aditya’s posterous

Now that the dust has settled on the iPhone 4 launch, and that I've played with it for about a week, it's probably a good time to pen a few thoughts on it. This is obviously not a full-fledged review, as you would probably find it elsewhere on the internet.

• The first thing that hits you when you turn on the phone is the screen. It's incredible. And my iPhone 3G looked pale and washed up almost instantly. I felt sorry for it actually.
• More significant, however, was the speed of the interface and the responsiveness of the touch-screen. It's amazing how sluggish your 3G feels when you switch between the two.
• I believe, Apple has either worked on improving Mobile Safari's rendering, or AT&T has upgraded the towers in my area to 7.2Mbps down HSPA. I think it's the former because, even if AT&T have upgraded a lot of the towers, they're unlikely to have enabled speeds to that range. I've read somewhere, that select circles are getting increased speeds on their ATT 3G.
• App-switching: There's much talk about multi-tasking, but until most apps are upgraded and recompiled in iOS4 they wouldn't be able to take advantage of that feature. However, fast-app switching has already been a handy addition to iOS4 and I was quite impressed by the speed at which I was able to switch between frequently used apps.
• Camera: I am not a big camera person; neither in front of it nor behind. 99% of the photos involving me has been the result of someone begging me to stand in front of the camera. So if I don't consider the iPhone 3G as a real camera—as I'm sure a lot will agree with me—the iPhone 4 is the first real camera that I've ever purchased in any form. And a few test snaps later, I will say that it's rather impressive. It's certainly not going to make me go wild clicking pictures—because it's not something I enjoy doing anyway, but it will surely be handy when my parents come visiting. Similarly I have been impressed with the video camera.
• Form-factor: My biggest gripe about iPhone camera is the insistence of Apple to stick to a purely touch-only interface to click. The current rectangular form factor helps in holding the phone like um, well, a camera, but why not enable, say, one of the volume buttons to click a pic when it's in camera mode? While still on the form-factor, I can understand why people might be uncomfortable with a glass back. I think the sharper edges make it feel less friendly to hold.
• Maybe it's just me, but I feel the phone gets warm while performing basic browsing, sooner than the 3G. Or maybe it's just the glass back. I'm not entirely sure.

And no, I haven't had issues with the antenna, although I believe it could be a problem in areas with lower signals.

Right. It's almost World Cup time. Lot of football fans, who aren't obsessive followers of the game, typically pay attention solely to this tournament. Naturally they might be curious as to which websites are worth their attention. Between 2006 and now, the football blogosphere has exploded million-fold. Lot of mainstream media outlets pay a lot more attention to a wide variety of football blogs that either concentrate on specific leagues, or clubs or the global game at large.

While it's true, as with all spheres of the online space, that the vast majority of sites are primarily built up as search engine magnets stuffed with keywords and fancy widgets / advertising meant to capture eyeballs, there are a large number of sites whose quality rivals the best mainstream news sites.

So I thought I'd curate the sites I will visit during the world cup and list them out for the benefit of the half dozen people that visit this site. I'll list them out in categories, i.e., mainstream media, blogs and podcasts.

[This list is besides the obvious World Cup Blog]

Mainstream Media:

1. The Guardian's Football Page: My favourite. Quite possibly the best crew, and a robust blog community within. Some of the writers like Jonathan Wilson (and freelancer Rob Smyth) are walking encyclopedias on football history, tactics etc. But they also have a cast of irreverent and hilarious journos like Barry Glendenning and Sean Ingle.

2 The BBC: It's a bit more staid. But is decent and reliable. In my opinion it comes second to the Guardian.

The problem with UK-based media is that it's very much possible to get hung up on England's fortunes due to its focus. But with the Guardian's diversity, I hope they have that part handled.

3. ESPN Soccernet: It's American-based but don't be fooled. American soccer writing has actually stepped up several notches over the past few years, and is up there among the best. Soccernet is good for reportage and since ESPN is doing a commendable job in marketing the hell outta the tournament, it shows in the efforts they've put to make the site better.

Honourable mentions: The Telegraph, Four Four Two, Grant Wahl's SI column

Blogs: (This is my favourite section because I would recommend reading the following for opinions because more often than not, they are largely BS-free, despite the obvious fan biases)

1. Run of Play: Genius writing. I may have mentioned this blog several times in the past, but if you are looking for insightful, creative (sometimes abstract) writing on football this is a site you just shouldn't miss. It's not your typical match report/opinion site. As an example of what I mean when I say "creative", sample this article.

2. Soccerlens: a mixture of reportage and opinions from fans. This site has evolved from churning out a large number of posts to quality. It has a mixture of opinions, news, as well as gossip from the sidelines. A very well established and respected blog.

