The second thing that struck me was how much Steve sweated the details. Every little detail had to be just right. Insanely great. The exact colour of beige used for the computer case. The perfectly fitted edges. The lack of (or at least minimal use of) screws. The control of the product from hardware to software and everything that entails. This has prompted me to take a look at my own attention to detail, and while I believe that Steve Jobs’ level of passion in this regard is not something I necessarily have to emulate, I think that I’ve been cutting the corners a bit too much in my work.

My oldest iPhone app that I have on the store, Crate 33, isn’t bad, but I know of a few areas that need improvement that I’ll be addressing. These include the terrible name and icon. I did a much better job on my second app, iBorrow. I’m quite proud of it. But I can think of at least one button that needs some TLC, and one function that should be removed. I’ve also started work on my next app, and I’m trying to make it even better. Since I’m not a graphic or UX designer by any stretch of the imagination, and I can’t afford to hire one, making the app look perfect is quite problematic. I’m learning, however, and I hope that I can come up with something really nice.

I really appreciate the polish and detail that my favourite apps have, and I’m going to strive much harder to do that in the iPhone work I do every day.

Before the iPhone 4S was released in Canada, I called up Rogers and asked if I could get it for the cheap price by putting it on my wife’s cellphone account. It didn’t have a data plan, but they said that was okay. So on the day Rogers made pre-orders available I got up at 5:55AM, put in my pre-order, and went back to bed. I was #47 in line for a 64GB white iPhone 4S. On release day I head over to the store to pick it up and they inform me that I cannot get the upgrade pricing without a data plan. So I’d have to pay almost full price for the phone on my wife’s account. And on my account I’d have to pay extra fees for wanting to upgrade partway through my contract. So I reluctantly told them to keep the phone, and I got my $30 deposit back.

A week later my boss tells me to go ahead and buy an unlocked one from Apple, which made my day. It only made sense. I’m the only iPhone developer at my company, which makes mobile apps, mostly on the iPhone. So I put in my order to Apple and a couple weeks later I got my iPhone 4S.

I think my eldest daughter is more in love with Siri than I am. She keeps wanting to ask Siri questions and show Siri to friends and relatives. I like Siri, but don’t use Siri every day. Siri is a great feature, however, and I do use it. The speech recognition is a lot better than I thought it might have been, especially given my past experience with Dragon Dictation. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good.

I also enjoy the better camera. I always have my iPhone in my pocket, so I use it quite a bit for taking snaps of my kids or whatever. The better camera is a boon to me, and the image stabilization for the video camera makes the video camera actually usable. I never used the video camera before, just because the videos were too shaky. Now, however, I plan to take more video. I wish, though, that I could specify that 720p is enough. I don’t need 1080p video.

I can’t really say that I’ve noticed much of a speed improvement over my iPhone 4 (which is now my wife’s). Maybe some things are faster here or there. But all in all it’s Siri and the camera that have me satisfied with the iPhone 4S.

I’m not the most eloquent of people, but I will say that as an iPhone developer who always has an iPhone in his pocket, and uses a Mac every working day, that much of my life has been defined by a man I’ve never met.

I’ll miss Steve Jobs.

R.I.P.

1) When I tried Dragon Dictation on my iPhone, it was terrible. This is supposed to be use one of the best technologies for voice recognition available, and I think that Siri uses the same engine underneath (correct me if I’m wrong). I tried dictating several sentences to this thing, and it got more than half the words wrong. Maybe my very very slight German accent is throwing it off …

2) Many of Siri’s features look quite useful to me. Many others, especially the oft-demod ones to do with interacting with other people and calendars, are for social butterflies. Which I definitely am not.

3) Now this one I’ll just have to see how well it works in practice. But the demo said that I need to hold the Home button down for several seconds to activate Siri. That’s a bummer. Can’t the iPhone just always be listening if there’s no active app and it’s not in sleep mode? Siri would know I’m talking to it because I would say “Siri, tell me why I’m not a billionaire yet.” (And then of course Siri would metaphorically roll her eyes and tell me what a dufus I am.)

Apple’s Info on Siri

It’s been too long since the iPhone 4, Apple. Time to spill the beans.

So what is it about the iPhone 5 that is taking so long to develop? Insiders and pundits suggest that the iPhone 5 will have the A5 processor that’s also in the iPad 2, so the core CPU is a known quantity. Are they having trouble with heat dissipation perhaps? I’m just guessing. Rumour sites also suggest that the iPhone 5 will have a larger display, but then we also read that the iPhone 5 will not have a larger display. Who to believe? Mixed messages are all we’re getting on this front, but even a larger display doesn’t tell us why we’re getting a six month delay. Especially since the display will probably have the same resolution as the iPhone 4′s Retina display.

The latest rumours are that the iPhone 5 won’t even ship with iOS 5 installed. Developers who have the latest beta are saying that iOS 5 is awesome but isn’t ready for prime time. So put those things together, and you can’t blame iOS 5 for the iPhone 5′s extra development time.

What other features could Apple possibly be adding to this phone? NFC? Hardly rocket science. Frankly I’m flummoxed. Does Apple have another market-shifting product in the works? Something we can’t imagine until it happens? Will the iPhone 5 be one of those products that’ll make Samsung, HTC, and RIM moan in despair?

All I can say is, it better be worth it!

I found that Twitterrific was the only Mac client that supported Tweet Marker, which was fine. Especially because it was on sale for just five bucks. So I bought and installed it on my Mac.

I can now report that Tweet Marker doesn’t work very well. The Twitterrific folks replied to my complaining tweets about this by saying that it works for them. Great for them. But no help to me. They pointed out that I have to exit the apps for optimal performance, but that didn’t seem to help much. (It did help a little.) Sometimes it worked going from Twitterrific to Tweetbot. But not if Tweetbot had to load so many tweets that it had to skip some – even if the marker was on a tweet that was not skipped. Going from Tweetbot to Twitterrific was even worse. It just wasn’t reliable.

So now I’m back to a one-client Twitter universe. Back to Tweetbot. I hope the Tweet Marker, Tweetbot, and Twitterrific folks can get this stuff working, because I’d really love to use it.

[Update: Now that I've read this post, I almost want to give Tweet Marker another chance. I'll tell you what happens if I do.]

I’m not the most social of people, I’m not a type A, and I am definitely an introvert. But recently I decided to branch out a bit and go to some social events here in Ottawa. It started at Startup Drinks Ottawa (@OTTStartupoDrink on Twitter), where I met a few people. I didn’t really move from table to table (we only made one such move when the table we were at was getting too crowded), but luckily lots of people wanted to drop by our table. I met some new people and added them to my Twitter stream.

Next up was CocoaHeads Ottawa. They had two very interesting presentations, but there wasn’t a lot of socializing. Maybe that happened at the bar afterwards, but from what I saw, not a lot of people went to that (I didn’t).

Last was Mobile Monday, and it was a great event. One of the organizers was Macadamian, an old employer of mine. I couldn’t believe they’re up to about 170 people now! When I was there, the company was about 25 people in size.

There were several headhunters at the Mobile Monday event, looking for mobile developers. That made me feel good because, you know, I’m a mobile developer.

Much to my chagrin I had to miss the last Startup Drinks Ottawa, but I’ll definitely try to make the next one. There are a lot of interesting people to talk to, even if I’m doing a lot more listening than talking.

RIM recently announced the cutting of 2000 jobs. This is weird on the one hand because RIM is still profitable, and wouldn’t they want those people to help them regain their leadership position? It’s understandable on the other hand because RIM isn’t doing so well anymore, and they want to prevent actual losses in the upcoming quarters.

As a Canadian, I’m sad that this has happened to RIM. I want our darling high tech company to succeed and to give those yanks a walloping! As a cell phone user, I much prefer the iPhone and just wish the BlackBerry would go away already so that the company I work for doesn’t have to worry about it. On a personal level, I’m really hoping that those I know with RIM jobs don’t lose theirs before they find something new. And I hope they’re wise enough to be looking.

And therein lies the secret to Apple’s incredible success in the stock market. The reason AAPL has done so well over the last 10 years is precisely because Apple hasn’t focused on its share price — and instead focused on making “beautifully designed products that are user centric and work how they are supposed to work.” As Fortune magazine put it: “Most companies view the P&L [Profit and Loss statement] as the ultimate proof of a manager’s accountability; Apple turns that dictum on its head by labeling P&L a distraction only the finance chief needs to consider.”

Check out the full article here: