Worried about iOS6 maps

I'm worried!

I really like google maps, and have invested a lot of time adding content in 2D and 3D to it. That was great as our desktop map data matched our mobile map data. I am very interested in 3D and have created my own content in Google maps 3D using sketchup.

Apple's 3D mode (enabled through their purchase of C3 technologies) looks good at first but there are issues, it appears to use 3D mode for satellite view as well, but since most of the world has not been mapped you may end up with a blurry mess when looking at locations that have not been mapped in detail. The 3D mode is good except it is just basically a very detailed texture map draped on top of a very detailed elevation map. This means that there can be no holes in 3D objects.

A well crafted 3D model can look much better than an auto generated 3D model.

A 3D model I made using Google Sketchup

An auto generated 3D model created by C3 for Nokia

I am very concerned about the 2D map tile quality that Apple is using. To be honest, compared to open street map, and Google, Apple's 2D tiles are not at all good. This is especially true if you live in the UK. The zoom level is also lacking in detail and very poor.

Apple's (map tiles)

Open Street Map (map tiles)

Google (map tiles)

Open Street Map (zoomed) - Notice building outlines

Google Maps (zoomed) - Notice building outlines

Nokia's Satellite view for Exeter using C3's 3D mode

Google's Satellite view for Exeter

Google's Exeter University 3D building view

Now if Apple combined map vector info from open street map with their own tiles, and offered a crowd sourced geo reference building tool to add information I could be persuaded to come on board, but I will also miss street view built into the maps app.

I understand that Apple (and many users, including myself) were not best pleased with Google holding back their best tech to only work on Android. I've been annoyed that Google did not implement 3D building support in Google Earth on iOS, as this would be a piece of cake for them to do.

I'm not entirely happy about Apple dropping Google for maps, but I can see why they had to with Google's apparent attitude towards iOS. This move may teach google a lesson, but It may be the users that pay the price!

http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2010/10/lots_of_great_geo_tools_at_the_univ.html

http://www.refnum.com/tmp/apple.html tiles comparison between Apple, OSM, and Google map tiles.

http://maps.nokia.com/50.7198485,-3.5317789,17.61,301.84,50.27,3d.day Nokia 3D maps using C3 tech, should be similar to Apple's, is my area covered?

http://www.cultofmac.com/173791/heres-how-to-use-ios-6s-amazing-3d-maps-without-ios-6/

http://maps.exeter.ac.uk/ This will display all of Exeter University's points of interest on a Google Map in 3D, with 3D buildings which are quite detailed. Normally we don't display all the points of interest like this, but check out the 3D terrain satellite quality compared to Nokia's 3D satellite view, it is far superior. Trouble is now our mapping tech won't be the same across all platforms! We have made 120 quite highly detailed 3D models for our University.

Having said all this, I have not used iOS 6 on a 3rd gen iPad to test this out yet, maps may be better when iOS6 is actually released, and their 3D mode may be better than Nokia's C3 developed 3D mode... But I'm still a little worried about maps quality on iOS.

I've seen the future

While looking at the Ubuntu website today i was inspired by a particular page showing an Android mobile phone running Ubuntu desktop connected to a full size display with keybiard and mouse.

This makes so much sense to me. Instead of buying a desktop computer and a mobile device and then keeping the two in sync, why not just get a really powerful mobile that becomes a desktop when you need it, and turns back in to a mobile when unplugged from your desktop peripherals!

Arguably Ubuntu is the only OS that seems to have made a combined UI that works equally well on mobile systems as well as desktops, even televisions! Microsoft has tried to do this with windows 8, but so far appears to have failed. Apple has a different, but very good approach, with a separate desktop optimised OS and mobile optimised OS.

There is only one really annoying thing about ubuntu for me, and i would be so glad if a Linux genius could help me with this. Why oh why does Ubuntu play quicktime video at half resolution? I know it is possible to play quicktime video in ubuntu perfectly as it works a treat in the Ubuntu based Linux Mint. What do i have to do to get ubuntu to play quicktime video at full resolution?

Actually there is one other thing that annoys me about ubuntu, and that is it's future direction. Cononical (the makers of Ubuntu) appear to be removing menus in favor of a search keyword. If i wanted to type a menu entry instead of click on it, I'd go back to DOS.


