I had the brains to be a programmer.

See also: Dan Hill’s post on iTunes 7 (favourite quote: “chances are that your album’s artwork won’t be in iTunes. (You can add it yourself, which is good, but not even I bother to do that.)” Er, no, neither do I, of course I don’t, who’d be that sad? Not me, no, no, no…