Category Archives: Geek

Leica Vista!

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And now, for something different! I lent my Sony SLT-A77 and Sony Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 24mm F2.0 ZA SSM to a friend, who then lent me his Leica M6 TTL and Carl Zeiss Biogon T* 35mm F2.0 ZM.


All shots are at F2.0 unless otherwise specified. No color, contrast or brightness adjustments were done – I just did an Unsharp Mask with amount 90%, radius 0.3 pixels, threshold 3 levels, before resizing it.

The film used was Agfa Vista ASA 400 color negative film.


Shot in the same area. You can see how it works under flourescent light – somewhat cool.


Under tungsten light. Not overly warm and seems to give milder colors.


I am not going to credit the photographer who took this out-of-focus picture of me. Well at least you get to see the horrid brightline bokeh of the Zeiss Biogon 35mm F2.0…


Well, it certainly doesn’t get all reddy like Kodak films do…


I think I stopped down to F5.6 for this.


This was probably at F4.0.


Indoors, with weak light.


When I finished my first roll and was winding it, I thought I finished winding it and opened the bottom of the M6. Crap! The film was still out, and it was exposed to light, causing the light leak you see above!

And I took longer to take her picture. I find it funny that I have to stop people and ask to take their picture, because I can’t focus a walking person fast enough on the M6.


This frame was probably more inside, thus getting a weaker light leak.


Well, sometimes you get lucky with walking people… probably F4.0 or so.


I had to underexpose, setting the shutter speed to 1/30th of a second. Any slower and there’d be motion blur caused by the people moving.


This is a 100% crop. All the pictures were scanned into 2.4 megapixels so it’s not a terribly tight crop.


And of course, I had to stop by the Leica Global Store at Avenue K, to try the beautiful Leica Noctilux-M 50mm F0.95 ASPH! This shot was at F0.95. Unfortunately the store was small so I couldn’t really get good subjects with the restrictive minimum focus distance of 1 meter.


Also at F0.95.

More to come, this time from my favorite film – Fujifilm Superia X-TRA ASA400!

Effective Processing

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So if I got myself a Schecter Omen Extreme-6 FR for my birthday, what did I get myself for Christmas?


A Digitech RP255 guitar multi-effect processor!

To be honest, I hankered for effects within the first day of playing with my new electric guitar. I used to have live sound effects on my SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 soundcard but that died, and Creative doesn’t put the sound effects in their newer EAX 5.0 cards anymore. I used to have so much fun with the SoundBlaster, as it had a pitch shifter, auto-wah, distortion, flanger, reverb, delay and the works!

With my current integrated soundcard, all I can do is boost the microphone signal to +20 decibels and rely on this digital overdrive.


The RP255 is the cheapest of the current series to have an expression pedal and a looper. The RP355, one step up, adds XLR jacks.

What really sold me on this, compared to say a Line 6, Boss, Rocktron, Zoom, was that it had a 20 second looper for that price, under RM700 (during the Bentley year-end sale.) The Zoom multi-effects pedals at that price had a 5 second looper, certainly not long enough! The Boss multi-effects pedals didn’t have a pitch shifter. Line 6 was out of my budget.

A pitch shifter is important to me because I have a Floyd Rose floating bridge and I don’t want to painstakingly retune my guitar each time I want to detune my guitar down an entire step. I can also drop it down an octave to become a bass, or pull it up like a whammy pedal would.

Of course, there is also that whammy sound… and the wah pedal, which I’ve missed! Out of the factory it is a bit too sensitive – so you absolutely must calibrate the expression pedal so it doesn’t toggle between volume and wah so easily. You could, of course, assign the pedal to do something else…

I also particularly like the user interface – I played around with all the settings, activating the looper and jamming with myself. I then read the manual, and I found I didn’t learn anything new, because I’d already figured everything out!

It has 120 preset tones – the first 60 can be overwritten. I can also download the X-Edit software and plug it via USB to download the preset tone into the RP255!

Unfortunately my Windows 7 installation is a bit broken so I need to reformat so I can get X-Edit to install properly – more on that once I get around to that! I’d then install Cubase LE 5, included with the RP255.

