I just gave it a whirl using Chrome (which is the only browser it works in currently) and it works beautifully. If you drag the image into the ‘image well’ it will simply attach the file. If you drag the image into the message composition area it will insert it directly into the message.

Funny how something that desktop mail clients have had since the late 90s makes us all geeky excited here in 2010 but the feature is much appreciated nonetheless.

I’m back to Safari. I still love Chrome but Safari’s latest update made it edge out Chrome for speed. Speed, it seems, is the killer feature for me in Web browsers.

Until this latest release the Top Sites page in Safari was too slow for me to find useful. Now, however, it is much faster and I’m liking it very much. I liked Chrome’s New Tab page a lot. However, unlike Safari it wasn’t really all that useful for more than giving you a clickable tile to go to your favorite sites. Safari’s Top Sites page does a bit more.

First, it shows a ‘page-curl white star on blue’ icon to show which pages have been updated since you visited them last. This makes is quick and easy to go to the pages that have been updated rather than checking them yourself. Second, Safari allows you to choose how many sites show up on this page. Chrome does not. Depending on your screen size you can choose between Small, Medium and Large tiles for each site. Small is more, large is less.

Third, but not necessarily specific to the Top Sites page, Safari allows you to search your history in a visual way right from the Top Sites page itself. As you type in your search query a coverflow like window shows you a thumbnail of the Web sites that match it. It makes finding pages you’ve been to in the past much, much easier than in Chrome.

So, for now I’m back to Safari.

My Top Sites in Safari are (from left to right and down) this site, my WordPress admin, Twitter (although I rarely use this because I use Echofon so it may be replaced soon), Facebook, Gmail, Instapaper, Tumblr, 37Signals Launchpad, Flickr, Viddler’s Recently Uploaded page, GitHub and Google Reader.

I can’t have much more of an opinion on Google Buzz because I can’t use it. You see, I use something called Google Apps for Domains. Google Apps allows me to have Gmail, Calendar, Docs, and other services by Google for the CDEVROE.com domain name. My colin [at] cdevroe.com email, in other words, is simply a glorified Gmail account. But, for some reason, Google handles these accounts completely separate from all other accounts.

Google Reader Header

Take Google Reader as an example. I use Google Reader everyday. On the top right hand side of Google Reader (see the image above and click on it to zoom in), where it tells me whom I’m logged in as, it says colin [at] cdevroe.com. One would think that would mean that my Google Apps account was being used to authenticate me for Google Reader. This isn’t so. On the left hand side of the page there is a link for Mail (presumably my Inbox). If I click on that it asks me to sign up for Gmail. Wait, what?

To make matters worse Google does this for all of its services. Google.com, Maps, Adsense, Analytics, and more. I have accounts for all of these (using my same email address) but I don’t have a Gmail account. I have a Google Apps Gmail account.

Chris Messina, someone whom I admire very much, recently went to work full time at the GOOG as an Open Web Advocate. I know he’ll be busy striving to get Google to become the foremost example in the open Web but I also know that he understands this whole Google Accounts fiasco as well if not better than I do. I hope that, while he’s changing the world from the inside out, he’s also able to convince those at Google to consolidate all Google Accounts into a single-account-sign-on-something-or-other.

I look forward to one day playing around with Buzz but I’ll wait until it is available in my Google Apps for Domains flavor of Gmail.

Addendum: So I thought I’d try my hand at following through the Gmail setup process to see if, like with Google Reader, it just used my colin [at] cdevroe.com account as its primary account. Now I have no idea what it did and I have a new email address and Google Profile that are unrelated to my normal Apps account but it is linked to it somehow. I’m a professional Internet user and developer and I have absolutely no idea what Google is trying to accomplish. Wow.

NOOO! Now all of my accounts are associated to a new account.

In no particular order:

The best blog: A VC by Fred Wilson

Credit: Randy Stewart, blog.stewtopia.com

This year’s pick for best blog did not come easy. I’ve chosen Fred Wilson’s blog, A VC, for a number of reasons. First, he writes very often. In a post about his own tips for bloggers he says to write every single day and I believe he comes fairly close. But that isn’t what makes his blog great. Somehow, even though he manages to write nearly every single day, he consistently writes extremely open and revealing posts about the world of venture capital and business in general (with music and other personal interests thrown in for good measure). It isn’t the quality of the writing, per se, it is the quality of the insight. As someone who has been involved in a few strong startups I can say that somehow Fred manages to hit the nail on the head more often than not. Even when he misses (in my opinion) and hits his thumb – he somehow brings the post that he’s writing back into a realm where you can see his point and believe that he’s probably right and you’re probably wrong. It is an art that I have never mastered.

If you are building your own company it is a must-subscribe. No question.