However it just might come to pass that Apple gets this right first. How about an iPad that becomes your full desktop computer and presents you with a different UI just like Ubuntu for Android, but with the additional benefit of a Hi-DPI display as a second monitor?

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Battery tips for iPhone 4S

I've been asked a few times about battery settings for the iphone. Specifically the 4S appearing to not have as long a battery life as the previous model. The iPhone 4S has a few extra features which can draw more power, however if you dont use these features, turning them off can really help to make the phone last longer on a single charge.

My record is currently 14 hours, straight, with heavy useage.

First turn off the settings below.




In General/Usage settings, turn on the battery percentage indicator.




Turn off 'Raise to Speak' this appears to be the one option that makes the most difference to power usage. I also took the opportunity to pop into 'Notification' settings to stop some apps notifying me, although this does not save much in the way of power.

Location Serices can remain on, as the GPS is only engaged when needed. Also there is no point having a location aware device, if you turn off all location services. It is a good idea to turn the location status bar icon on, so that you can see when GPS services are being used.

Using geofence facilities will require more battery power, such as asking the phone something like "remind me to buy milk when I leave work", the "when I leave work" request would set a geofence for that reminder.




The 'find my iPhone service' can be left on since it will only use GPS when you try to find your iPhone using another iOS device or the http://www.icloud.com/find service. I have turned off iCloud backup for everything that I don't need. I use Microsoft Exchange to sync my mail, calendars and contacts, and I use xmarks to synchronise my bookmarks, so there is no need to sync these to iCloud.





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Desktop.ly

I've been using a service for a few weeks now that lets people share their desktops, it is superb, implemented superbly, from a superb idea. I'm going for the record for the number of times the word superb can be included in a blog post, superb eh? There's another one.





So what's so superb about it? Well it allows you to host your desktop and mobile screenshots together with beautiful artwork of the device itself, it also includes Markup based text to explain what's going on on your desktop / mobile device. I've lost count of the number of times I've been asked about the apps I use and how my desktop layout works. Desktoply allows me to share this info with a simple link.

The superb website is coded in near perfect HTML compliant code (I say near perfect as there is a slight issue with CSS rendering on mobiles when the devices are rotated) by the superbly talented Dean Perry @deanperry.

I will be making a great deal of use out of Desktop.ly, and I'll be watching Dean's other projects with interest. This lad will go far I tell you.

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iBooks, iTunesU and Authors

I'm blogging again, using an app that allows me to just get my thoughts down. I find it all too easy to get distracted. I think of something that would make a good blog post, then I don't write it down there and then. A few minutes later my brain has moved on to something else, and I have completely forgotten what I was thinking about with no hope of being able to remember.

The stunningly simple, but in a way very deep and clever app that I now use is called 'PlainText' But this post isn't about that, so I'll leave that for another day.

Apple (yes my favourite tech company and all things iMaker) has released a revolutionary new offering to the education market in a triumvirate of apps and an ecosystem update. There is an updated version of iBooks which takes advantage of very rich multimedia books and textbooks. A new mobile version of the superb free educational podcast section of iTunes called iTunesU, which allows full lesson plans and courses to be constructed. This brings together all the elements of study, together with a new (Mac only) app called iBooks Author which allows you to create amazing multimedia interactive experiences.

All of these things are completely free!

So what makes this a revolution? Surely we've had books before, whats so revolutionary about electronic books? Well apart from being able to carry every single book from every course on your iPad instead of breaking your back carrying around lots of very expensive bits of dead tree, they are linked to your courseware including teacher notes delivered through iTunesU, they are searchable and include dictionary definitions for those whose first language is not English, your notes exist forever and get synced to iCloud, and as you study flashcards are created automatically for revision. There is a lot more, I am literally just skimming the surface.

In all honesty, the real revolution is that now anyone can create very rich mobile media experiences. It is no longer limited to big companies, with big budgets, and big apps. The revolution is what people will do with it.

Some have criticised Apple for having a special tool that creates a special book that can only be viewed in all its glory on an iPad. I'm sorry but I fail to see the problem, the way a book designer works won't change. They currently write the text for a book in a text editor, they paint in a paint package, they edit video in a video editing package, all the while building up a folder full of assets. They currently then drag and drop those assets into the software they use to create electronic books for Amazon Kindle and PDFs. So iBooks Author is just another tool that electronic book makers can drag and drop their assets into.

Now think of an electronic book that is 1,000 times better, including HD video, interactive elements of HTML, simple keynote presentation elements allowing anyone to introduce interactivity into their electronic books without any coding knowledge needed, and even interactive 3D objects using an industry standard file format. What's not to like?

Apple have also been criticised for their licence agreement, although this has since been reworded. It simply states that if you want to sell your book and therefore have Apple give you money you have to sell the iBook in the iBooks store. Where else would you sell an iBook? Apple will give you 70% of the proceeds, you'd be lucky to get 18% from Amazon.  If you want to give your book away, you can do whatever you like with it. If you want to sell an iBook in the iBooks store and a PDF version in another books store, go for it.

Already there are jobs appearing asking for skills building digital assets for electronic books, including skills using Google Sketchup which is the favourite tool used to create 3D objects for interactive iBooks.

Apple uses a modified version of the open ePub3 standard which they have submitted back to the maintainers. The books can already be output in enhanced ePub3, PDF, and the assets used to create the book in ePub2 using Pages and a free ePub template (available on Apple's website) that can be altered to your hearts content. This then covers every electronic book format and device available.

Putting these tools in the hands of the ordinary person is the revolution!

The future of gaming?

I've recently been finding out about a cloud gaming service called OnLive. I first saw it a few years ago, and was completely blown away. This sort of thing is supposed to be impossible. The service seemingly broke the laws of physics! If you watch the genius of Steve Perlman giving an iTunesU lecture it all makes sense.

OnLive runs Windows games (and potentially games for other systems in the future) in the cloud, in a data centre on very powerful gaming rigs. After downloading a small 1mb piece of client software available for Mac(OSX), PC(Windows), PC(Linux-soon?) and even your TV through an inexpensive micro console, you are able to play any game on any system.

The virtual game runs on a virtual system on a virtual graphics card streamed to any system, it uses custom hardware in the data centre to compress the video signal taking only 1ms per frame! This means you don't need a powerful computer or console to run a game, you never have to upgrade expensive graphics cards, there is nothing to download, and your games are saved in the cloud with your OnLive account. You can even post video of your gaming prowess instantly without the need to make or edit video files. What OnLive have achieved is truly staggering!

If you can do this in the cloud, you could do anything!

I can start a game on my iMac, play a bit more on my Sony Laptop, move to the TV and play some more, carry on where I left off on a netbook that has a graphics card and processor that would normally not be able to run the game at all. There is an OnLive viewer application available for the iPad, iPhone, and Android, which will soon also be able to play games. Imagine playing a Windows game on the iPad which looks like it is playing on a top of the range very expensive PC gaming rig!

Check out this video of my driving skills playing DiRT3 on the Mac using the OnLive service. This game is not available for the Mac, but runs like a dream. The frame rate in the video looks fairly low, but that is only because I am recording the whole screen at 30fps. The actual fps is very smooth, even on my modest broadband setup.

The OnLive cloud gaming service is coming to the UK 22nd of September!

Trying to play a game

Men are simple creatures... All I wanted was to play a game, starting Half Life 2 episode 1 after recently completing Half Life 2, arguably the best game ever made!




I was using a Windows 7 system, Steam, and The Orange Box.

Unfortunately I had to earn the right to game, by going through a torturous process..

1. Boot.
2. Windows decided it was not registered, I had to install the Juniper VPN client to connect to our licensing server.
3. Virus killer updates were needed.
4. Adobe reader decided that it needed to patch itself.
5. Steam wanted to update, which is fair enough but it initially refused to connect to my account.
6. Then there are the usual windows updates and dropbox syncing.

Windows isn't doing anything wrong but it took 30 minutes to be able to start a gaming session. I only had an hour :( perhaps a computer should be used for computing and a games machine should be used for gaming?

Now that steam is available on the Mac, I think I'll be swapping to that in future as when it boots it only needs to do steps 5 and 6 above, and it does this quicker than windows. I'll also be gaming more on the iPad playing stunning games like RealRacing2HD.

I am also very interested in the OnLive service, cross platform cloud gaming, if my broadband speed can keep up.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad