As of right now I’m not terribly impressed with the software. I think android’s still winning that race, but I don’t think that’s where Apple’s really competing.

What caught me was the hardware. The phone itself is REALLY impressive. I’m not talking necessarily about the specs, which Apple’s always a little cagey about and which, frankly, matter a whole lot less than a number of other factors. I’m talking about the physical hardware they built.

Apple invented a new form of laminated glass, a new steel alloy, new manufacturing techniques, a new LCD screen, a new processor, and I’d put good money that neither those cameras nor that gyroscope(!) are off the shelf. The battery design is their own, and I suspect given the relative performance of the Apple touchscreen that Apple had a good hand in its design and manufacture as well. Apple has rapidly moved from a company that makes exceptional software to a company that’s absolutely obsessive about their hardware, and it shows in a big way with the latest iPhone.

Apple’s known for its relentless perfectionism, and it seems like the company realized they reached the limit of what off-the-shelf components could deliver. They’re investing heavily in manufacturing, materials science, and design, and they’re getting a lot of mileage out of it – the race to dethrone the iPhone isn’t about software anymore, which is good for Apple, because software’s cheap. Apple’s no longer a software company, or at least that’s not their competitive advantage – they’ve morphed into a class-leading hardware company, and I have to say, I’m impressed.

And more than a bit envious.

(I’m aware this is an “obvious-man” sort of post, but I think it’s interesting to consider the limits of the info-god as we rely increasingly on smartphones and ubiquitous data.)

I’ve been living in San Francisco for almost 8 months now. I’m starting to get a pretty good feel for the city, though I’ve spent most of my time on the east side. Google maps have been invaluable to me in this process, allowing me to wander without concern for getting back home, directing me to the nearest stores, in general giving me at least the base knowledge to explore the city. I can’t overstate the incredible feeling of just walking out the door in a totally foreign city with no real concern for when or how you’ll get back home.

Bobbi, the woman from whom I rent a room, has lived in the city for the better part of a couple decades now, and I’m beginning to suspect I should be asking her a lot more than I’m asking Google.

What drove this home most recently was a trip over to the Fillmore area. I was meeting a friend of mine in a coffee shop at Fillmore and Sacramento. Google recommended the 10 bus, but I missed that, so the next option was the 45, which stops at Union and Fillmore. Google suggested I walk from Union to Sacramento on Fillmore.

For those of you who don’t live in the city, this is only about a half-mile walk along Fillmore. For those of you who do live in the city, you might know why these are terrible, terrible, terrible directions.

See, Google Maps doesn’t take terrain into account with its walking directions. And San Francisco is a city for which Terrain is quite an important factor. Between Union and Broadway, a scant 3 blocks along Fillmore, there’s about a 100ft change in elevation. To put that in perspective – in the space of three blocks, you climb the equivalent of 10 stories. There are STAIRS CUT INTO THE HILL. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a beautiful view from the top – or so I hear. I was hallucinating by then. I mentioned this to Bobbi later and she just laughed, because this is just a blindly obviously a bad idea to anyone who’s lived in the area – You take the 10 or the 22. This is how you get to Fillmore, Period, because otherwise you have to hire a Sherpa or a cab.

To give a couple more examples:

Google’s sent me past Taylor and Ellis and sent me up 6th st., both at night. For non-SFers, this is the Tenderloin, also known as “Man, I am gonna get Stabbed if I don’t get out of here.” It’s told me to drive along the Embarcadero during the weekend (it’s quite insistent on this route. I’m beginning to suspect Google of having a stake in the Farmer’s market). It might as well tell me to drive into a parking lot. It’s recommended stores that have been closed so long there’s no sign there was ever anything other than a vacant building there. In general, it’s given me generally accurate, utterly context-free information.

Google’s been a great reference and safety net as I learn the city, but it’s a pale comparison for acquired knowledge, and incidents like this have made me increasingly cautious of my over-reliance on third-party or aggregated knowledge in lieu of personal experience.

Ultimately, while I’m a big fan of my Droid, if the iPhone gets multitasking, I’m going to have a hard time not switching. The arguments about open development aren’t enticing to me – the apps I’m missing on the Droid aren’t coming out of big shops, they’re mostly made by startups and small firms, so whatever you want to say about ‘iron fists’ and ‘walled gardens’, I’ll tell ya – from outside the garden, it looks pretty welcoming in there.

