I've been a mobile device enthusiast since I was in junior high, starting off with my first Sharp Wizard electronic organizer, with a whopping 32KB of onboard memory and a tiny monochrome LCD. There was no third-party application support, and synchronizing data with a computer required you to buy a separate synchronizing cable that came with the appropriate software.

My progression through the PDA landscape through the next decade and a half included Palm OS-powered devices from Handspring and Sony; a long string of Windows CE (now Windows Mobile) Pocket PCs from the likes of HP, Compaq, Toshiba, Casio, and HTC; a trio of BlackBerries (the 7100T, 8700G, and the original Pearl); and finally the latest entry into the smartphone category, Apple's iPhone, both 2G and 3G variants.

With around 15 years of mobile device ownership under my belt, I've seen the evolution of the mobile application ecology shift gradually from individual websites advocating their favorite apps, to storefronts providing one-stop shopping for a particular device or range of devices (Handango being a prominent example, carrying Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Symbian, and BlackBerry applications), and now the proliferation of over-the-air solutions where users can purchase, download, and install apps directly on the device itself.

I've also seen a shift in consumer's attitudes towards various aspects of mobile applications, and a hot topic these days is price. Until recently, one of the largest groups of mobile app consumers was the mobile device enthusiast, who might typically be more inclined to pay a higher price for a mobile application they expect to use often enough. To use a specific example of a popular productivity application, Pocket Informant by WebIS has been around for over half a decade, and has garnered numerous awards and stellar reviews. It also costs $29.95 on Windows Mobile and $19.95 on the BlackBerry. I have used several revisions of Pocket Informant since around 2004, and I think it's a great application that was well worth what I paid for it. A sampling of some of the "Most Popular"** Windows Mobile and BlackBerry applications on Handango seems to reinforce this point of view; the least expensive Windows Mobile application in the platform's top 20 is a $14.95 on-screen keyboard, while on the Blackberry side, the cheapest is $12.99 for a three month subscription for service provided by the Weather Channel. At the high end, apps priced at $99.95 (WorldMate Live Gold for BlackBerry) and $159.95 (Nursing Central for Windows Mobile) are also in the top 20.

With the advent of the iPhone and Apple's decision to allow third-party developers to create and distribute their applications via the company's App Store, the mobile application market has grown by leaps and bounds via the previously untapped general consumer segment. This dramatic shift in the market has not gone as smoothly as some developers might like, however; these new customers bring with them a different attitude on what they think a mobile application is worth, and that attitude is causing veteran mobile application developers to change their own assumptions on how to succeed in an evolving market. Using the App Store's top app listings as a contrast to the examples used above, the most expensive of the top 20 paid applications (all categories) are $5.99. To find an application with a higher price, you have to go to #34 (Super Monkey Ball, at $7.99), and #49 (SimCity, $9.99). To reiterate, no paid application in the top 20 on Apple's App Store is priced as high as the least expensive of the top 20 Windows Mobile or BlackBerry apps.

Another example? The very same Pocket Informant, currently being ported to the iPhone by WebIS and targeted for a late January release. The iPhone version has many of the same (or comparable) features as the Windows Mobile version, but will be offered for less than half the price of its older sibling - $12.95. Now, I suppose one could argue that this is simply because the two have not yet achieved feature parity (the Windows Mobile version has more than eight years of development behind it, after all). My opinion? All you have to do is look at the top-seller lists: right now, the market is absolutely flooded with low-priced, free, or ad-supported apps, and developers are feeling pressured to lower the price of their apps in order to stay competitive. I'm certain that eventually, as the App Store matures and issues such as store acceptance criteria and storefront organization get hashed out, higher-quality (and higher-priced) applications will start to regain prominence. In the meantime, developers are relying on existing customers, word-of-mouth, massive advertising campaigns, and the holy grail of a mention on an Apple ad to generate sales in an effort to make up for lower prices.

** - I was unable to locate a "best-selling" listing at Handango to directly correlate to the listings on Apple's App Store. If anyone out there knows where such a listing may be found, you are more than welcome to e-mail a link to me.

But when the day is over, it's "one team, one fight". Good game, Army. See you out on the real field.

Beat Army!

This was a clip I shot way back in April, during the first half of the GW's cruise around South America. We were gearing up for an at-sea refueling with the USS Kauffman, a frigate that was accompanying us on the Atlantic side of the transit.

This is also the first video I've ever posted on the SpecMode site. Expect more in the coming weeks and months!

Peanuts seems to be experiencing somewhat of a resurgence, nearly a decade after the passing of Charles Schulz.

