Technology

So we now have Vine

Jeromey Balderrama

Well it took many months, but it looks like Vine finally came to Android.  After downloading it and playing with it, I’m sorry to say I’m not too impressed.  First and foremost, check out my crappy first attempt at making a Vine, showing off our nursery we’ve been working on.  I’d love to have embedded the Vine into my post, but alas they don’t offer that functionality. Update: Stupid me didn’t see the “Embed” link at the bottom:

Speaking of limited functionality, some of my first thoughts of this app include:

  • Seriously, the videos just auto-play when the app loads?!?
  • There’s no way to mute the volume??? (at this point I regretted starting the app while in the office)
  • How does this Twitter app not use Twitter O-Auth?
  • Why is this audio out of sync when I record?

What I don’t get is how a nearly 10 billion dollar company like Twitter can take so long to release an Android app, and when it does, it feels so lack-lustered?  I can definitely appreciate the intricacies of app development, and I realize that you can’t simply throw more bodies to make an app better, but this seems incredibly half-baked.  It’s a little ironic that Twitter, a company that is sacrificing (3rd party) app functionality in favor or their web interface, produces an app like Vine that has such a bare-bones web presence.

I understand that apps are a journey, but in terms of first impressions on the biggest mobile platform: this seems to have fallen pretty flat…

Goodbye Motorola

Jeromey Balderrama

Nearly four years ago I entered the world of Android with the original Motorola Droid. Two years later, I was eager to upgrade to one of the most early anticipated Android phones: the Droid Bionic.  Like many, I was led to believe that this was going to be Motorola’s next flagship phone, ushering an error of dual-core processors and 4G LTE.  After months of delays, I stood in an (albeit small) line on release day to get the phone, only to find out that this wasn’t the flagship device I was looking for. 

driodbionic

A month later Motorola released their revamped Razr line, a phone that learned all of the lessons from the mistakes that caused the Bionic to become so delayed.  As quickly as the Bionic flashed onto the scene, the phone seemed to have fizzled out from Motorola’s roadmap.  Soon it became apparent that I bet on the wrong horse, that this phone was the red-headed step-child that Motorola conveniently ignored.  The device had some pretty gaping holes, from a crappy camera to unstable Bluetooth.  I realize that every phone has its problems, there isn’t a perfect one out there – but the issue came with how Motorola addressed Bionic problems: they ignored them.

The phone shipped with Gingerbread installed, with a promise to upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich soon.  As the months passed, the promises of the upgrade grew more ambiguous, as we watched more and more phones released after the Bionic get upgraded.  Over a year after its release, with Jelly Bean on the horizon, Motorola and Verizon finally gave us our coveted upgrade.  Again more empty promises were made about the Jelly Bean upgrade, and of course the Bionic’s younger cousins got first dibs on the new bits, with the Bionic not being updated until last month.

Don’t think Bionic owners got a raw deal? Just ask Motorola’s VP of Product: he admitted as much last September.  Nothing changed however, Motorola has got bigger problems to deal with.  Google has all but cast them out from the product party, there doesn’t seem to be any worthwhile products in their pipeline.  The rumored “X Phone” is all but vaporware, with Google reportedly pulling out of the device’s development.

Here we are in May, when I become eligible for an upgrade, and not only has Motorola not given me any incentive to stay, but they’ve justified my resentment of their products, to the point where I won’t even own a Motorola device ever again.  Now that the Galaxy S4 is out, I’m more than happy to buy a product from a company that hasn’t ignored their products the way Motorola does.  Thanks for introducing me to the world of Android, Motorola – but I’m happy to leave you for greener pastures.

Unplugging (the blog) from Facebook

Jeromey Balderrama

unplug

I’ve been posting to this blog (in some form) for over 7 years, and 714 blog posts later I’ve found that my posts have been getting fewer and further between.  I can attribute this to many things, among those: a lack of time & shifts in priority, but there is one barrier which I’m attempting to remove: my blog’s link to Facebook.

One thing that hasn’t been a barrier is a shortage of thoughts and opinions.  They usually visit me in the most inopportune times, when plugging away at a keyboard for an hour isn’t feasible.  Oftentimes my craving to express these opinions is satisfied by Twitter, but believe it or not, sometimes my thoughts can’t be articulated in 140 characters.  I then consider posting to my blog, but then am approached by another barrier: my self doubt of expressing my views, and how they will be perceived by my loved ones.  When I first linked my blog to Facebook, it looked like an awesome opportunity to drive traffic over here, and a lot of you have graciously clicked the link in Facebook to read my latest rant.  At the same time, I have a hyper-sensitivity to what gets posted about me in Facebook.  While some people post virtually every thought, I’m pretty particular about what ends up on my news feed and who just might see it.  Through that my “not anonymous” platform becomes that much more public.  This results in every inclination to blog getting trumped by my self-doubt.

This makes no sense, right? That’s what I figured, but looking back at my blog I yearn for the days when I was posting regularly and am looking for ways to recapture that pattern – so I’m going to try this.   This will be the last auto-post that will be added to my Facebook profile for the foreseeable future.  If I end up writing something that is particularly noteworthy, I’ll manually create a link, but for the most part I’m yearning to detach my posts from my news feed.

If you’re still interested in keeping up my thoughts, you’re always welcome to subscribe using my RSS feed (which works with Google Reader and various other news-reading apps).  I’ll also continue the auto-posting to Twitter, which somehow seems a little more anonymous.  Otherwise you’re always welcome to drop into the site from time to time.

So here’s to most posts, more rants and more ramblings.  Thanks for indulging me.

RIP Digsby–you’re dead (and not just to me)

Jeromey Balderrama

When Digsby came out in 2008, I was a lost refuge in the land of IM. I broke up with Trillian, which at the time was experiencing painfully slow development during a slow Alpha Testing period.  At the time I was in the IM dessert known as Pidgin: a great IM alternative, but ugly interface. Digsby was a breath of a fresh air, combing the ability to keep myself updated on social networks, emails and of course instant messaging.  I was an avid fan of Digsby from the start, turning friends and family into users of the app.  Over the years, Digsby had its fair share of stumbles, the guys developing Digsby had made a great product and had a great relationship with their user community.

DeadDigsby

Unfortunately, like that Indie band that you’ve passionately followed, they became big and were never quite the same. In Digsby’s case, it was acquired by a company called Tagged back in April. In their blog post, Digsby claimed they were going to continue to support Digsby and they were going to determine the long-term plans for Digsby. Over three months later, with virtually no communication from their blog, in their forum or through their Twitter account – let alone any changes to their app – the long-term plans are all too apparent: there are none!

To be fair, they’ve made small bug-fixes whenever MSN changed their protocols, but the straw that’s breaking my fact is that on July 1st Twitter changed their authentication model, which broke the way Direct Messages are retrieved. I’ve submitted a bug and scoured the forums to no avail.  In fact, the only topic that is getting traction on the forum is the “Digsby Dead” topic, where other fans are concluding that Digsby has in fact died.

So Rest In Peace Digsby. You were a great product which I loved, but I’m not going to continue to use a product which is no longer supported.  At least there’s on take-away: you guys gave Trillian a swift kick in the pants and now they’re passing you by. In related news: I am now using Trillian again.

Please, prove me wrong. I’d be happy to come back.

Turntable.fm has taken away hours of my life

Jeromey Balderrama

A few weeks ago when I first heard about Turntable.fm, I thought it was it was the kind of professional-style DJ site where you re-mix songs and come up with your own trance beats.  As I listened to tech pundits first talk about it, they hyped it up but never really explained what it actually was.

turntable

I’ll try to describe it, but you really just need to go see if for your self: Imagine having a listening party. You sit in a circle with 4 other people and go around and each pick out the next song you’re going to play. Meanwhile, there could be a room full of people listening to the music you’re picking out. If they like the song you get brownie points, if they hate the song it gets skipped. That’s essentially Turntable.fm. In an era where people walk around with ear buds, this is a great way to socially experience music and discover new songs.

You can simply go to listen and vote, and for many it’s a human-Pandora streaming experience.  Different rooms have different genres, but the ones I’ve loved the best are the “anything as long as it’s good” rooms. Secretly I think many of believe ourselves to be music connoisseurs and experience joy in sharing new music with friends. There’s also joy in invoking great music memories by playing a classic song. At the same time you don’t want to disrupt the musical flow.  I don’t like listening to the radio, but I still desire the discovery of new bands and songs – this site gives a great social element to doing just that.

Simply said: you need to try out this site. Come join me! If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you’ll see when I’m logged in and we can DJ together! Fair warning though: you’re going to lose hours and nights to this site!