'Cross The Breeze

My issue with the iPad

Kris Hoet — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:26:00 +0000

It’s not about the lack of Flash support. Although you visit less sites in their mobile version (if available) on the iPad thus the lack of Flash support is a bigger pain than on the iPhone, I knew what I was getting into when I bought one. Nor is it the lack of multi-tasking capabilities, I’m sure once iOS4 arrives on the iPad we will have that (kinda) sorted out. And also the fact that there are only few really good iPad apps is an issue (for now). There may as well be several thousand apps available (250.000 if you count all iPhone apps), we all know most of them are rubbish.

My issue is with the OS. It still is a big phone, without the phone functionalities then… probably to avoid situations like this to happen. Now a mobile phone typically is a very personal piece of technology. You don’t just hand to someone else to toy with it, it’s yours and personal. And that’s where the problem lies, for me the iPad isn’t personal. Not like the iPhone (or any other mobile phone for that matter). My wife and I both have our own mobiles but it’s rather unlikely that I we will get a second iPad, we both use it. But since it’s built on a mobile OS, it’s not really built for multiple users. There’s no need for that on a phone but it means that on the iPad there’s a primary user next to other people that can also use it. But not in the same way.

Still don’t see the problem? I really enjoy Flipboard, so does my wife. But it’s logged in with my Twitter/Facebook accounts so she cannot really enjoy that part. I could add her email account(s) to the iPad but then those would be visible to both of us, that’s not really what you want. And we try and beat each other on playing Mahjong but since there’s only one high score, it impossible to tell (remember) who it was from. It would enable me to personalize the iPad for the kids when they use it as well. With us, the iPad is typically lying around in the living room for anyone in the family to use when they feel like it. But since I’m the primary user (and the geek – yes, that too) it’s mainly setup towards my needs. I find that a missed opportunity.

It would be great to see the iOS for iPad change in a way you can have a user login upfront, similar to what we are used to on our PCs/Macs. Or the possibility to switch between users, all to get a more personal experience on a multi-user/shared device. I’m afraid that is not going to happen (soon) so maybe in that case it’s worth asking the developers of Flipboard, Reeder, Mahjong, … to implement the possibility to switch between users in the app itself. Less ideal, but it would still solve my issue with the iPad.

Powerpoint slides are like children

Kris Hoet — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:45:00 +0000

Made me smile.

[Via LitmanLive]

September, when robots take over the internet

Kris Hoet — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:02:00 +0000

Looks like September is going to be robo-arm month. Microsoft is doing something cool with robots on RememberReach.com for the launch of Halo Reach (September 14th) featuring a user-generated light sculpture of Reach’s Noble Team.

“The Kuka KR 140 bot, normally deployed in car factories, has been outfitted with an LED and stationed in an undisclosed San Francisco warehouse. Visitors direct the machine to plot the 54,000 points of light that will form the Noble Team monument.”

Curious to see what the final sculpture will look like. In the meantime Coolhunting tells us Audi and Kram/Weisshaar (design firm) are preparing Outrace, an installation that will take over Trafalgar Square from 17 September through 23 September as part of the London Design Festival. This installation uses eight industrial robots from Audi’s production line to deliver messages sent from people around the world as 3D lighting graphics.

“The project explores ways to integrate innovative technology within the arts, using LEDs to scroll out user messages by attaching the powerful light heads to the mechanical arms of the robots. A long-exposure camera will capture the resulting light traces, creating videos of the user messages so that participants can share their experience across their social media platforms.”

As I said: September, when robots take over the internet ;)

Find all 57 business clichés in this picture

Kris Hoet — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:00:00 +0000

It was actually created as a Holidays greeting end of last year but stumbled upon it while cleaning up some files on my computer. ‘Think outside the box’ and find all clichés hidden in this picture. ‘Low hanging fruit’, ‘Mission critical’, ‘Drink the Kool-Aid’, … those are only a few examples. Enjoy! You can download it here.

And in case you have no idea what all this business jargon means? No stress, you can still unsuck it here.

