My Predictions

Content, Content, Content.

Reading is one of the most logical activities to use a 10” tablet for and I think it is almost certain that the rumors are true that Apple is targeting this against e-Readers such as the Kindle. Apple may think the dedicated e-Reader is a market not worth getting into, but a multi-function device that is a really good e-Reader? That sounds like something that would bring a smile to his Steveiness. I am guessing they will use some sort of hybrid screen that has an e-ink like mode, if not something that offers a true e-ink experience. I expect book, newspaper and magazine content delivered through the iTunes Store to compete with the Kindle and Nook stores.

I think that also means “indie” content will be available, more like the App Store than the iTunes Music Store. For that matter, more like the Kindle store than your local Borders. Text books may come, but I am dubious that Apple will make more inroads on this than Amazon, at least initially. Later? Sure, but if textbook publishers won't jump onto an already popular platform (Kindle), I think they'll need to at least have time to see the iSlate live before coming around… even for Apple.

Nevertheless, the device will not use the e-ink we know and love, because there is no way Apple is going to pass up support for other types of multimedia that need a fast refreshing, vibrant color screen. I'd be surprised if the tablet won't play all the sorts of media that the iPhone and iPod can. Let's up the ante a bit: I bet iTunes LP and iTunes Extras content will run on the tablet, too. Remember: the justification for buying this over an iPhone has to have something to do with the device being more like a computer than an iPod. If it is merely an iPod touch writ large, it will likely have a hard time selling for much more than a high end iPhone.

I think Apple is going to announce a subscription TV service sometime, but I don't think it will be Wednesday and I think it may have more to do with relaunching the Apple TV into a more competitive device than anything else. Will the tablet use that content? Sure, I'd expect it will. But, I don't think it will be the primary focus. A TV service will need to be fed into, well, TVs. If Apple's cable killer isn't primarily linked to the primary focus of the Wednesday event, I'm going to say it won't be announced unless it comes in the form of a “One More Thing…” at the end.

Details

Yes, it will have a built-in camera and some sort of docking mechanism. But, let's offer a wildcard alternative: fully wireless sync with your current Mac ecosystem. Perhaps this would be extended to some iPhones and iPod touches too — say just the 3GS. I expect Apple to play up sync in general in the future. As iTunes goes, so goes Apple's overall strategy. The introduction of “Home Sync” quietly last year is something I believe will be the harbinger of bigger plans, with Apple returning to sync in a big way this year after pretty much letting its previous strides rust and be forgotten (think of the big push on sync services in Mac OS X Tiger back in 2005 and those features integration with the service then known as .Mac and now christened MobileMe). I'd guess this may come later in the year though — perhaps with Apple's answer to the Windows Home Server that could, in part, be a P2P synchronization storage device?

A tactile keyboard? No. Steve wouldn't allow such an “abomination.” I'd guess they will allow an external keyboard of some sort, however, realizing people aren't going to use it in lieu of a computer without the option of a tactile keyboard. Neither will the tablet support Flash, out of the box, anyway. John Gruber offers a good explanation of why. I think there is a chance Apple might be more open to plugins on this device than the iPhone, but I would be shocked if Flash is included with it ala Mac OS X.

As to Bing on the iPhone, I'd wager that is within the realm of possibility, but probably not tomorrow. I'd say the same with T-Mobile support. An iTunes web app also seems dubious, since it would almost certainly be based on Lala's code, which would be nearly impossible in the short timeframe since the Lala acquisition. Look for that later this year, however.

Touch screen iMacs or MacBooks? Nah. Unless there is a really good way to make reaching across one's desk to touch a screen helpful, I can't see Apple jumping on that train just now.

I think Apple will announce new iLife and iWork suites that will integrate with the tablet, however, and iPhone OS 4.0 will be previewed and shown to have taken in some of the new things that are being launched initially in the tablet, perhaps including a version of “iWork touch.”

Feel free to post your answers below. We will see how accurate I am on Wednesday afternoon.

Moving On

This somehow seems fitting.

It has gotten to my head,
Permeates the path I tread,
But I tread, I'm moving on,
In a new happy song,
I can sing about the night
How my tunnel without light
Led me to the other side
Where the sky is blue

-M. Slocum

And speaking of moving on, I hope you enjoy the new, improved look of asisaid. Not everything is finished, but I am making progress.

Unfolding My Story: Church Abuse and Trust

Perhaps one of the hardest parts of moving on post-church abuse (see my first part of this story) is the matter of regaining trust in people. How could something like this happen? How can it not only happen, but — generally speaking — how can it happen and so few were willing to stand up against it? How can more abuse be going on at the very same church right now and the leadership does not care enough to stop it?

The last question is the hardest to swallow. Just weeks ago another person started being harassed at the old church in ways not very unlike what I faced. The leaders of the church know the person has been hurt, yet they do not act. They know other people have also faced situations like what I faced and yet they do not act. Only a handful of people are willing to rock the boat, others either do not want to see or are fearful of the guns turning on them should they admit that they see.

This is not the way things are suppose to be.

We Are the Fallen Album Countdown Begins

The band formed last year by most of members of Evanescence circa Fallen has its first single going out officially on February 2. Not surprisingly, it is “Bury Me Alive,” which was played at the band's media premier last June. You can hear it over on their site.

Writing and Typing Speed Comparison

This is a rather ingenious comparison of major methods of outputting text: pen-and-paper, normal QWERTY keyboard, and several different mobile input methods.

HT: John Gruber.

1500: Reflections on Time

This is post 1,500 here on asisaid. In another month, asisaid will turn eight years old, indicating I have spent 30.4% of my life blogging. Year wise, that is — I have not spent thirty percent of my life entering blog entires! While I may not be the most prolific blogger, somehow 1,500 posts and eight years feels like it indicates I am one in the blogosphere for the long haul.

This seems like a good segue into a subject I have been thinking about: the progression of time and the subjective “feel” of time's wing chariot flapping forward. It must be something to do with the experiencing of longer and longer periods of time that slowly makes the distance between one time and another seem shorter. I find it hard to believe, for example, that 2004 was six years ago already.

I was thinking back to 2004 a few weeks ago when how long ago it really was jarred me for a moment. I tried to imagine myself in 2004 thinking six years back, back to 1998. Ninety Eight, or any of the 90's for that matter, seemed exponentially farther back if I thought about something related to them in 2004 than 2004 seems now. It is almost as if some mysterious threshold occurred that year that made every year after it seem more similar to me than those in the past ever seemed.

It is not that the last six years have been monotonous to me, there have been some significant peaks and valleys in the last 72 months. In that time, I switched majors from MIS to English Literature (cementing myself as a literature guy), graduated college, started and progressed three quarters of the way through seminary, made many friends, loss touch with others, mourned the loss of family members, been forced out of a church, joined a wonderful new church, gotten published in a number of venues, switch computing architectures twice and operating system families once and a whole host of other things, good, bad and ugly. In many ways, they have been the years I have most clearly sensed God's leading and also the years I have most questioned if I am on the right track for fear of having missed a turn.

Conventional wisdom says that time moves faster as one grows older. But, why is that? I wonder if it has something to do with changes in the way one makes progress as one ages. In 1998 I likely would not have thought or been able to do everything I did in 2004. On the other hand, while I have the benefit of more years under my belt now than I did in 2004, very few things I am doing today seem like things I could not have done in 2004. Unlike the difference between 1998 and 2004, it seems to me that most of what I would approach differently if I had 2004 to do over again are the sorts of things one would do differently simply because one has seen the completion of events, not so much that I have an entirely different perspective.

If anything, the things I am doing now are things that I thought a lot about doing back in 2004 when I made the big switch and threw out the “safety” plan of MIS as a permanent career if the whole seminary thing did not happen.

I digress. As I think about it and try to reconstruct my mind as it existed in 2004 and 1998, I think my theory makes sense. It makes sense that the difference between 14 and 20 is greater than 20 and 26. If this theory is right, I wonder: in another two years, for example, will looking back eight years seem as brief as looking back six does now? That is, will the period of time that does not seem all that long ago have the same beginning point, now enveloping eight years rather than six?

That would, perhaps, explain the sensation that time not only seems to go faster as one grows older, but that it does so in an accelerated fashion.

The way we as human beings recognize the progression of time fascinates me. I do not have any grand conclusions on the subject — not yet anyway. Maybe when asisaid turns sixty eight I can offer something concrete.

Unfolding My Story: The Dangers of Peacemakers

I said the time had come to start unfolding my story of the last year. It is a tale that added to my vocabulary the phrase “my old church,” as I was given no substantive choice but to leave the church my family had been in for generations. The cost has been painful and severe in numerous ways. The whole generational thing never seemed all that important until all of these events transpired and I realized all that had to be given up.

Why talk about it now or even at all? I have wrestled with that. As I reveal bits and pieces, it will be for two reasons. First, abuses in churches happen far more frequently than I think any of us would like to believe; people need to share these things to help them from happening again and to let those currently going through them know that they are OK, that they are not alone in facing abuse and just because a church is doing these things doesn't call into question God's love for them. It is perhaps one of the greatest scandals of the Church that we attempt to cover the evidence of our failures; I am convinced frank, open communication is far more in line with God's love of truth in the light and would do a great deal to restore the world's view of the Church.

House Cleaning

Thanks to Twitter & Co., it seems that blogging is dying a slow death among many of my favorite bloggers. Sad as it was to do the deed, I have culled the blogroll and brought it down to those blogs that are still online and published sometime in the last four to six months. I also fixed dated links and added a few new links, though even with additions my new blogroll is much smaller than my old one was (and not even comparable to my blogroll back in '04 or '05 when it was a bit more cutting edge to be a blogger). Is the blogosphere still going to be around in five or ten years?

You will also notice I've added an “asisaid elsewhere” section. That is for when you simply cannot read enough of my writing (ha!) and decide you need more of it. Conveniently, it will take you to my articles over at Open for Business and also to my Facebook profile, not coincidentally, the two other places I am most likely to be writing something. I do have a Twitter page, but it merely displays my Facebook status, so I see no reason to link to it.

In any case, I plan to stick out blogging for the long haul, and am going to try to get back into a more regular updating cycle, so I figured asisaid needed some cleaning up.

Happy New Year

Hope everyone had a great New Year's Day. I'm finishing it off right now by finally trying out Haiku's alpha release inside Parallels Desktop.

Merry Seventh Day of Christmas!

End of the Year, Beginning of the New Decade

Well, this is it. The last post on asisaid in the first decade in which it operated. Next decade, I'm going to start off by running through some semi-autobiographical posts clearing up the last year. I have been quiet I know. My quietness has been in large part because I have been biding my time holding back on some topics I felt it was not yet appropriate to post on. But, the time has come for what I hope to be not only a cathartic, but also constructive journey.

Stay tuned.

Happy New Year's Eve. Enjoy the rest of the 2000s and see you on the other side of 2009.