GMWDesign

What an Apple Tablet Means in My World

I subscribe to 20-30 different blogs through my google reader. It’s part of my daily routine. Like everyone else with an internet connection I’ve noticed the overkill posting of iSlate, iTablet, iWhatever rumors on what this device will do, how it will look and cost.

Whatever this device will have I’m sure I’ll get one. So I don’t really care much about the rumors leading up to tomorrows Apple address.

The coolest thing I’ve seen is the interface shown in the video below. A couple things come to mind while watching this video.

1. With it’s popularity I think you’ll see websites changing UI to fit the use of a mouseless/keyboardless device. Looking at this example you can see the demo UI was designed for finger gestures. For those designers out there this will mean bigger brighter buttons that you can hit with your fingertip as opposed to a tiny mouse arrow. Remember the button has to “POP”!!!

2. I don’t like flash intros, headers or navs. Will the majority of designers cop out and start designing all-flash sites to accommodate this iTablet, or will they dig deep in to things like jquery to achieve the fluid motion of the site shown below. I’ve use small plugins for jquery, but I’ve seen the pros use it and I hope that’s the direction of the web.

I’m not a huge book reader, but this thing is going to kill the Kindle or any other book reader on the market. Those that have/love their Kindles now will keep using them, but I’d guess sales will come to a screeching halt once this tablet go on sale.

Still Not Convinced Clear Internet is the Answer

The idea of Clear is appealing, but the actual service has let me down several times in the last 3 weeks I’ve had the service.

So far I’ve only been able to connect the USB device 50% of the time. I try to use the service mainly when I’m at my sons baseball practices. These are outdoors in the middle of open fields. There should be no issue grabbing a “clear” signal. But I’ve still had issue.

Keep in mind I’m on a mac.

The USB piece will keep trying to connect over and over again requiring you to put in your password each time. I’ve also noticed that the clear connection manager will get stuck on “obtaining IP address”, but the network manager on the mac will show it as connected. You’re able to cruise the internet fine while it’s in this mode even thought the Clear manager reads obtaining IP.

The home unit has never showed more than 2 bars and most of the time it’s only at 1 bar. The most annoying part of the home system is buffering on youtube and other internet related videos. The speeds of the home unit are less that desired. With Cox cable I could watch any video without the pausing for re-buffering. This just isn’t the case with Clear. It can’t keep up.

I’d rather they save some money on advertising and upgrade the speeds of their service. It needs to happen if they want to compete in the future.

Thinking of Signing up for Clear in Las Vegas?

Clear or Clearwire is still pretty new here in Vegas. They are spending massive amount of money on print advertising all around town…billboards, local magazine/newsletter ads, bus stops, etc. Not to mention a social media ad blitz and google adwords. They claim provide wireless internet all over Las Vegas, NV and some suburbs. I live in Henderson and was told the signal strength was great where I live. I would have signed up few months ago but the Mac version of the connection manager just came out Aug. 17th.

I was drawn to Clear mainly because of its mobile application using a USB thumb drive. It’s a little bit bigger than most thumb drives and requires the connection manager available on clear’s website. The manager software has to stay open while you’re connected.

I’ve been a Cox cable modem customer since they launched their service in Vegas (1999). Service is decent with Cox. There are occasional outages but for the most part it’s up and working. I’ve come across a couple great phone reps but the majority of the people providing customer support are quick to blame a 3rd party for your internet connection woes.

Hardware Purchase
I looked up “Clearwire in Las Vegas” on my iPhone map and 3 different locations popped up. I called all 3 locations and only number was connected. It’s a little authorized reseller operated by a gentleman named Miles. (direct: 702.979.2374). Signing up took all of 20min. The disk for the USB connection, as of 8/28/09, is windows only. I quick call to customer support showed us where to find the mac version. You’ll need an alternate internet connection in order to download the mac version.

Software link: http://www.clear.com/support/drivers.php

Setup

My home setup is Modem and Apple Airport Extreme Base Station. The home test was done using a Mac Pro with all the latest apple updates and an Airport Extreme card.

Before hooking up the Clear home modem I ran some speed tests using www.speakeasy.net. All speed tests used in this comparison use the San Francisco server.

Cox HOME Breakdown:

Cat5 Wired – Download Speed = 9966kbps, Upload Speed = 6465kbps
Wireless – Download Speed = 10126kbps, Upload Speed = 4410kbps

Clear HOME Breakdown:

Cat5 Wired – Download Speed = 1839kbps, Upload Speed = 499kbps
Wireless – Download Speed = 1836kbps, Upload Speed = 438kbps

I thought I had something wrong because the home modem only shows 2 lights for signal strength. With 5 lights being the best possible it doesn’t sound like I’m getting the best signal even though the Clear rep at customer support said I had a great signal in my area. The home modem setup guide says to move the modem around until you receive at least 2 lights. Preferrably near a window or exterior wall. They provide a long cat5 cable and power cord.

Clear USB Breakdown:

USB Adaptor – Download Speed = 1176kbps, Upload Speed = 236kbps

The USB speed test was done at Warm Springs / Gibson at my sons sporting event. It was indoors and I’m not close to an exterior wall. The service went out once while sitting here. It brought up a prompt to enter my password information to login to My Account. Not sure why, but after I filled in the info it reconnected.

Based on the initial numbers the speed is drastically lower on both up and downloads. I haven’t tried to download any torrents or other large files yet so the speeds haven’t really hurt my browsing. Pages seem to load quickly on both Safari and Firefox.

As I said earlier the big part of the switch was having mobile access anywhere with my laptop. I can’t rely on open wireless networks. The cost for unlimited home and mobile access is $60.75/m. Their website says $50/m, but there are taxes and fees similar to any cell phone or utility service. Setup costs were low because they were running a special on hardware. Definitely check with your local stores before buying online.

Cox residential cable modem service is $50/m.

Email
With most ISP’s they offer a clear email address. 2 email addresses with a basic account. I don’t need a free email address, but you will need this in order to send email on their system.

I have email through a hosted exchange company. In order to send mail while connected on Clear you’ll need to use the SMTP settings provided on their site. Then you’ll need to use your clear email login info to validate the SMTP setting. They use “smtp.gmail.com” and without your Clear email login info sending email is going to be a huge hassle.