Since I have a 6.35″ to 3.5″ jack converter (and 3.5″ to 6.35″ as well) I can plug the RP255 straight into speakers, or into my Sony A77’s mike jack! I shall record a video of me using the looper and the pitch-shifted bass once I have an awesome riff to show.

So does it sound digital? I wouldn’t know, really, unless I heard it side-by-side with an analog signal. There is an analog tone, though.

In other news, I broke the low E string again – this time, it seemed to just loosen up at the bridge end. So I clipped it and reversed the string, putting it back in. I should’ve known when it started acting up, since it kept detuning rapidly within 1 minute of bending.

35mm Normally

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I got myself the Samyang 35mm F1.4 ED AS UMC for Sony Alpha A-mount!


It is, of course, a full-frame lens, for its full glory on my Sony Alpha 900. It is manual focus though – which is why it costs a lot less than the Sony 35mm F1.4G. It’s got a bit of weight at 700 grams for the A-mount version, and a 77mm filter thread.

My Opteka 85mm F1.4 (rebadged from Samyang) is very, very easy to manual focus. This lens, being wider, is a bit harder – I’d say with the 85mm I could get exact focus 95% of the time, with 5% being slightly off (not noticeable when not zoomed in.)

With the 35mm my perfection rate is probably a 75% – but after a few days, I got used to it and got better, about 85%. That said I’ve had the 85mm for 2 years already…

Interestingly, this is the only lens I’ve bought for all of 2011.

I knew that Samyang made awesome lenses – cheap because they are manual focus, but contrasty and sharp wide open! (Though when compared to a Zeiss it would lose in micro-contrast – the details are just crispier on the Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 85mm F1.4 ZA, for example.)

Just like the Samyang/Opteka 85mm F1.4, the aperture ring jumps from F1.4 to F2.0 then clicks in half-stops until F16, where it jumps to F22. Its minimum focus distance is a very useful 30cm close (compared to the rather weak close focusing of the Samyang 85mm F1.4 and Samyang 8mm F3.5 diagonal fisheye…)


On the Sony Alpha 77 – with focus peaking and Live View with magnification, it is a lot easier to quickly manual focus.


On the Sony Alpha NEX-5 with the Sony LA-EA1 A-mount to E-mount lens adapter.


So here are my primes!
Left to right: Peleng 8mm F3.5 M42 circular fisheye, Vivitar 24mm F2.0 OM-mount, Sony Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 24mm F2.0 ZA SSM, Samyang 35mm F1.4 ED AS UMC, Minolta 50mm F1.4 Original, Opteka 85mm F1.4, Sony Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm F1.8 ZA.


Clockwise from left: Samyang 35mm F1.4 ED AS UMC, Sony Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 24mm F2.0 ZA SSM, Minolta 50mm F1.4 Original, Sony Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm F1.8 ZA, Opteka 85mm F1.4, Vivitar 24mm F2.0 OM-mount, and the Peleng 8mm F3.5 M42 circular fisheye in the middle.


Be warned! The rear element sticks out when the lens is focused to infinity, so you may not want to put the lens on a table facing up…


Onto the pictures! 35mm F1.4 on full-frame. As a buddy of mine said, it looks kinda toy-camera-ish.


Click the image for the full 24-megapixel image from the A900! Wide open, it provides decent detail, with a minor amount of chromatic aberration.


Click the image for the full 24-megapixel image from the A900! As they say, F8 and be there!


Bokeh is generally good…


…though the out-of-focus highlights may sometimes exhibit concentric patterns like this. I have no idea why this happens.


There is a very slight tinge of brightline bokeh especially in the middle. Also notice that there is physical vignetting – not only do the out-of-focus highlights become cats-eyed in shape, they also get cropped.


There is a bit of barrel distortion.


This is my best effort to fix it without going into complex moustache distortion correction.


Anyway, F1.4! It will rule the night!


It picks up ambient color alright. Note the blue light on the trousers.


1/4th of a second, ISO1600, F1.4. There was a lunar eclipse that night, and the moon ended up looking red.


Jason through the NEX-5, LA-EA1 and of course Samyang 35mm F1.4. The angle of view is perfect for street photography and general multipurpose photography, whether on APS-C or full-frame.

35mm on full-frame is the same angle of view as your phone’s camera.


