I have a love/hate relationship with the iTunes App store and the Android market.  Generally lately, it's more hate than love.  Why?  Well, the iTunes app store has WAY too many apps, most of them of no use to me, and it's really hard to find decent apps.  I'm sure many apps I would use a lot are buried somewhere in that store, never to see the light of day.

The android market has some issues of its own.  Number one, you can only view the large majority of the store on the device itself(though you can view a small portion of it online).  The G1's screen is certainly large enough for that, but I wish I could open up the store in my browser and look through the apps.  It would just be easier on the eyes, and it'd be a quicker look. 

I found this article on Gizmodo today(Link opens in a new window or tab).  Chorus for iPhone Puts a Better App Store Inside the App Store.  So it looks like developers are aware of the problem and are working on way around it. 

(envIO networks, inc:  Please make a version of this for Android.  kthxbai)

Is this process just as horrible on Blackberry and Windows Mobile?  Is it worse? 

I'm going to do a review of this in a day or so, after I've had a chance to play with it more and really get a feel for it, but first impressions:

1)  It's a lot more comfortable than it looks
2)  The button clicking is solid
3)  The finger scrolls are intuitive and easy to adjust to (especially if you turn on momentum detection)
4)  The 2 finger slide to navigate back and forth (like back and forward in a browser, for example) is annoying because I keep doing it without meaning to.  I shut it off.

All in all, a great mouse. 

I love these Apple iPod Touch Ads that are embedded into a web page and interact with the navigation bar and the header.  I posted a link to a video of one on IGN.com yesterday.  Today, there was one up on Wired and I got to see it live.  It was pretty cool.  I recorded it in High Definition, because all of the other youtube videos of the ad have been low quality in my opinion.  So for those that missed it, here is the Ad.  Make sure you hit the HD button (You might actually have to go to youtube's site to do that, not sure.)  I've also noticed that youtube videos don't show up in my friends page and if that's true of you, you'll have to click through to my journal to see it inline. 

Apple has a new iPod shuffle out.  I was in the market for a new one, since the first gen I'm using is starting to lose its ability to hold a charge.  But I'll never buy this new one.  Sure, the ability of the new shuffle to talk is kind of cool, but you have to use the Apple earbuds to control it.  I hate earbuds to begin with, and Apple's aren't all that great.  The shuffle itself has no controls.  That means I can't use my own earphones with it.  

Someone said to me:  "Well, their will be 3rd party earphones for it soon enough."  Yeah, but I want to use the earphones I already have.  Way to go Apple.  You saved an ounce and lost a sale.   

I'm trying to learn Cocoa Programming, but I hate Objective-C.

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.  

Why couldn't Apple use a C++ interface?  *sigh*.   

I'm writing for a new online destination site called "Apple Thoughts." It's part of a group of sites, like Zune Thoughts and Pocket PC thoughts. We cover Apple news and Apple products. If you're have an iPhone/iPod Touch and/or a Mac, go take a look:

http://www.applethoughts.com

Ed and I went line camping again, this time at the Apple Store in the Lehigh Valley Mall. End result, after 1/2 hour, no more iPhone 3G's were left. Second result: Ed realized that he already has an iPhone, and it's upgraded to the 2.0 software. So, um, why are we standing on lines when he's got the 3G ordered through AT&T. It's only a matter of time until he gets his. No sense in being one of the sheep in front of the store (and I realized: Hey, I want people to "line up" as it were, for my products. I so want to be the wolf that waits for the sheep to come to him, LOL)


( Picture after the cut )

Okay, for those who don't know about this whole story, let me start at the beginning. Apple's EULA for OS X says that you can only install OS X on Apple approved hardware. (Lame, I know). Well, a plucky little company called Psystar has started selling machines that run Leopard.

The technical details of how they get this to work is irrelevant to this discussion (though it is interesting, from a hardware hacking point of view.) They are basically doing the exact same thing that the creators of the Kalyway Leopard did, which is emulate the Apple Darwin bootloader.

Apple has pretty much ignored them for a long time. There were some issues at first (like the fan on the motherboard running constantly, and no security updates), but Psystar has fixed these issues. They sell several products with Leopard as an optional install.

July 3rd, Apple finally filed a lawsuit against Psystar. I don't know why, but I'm praying Psystar wins. Of course, their only legal defense is to claim that the EULA is not binding because it contains illegalities, thus making voiding the EULA. The primary illegality is of course, the Doctrine of First Sale. Basically, if Apple sells me a Leopard disc, and I sell it, whoever I sell it to should be able to install it wherever they want. Of course, Apple will claim that what they sell is a license to use Leopard on Apple approved hardware. The courts have had mixed feelings about EULAs over the years, but precedence is on the side of Psystar.  In Softman v. Adobe and Novell, Inc. v. CPU Distrib., Inc, the courts said the bundled software could be resold, despite the software creators' claim that it was only a license(the EULA) they were selling and distributing.

From a legal standpoint, it's easy to see how Psystar can win this.  Any person could reasonably assume that they were purchasing software, not just a license, when they bought a copy of OS X Leopard.  It comes in a physical box with a physical disc.  It is reasonable to conclude, then, that some good was transferred, not just a license.  Psystar will be fighting an uphill battle, of course, because of the sheer amount of money that Apple can throw at this if they choose to.  Personally, I'd pony up some money for Psystar if they asked, even though I would never buy one of their machines (I like my security updates to work in a timely fashion.)

So what happens if Apple loses this battle?  Who knows.  It will make a lot of software manufacturers nervous. 

I love the OS X dock. One feature I wish it had, though, was the ability to set up multiple docks depending on task. For example, a dock with graphics applications when I was working on graphics, or a dock with internet applications when I was surfing the web, checking email, etc.

Well, now I can do that. Dock Spaces is a handy little program that sits in the menu bar and lets you change your dock to one of five docks. It also lets you control some docks settings, which is extremely convenient.

You can find it at http://web.mac.com/patrickjamelo/Dock/Dock.html

I took some screenshots of 4 different docks on my system. Default, Graphics, Programming and Internet. Click on any one of them for biggie goodness.

( Pics after the cut )

I'm making the switch to Mac OS X from Winblows

My reasons for doing so are at my tech blog. Click here for the entry

Ed purchased my first Mac for me, so I won't have to shell out that much money up front. (Thanks Ed). I'm getting a MacBook 2.2 Ghz Dual Core, with 1 gig of RAM (not enough, but it'll do for now). Ed is getting a MacBook Pro. We decided to make the switch together.

After I up the RAM, I will be running Linux in Parallels or VirtualBox.