Reading white papers on the iPad

Kris Hoet — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 12:42:29 +0000

I have this habit of downloading pretty much every white paper, research, … that I come across online. I then put them in a Dropbox folder so it’s shared with colleagues and they’re easy to access from multiple devices. They’re also mostly in PDF format for easy reading so sounds like I’ve got it all figured out don’t you think?

Problem is I never get to ready any of it. I don’t like reading them on screen of my PC and it’s not worth printing them all out either, that would be a lot of paper wasted especially since some stuff isn’t worth reading anyway… but that you only find out once you start reading them. This week I found the ideal solution though. Since they’re already all on Dropbox and I got Dropbox on the iPad, I opened all the files in iBooks and now I have a gigantic (will that’s probably a bit exaggerated) collection of white papers, presentations, research, … to read when I have the time.

With another week in the hospital ahead of me (routine stuff, no worries) this is just going to be perfect reading :)

Cannes Lions 2010 in one PDF

Kris Hoet — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:42:00 +0000

I never really understood the Cannes Lions advertising festival. Sure I like hanging out in Cannes sometime in June and see some of the best advertising out there mixed with a good party, it’s mainly the award categories that I cannot get my head around. Direct, PR, Cyber, … does that still work? You’ll see that more than 50% of the entries in ‘Direct’ are digital, so how does that relate to ‘Cyber’ then? I find it kind of weird that we all talk about integrated advertising but yet still award advertising filtered out per ‘medium’. Sure, I can see why you can recognize the best tv commercial or the best radio ad, but judging something like ‘Cyber’ what does that mean? Read the ‘Cyber’ entry category information and tell me I’m wrong. Isn’t it about time we rethink this?

Anyway, download the full award list right here in one handy PDF. Grab it before it’s too late.

Icons of the web

Kris Hoet — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:45:00 +0000

Is your website amongst the 1 million most visited websites? Find out here – and spot it between the million icons of the web. Or just order the poster ;)

[Via @fwa]

Touch and feel before you buy?

Kris Hoet — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:29:00 +0000

Keeping in mind that some of the data in the infographic seems to be a bit misleading (cfr discussion on Lifehacker) it still poses an interesting question about how shopping is shifting from online and offline, and which product categories are big in e-commerce.

[Via Lifehacker]

Been a while

Kris Hoet — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:12:08 +0000

That’s the least I can say. I haven’t written anything on this blog since March and already then it didn’t write as much as once before. I still want this blog/site to change form like I mentioned in that last post, but in the meantime I will start writing stuff again. When I look at all the tabs that are still open in browsers on my computers or all the things that have been favorited in Google Reader or Twitter, I realize I need that external window to share my thoughts.

In the meantime I’m still looking for the WordPress dev with a little bit of free time on their hands to help me out re-shape this place. Cheers!

This place

Kris Hoet — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:57:21 +0000

This place is now almost 5 years old. And it has outgrown itself a bit. When I started blogging it was the center of my online presence, it was pretty much the only place that allowed me to ventilate thoughts as well as share the things that I liked. Over the last 5 years that has obviously changed quite a bit and over the last few weeks and months I’ve been feeling more and more unhappy with how this blog fitted in the total picture. With regular activity on Delicious, Twitter, Flickr, … and plenty of other places I’ve come to the decision that I need to make some changes to this blog that are beyond what WordPress.com allows me to do. That’s one reason.

Another reason why there’s a lot less activity here has something to do with planning. During my trip last weekend to NYC I came to realize that most of my blogging activity in the past was organized around the frequent trips/flights for work. With an average of one trip per 10 days or so, you can imagine that all the time at airports, planes, hotelrooms, … where ideal to organize your thoughts and do some writing. All that changed some 9 months ago when I left Microsoft, but it was only during that flight last week that it hit me how much I was organized around all that travel. And as such why I found it harder to find the time to write stuff recently.

All of that made me decide it’s time for something new. I’ve got a pretty good idea of what that might be, but not yet by who and when I can change it all. What is certain is that crossthebreeze.com will always be the center of my online presence, that it should be a place that connects everything in one location. Some kind of Friendfeed but then on my terms, or like Tumblr/Posterous but then with more options and where I can be in full control, or like… well you catch my drift :)

Care to help me out in developing that place? Let me know.