The gap between Apple and other tech firms is now likely to narrow. This week’s announcement of a new iPhone by a management team led by Tim Cook, who replaced Mr Jobs as chief executive in August, was generally regarded as competent but uninspiring. Without Mr Jobs to sprinkle his star dust on the event, it felt like just another product launch from just another technology firm.

Hmmm

The iPhone, iPod and iPad are so intuitive, children as young as one or two use them easily, swiping to unlock, tapping open their favorite app, and playing a game or their favorite song. The user interface and experience is just straightforward.

In Tolkien’s world, wizards are wise, powerful, and farseeing. They are subtle and quick to anger, attentive to the smallest of details, and capable of seeing greatness in the humblest of hobbits. They are fallible, but also fearless—even when confronted with seemingly certain defeat. There are very few people in the age of man that deserve to be called wizards, but Steve Jobs is one of them

The formula is simple: take a bunch of neat technology that has never lived up to its promise, rethink what it’s for, do some secretive hard work, and then release a natural, retrospectively obvious experience that redefines what computers can do.

It really is that simple.

• HP’s quarterly earnings call was a whopper!  If imitation is the best form of flattery, then … well, you get the picture…IBM…..
• Steve Jobs resigning as the CEO of the worlds most valuable technology company (oops, the world’s most valuable company, period).  May call this the end of an era, and indeed it ends a remarkable run for a company that was reportedly at the brink of bankruptcy 14 years back, when Steve was brought on board through Apple’s purchase of NeXT.

So, a lot of stuff to write about – let me get right down to it.
  

As regular iPhone users, it is so easy to get used to the phenomenal experience provided by Apple’s latest & greatest. When I used the Blackberry today, I was reminded starkly of the vast gulf in user experience between the RIM device and the iPhone. Here are some thoughts:

1. Network speed: on the same wifi network, the Blackberry is approximately 30% of the iPhones speed when downloading anything. Everything works slower, whether I am updating my Facebook feed or downloading the latest version of Lastpass. Pathetic. And no, our Internet connection does not go through the BES servers.
2. Keyboard: there was a time when we couldn’t do without a hardware keyboard on a smartphone. I remember specifically seeking out such devices in the Windows Mobile days. But the iPhone soft keyboard now (especially in Landscape mode – I am writing this post in the WordPress app for iPhone) is just fantastic. While this may be a matter of personal taste, the iPhone keyboard is so much better than the cramped physical Blackberry keyboard.
3. Apps look and feel: No comparison whatsoever – the iPhone is streets ahead. Blackberry is not even playing in the same league here.
4. Reboot the device after installing Twitter? Facebook? I am sorry, even the Windows PC’s don’t make you do that anymore. This is just weird!
5. The time taken to reboot is very high – almost as much as a Windows PC. My iPhone of course is quicker, the MacBook Air is quicker still.

If only Apple were to broker the kind of carrier relationships that RIM has – they certainly have the clout to do it.

First off the bat, the predictions were that there would be no great hardware announcements.  This one was pretty accurate.  It is a signal of the kind of intense battle that Apple fights every year in its bid to maintain secrecy and the wow factor when Jobs unveils the latest and greatest, that the Apple-watchers dig deep into the supply chain to unearth any clue that may tip them off.  Suppliers like Foxconn, design subcontractors, plastic case manufactures, everyone involved in ANY aspect of the iDevices development is fair game. None of these hundreds of potential leak points turned up anything, so the blogosphere (correctly) concluded that it is impossible to launch such a major product without SOME leakages somewhere, so an iPhone launch was ruled out.

It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that IOS5 would be announced – that was (gasp) part of Apple’s pre-WWDC announcement.  In fact, there was considerable speculation about the specific features that would form part of the headline features of the new release.  Some of the predictions included:

1. Notifications: Widely predicted to be revamped in IOS5, for e.g. here and here.  The IOS5 notification system was developed at a time when there were only a few apps delivering notifications (like the built-in messages app), and was woefully inadequate for the times.  Notifications are delivered through a modal dialog, that requires immediate action if you need to continue what you were doing.  Plus, if you happen to get multiple notifications, say 2 SMS’s, an update from Facebook, a direct message on Twitter, etc. you will see a simple list of these notifications on the lock screen.  Unlocking the phone will make the dialog go away, and you will be returned to the home screen.  Now it is up to you, the user to deal with each notification, either by recollecting what was on the lock screen, or by checking the badges on the icons for each app.  Not the most elegant of systems.  So, this was one major candidate for overhaul.
2. Wireless Sync: This one was a Wow! I didnt hear too many people speculating on this one, as most had probably given up hope.  We will wait to see the details of how this is implemented – for e.g. can it sync multiple devices at the ssame time?  Me and my wife hook up our respective iPhones to the chargers at night, so both should sync.  This in itself would be fantastic – automatic nightly backups, updated apps deployed to your device, iTunes smart playlists, playcounts updated, and so on. Cool!
3. iMessage: Bye-bye Whatsapp, it was good while it lasted.  I dont think anyone saw this coming.  iMessage is the Blackberry Messenger-type messaging client for IOS.  The impact of this could be significant.  However, I still believe that the best communication software is yet to come.  The wish list for me is very clear, and I dont think iMessages comes up to speed on some of these.  Well, here’s the list anyways:
   1. Cross-platform: clients available on all mobile platforms
   2. Tied to a phone number, should not require account creation, sign-in, etc.  Somewhat like Whatsapp
   3. Should be able to do discovery of friends, searching, contact lists, etc.
   4. Ability to explicitly set status
   5. Ability to share rich media – photos, videos, audio, location, etc.
   6. Threaded, persistent conversations
   7. Broadcast messaging
   8. Ability to create lists of contacts, and send message to the group
4. Camera: Apple finally decided to take the camera app to new levels of usability.  To some extent, the Camera on the iPhone has been suffering from Apple’s “Everything is an app” thinking.  The iPhone4 already has what is believe one of the best cameras in the business.  Adding a load from the lock screen, and using a hardware for the “shutter release” is just catapulting it ahead of the game.  Sure, other phones have dedicated hardware buttons for the camera, etc.  But remember, too many buttons is as bad, or worse than, too few.  Apple has smartly used an exisiting button that just happened to be in a logical location for shutter release.  Brilliant stuff!  I believe that under the new dispensation, the camera app loads a lot quicker as well.  I think this could be due to the fact that the camera app will no longer load the entire photo library before it launches, but will do so incrementally. Again, no one saw this coming.

There are other improvements, mainly to the photos and mail apps, and other ho-hum additions like a Remiders app.  Wonder why Apple is stepping on developer toes with a reminders app?  Anyways.

All in all, a phenomenal bunch of additions to what is already the best mobile operating system out there.  A lot of surprises, which is commendable, considering the intense scrutiny and speculation that an Apple event attracts.  A few solid features, that will take the platform forward.  Of course, there’s the entire iCloud stuff, and where that will take us.  There are some serious implications for the music industry hidden in there.  Next post

There were a lot of kids and adults, so there was a lot of movement.  This plus the totally artificial light meant that the window for shooting was fairly small, in terms of the exposure.

Equipment

Body: The usual – my D7000.

Flash: Nikon SB-700 speedlight with the built-in bounce strip

Lens: Used two lenses – both primes. the 24mm f2.8 and my favorite – the 50 mm f1.4.  Thats the bug-bear I have about DX cameras – there is no decent telezoom that is fast enough for good, indoor photography.  Except the primes, of course.

No Tripod – didnt want people tripping over it and breaking the camera.

Shooting strategy

Had to get most of the action, including the kids games at the beginning.  The highlight of the party was a kids fashion show, where the kids would get dressed and walk down a “ramp”.  So the objective was to get the bunch of kids getting ready for the show as well as them sashaying down the ramp.  For coverage, I had to go with the 24 mm (again the DX factor) but managed to get enough shutter speed so that the pictures were neither dark nor blurry.  Typical f-stop in this phase was 3.2 or 3.5.

Next step was to get some group pictures, as the parents were leaving the country, they wanted to get some group portraits with their friends and relatives.  For this aspect, there is none better than the 50 mm 1.4 prime, so that came on to the camera, and we were able to get some good pictures.  Typical settings were a f-stop of 2 and ISO of 1000.  In case, it was a larger group, where I wanted a bigger depth of field, I always had the flexibility to go a bit higher on the ISO.  Even though the D7000 can go up to ISO 25,600 I usually attempt to never cross 2000, as I find even the miniscule noise a no-no.  Don’t get me wrong – the D7000 can go cleanly upto 6400, but I am a bit finicky in this area – even a hint of noise is not acceptable.

So, thats about it – 24 mm prime for indoor coverage, 50 mm prime for group portraits, along with judicious camera settings, and everyone’s happy.

The photo-album is here.

1. Describe the ambient conditions (the ones that impact photography at least) – light, its availability, distribution, locale, dimensions, subjects and their characteristics, etc.
2. Describe the photography gear choices – what I used and why
3. Describe any digital darkroom stuff
4. Discuss a couple of key images

The intent is to document some of the choices, decisions and hopefully invite some critiques, suggestions for improvements, etc.