Haptic Feedback on iPhone

In his review of iPhone 3G for USA Today, Edward Baig mostly regurgitates information that Apple has already made known: 3G is faster than Edge, the headphone jack is now flush, the phone must be activated in the store, yada yada yada. The article’s bore factor can be forgiven because (1) Baig did not have access to the App Store and (2) reviews like his are for the masses — you know, that largish group of people who don’t take part in obsessing over the conspicuity of two screws.

Well, those two screws were rather interesting to me. Suffice to say, I found Baig’s review to be quite dull. However, one bit of information hadn’t occurred to me before. I was intrigued.

Unpublicized feature: Developers can take advantage of the iPhone 2.0 software to provide tactile forced feedback. This is known as “haptics.” When my vehicle crashed inside Cro-Mag, the iPhone 3G vibrated.

Haptic technology does not interest me so much when it comes to gameplay on iPhone. After all, I’ve been acquainted with haptic feedback in gaming since the Vibration Pack was introduced for the Nintendo 64 controller. (And probably even before then. Baby toys, anyone?) The convergence of haptic and touchscreen technology, however, is quite a bit newer.

I first experienced it on a friend’s LG Voyager, which vibrates slightly when you interact with buttons on its screen. To be sure, the Voyager is crap, but I was extremely fond of its use of haptics. The subtle quiver under my finger truly enhanced the touchscreen experience, giving me the sense that I was interacting not with a smooth piece of plastic but with actual objects.

It is exciting to hear that third-party developers are taking advantage of haptics. I hope that Apple eventually employs iPhone’s built-in vibration to give users tactile feedback and an improved user experience in OS X iPhone. I don’t see why they would be opposed to it: it is not a gimmick and it enhances UX. I have a feeling that soon enough our fingers, along with our eyes and ears, will share in the pleasure of iPhoning.

99¢ + 99¢ = $1.98? No way!

Thank you, Apple, for doing that math for me. Now let me do some math of my own.

Apple’s iPhone holds songs. Lots of them. Some people would like for those songs to play when they receive a call. And, understandably, many of them would like for the songs to start playing at a certain point when a call comes in.

In the latest version of iTunes, a brilliant piece of software, Apple has added a feature that allows these people to do just that: pick a song and decide where they want it to start playing when they receive a call. However…

Apple charges them a dollar to do so. (Okay, 99¢. Same difference.)

So, basically, these people are paying 99¢ for a software feature. And not just once. Every time they want to use this feature in iTunes, they have to cough up another buck (read: 99¢).

See, you’re not paying for the ringtone. The ringtone is simply a 30-second clip of a song you already own. You’re paying to make it. By yourself. You do the work, then you pay someone else for your work. It’s like spending $10 on a stock photograph, then paying another $10 to crop it. What a load of crap.

Whatever. Custom ringtones are so last year anyways.

40 iPhone Wallpapers

So, I’m finally back from my seven-week journey through Europe. I’m hoping to write a post soon about all the places I visited (two continents, eight countries, around 16 cities), but that will have to wait seeing as I’m off to Los Angeles tomorrow morning to visit my sister, and when I get back move-in will take priority. This will be my last year at the University of Michigan — hard to believe, and very sad to think about.

Anyways, on a happier note, I’ve had a couple days now to play with my new iPhone. Hands down, it is the sleekest, most incredible gadget I’ve ever owned. The screen is gorgeous, rendering photographs beautifully with its 160 pixels per inch. I couldn’t wait to turn a bunch of my photographs into wallpapers, and following in the steps of Greg Storey and Garrett Murray, I decided to make them available to all of you.

40 iPhone wallpapers, each one a photograph, some from years ago, and a lot from my recent trip through Europe and to Turkey. Enjoy.