Goodbye Outback

Though it's only been two years since I bought this car, it was the first time I've moved way from a Subaru since 2000. I'm now driving a Volkswagen.

Unfortunate Courthouse Visit

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Don't speed in Portland or a van will take your picture and then you get to go stand in a long line at the courthouse early in the morning and pay your fine.

Why I didn't get an Apple Watch – 1st Gen Products

I've had a few people express surprise when they find out that I didn't order and don't plan to purchase an Apple Watch. I'm the resident Apple enthusiast in most of my circles. I have purchased a new iPhone each of the last 8 years, get regular questions about what's coming out next, which Mac people should get and how to fix stuff that isn't working.

I was certainly intrigued when it was announced last fall, and I admit that it truly is a beautiful device, even starting at the least expensive model – the Apple Watch Sport.

So, let me make a small clarification. I am not intending to buy a first generation Apple Watch. I'm not sure that means I'll be preordering the second one, but I'll tell you why I'm holding out. In order to do that, let me tell you about the first generation iPad and iPhone.

Apple introduced the iPad in 2010. I had been an iPhone user for 3 years already and was using a 2006 black Macbook. I was intrigued by the iPad, and had some funds available to order one, but I decided to wait. I was already beginning to save for a new Macbook as my current one was getting a little long in the tooth. I had already upgraded the memory from the stock 2gb to 4 and the 80gb hard drive was barely cutting it for managing the beginnings of my photography hobby.

While I could think of things to do with an iPad in those first few days after it was announced, I also felt that it was likely underpowered and compromised. It seems funny to say that considering the specs on my main computer at the time, but the next February I bought a new Macbook Pro with 16gb or RAM and a 500gb hard drive. That computer is still my wife's computer today.

In large part, the decision to wait came from my expereince with the first iPhone. Though it was enjoyable, it was missing so many of the key features that have driven its success and made it indispensable to me and so many others. The original iPhone had no 3rd party apps, no video, no cut and paste, no push email, no 3g data.

Think about that list. I'd say 90% of the things I do with my iPhone weren't even possible on the first one.

The original iPad had no cameras, a single core 1 Ghz processor and 256 gb of memory. It was nearly twice as thick and roughly twenty percent heavier than the second generation iPad 2. I held out and then bought an iPad 2 which had a dual core processor and 512gb or memory. I used it daily as my primary machine to write, read and browse until I upgraded to the iPad 3 for the Retina display. Apple still supports this machine and the iPad mini which is internally almost identical. I owned one of those for awhile too.

The original iPad hasn't been supported by Apple since they cut off compatability with the release of iOS 6. The iPhone 1 was cut off at iOS 3.1.3. The reasons for these deprecations are largely hardware related. These devices can't do what all of the new(er) devices are capable of doing. Here's a link to a fairly detailed overview on Wikipedia showing all the relevant data

Now before you label me a crotchety old man who complains when 5 year old devices stop being updated, let me clarify. I actually don't care about forward compatability that much because I upgrade more often than most people. What I do care about is the lack of really useful features in a lot of these Gen 1 products. Apple is a very forward thinking company, but it often feels like they don't know what the killer feature is going to be until it's out in the world, and then they optimize the second generation to suit.

The Apple Watch feels a lot like the iPad 1, iPhone 1 and the Macbook Air 1. While we're at it, let's include the new Macbook. It looks beautiful, and is certainly showing us some great directions and possibilities, but I feel like it isn't there yet.

I know I'm gonna want the one that has GPS. I know I'll feel like native, stand-alone apps will be worth an upgrade. I love the idea of a battery that lasts 2 days instead of one. What if I could leave the house without my phone because the watch has its own wireless data connection and real apps? I'd love to go running without my phone strapped to my arm and still have it track my full workout with GPS and share it to NikePlus.

That's the Apple Watch I want. I'm willing to part with my money for something truly groundbreaking and useful, but the obvious things that are missing from this one make it a foolish purchase for me. I will want the version 2 that has some of this stuff and that means if I buy this one, I'll end up spending the same amount of money on a version that will likely be released pretty soon. Unfortunately, these Gen 1 products also have historically crappy resale value too.

I'm still excited about what first Gen products do, but I'm aware of the difference between an iterative improvement to an already useful piece of equipment and a major disruptive first step.

In five years, there will be a handful of hallmark features that will define the usefulness of the Apple Watch and perhaps even the way we use computing devices. I predict the first generation model won't be able to do most of them.

It's pretty rare for a company to nail it on the first iteration. Thankfully the products are still interesting enough to draw a pretty big group of early adopters to help them design the next one. I used to think of myself as an early adopter, but upon closer self-inspection, I'm quick to buy iterative upgrades – even the more ambitious ones – but wary of completely new categories.

So here's hoping the second Apple Watch blows the first one out of the water!

Waiting for Practice

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Not Enough Space to Upgrade to iOS8?

There have been quite a few conversations happening about how a distrust in Apple is causing lower adoption rates in iOS8. John Gruber and Guy English talked at length about it on John's podcast, The Talk Show. True, there was a widely publicized update shortly after iOS8 was introduced that bricked many phones before it was caught and pulled from the Apple servers, and there were many folks that were rather displeased with the major interface changes a year ago that were introduced with iOS 7.

Even with these other issues, I think the problem has more to do with the increasing size of updates and the stagnation of Storage on iOS devices. Anecdotally, what I'm finding among my non-early adopter friends is an inability to update due to a lack of available storage space. Even those that don't have large numbers of apps are finding that the photos, videos and multi-media content on their phones are the main issue.

While the message has been consistent among folks doing reviews in the Apple tech community that 16gb is too small in 2014, we're stuck with it for another year- and quite simply, this is the phone/iPad that most non tech folks (the vast majority) will end up with. For this very reason, I moved to the 64gb model this year.

Until then, if you have an iPhone 5 or 5s, I would advise that you update for security and feature reasons. If you are using a 4, I would advise against it. My daughter's was pretty sluggish with it before we traded it in to AT&T. The 4S will run iOS8 about the same as iOS7. Both of my boys have been running it since the day it was released with no problems. Here is a little help to make it happen even if your phone is full of photos, podcasts and playlists.

Plug it in

I know this seems counterintuitive to what you've heard and gotten used to over the last couple years, but you can sitll plug your phone into your computer and update your software in iTunes. Part of the reason that the OS update requires so much space is that when you update over the air, the new software has to be downloaded to your phone before it can replace the existing OS. When you plug into the computer, the new OS is downloaded to your computer's hard drive first and then installed on your device over the lightning cable. Viola! No need for you to delete anything.

I was able to update 2 different iPhones that had less than 500mb available this way the first day that iOS was available.

Get all that Content off your Phone

Ok, so this one requires plugging in your device too, but this is a better long term solution and wil also make sure that you have all your photos on your computer where they aren't succeptible to an accidental swim in the toilet. (Little plug here though- You do have a backup of the computer don't you?) The first step is determining if you really want, or need to keep some photos on your phone. Are the important ones already online somewhere where it's easy to get to them or do you need them to be in your camera roll? Do you already have Photostream turned on? If you do, the last 1000 photos you took with your device have already been uploaded to your iCloud account.

If you don't already import photos from your phone, it's actually pretty easy. If you are using a Mac, iPhoto is probably your best option and will likely just open automatically when you plug your phone in. Once you are finished loading the photos, you can choose to delete them from your device.

If you're using a PC, you can use any photo management application or you can just follow the prompts that appear on your desktop in the Autoplay dialog box once you plug the phone in.

But I want All the Photos On My Phone!

I know the second option may not sit well with those of you who just want to always have all the photos you took with your phone, on your phone. There are a couple ways you can accomplish this and not run out of space on your phone.

1. Buy an iPhone with more capacity.
2. Buy an iPhone with more capacity.

Simply put, if you want them to always be on your phone, this is the only always-on, binary way to do it.

There are a couple ways to auto upload and keep all of your photos accessible over the web, even if you delete them from your device. The caveat is that is- you won't have access when you are offline. I'll write a separate post about that.

I hope this helps you keep things up to date and I'm happy to help out if you have any other questions.

Lightroom Mobile for iPhone

So, I'm not sure how cool this is gonna be, but I've loaded the Lightroom Mobile app onto my iPhone and it's currently syncing my camera roll to Lightroom on my Macbook and of course, Creative Cloud.

So, what I'm hoping this will help with is the loads of snapshots I take with my iPhone, but never remember to import into Lightroom.

I have the Photography plan which give you 20gb of cloud storage. I've avoided turning on and relying on Dropbox syncing for awhile simply because I still don't pay for my Dropbox. It's big enough due to referrals for my regular usage, but not quite big enough to sync all my photos - but this is enough dedicated space that I feel I can rely on it.

I'll update as I learn more about it. I'm hoping that it has some more cool features. I love the idea of having some of the great editing tools from Lightroom right there on my phone for quick edits.