I took it to Rock The World 11! Here’s Maddame, a most awesome grunge band. I have to say though, that when he first got on stage and started shredding, I thought he looked like a Malaysian Marty Friedman, and even played like one! It wasn’t until he said his band represented the Malaysian grunge scene that I realized he was just playing some pretty riff-ful grunge!


A 100% crop of the above picture, taken with the 24-megapixel A77.


Ewin took this picture. Thanks Ewin!

Notice that the bokeh may sometimes be slightly wiry. That said it is generally good.


Lainey!


Into the night.


Waiting.


Depending on the light, you could turn it into day.


MSC Malaysia Cybercentre, in downtown KL – ironically, the most un-Malaysian part of KL.


Shot with the NEX-5. All I had to do was stand in their path to get a street shot like this!


Shot with the NEX-5 at F1.4. Thanks to Waifon for this picture!

All pictures were taken with the A900, with the Samyang 35mm F1.4 set at F1.4, unless otherwise stated (or if the lens is in the picture).

I bought the lens from Chia Hau – give him a holler if you’re interested! He deals with cameras and lenses.

Schect It Out!

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Meet my early birthday present to myself!


This is the Schecter Omen Extreme-6 FR in See-Thru Black, part of the Diamond series (which means that it is not a custom Schecter guitar.)

(Pictures of myself with guitar, credits to Waifon.)


Bolt-on neck – though this is slightly angled which makes it nice to lean your head on when it is in a gig bag.


Obligatory 12th-fret shot.


So you might ask – why not an Ibanez with a humbucker-single-humbucker (2-1-2) setup? You get 5 positions in that switch.


I get a 3-way switch between 2 humbuckers…


…but multiply those options by 2 since the Tone knob can be pulled up to switch to single-coil mode.

Of course, this means I don’t get a single/humbucker mix like in positions #2 and #4, but I get a single coil sound at the neck, or bridge, or both.

Although I’ve always hankered for a Ibanez Gio SA in butterscotch, I was deeply saddened to find that it had only 22 frets.

Also, Ibanez’s necks tend to feel a bit cold and impersonal to me. Maybe it’s the finishing of the back. The Schecters generally come with thicker necks – not size 0s.


The FR in its name is for Floyd Rose – it has a licensed Floyd Rose Special floating bridge. I picked this for my love of Pantera!


Somehow, the idea of your strings being held by a metal block is a bit eerie.


Tuners. I reckon I could turn those pegs any way I like…


…since the double-locking nuts are already in place. Gotta dig the 1st fret inlay too!


Guitar strap.

Those of you with sharp eyes might notice that the low E string is missing! This was because I tried doing a divebomb, then pulling it up to see how far it would go… and I snapped the low E string! Who would’ve thought?

And so, I learnt how to tune a Floyd Rose and adjust the back spring tension. It wasn’t that hard, though tuning up takes forever! So the low E string you see in other pictures is actually an Ernie Ball 0.042 Slinky.

In retrospect, since the string broke at the bridge, I could actually feed it into the block again. Alas!


When I got it from the shop it was leaning slightly back – here I’ve reduced the spring tension so the bridge is floating parallel to the body. Though it does make for stiffer action.

I bought a set of Ernie Ball .008-.038 Extra Slinkys to replace the strings when they wear out (and D’addario XL’s in .009-.042 – like the ones that came with the guitar). I learnt my lesson when breaking a string on my first night – to stock up!

All pictures with the Sony DSLT-A77 with Sony Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 24mm F2.0 ZA SSM.

Sony SLT-A77 v1.04 Compared To v1.03 Speed

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So I’ve updated my A77 to firmware version 1.04, but the lagginess in certain menus is still there. We tested with William Leong‘s A77, on v1.04, and mine on v1.03:

Initially everyone thought that v1.04 improved the speed to switch between LCD and EVF using the Eye-Start Sensor but as it turns out, from a side-by-side comparison, that it was perceptual and random. Both cameras had no memory card inside, though we were not able to match lenses since nobody brought matching lenses at the gathering, oddly.

Even turning on the A77 was the same speed!

We were not able to fairly test turning off the camera, as we didn’t have matching lenses, and it would be hard to record a video showing the EVF going off (or the anti-dust mechanism whirring.)

We did not do any noise tests – that would be far more tedious!

The link to download the A77 v1.04 firmware is here:

http://www.sony-asia.com/support/download/478891

Thanks to 8tvt whose A77 with the Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 was used to record this video. Thanks also for uploading it for us!

Rubik’s Cube Blindfold Solving: My Method

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This would have been an email to Edrei but I thought it would be good to share.

You should read this first, to get a good idea of how to do a cube blindfolded:
http://solvethecube.110mb.com/index.php?location=blindfold

As of time of writing, I have not ever solved a regular 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube blindfolded (definition: you get to look at it once, then when you look at it again it must be solved, and the cubes are all equal size, texture and shape to avoid differentiation by touch. The Rubik’s Mirror has cubes of different sizes and I can solve that blindfolded.)

I was hospitalized for contact dermatitis – I’m fine don’t worry, and I’m out of the hospital already! So I took the time spent there to learn how to do it blindfolded.

I use the Stefan Pochmann method as described in the link above, where you swap two pieces at a time, and remember which pieces to swap. I would either solve all edges first or all corners first.

Each corner sticker is given a letter. Each edge sticker is also given a letter. Since there are 24, it seems right to give each one an alphabet!


Corners.


Edges.

This assumes you have a proper Rubik’s Cube where the yellow is opposite white, red opposite orange, blue opposite green, like in the picture. You can choose any method of distributing the letters on the stickers.

There are only two formulas to truly learn – the T-Permutation and a (modified) Y-Permutation. The T-Permutation works on the edges while the Y-Permutation works on the corners.

The T-Permutation and (modified) Y-Permutation are actually made of 2 same sequences!

Sequence 1 = RU R’U’R’ FR
Sequence 2 = R U’R’U’ RU R’F’

The T-Permutation is Sequence 1 then Sequence 2.

The Y-Permutation is Sequence 2 then Sequence 1.

The T-Permutation swaps UL and UR edges, and UFR and UBR corners. UR is the source piece, so move the target ‘slot’ into UL in any way you prefer on the condition that you not displace UFR and UBR!

The Y-Permutation swaps LUB and DFR corners, and UL and UB edges. LUB is the source piece, so move the target ‘slot’ into DFR in any way you prefer on the condition that you not displace UL and UB!

So in an example cube, I would do the corners by looking at the corner with Q first, then seeing what is the corner piece with the V sticker, and determining where it should go. An example sequence:

JFPGVCXE

Then I would work on the edges, for example:

MSKELBGXUQJTOV

There was a closed cycle, which is why it took longer – on a good day you’d only have to remember 10 letters. For some reason, remembering them on my fingers seems to help. Remembering is not the problem – screwing up on one of the sequences, or doing the wrong reversal steps e.g. moving edge T to position in B via the back face and reversing the steps via the front face!

I have done a complete edge-only blindfold solve (very hard) and a complete corner-only blindfold solve (less hard since there are less corners than edges.) I have yet to commit to memory both a edge letter sequence and a corner letter sequence. Ah, there is so much to practice!

[WTS] Sony Alpha SLT-A55 with premiums

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Item(s): Sony Alpha SLT-A55 camera, body only, and other premiums

Package includes / Pictures:

1) Sony Alpha SLT-A55 camera, body only, everything in the box included. SOLD

2) Sony 16GB Class 4 SDHC card, never opened, 2 weeks old SOLD

3) Sony Alpha Vest SOLD

4) Sony Alpha Laptop Sleeve (Asus Eee Pad Transformer tablet not included, for illustration purposes only – about the same length as an iPad)

5) Sony Cybershot passport holder, cap and card holder SOLD

6) Sony Alpha Duffel Bag (imagine a Santa Claus bag but made of a leather-like plastic – its top folds to become waterproof) SOLD

7) Sony Cybershot leather bag (fits a laptop)

Price: If buying items separately:
1) Sony Alpha SLT-A55 – SOLD
2) Sony 16GB Class 4 SDHC – SOLD
3) Sony Alpha Vest – SOLD
4) Sony Alpha Laptop Sleeve – RM50
5) Sony Cybershot passport holder, cap and card holder – SOLD
6) Sony Alpha Duffel Bag – SOLD
7) Sony Cybershot leather bag – RM100

Warranty: The A55 has a Sony Extended Warranty until 7th October 2013.

Dealing method: Cash On Delivery (COD)

Location of seller: PJ or KL, anywhere accessible by public transport

Contact method/details: send a Private Message.