3. Pitch Invasion: Updated daily. Posts range from sweeping the web for the best links and news, and guest columns from top writers as well as superb pictures from user uploaded content on their Flickr pool.

4. Dirty Tackle: If you are looking for irreverance, humour this is the site you would want to go to.

5. Sport Is A TV Show: Very much on the lines of the Run of Play.

Honourable mentions: Supriya Nair's Treasons, Strategems and Spoils, Match Fit USA (US-centric but relevant for England fans in the lead up to June 11), Two-Footed Tackle's World Cup blog, Futfanatico, and Just Football.

Podcasts: (Yes, you should listen to one of these)

1. The Guardian's Football Weekly (World Cup Daily): Hosted by the excellent James Richardson (people fond of puns would love him), and with a bunch of Guardian regulars. It's funny, insightful, and far from PC. Must listen. Daily during the course of the World Cup.

2. The Football Ramble: The best out of the independent podcasters by far. Recently signed a deal with Four Four Two. Yeah, that's how good they are.

I will try to add to this list if I've forgotten any during the tournament.

* Flash works across every browser, every platform. HTML/CSS standards and implementation differs across every browser, on every OS. Firefox on Linux looks different than Firefox on Mac and Firefox on Windows. It's a mess. It will be even more of a nightmare with HTML 5's features, since the IE team isn't planning on fully implementing HTML 5 and CSS 3. And we can't just abandon IE users -- adoption rates show that user's don't really upgrade to the latest, most modern browsers until 1-2 years after its release. So, to appeal to the widest market base, there's no sense in stopping everything and making an HTML 5 product now.

* Adobe/Flex offers a good library and a true MVC platform. True, this can be achieved with MVCs like Symfony (huge overhead) and jQuery, but ActionScript can be compiled down to bytecode and has JIT features. No browser javascript engine, although they've been improving and speeding up quite remarkably, provide this, except for one experimental Mozilla engine.

* Security: rubbish

Grooveshark is excited for HTML 5 and it's on the mind of a lot of devs, but it will have to wait a while.

As IPL-3 winds down to its conclusion and the ICC World Twenty20 tournament approaches, one does wonder the point of this whole month and a half excursion in the first place; I mean, wouldn't we know the World Champion IPL Team of the WorldTM on the 25th? This whole idea of playing another tournament half way across the globe (from India, that is) has confounded me. Who wants to hear the commentator exult ‘SIX!’ when we're used to DLF Maximums? And who wants to watch teams with names like Afghanistan when we're used to Knight Riders?

I don't.

Which is why, tired of stealing glances at Cricinfo scorecards and hunting for grainy streams during weekends, I decided to time my three-week vacation in the midst of the IPL. [Members of my family would argue that it was attending a cousin's wedding, which made my trip possible. But the rest of the world knows that any man would give his right leg to be in India during the IPL season.]

And what a spectacle it was! It was like watching reruns of 90210; but live. The most amazing part of it was being able to see the IPL merely by switching on the telly. I didn't even have to hunt for the channel; flip any random channel and it was on. Unbelievable!

And if it weren't for Mr. Lalit Modi's brilliance, this wouldn't have been possible. His tweets were like Easter eggs. An example [I paraphrase]: "Another amazing innovation. For the first time ever anyone has teamed up with such-and-such company for mobile videos." I thought, wow, now people can catch IPL scores exclusively on their mobiles.

While I've been aware of "DLF Maximums" from IPL-1, I’ve always felt they never made full use of the entire gamut cricket, as a sport, presents. I've read countless articles mocking its use -- calling it cheap 'product placement' -- and in some more reasoned arguments suggesting they brand fours too. But even these constructive criticisms have failed to give solid solutions.

So I will give one right now.

If sixes are DLF Maximums, fours should be DLF Deluxe; three runs DLF Economy; two runs DLF Medium; one run DLF Lite and a dot ball, DLF Minimum. But I will stop at DLF Medium because branding singles and dot balls will be a bit crass. It's astonishing that this idea hasn't caught a sponsor like DLF's fancy [they could package floor plans to their flats/houses this way] or someone of the business acumen of Mr. Modi himself.

The in-between-balls cut-aways to advertising, on what was supposed to look like sight-screens, was a brilliant concept. It presented a narrative parallel to the cricket itself. Like, we all now know that Gambhir and Sehwag like to play this game where they lay on the grass and play fetch-the-bone with a mobile phone when it rings. They seemed to have a nice time. And when there's tension in the midst of an over, this sort of a cut-away is like a story arc -- but with an open end. More stories like this in the next edition will only enrich the experience.