For example, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! was shown on ABC on Halloween, and was something of a hot topic on Twitter for days. It has become one of the great enduring classics, along with Rudolph and Frosty, A Christmas Story, and so forth. But wait, there's more!

A new webseries based on classic strips from 1964 is being made available on iTunes (link opens in iTunes, naturally), with the first episode available for free download as of this posting. So far, reviews are very positive. The aforementioned Great Pumpkin special is also on iTunes for $9.99 (it also includes two bonus episodes).

On the gaming front, one of the more odd developments is from Square-Enix for Japan: a mini-game collection for the Nintendo DS called Snoopy DS: Let's Go Meet Snoopy and His Friends! While I have no idea whether this is destined for the States, it does seem to be geared mostly towards the younger crowd. As for the rest of us, a more appealing entry into the Peanuts franchise is Snoopy: WWI Flying Ace for PC and various console systems. It's a mashup of third-person action and air combat, and it looks like a lot of fun to play. I'll be keeping my eye on this one, and I'll probably end up picking up a copy when it's released..

For those of you looking for a little nostalgia, the entire collection of Peanuts strips is available online. That's all for now!

The lengths President-Elect Obama is going to in reaching out to the public astounds me. His campaign pulled out all the stops, capitalizing the power of the Internet to get the word out: Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, and the campaign website were just a few of the avenues by which he utilized this invaluable resource to organize and get people talking about change.

With the election behind him, the President-Elect has setup an official transition website, appropriately named Change.gov, to put forth his plans for the future, from a call for service to the country through community service to proposed plans to deal with ongoing Middle Eastern conflicts. If you're interested in contributing your service to the new administration, you can apply for a job. There's even a blog!

Change has come indeed, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for our great nation. God bless America!

I really should learn to do a little basic research before I set out to buy something. Today's example:

I decided that, since my Apple TV is (like most of the rest of my belongings) still floating around somewhere in the Western Pacific, I would come up with a creative alternative: use my MacBook Air as a substitute, streaming my videos and music from the MBP in the next room to the TV. Missing from the equation: a Micro-DVI adapter for the Air, and a suitable cable to connect it to the TV. So, off to Akihabara!

A twenty-minute walk to Kitakurihama Station and roughly an hour and change on the train later, I make my way to the Mac Collection (mentioned in a previous post) to acquire the appropriate hardware. After carefully examining each of the options available (read: looking for the cheapest, shortest cable they had), I settled on a 2m DVI-DVI cable and the Micro-DVI to DVI adapter. A quick stop for dinner at Beckers, another train ride, and a stop at the supermarket later, I made my triumphant return to my domain.

Being a proactive sort, immediately after putting away the groceries, I pulled out the cable and went around the back side of the TV...and my folly became very quickly apparent.

I had forgotten to physically verify that the TV actually had a DVI input, as just about every other HDTV I've either owned or used has. It has HDMI, S-video, multiple composite inputs (but no component), a couple of coaxial inputs, RJ11 and RJ45 jacks, but no DVI input.

[cue sound of head impacting repeatedly against desk]

Looks like I'll be making a return trip sometime in the next couple days to correct my oversight. In any case, let this serve as a warning to anyone who might stumble onto this post: always make sure you know exactly what you need to buy, before you buy it!

Usually, Google Maps is a lifesaver when it comes to figuring out how to get from Point A to Point B: more or less precise, turn-by-turn directions, public transit suggestions, and even promoting personal fitness by suggesting that you actually walk every once in a while.

Well, in some cases, Google Maps likes to give you the freedom to choose your own path to reach your destination. Note the "as the crow flies" arrow, allowing you (or rather, me) to figure out how to get from Point A to Point B, hilly obstructions and private property be damned.

Maybe I should just take the bus...

Greetings from the Land of the Rising Sun!

As those few of you who look at this page regularly probably already know, the USS George Washington finally arrived in Yokosuka, Japan to much fanfare on September 25th (and then promptly turned around and left again less than a week later to steam in circles around the Western Pacific for a couple of months). The twist to this particular tale is that I, your humble blogger, am still here! Due to a minor surgical procedure and an ensuing month-long recovery period, I was placed in a medical holding pattern while the ship is underway, leaving me temporarily attached to the hospital on the base here in Yokosuka.

All that aside, I figure this would be a great opportunity to relate my experiences thus far after two and a half weeks in Japan.

First off, the people. The Japanese are by and far the most friendly, polite, and well-mannered folks I have had the pleasure of dealing with in my twenty-seven years thus far. Despite all the brouhaha in the media about the locals' opposition to GW's deployment here due to its nuclear-powered nature, even the one protest I witnessed up close was very well-organized and well-behaved. Even the taxi drivers are unfailingly polite -- now that's a telling attribute!

Next up, public transit. The train system in Japan is renowned for efficient, timely service, and boy, has it lived up to its reputation. It took me the better part of two days to get familiar with the system -- which lines go where, which trains stop at which stations at what times, and so on -- but within a week I was extremely glad I did. Nearly everything worthwhile in Japan (at least, as far as I have found so far) is within walking distance of a train station. With the RFID-based card system the transit system has in place, you don't even have to take the card out of your wallet -- just tap the whole thing on the appropriate spot on the turnstile, and off you go. Very convenient and efficient. (Just don't try to stick the card in the slot where "regular" tickets go, as I did right after I got mine -- I felt a bit sheepish when the station agent plucked the card from the works after it got stuck inside.)

Then, there's Akihabara. Where to begin...? Akihabara is the home of all things geeky, from videogames to computers of every description, from manga and anime to life-sized models of popular characters. If you have a hobby of nearly any description, you'll likely find a place for it in Akihabara. Among my personal favorite places to frequent: the Mac Collection, four floors of Apple goodness, including two floors of second-hand Macs covering the entire line. Highlights: several classic Macs (including the Mac Plus), two (as of my last visit) G4 Cubes in great condition, a green clamshell iBook, and even a 20th Anniversary Mac, all for sale! On my last visit, I was lucky enough to snag a second-hand (but apparently lightly or never used) Wacom Intuos3 6x8" tablet for $199 ($100 off retail!). All in all, an awesome place for a Mac enthusiast like me.

Speaking of Apple, let me relate a particular experience with the company here in Japan. I picked up an iPhone 3G from SoftBank Telecom at the Navy Exchange on the base, and made the mistake of not checking to see if everything worked right before leaving. When I took it back to my room, turned it on, and fired up Safari, a problem quickly became apparent -- the screen immediately shifted to landscape (as if the phone had been turned to the left side), and no amount of coercing could get it to return to portrait. The same problem exhibited itself in every other accelerometer-enabled application I ran. Upgrading the software to 2.1 and restoring again did not correct the problem. A call to AppleCare in Japan (a very polite lady who spoke clear English) confirmed the problem was hardware-based, and she set up an iPod Bar appointment at the flagship Apple Store in Ginza for the next evening.

The next day, I take the phone to the bar for my appointment. The Genius takes a look at it, asks a few standard questions (did you try restoring the phone? Does it do the same thing in more than one app?), and confirms that the problem is indeed with the hardware. Not ten minutes later, I'm out the door with a brand-new, fully-functional iPhone in hand. No other company I have ever dealt with has given such consistently satisfying support and retail experiences as Apple -- they are absolutely deserving of their reputation as one of the best consumer electronics companies today.

*Ahem*. All evangelizing aside, I am thoroughly enjoying my time here in Japan, and am looking forward to the rest of my tour. I'll doubtless have more stuff to post about in the coming weeks/months, so don't forget to come back later!

Well, it was bound to happen eventually, though I didn't see it coming so soon: the day before yesterday, I became the proud owner of a shiny new MacBook Air. That took, what...less than a month after shipping? I really ought to start keeping a log of when I buy stuff, and calculate the mean time between release and acquisition.

I'm using the MBA right this second to type up this post, sitting at the bar at a Starbucks in Chesapeake. This is exactly the sort of thing this machine was created for; it's so light, I could barely tell I was carrying a laptop around in my backpack. It's thin enough that it fits perfectly in the back pocket of my MacBook Pro's case - the one meant for carrying papers, magazines, that sort of thing. It's the sort of machine you carry around when you don't really feel like carrying a laptop around.

The MBA is not without its faults; the 4200 RPM hard drive is not exactly the fastest thing around, and the machine frequently stutters under heavy disk load; tasks such as Spotlight indexing and permission repairs take significantly longer than on my other Macs, and the entire system occasionally hiccups for no apparent reason. The battery on this particular system takes an inordinately long time to charge, another issue that seems to plague some machines and not others.

Those issues aside, the Air is an outstanding machine that could conceivably serve well as either a secondary or primary computer, depending on what you intend to use it for. For myself, it will fit into the 'secondary' role, mainly for web browsing, blogging, and writing projects; that it takes up very little space and thus fits well into a locker is a nice bonus.