Age of item: 1 year

Item(s) conditions: With the exception of the A55, everything else was not used and opened only to take pictures.

Reason for sale: Upgraded to A77.

Agent Double Seven

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Meet my new 24 megapixel camera, shot by my old 24 megapixel camera through… you guessed it… a Sony Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 24mm F2.0 ZA SSM lens!


Like my old 24 megapixel camera, it has a top LCD display (which I still don’t find a need for.)


However, this new 24 megapixel camera has a pop-up flash, and can trigger Sony wireless flashes!


Its screen can also flip out…


…and wave at you from the side! Heck you can even have it face the subject, or sometimes yourself, in case you’d like to camwhore.


In case you forgot where you took the picture, the built-in GPS unit will tell you.


This is, of course, none other than the Sony Alpha SLT-A77! This has a whopping 12 frames per second of APS-C goodness, the highest-pixel-density APS-C camera ever.


Size comparison to my Sony SLT-A55 and Sony DSLR-A900 (the old 24 megapixel camera.)

So how is it?

My A77 came out of the box with firmware v1.03.

Somehow I get the feeling that it’s not comfortable getting tested with my Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-1 45MB/s card – it occasionally kicks up the “writing to card error – cancel/retry?” message. I let it run through the process, which I presume ‘undeletes’ files, and may possibly wipe files from other cameras i.e. my previous A55 pictures. After that it didn’t happen again, but then I didn’t do burst-mode testing with RAW again. The writing speeds after bursts are not consistent (they were, on the Memory Stick Pro Duo HG 30MB/s with the A55).

In general yes, it does seem a bit sluggish in certain screens, enough that Sony should be doing something about it right now.

So, how does it perform with the Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-1 45MB/s card?

Rough testing with 12 FPS mode; I held down the shutter until it slowed down and I stopped pressing the shutter.
RAW+JPG = 11 shots before slowdown, 9 seconds (from release) before black screen clears, 16 seconds (from release) before red light clears. About 0.7 FPS if you continue holding down the shutter when it slows down.
24 megapixel Extra Fine JPG = 12 shots before slowdown, 7 seconds (from release) before black screen clears, 11 seconds (from release) before red light clears. About 1.3 FPS if you continue holding down the shutter when it slows down.
24 megapixel Standard JPG = 13 shots before slowdown, 5 seconds (from release) before black screen clears, 6 seconds (from release) before red light clears. About 3 FPS if you continue holding down the shutter when it slows down.
6 megapixel Standard JPG = 13 shots before slowdown, 2 seconds (from release) before black screen clears, 4 seconds (from release) before red light clears. About 4-5 FPS if you continue holding down the shutter when it slows down.

Note that there is a variance where the black screen and red light may clear faster, or occasionally slower. Also, you are able to half-press to kill the black screen and resume shooting (usually) unlike how it was on the A55.

If you continue holding down the shutter, the FPS slows down or speeds up sometimes.

I also tried using the RMT-DSLR1 remote to trigger all three cameras with a flash in manual power mounted – the A900 fired first, followed by the A77, and the A55. So there is still a bit of flash delay, but not as bad as the A55. I haven’t done meticulous testing for this, but if the delay isn’t causing me to lose photos, I’d just leave it at that.


Picture of the A77 with F58 mounted in CTRL/CTRL2 mode, triggering the F43 and F56, not possible previously on a 7-series body!

As a crazy bonus, it seems that the camera totally supports wireless flash using the F20 on body, the F43/F58 in CTRL/CTRL2 mode to trigger an F56, which was only possible on the A850 and A900 before this!

So what about actual pictures from the A77? Well I’ve posted some before:
Jakling And The A77
A77/A65/NEX-5N Launch, Part 1

Jakling And The A77

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I had a chance to try the Sony Alpha SLT-A77 thanks to Sony. We had Jakling, a model, work with us to get these shots. This would be a great opportunity to see what this 24 megapixel APS-C sensor camera could do!


The pop-up flash was used to trigger an off-camera HVL-F58AM flash in this one.

Thanks to Michael Chee, our tall Voice Activated Lightstand!


Wide, with the Sony 16-50mm F2.8 DT SSM.


These are all JPGs straight out of the camera.