With the recent announce of iPhone OS 4.0 and its inevitable inclusion of that hallowed feature, I figured it was time to revisit the Apple mobile world, and I’m surprised to find that I’m far less enticed now than I was at the end of January.

I’ve been happily enjoying my Droid for several months now. I’ve been able to customize it so that it integrates into my life in a manner that’s highly intuitive for me. I’ve got solid apps for almost everything I want to do, it responds the way I expect it to, it alerts me in a non-intrusive way to anything I should know about, and it effectively compensates for my often erratic attention span. I’m starting to plumb the depths of the software, too – my device is already rooted and I’m starting to play with the new scripting features. The platform itself is starting to attract much more notice from developers, and most compelling new app announcements I hear are for both Android and iPhone. Overall, I think the platform is maturing well, and the Droid itself has absolutely lived up to my wishes.

Still, like any other red-blooded gadget geek, I’ve been enthralled by the iPad. I can see a very convincing case for this sort of device, especially since I’ve been getting into ebooks on the go more recently, and the iPad is an absolutely beautiful piece of tech. Having played with it a bit now, I’ll say it’s an incredible bit of industrial design, where the physical object seems to just get out of your way, letting the software show through. Unfortunately, while using it, I was constantly having to adapt myself to the iMethod of doing things. The fact that it needed to be tethered to the computer at any time for any reason just seemed bizarre to me. I couldn’t just download a .epub book, load it up, and read it. I couldn’t get another ebook reader. I couldn’t add widgets. I couldn’t materially modify the interface. There was a lot to like about the system, but I kept running into little annoyances and limitations. The big annoyance was that these were pure software issues. The hardware is incredibly capable, but Apple’s decided exactly what the device should be used for and how it should be done, and that’s that. I can’t bring myself to pay $500 for the privilege of doing things someone else’s way.

I’m not an open source fanatic (yes, this is going to be That sort of argument). I happily run OS X, VMWare, and a host of other proprietary wares because I think they’re overall Better products, and I’ve got work to do. But there’s a world of difference between the typical software model restrictions and the model that Apple is building around the iDevices.

I’ve become extremely accustomed to doing whatever I want however I want on my phone. Android does what I want – as long as I’m willing to get my hands dirty (and live with the consequences of my actions), I can install whatever I want, load whatever I want, run whatever I want, change whatever I want – it’s MY device. Motorola may have sold it to me, Verizon may provide the service, Google might make the OS, but once it’s in my hands, I can do whatever I want with it. Apple’s model is damn near the opposite these days: It’s Apple’s device that you’ve purchased and are using. Some day, Apple will give you multitasking or Skype or maybe even Google Voice, and that’s up to Apple (and ATT), and in the mean time, sit tight and hope they don’t change the developer agreements to ban your apps. All of this is done in the name of security and stability, which I frankly don’t give a fig about. I’m a big boy, if an app crashes too much, I can uninstall that app myself.

I’ll say this again, because I always catch flack for defending android and “attacking” the iStuff: I’m not a fanatic. I like Apple’s hardware. I think they’ve done a brilliant job revolutionizing music players, the smart (‘app’?) phone market, and now the tablet market. I’m convinced the iPad is an ‘iPod’/'iPhone’ moment for the industry, and I think we’re all going to be better off for it. But I apparently don’t do things the ‘iWay’, and Apple’s been pretty clear that it’s got no interest in accommodating people who like to do things differently these days.

./passless.sh (username) (server)

The Code:

#! /usr/bin/env bash
MINPARAMS=2
if [ $# -lt "$MINPARAMS" ]
then
  echo
  echo "This script needs at least $MINPARAMS command-line arguments!"
  exit 2
fi
USER=$1
SERVER=$2
echo "---"
echo "Step 1: Generating RSA Key - Accept the default location & don't enter a password."
echo "---"
if [ -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa ]
then
echo "RSA Key already exists."
else
ssh-keygen -t rsa
fi
echo "---"
echo "Step 2: Creating the .ssh directory on the remote server."
echo "---"
ssh ${USER}@${SERVER} mkdir -p .ssh
echo "---"
echo "Step 3: Copying the ssh key to the remote server."
echo "---"
cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh ${USER}@${SERVER} 'cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys'
echo "---"
echo "Done! You should be able to log in now."
echo "---"