Ars Technica What’s the uptake on iPhone OS 3.0? covers how many reliable reports are reporting different stats for iPhone 3.0 adoption. Ars ends the article wondering why the numbers are so skewed. But it’s obvious, right?

- Apple’s download + 3.0 device sales stats = ~17%
- AdMob reports 44% of ads served are to 3.0
- WeightBot and ConvertBot app developers claim 79% are 3.0

This, to me, means:
- Apple’s stats are probably the most correct, overall, but that doesn’t mean a hill of beans to developers
- 44% of active web browsing users updated to 3.0
- 79% of app downloading owners updated 3.0
- Somewhere less than 56% of iPhone users don’t browse much web or download apps, or at lease not enough to splash these stats.

It’s not really an issue with skewed results, it’s an issue with understanding what these results really mean. As the leader of a team doing iPhone development, the world being around 79% adoption of 3.0 is fantastic. And for our future web apps, it’s very intersting (if it’s true) that less than 1/2 of iPhone users using the web are updated.

What’s really intersting is that 17% are on 3.0, or 7 million devices. If 79% of app users are 3.0, and if ALL of 3.0 users buy apps, there is a cap of 8,900,000′ish app buying iPhone owners out of 41 million (8.9 million times 79% is ~7 million).

The questions that come to my mind are:
- Does this mean 1 in 4.6 owners (41 million divided by the hypothetical 8.9 million) have purchased an app? They would have probably at least downloaded a free app. This is probably why Apple is pushing ads about app downloads… They’d like to increase this ratio.
- How many iPhone owners regularly use the web on the device? 1 in 2.5 (if 44% of web browsing owners are 3.0 versus 17% of overall device updates)?

We’re spending the 4th up in NYC, lounging in Central Park today and watching the fireworks over the Hudson tonight. Visiting with friends and enjoying life… Perfect 4th plans. Periodic photos may or may not hit http://flickr.com/photos/solyoung.

Hope all my readers are having an equally wonderful weekend!

Kind of slick. No more clicking the Move to button, then the label name… Just drag the message on to the label and voila!

Updates make my day. Today three favorite apps had updates released. It’s like lifting your cards in poker and seeing three aces.

RunKeeper Pro 1.5.0.7

Tweetie 1.3.2

WordPress 1.3

Downloading All…

Why isn’t CNN using short URLs for their Twitter posts? They have the most popular news account on Twitter and they’re missing a great opportunity.

Most of the announcements from @cnnbrk don’t include links to the breaking news article. They should. And they could do it with style since they’ve got a 3-letter domain.

Current links look more like: http://www.cnn.com/video/world/2009/06/21/von.iran.injured.youtube

Or they’ll use bit.ly (if they include a link at all): http://bit.ly/HnWNV

This could be much more easily inserted in a tweet as (non-working example) http://cnn.com/123xYZ

For that matter, why aren’t all of the major 3 and 4 letter domain news networks using shortened URLs for their tweets?

+

It was April 6th, 2008 that I posted How to post images to Twitter and Flickr at the same time from an iPhone. It has been one of the more popular posts on this blog.

Flickr now makes it possible to post to Twitter directly via an emailed photo AND via Blog This. Their integration removes the need for TwitPic, and arguably SnapTweet too (though SnapTweet is faster than using Blog This and can be used for multiple images at once).

Images are posted to Twitter with Flickr’s new flic.kr URL shortener.

Here’s how to get set up:

1. Visit Flickr’s beta testing group’s page (actually, this step isn’t necessary, but if you run in to problems, their page is the best resource).
2. Associate your Twitter account with your Flickr account here. It leads you through the process and uses OAuth, a safer mechanism than providing your password.
3. You will be provided with a second special email address to send images to. If your main Flickr image email address is example42test@photos.flickr.com, your Flickr+Twitter email address will be example42test2twitter@photos.flickr.com.
4. Send away!

Photos sent to your primary Flickr image address will be processed as normal (not submitted to Twitter). Photos sent to your new 2twitter version will be processed and then immediately posted to Twitter. Your tweet will consist of [subject_line] [url], with the [url] being Flickr’s shortened flic.kr url.

Example.

After signing up for the Twitter integration you also get a new Blog This addition when viewing a single image. Clicking Blog This brings up the option to post an existing image directly to Twitter. You can post your own, as well as other Flickr users, images via this feature. Very powerful.

I’ve switched back to a BBerry instead of an iPhone. Again. This is the second time I’ve found I’m working less productively on the iPhone. This isn’t a switch because I enjoy working on a Blackberry. The Blackberry simply handles messaging more quickly and seamlessly, and that’s my impression even after using the iPhone 3.0 OS with copy/paste, etc, for the last couple months.

Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone is the best phone on the market for consuming information. Browsing, the many apps and games, media consumption, appearance, performance, etc, make it the best platform. Ever (imho).

But it still sucks for Gmail and IM and these are the two most important features for a lot of us web jockeys. The native Gmail client on Blackberry enables Gmail searching of multiple accounts instantly. This is a feature worth switching platforms for. The web based Gmail on the iPhone enables such search, but it is web based and takes a lot longer to navigate, even with 3G, and can’t run in the background and perform alerts for new messages.

Background processes enable IM and immediate text communication on Blackberry. I’d gotten by on the iPhone with AIM’s SMS features, which is a nice way to work IM on any phone, but it didn’t cover Jabber and other instant messaging services.

I keep the iPhone in my bag, and continue using it on wi-fi for development and testing. And I can’t wait to get to WWDC and attend the iPhone dev workshops. When the 3.0 OS is out of beta we’ll get to see how these services affect a transition for me, and many others, from Blackberry to the iPhone. Again.

Twitterlike post…

Grabbing a late lunch and testing a blog post via email. Early this morning I finally set up a cron to check for posts via email.

This post traveled from a Blackberry Bold to Gmail, then the cron ran and the email was pulled by Postie and imported as a post.

Along the way, I ran in to the following problems: – Postie Gmail support – Hosting provider had outgoing ports 993 and 995 blocked – Cronless Postie vs standard (now running cron rev)

Over the weekend I created two blogs for my parents, Heartsong Studios and Earthsea Pottery. I’ve used my own hosted server for sites in the past (and do with solyoung.com). I used WordPress as the host this time… Their distributed servers and pricepoint (free.99 + $10 for DNS name server hosting) is better and cheaper than a personally hosted solution.

Each site, soup-to-nuts took less than six hours and were fun weekend projects. The blogs themselves took less than an hour, really, with image editing for Earthsea and the audio cleanup for Heartsong taking the real time.

I need the ability to modify the source of my solyoung.com blog, but if you’re looking for a clean and hosted solution that lets you personalize, WordPress was a good experience.

Last year I ran Broad Street with 25,000 other runners and live blogged it (actually, live Twittered and Utterlied). It was a blast. I’m thinking about something similar this year, but probably a modification based on an iPhone app… More on that later this week.

Something cool happened this year that didn’t in the past. The organizers of the race appear to have implemented an automatic seeding algorithm for runners who have raced before. I got seeded 2025, which I’m proud of, but am in no shape to live up to.

We’ll see how this shapes up. My first run after about nine months off was a couple weeks ago. I’m hoping for a 7:30 pace. Runs last week ranged between 7:00 and 8:00 during 4 to 5 mile runs.

This is gonna hurt.

Every now and then a vid comes along worth reblogging… Courtesy of current_.

Let the Twitter backlash begin. Or not. If you have real friends, who cares? ;-)

Until now it was impossible to offer decent linking, which is one of the most important aspects of a blog – sharing information.

It’s still not the easiest to post. switching between apps can be a pain, but for one or two links, it’s finally possible.

The pic in this post has nothing to do with the content, but was taken with my iPhone.

– Posted via iPhone 3G

Test image blog post at lunch…

So far, pretty neat. Ran in to some trouble copying more advanced HTML, Apple’s announcement page worked well.

“On March 17, Apple presented the blueprint for iPhone OS 3.0, the next version of the world’s most advanced mobile platform. In addition to previewing its innovative features, Apple gave members of the iPhone Developer Program immediate access to the iPhone OS 3.0 software beta and an updated Software Development Kit (SDK) with over 1,000 completely new APIs.”

The announcement page is here (C&P’d, too): http://www.apple.com/iphone/preview-iphone-os/

This year’s annual review process swung around fast! It seems like the team joined Ingram Digital just months ago. I’ve done them a few times, but this was the first review process I’ve done at ID. Reviews are a time for reflection. A time to make and receive input on how we’ve performed. A time to realize and face weaknesses and understand our strengths.

There were five appraisals of my developers, and one on myself. To normalize the results I did my self-appraisal first. I had everyone on the team do their own self-appraisal, too, but I avoided reviewing theirs until I’d done my appraisal of them. This was to make sure my scores weren’t skewed and to look for any disconnects.

I started by reading status reports I sent for the year. For the weeks without status reports I re-read email to make sure I didn’t miss any accomplishments. This was time consuming and highlights the need to maintain a tighter journal of deeds. I’ve done this for myself over the last ten years. Keeping a separate journal for one’s team is highly valuable and I’m going to start doing this beyond status reports.

My team rocks, and my entries in my self-appraisal are the result of their efforts. As I listed each accomplishment I thought, “My team made this. My team created that… I worked my face off, but what specifically did I do?” It’s strange to reflect on what one was responsible for, but did with the hands of others.

Appraisals for my team were less demanding after my own. For one, after this point I’d compiled the full list of the team’s accomplishments. For two, it’s easier to judge others after judging one’s self.

Some additional links on performance reviews:

• Employee Performance Reviews
• Conducting Effective Performance Appraisals
• Why Annual Performance Reviews are a Waste of Time (I don’t agree with the writer, but it highlights what we should do during the year so reviews are effective and aren’t a surprise).

Photo by iamtimmo

Last night my friend Marc dropped me an email with the pilot’s and ATC’s view of 3407, including the MP3 archive of the fateful flight. Here’s his email:

If you’re interested – Callsign – Colgan 3407
http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kbuf/KBUF-Feb-13-2009-0300Z.mp3

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/CJC3407

Approach plate KBUF ILS 23:
http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/0901/00065IL23.PDF
Clarance Center, NY would be slightly SW of the TRAVA intersection.

A little after 12:00 – cleared to 2300ft, for intersecting the glideslope.
Little after 15:00 – cleared for ILS, 3 N of KLUMP.
Little after 16:00 – handed off to KBUF tower.
17:21 – first sign of uh oh

20:30 – When they are pretty sure somethings wrong
24:00 – Notification to aircraft of a plane down

It was interesting to get this in email first and see/hear the information before getting any other news (I’ve still only briefly scanned the CNN article).

Links:

• MP3 (LiveATC.net): http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kbuf/KBUF-Feb-13-2009-0300Z.mp3
• Flight track: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/CJC3407
• Approach plate (FAA.gov): http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/0901/00065IL23.PDF

UPDATE: Colgan Air has a link about flight 3407

Since switching to taking the train to work three months ago, I’ve been watching what devices people are using for news and media consumption. If you ride the train or find yourself in a public place, do yourself a favor and look around. It’s fascinating.

Newspapers aren’t dead here, but they’re definitely in decline. A check around me in this car has 8 people out of 120 reading a paper. Physical book reading is also down compared to my train rides three years ago.

Instead of books and newspapers I see iPhones and BlackBerry’s. There are tons of these devices, almost literally. But in three months I am yet to see a single Kindle.

Every seat one passes walking in or out has an occupant or two swishing their fingers across a touchscreen or wildly flailing thumbs on a keypad. Most people are reading on these devices, browsing web sites, consuming words.

Yesterday’s news about Kindle book downloads being 10% of amazon’s sales isn’t as surprising when looking at people’s device use, and is kind of a foreshadowing of what’s to come… If Kindle downloads were 10% of Amazon’s consumed books and the Kindle is <1% of the portable device market, what happens when iPhones, iPods, Sony eReader, and other media consumption devices cleanly support book and newspaper content?

Since December I thought it was pretty clear OS X would own 10 percent of the operating system market share by the end of January. So yesterday, in Chinatown browsing my iPhone and trying jellyfish tendrils for the first time, I opened marketshare.hitslink.com and discovered OS X was within 0.07% of the mark.

Much like the tendrals, this was slightly dissappointing since I’d wanted to see double digits. The other interesting numbers…

• Mac up 9.63% to 9.93%
• iPhone almost half a percent, up 0.44% to 0.48%
• Linux down 0.85% to 0.83%, probably since there wasn’t much Linux activity over the holidays.
• Windows down 88.68% to 88.26% (though Windows 7 betas are picking up)

Some ramblings from the Philly Auto Show…

We visit the Philadelphia Auto Show every year. This year was a little bit different since I walk past the convention center every day and have been peeking in the windows to see everyone setting up.

My favorite car for the last three years has been the Audi R8. The Philadelphia High School / UPenn Engineering team is a very close second with their Attack supercar).

There was disappointment around not seeing a plug-in electric at the show. Lots, and lots, of hybrids, but no plug-ins. The meaty exhaust note from 600 raw horsepower is freakin’ exhilarating, but a car that outperforms those 600 horses, while whisper quiet, and plugs in to the outlet in my garage… That’s what I want to own.

The show is on until February 8th. If you’re in Philadelphia you should drop in and see it… It’s not often you get to walk through a hall full of Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Austin-Martins, etc.

You can also see the Ford booth using OS X and VLC Media Player to demonstrate their Microsoft Sync integration :)

Visit the Flickr set here.

CNN just released their iPhone optimized m.cnn.com, and it’s great! Not only is it iPhone web app friendly, with easy navigation and svelt transitions, it also makes audio and video available in friendly formats.

I was impressed to click a video headline and have QuickTime immediately launch and stream the video. Very clean implementation.

I came across this fun post on CNET News because my photos on Flickr are licensed Creative Commons Attribution and the page came up in a Google Search on my name. Chris Matyszczyk wrote an article on why people are the gating factor to the release of a decent flying car (or any flying car for that matter). It’s a fun read, more on a fear of road-rage-in-the-sky than anything else, but successfully points out one of the reasons we don’t have flying cars.

I love to read anything on aviation, and am in agreement with Chris that most of human-kind isn’t capable of flying. That’s why we have flight schools and a vast amount of training, and why there are ~400,000 pilots out of the entire United States. In order to have flying cars, we can’t have human control.

When I think flying car, I think robotically controlled aerial taxi cab.

Anyway, that’s not the point of this post. The point is Create Commons and offering to share one’s work. I use plain Attribution because I want people to use my content. I don’t care how. Trackbacks and notification of use isn’t ubiquitous or standardized, so planting one’s name makes it easy to see where things are used.

And again, I don’t care where or how my stuff is used, I just want to be able to find the fun stuff that builds upon it. I came across Chris’s post through a Google Alert on my name. There wasn’t a trackback. If there hadn’t been attribution, I wouldn’t have known and wouldn’t have read his post.

Maybe we’ll get to a trackback standard for content usage. It’ll probably get here around the time we have those flying cars.

I received the Mini DisplayPort Dual-Link DVI adapter yesterday. It works great on my 30-inch Dell monitor. From my point of view, the reports on distortion are just hype. The adapter is still a pile of junk compared to having a true DVI port, but at least it works and we can get on with our 30-inch lives.

It had been since October 15th that I’d been trying to get my hands on one. It certainly hasn’t been worth the wait. The adapter is big, bulky, and feels light and frail. Pretty un-Applesque.

But it does what it’s supposed to. The display is clear and crisp. And it does something else. It has a pass-through USB port that isn’t in any of the marketing images (or maybe I couldn’t see the tiny USB port on the hideously big adapter?).

Instead of two cables dragged across the desk (1 DVI and 1 USB – you other MBPro users know what I mean), the Dell’s built-in card-reader-USB-hub and the DVI are plugged in to the adapter just under the monitor, and then the adapter’s long chord runs across the desk. It relieved a little bit of clutter and made for a cleaner, easier, experience when attaching and detaching.

For those of you having problems, check out displayblog’s post, which includes Apple’s recommendation on how to fix the distortion.