And finally, the cricket: well, what do I say? I am trying to think of one thing that stood out here. Ah yes! Sanjay Dutt -- in that fantastic red contraption-costume-thing -- thought this Tiwary chap, who plays for Mumbai Indians, was a handy bat. He said it in an interview during one of the Extraa Innings shows. Alas, I couldn't find out what happened to Ranbir Kapoor. Did the junta help him answer all the questions? Did Sanjay Dutt crush him with all his might? I wouldn't know because I had to get back to the States, and rely on scores and grainy streams.

But yes, why should I bother tuning into this World Twenty20 after all this excitement? Do tell. I dare you.

What?

Today, an AT&T tech will come to my place for installing AT&T U-Verse's internet connection. In fact, AT&T U-Verse internet, plus cable, plus home phone, which I will cancel in a week, just retaining the internet service. [They have this system where the installation would be free, with a $300 gift card thrown in, when I get all three services at a time. Getting only internet would have set me back $200 just for the installation. Getting all three and cancelling two is the work around.]

Okay... but why?

I have been on Time Warner Cable all my time here in Austin and, while it's been alright, I just got the feeling that my TV habits don't seem to justify a monthly bill well over a $100. Make no mistake, I watch a lot of TV. My weekly lineup includes: Heroes (which I have stopped now), House, 24, Lost, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, The Mentalist, Community, FlashForward, Smallville (I don't know why I'm still watching it), and Dexter and Curb Your Enthusiasm when they return in fall. (I'm sure I've forgotten a fair few from the list of current shows I watch, but I think you get the point.)

Add to the above, my biggest reason for sticking to cable: live sport programming. I watch football (soccer), college football (American football for my India-based readers), NFL (again, American football), some tennis and NBA, and bits of whatever sport is on TV, even baseball. The problem with sport on HD is it can make even something obscure (or imaginary as a cockroach deathmatch) appear breathtaking.

All this should then make cutting the cable cord appear a bit mental.

The thing is though, I get half a million channels on TV that I don't watch at all. I don't care much for the Food network. Most of the TV shows I've mentioned are on NBC, CBS, FOX or ABC; all free to air networks. Hooking up my antenna to my television gave me over the air HD versions of the channels too. True, The Daily Show and Colbert Report airs on Comedy Central, but I've always DVRed them. Although increasingly I've found myself watching those two shows on Hulu more often. That leaves me with shows on premium networks, such as Dexter on Showtime and Curb on HBO. But then, I've never had premium channels. And I've watched high quality versions of them. *Ahem*

This leaves me with sports programming. The reason I switched to AT&T, and not just cut out cable from Time Warner, is because TWC remains stubborn with regards to getting ESPN360.com. ESPN360 is a service from ESPN to internet subscribers on certain ISPs that allow you to view a whole bunch of their live events online. Free. It means I can watch all matches of this year's World Cup. And their increased foray into the English Premier League and the Spanish La Liga means I can watch tons of football (soccer), if I am on AT&T.

As for the remaining stuff, I have Sopcast.

How much does this save you?

About $60 a month which I could reinvest on a setup that gets me a lot more online content directly to my TV.

How do you plan to do that?

I am scouring the market for different kinds of setups that would give me the most online content on my TV. My Xbox 360 right now streams Netflix upto 720p HD. I've seen the first five seasons of Lost on it, and it was fantastic (the show, as well as the experience). I can also hook up my passport drive to the USB port in my 360 and watch DVD rips pretty easily. Tomorrow, I plan to give Rivet a spin; it's a software than can wirelessly stream media from the Mac to the Xbox/PS3. But I am still interested in other options. The Boxee box looks interesting, and I'll have a look at it when it launches. The Roku box is another option since it's opened a channel store and is adding more new channels (It currently has Netflix, Pandora, MLB.tv, Amazon on demand, among others) A host of Blu-ray players these days are coming Netflix/Amazon/Vudu-enabled.

The internet-on-TV industry is still in a state of flux, as device manufacturers are scrambling at options on how best to load their products with internet-enabled goodies while also invoking the ire of television-network executives who wouldn't want people to watch Hulu on anything other than your web browser.

What if I say this whole grand plan of yours sucks, and you will return, tail between your legs, to cable?

It's an experiment. If it works, then great. I don't hemorrhage money on stuff I can live without. If not, I can always add cable to my existing service. And I'd be convinced then that the money I'll be paying is really worth it. The good thing is there's no contract.

PS: If anyone of you have neat setups that have worked for you, do share in the comments. Anecdotal/personal experiences of course. I've done my share of reading on sites like Lifehacker already.