I think this was the High Contrast Monochrome picture effect.


This, the Posterization (color) effect.


Posterization (black and white).


Soft filter. I love how it treats overexposure!


Smile Detection, with the LCD screen turned to face her so she could see herself smiling. 😀


Bokeh from the 16-50mm is, well, average. 28mm F2.8.


Top: Lens correction off.
Bottom: Lens correction on.

This feature only works for four lenses at the moment:
1) Sony 16-50mm F2.8 DT SSM
2) Sony 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 DT SAM
3) Sony 55-200mm F4.0-5.6 DT SAM II (note that this is not the same as the screw-driven Sony 55-200mm F4.0-5.6 DT)
4) Sony 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DT

Sony plans to add support for more lenses with firmware updates.


45mm F3.5 ISO100 1/250s.

I tweaked the levels slightly on this one. Note where the shadows are. This is also a portrait-oriented crop of a landscape shot.


This is a 100% crop of the above picture, not from the JPG, but from the RAW, processed with Adobe Camera RAW 6.5. (As always, ACR and Lightroom get the RAW support first.) I have intentionally pulled the shadows and restored the highlights so you get an idea how far a RAW file from the A77 can go. I could’ve pulled the shadows more but it would’ve looked very unnatural.

Sure, the shadows do exhibit some noise, but remember that I pulled it from pretty much black into midtone territory, making it no longer ISO100!

My Apple Story

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I am admittedly an Android fanboy, but today I shall tell you the stories of Apple and my close encounters with the tech giant.

Steve Jobs passed away from pancreatic cancer on the 5th of October 2011. The Internet was abuzz with stories of how they loved Apple and Steve Jobs. The Internet, just the day before, was abuzz with Apple lovers and Apple haters all trolling the underwhelming iPhone 4S. I resisted the urge to troll because really, I did have respect for him, although I never agreed with any of Apple’s products. I understood why they were made that way, but I also knew that they didn’t work for my way.

When I was a kid, I first saw my cousins playing Karateka on their computer. Years later, I found out that it was actually an Apple clone. Remember back in the days when computers were either made by IBM, or “IBM compatible”? Yes, other companies made Apple-compatible clones back then, legally. Of course, Apple no longer allows this.

BASICally

When I was about 12 years old, I learnt BASICA from my dad’s IBM-compatible XT computer. It loaded off a diskette. I learnt how to write my first HELLO WORLD program from books that he had photocopied and binded.

10 CLS
20 PRINT “HELLO WORLD”
30 END

One Chinese New Year, I met my uncle (not related to those cousins) and he told me he studied Computer Science in the United States. He programmed in BASIC, too… but not in BASICA. Instead, he programmed in Apple BASIC! When he told me this, it was as if he had come from an alternate parallel universe! He pulled out a book about Apple BASIC and I read it. Whoa, what weirdness is this? I thought.

It is interesting to note, that BASIC brought Microsoft and Apple together many years ago, when Steve Wozniak was making a BASIC interpreter for Apple, and he just never got around to making it support floating-point numbers. (I find it weird that Steve Jobs didn’t then dictate that it would not be, and that decimal points and real numbers don’t exist.) And so, Apple turned to Microsoft, who had made a BASIC interpreter that supported floating point operations, and asked for help.

Throughout my high school life I was surrounded by IBM-compatible PCs and Microsoft Windows. Quake was the rage, and I brought my computer to school so we could all play Counter-Strike 5.5, I think.

Jam Hari-Hari

It wasn’t until I was in college, when I would hang out at malls, that I’d bump into Jamhari, my old schoolmate, who was working at Machines, 1 Utama. They had an electric guitar there, and it was plugged to a Power Mac G4 (I think) running Garageband. It was then I got a feel of the mouse that had no right-click. It was slippery and weird. Why couldn’t I just maximize a screen, dammit? Worse of all was that when I turned on an effect of any kind, there would be a delay between what I played and what came out of the speakers. I can’t remember if the delay was there when all effects were off. And often, it would crash.

So yeah, I had a good idea of how ‘stable’ Mac products were.

At home, I had built my own PC, and put in a SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 card, with a microphone input. I borrowed (another) cousin’s electric guitar and plugged it in. The SBLive! card allowed you to tweak EAX effects and add distortion, autowah, flanger, and so on, all in real time, with no lag!

So again, I gave a big meh at the big shiny metal Power Mac G4. What a load of overpriced, underperforming crap it was, I thought.

My First Opposition

At that time, I’d listen to MP3s on my MP3 player, that doubled as a USB thumb drive. I could just copy songs in, and copy them out, with nobody getting in my way. The iPod, however, would only let you copy songs in, but not out, and only through iTunes, and it could occasionally wipe out your songs if you hold it the wrong way. Nah I’m just kidding about the hold-wrong-way part. 😉

Plus, I never understood the whole click wheel navigation. So I thought the iPod was gay. To own it back then, you’d either have to be gay, or a musician. That impression of mine continued on to the hipsters lugging Macbooks around.

I understand why the iPod did that, to protect the music industry. However, that was none of my business – I just wanted to get my songs from home to office and back.

iNcomplete

It was around then that I was frequently chatting with Mystery Wolf on MSN. I remember that she had an iMac, and MSN for iMac was missing a lot of features like voice chat. I remember us thinking how sucky it was to have a Mac back then, to have lousy software support.

I also remember the Machines shops, because they were the only places that sold games for Macs! Again, I laughed and felt pity for them when I saw a small shelf of games. Quake 2 was there. In the PC shop next door, they’d sell Quake 3 for Windows! It was quite a while after that I noticed Quake 3 for Mac. Which is funny, since I have the impression that John Carmack and company liked Macs, but understood that the market was with the Microsoft platform.

Powered By Mac

Meanwhile, at Digital Five where I worked, a new Creative Director was hired, and he was all into Macs. So he bought all the designers Powermac G5 workstations! The developers were just like me – what, program on a Mac? No way. So we chose to get souped-up Dells instead.

I remember that whenever a designer asked me for help and I took that (again) slippery mouse, I ended up being frustrated when I just wanted to click something on the side of the screen and I end up teleporting to another screen. Dammit, stop flipping already!

After a year, some of the Macs weren’t in such good shape and were crashing. Some designers were not enamoured at all by the end of the experience, and would rather use a PC.

When the iPhone came, but in Malaysia, amongst the people I knew, nobody knew about it.

Then the iPhone 3G came. Again, nobody.

It wasn’t until the iPhone 3GS that I knew of two colleagues, both designers, who secretly desired the iPhone 3GS but would not admit it. So they both secretly went to order it. I was there, I touched it, but I wasn’t enamoured – I didn’t like the idea of touchscreens then, as they felt slippery to me. Typing on the keyboard, to me, was like playing Super Mario and running all the time – you’ll slide off the edges and fall into holes! I didn’t like that feeling at all.

And then, Apple really took off in Malaysia. I’d say the level of fanboyism multiplied greatly as of the iPhone 3GS. Before this, could you ever get annoyed by someone who loved his/her iPod? Not likely. The iPhone 3GS however, amplified antisocial behavior at dinners and parties. If anybody started playing with their phones and annoying their company, it was the iPhone 3GS owners first.

Somehow, Blackberry owners never got any flak, because we knew Blackberry people were attending to serious business, while iPhone owners were just playing games!

It seemed around the same time, that Macbook owners started coming out. I’m sure people owned Macbooks before this, just that they didn’t express their love as openly as they did before. So I’d see someone I knew with a Macbook and I’d think, “eh, I didn’t know you were gay!”

Then of course came the iPad, iPhone 4 and iPad 2. I still resist the urge to ask people which contest they won their iPad 2 from (this punchline was stolen from Yauhui…)

In my opinion, iOS was always missing some big feature, be it MMS, 3G, Bluetooth, multitasking, good notifications, voice recognition, that would only be introduced in the next version. I always thought iOS to be incomplete, compared to mature OSes like Symbian.

A modern smartphone is made of:
– a CPU
– a 3G/4G radio (radio meaning wireless modem, really, not a AM/FM radio)
– a touchscreen
– one or more cameras
– an external, removable storage slot
– internal storage
– a Bluetooth radio
– a WiFi radio

Every smartphone OS before iOS allowed full interoperability between each of the above components.

I could take a picture with my camera, put the micro SD card in the phone, and upload it via 3G or WiFi, or even Bluetooth it to a friend.

Heck I could take a picture and Bluetooth it to a friend. Or send a contact via Bluetooth.

I could have a 3G video call, involving the 3G radio and the camera.

I could run a WiFi website from my phone, so my computer could access all its files wirelessly, including the songs.

The iPhone, of course, could not do any of that! Why do I have to email an iPhone user a picture, when their phone is right next to mine? What if we can’t get an Internet connection and we’re at a restaurant underground where there is no 3G reception?

That is why I say the iPhone is a smartphone, but it’s not smart enough.

Sure, you can jailbreak the iPhone and hack it to your heart’s content, installing Android-style notifications and Android-style “Live Wallpapers”… but an un-hacked Android still is a lot more capable, out of the box. Heck you can’t interact with the fake Live Wallpapers on jailbroken iPhones. On Android you can click the Live Wallpaper (or tilt the phone, or cover the light meter, or talk to it) to interact with it.

Anyway.

I see why Apple did what they did. Why they left out so many features. They wanted each feature to be perfect in their view, and it’s quite likely that a feature that could not be completed by a certain date would be pushed to next year’s release.

I am also begrudgingly thankful to Steve Jobs for killing. He killed the arrow keys! The first Macintosh didn’t have arrow keys so that people were forced to use the mouse. Of course, the keys came back in the next Mac, and we all eventually got used to the mouse. Eventually.

He also killed the CD, with the iPod, and the iPad, that won’t accept CDs!

He killed resistive screens, for which I am thankful.

He killed buttons with the iPhone. Though some may view the 3 compulsory buttons on Android and Windows Phone 7 to be old-school thinking, I disagree. The Back, Home and Menu buttons make multi-tasking on Android far superior. (Pressing Back on Windows Phone 7 when at Home loads the last loaded app, which is really neat, because it undoes a Home press!)

You may say hey, doesn’t iOS have multi-tasking? Sure, but you can’t flow between programs as easily. An example:

You’re playing Angry Birds, and you waste a bird and want to restart the level. Then you see the ad for a fluffy Angry Bird collectible. You click on it.

It loads the Android Browser. You want to share this with your friends on Facebook. So you long-press on the URL and click Share page. Android shows you a list of applications that you can use to share URLs with.


Like so. (Yes, I have an unreleased Twitter app.)

I choose Facebook, and Facebook loads a dialog that lets me post the URL. I am now in the Facebook app! So I shared it, and I press Back, and I am back in the Browser!

I can then long-press the URL again, and click Share page, and choose to share it over Google+, or ANY app that I have installed on my Android, that is capable of sharing!

So yeah, where was I? Angry Birds. So I press Back, and the Browser window closes, and I am back playing Angry Birds.

Angry Birds -> Browser -> Facebook -> back to Browser -> Google+ -> back to Browser -> back to Angry Birds

Note that I did not have to press the Home button (like on iOS) to get back to the Browser or Angry Birds. I just press Back.

This also helps if I am doing something important, and I get distracted by an incoming message. I reply the message, then I press Back, and I get to continue whatever important thing it was that I was doing!

Meanwhile, iOS doesn’t let an app launch another app. They’d rather you open a link in a browser window, within your app. You also cannot share to any program you like, so you’ll have to wait a while before your favorite apps let you share with Google+ or LinkedIn or Flickr etc.

If you’ve taken a picture on Android, you can Share the picture with any app that can share pictures or edit them! So I don’t have to load the PicPlz app and take another picture just so I can use a PicPlz effect on it! Or a MyTubo effect. Or a Paper Camera effect. Or a Flickr effect.

And so I wonder where Apple is going, seriously – they seem to be listening to what people want, or what other people have, a bit too much lately – look at iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S! How much of that is anything as nefarious as Steve ripping the arrow keys out and forcing people to use the mouse, or ripping out the right-click, or removing the floppy disk drive, or?

Nothing has been forced on the customer in 2011. In iOS 5, users have the option to set notifications to drop down from the top (banner), pop-up in front (alert) or not show at all. I don’t see any of Steve’s trademark, radically changing and forcing users to learn something new. How will users migrate then, if it is optional? Who is going to tell you that you’re holding it wrong?

Yeah, I guess I would miss someone like that, telling people that they’re holding it wrong. Rest in peace, Steve Jobs.