The best podcast: Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

I’ve gushed about Terry Gross so much this past year I’m sure you all think I’m hitting on her at this point. Maybe I am. But she deserves it. But the show isn’t just her. She must have a fairly good team behind-the-scenes that puts together her show each day and, ultimately, packages it for the podcast.

I don’t listen to many audio or video podcasts on a regular basis but I have been subscribed to Fresh Air for a few years now and I don’t see myself unsubscribing any time soon.

The best new blog: Letters of Note

Letters of Note is pretty much the perfect blog. Blogs, unless they are personal journals, should focus on a very specific topic. You’ve probably noticed that the most popular blogs are focused on technology, gadgets, startup companies, knitting, cooking, design, etc. There are very few popular blogs that focus on many things while there are a ton that focus on one thing. Letters of Notes knows where it fits and focuses on a really fascinating topic; letters, notes, memos, and even telegrams that are in some way notable.

I have yet to come across an uninteresting post at Letters of Note.

Honorable mention in this category includes Liz Danzico’s Bobulate (which is a personal blog but one that could have easily won this award this year). I’m hopeful that the Panic blog makes this list next year.

The best blog redesign: Pat Dryburgh.

Online friend and fellow aspiring thin man Pat Dryburgh recently redesigned his Tumblr-powered Weblog and I think he did a fantastic job. Pat’s simple logo, as an example, is inspiring. The work section on his site is very well done (I like the bit where you can get to any work from any work). I’m not too keen on his heading weights but besides that I really, really appreciate a well designed personal Web site that feels, personal.

More people (myself included) should have a Web site that oozes their personal brand. I believe last year’s winner, Jason Santa Maria, would agree with this year’s pick as well.

The best blogging platform: Tumblr

Although my personal blog is still running well on WordPress I’ve been thoroughly impressed by what the Tumblr team has done this past year. They are continuously rolling out excellent features that help them both catch up to and surpass the competition.

Where does Tumblr fit? I believe that Tumblr is the best choice for new bloggers while WordPress is still the better choice for those of us that like to get our hands dirty. If the Tumblr team keeps up their current pace, I could see that changing in 2010.

The best service: Instapaper.

On today’s Web new reading material comes from every direction like a barrage of arrows from an invading army. Accept that these arrows are tipped awesome words rather than steel dipped in poison. Twitter, Facebook, your favorite feed reader, your best friend via instant message, and even your mom via email. These are all new sources of great things to read. But this poses a problem. You didn’t have time to read before and you certainly don’t have time to read now. But, maybe, just maybe, you’ll find some time to read later.

And that is where Instapaper comes in. Instapaper is comprised of a simple bookmarklet, a Web site, an iPhone application, and many other small pieces that are loosely joined together to give you a place to keep a stream of things you’d like to read later. Then, when you’ve found the time, you can read them. Wherever you’d like to. When you want to. On your iPhone, Kindle, computer… anywhere. Awesome.

In November I described it as drugs without the side effects. Use it. Abuse it. Become an addict.

The best mobile Twitter client: Tweetie 2.

My pick for best mobile Twitter client is consciously nearsighted, being that I’m an iPhone user and haven’t played much with other mobile platforms, but I’m fairly certain that my pick is still the best. You probably thought that I was going to say Hahlo. Last year I did. And this year Hahlo has seen some incredible updates, with 4.1 being released just this week, and I still think it is absolutely fantastic. But, Tweetie 2 steals the crown for a few simple reasons. On my original iPhone (yes, I still have an original day one iPhone) Hahlo can not perform nearly as well as Tweetie. To no fault of its own. As John Gruber recently covered, in his usual thorough manner, iPhone web applications simply can not perform as well as native applications due to drawbacks within Webkit.

Tweetie 2 for iPhone is brilliant.

The best book: Cesar’s Way by Cesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer.

If you follow me on Twitter than you probably know that I’m a very big fan of Cesar Milan who is probably better known as The Dog Whisperer. One of the books I read this year was Cesar’s Way. The book chronicles Cesar’s rise to the point he is now; author, TV host, Dog Whisperer. I’m not choosing this book because of Cesar’s literary prowess, I’m choosing it because I believe that Cesar Milan understands dog psychology better than anyone and that he does a great job relaying that information through his books and TV show.

Although I do not have any dogs at the moment we had a few dogs growing up. I come across dogs quite a bit in my life now so having the basic knowledge of how to deal with dogs, read their body language, and be calm and assertive has served me well since reading the book.

The best browser: Chrome for Mac.

I’ve been using a nightly build of Chromium for about 2 months now and I’m addicted. Even though the browser is severely crippled feature-wise due to its “beta” status (it is missing a bookmark manager, proper import/export, and has a few UI niggles on the Mac) I’m addicted to the speed. I haven’t seen any benchmarks to support my claim but on my Macbook Pro Chromium seems much faster than Safari.

It shares some drawbacks with Firefox but so far speed is the winning feature of browsers.

All that being said about Chrome on the Mac I could easily see one update from the Safari team getting me to switch back to Safari. No new features needed, just make it faster. Ok, the tabs on top is a nice touch too.

The best Twitter account: @Jon_Favreau

I know, a celebrity Twitter account being the best? Keep in mind, this is my list, not yours. The main reason that I enjoy Jon Favreau’s Twitter stream is because it is really him. There are a number of celebrities that have people “managing” their Twitter accounts or they only use their Twitter accounts strictly for promotion of their projects. Favreau strikes a good mix of personal, business, and communication tweets. We should all aspire to do the same.

The best email client: Mobile Gmail.

Mobile Mail.app on the iPhone is an adequate and capable mail client. However, if you have a Webkit powered browser on your mobile device I suggest giving mobile Gmail a spin. In a pinch, it works remarkably well and is arguably the best email client on any mobile device.

So, this is the best of 2009 as told by me. I’m sure I’ve left a few things out. But subscribe to my site or follow me on Twitter because I’m sure that I’ll be mentioning some great things throughout 2010 too.

Thanks for reading, see you next year.

Like I’ve said before, I’ve been on Twitter since November 2006 and I wanted to know the total number of followers my account has ever had. Even though I’ve only (and I say that with humility) got 1,700+ followers currently – how many times has my account been “followed” over the last three years? Well, I have nearly every email notification that Twitter has sent me saved in Gmail and so I needed find out the number of “new follower notifications” that Twitter has sent me.

It turns out that this isn’t that easy to do. You have to “hack” the URL (in cases where you have tons of mail messages) to figure out the total message count for a search result. Here is how you do it.

1. Do a search in Gmail. Don’t forget about operators, they increase the accuracy of search results many fold.
2. If you only have a few pages to “page through” then simply find the last page. That will show you the total number of messages.
3. If you have hundreds of pages then I suggest hacking the URL. Take the contents of the search box and append it to the URL in the following way. /#search/SEARCH BOX CONTENTS HERE/p50

The URL for Gmail varies if you use the regular, vanilla Gmail service or Google Apps. So that is why I didn’t simply link to an example search result. My URL isn’t the same as yours.

The “p50″ in the above example URL is the current page of results that you’ll be on. You may start at 50 and go up until you find the last page. Or, you can start anywhere and increase or decrease the page number until you find it. On that page it will tell you the total message count for that search.

Oh, so how many times has my Twitter account been followed over the last 3 years? My best guess is a little over 10,000. Perhaps this shows just how much spam has been on Twitter. Or how boring I am.

In no particular order I present – the best of the Web 2008.

The Best Blog: Daring Fireball

John Gruber’s blog will, it seems, always win this award from me. I toyed with the idea of awarding Daring Fireball with Best Journalism but I don’t want to take anything away from the writers that are writing about much more important topics than the goings-on of the Apple community and marketplace.

The Best New Blog: The Big Picture

Boston.com’s The Big Picture is easily the best new blog of 2008. Jason Kottke agrees with me, or I agree with him maybe. The photos are always stunning and the topics always seem perfectly aligned with my particular interests at the time of publishing. Even though I’ve read Andy Baio’s interview with the author, Alan Taylor, I still don’t know how this blog is as consistently awesome as it is.

The Best Blog Redesign: Jason Santa Maria

Jason’s latest redesign for his personal site is inspiring. Each of his posts, as he so choses, are designed specifically to empower the content he is posting. Example. Example. Example. His site has made me rethink my random headers on this site and I’ve now begun development of a much more intelligent way to allow my site to choose the headers. And that is just a start. Jason’s blog is also one of the only blogs that I purposefully leave the Google Reader interface to read the article as he intends, on his site. Brilliant.

The Best Blogging Platform: WordPress

My love for WordPress isn’t a secret. But Automattic’s effort to continue the momentum of this open source project has certainly been a big win for it. Regular, scheduled, feature and bug fix rich updates to an already industry-standard-setting piece of software is refreshing in every way possible. Kudos to every single developer that works on WordPress.

The Best Feed Reader: Google Reader

I’ve wrote about Google Reader a few times. I know that this is a touchy subject for some – because we all have very different ways of keeping up-to-date with our subscriptions – but I feel that Google deserves the recognition of building what has quickly become the most popular feed reader on any platform. NetNewswire held that title for a very long time, and deservedly so, but I believe the throne was usurped this year.

Side note: Boy do I miss Ranchero in its original form.

The Best Company: Apple, Inc.

I’m sorry but I have to give this award to Apple for their apparent take-over of the entire mobile, computing, and music industries. Regardless of relative size and market-share as of this moment, I believe that we’ve all seen what it looks like to rip these things out from other holders. In a few years Apple will be on top of every single list not just the “this year’s top” lists. I’m not sure how this will effect Apple overall but right now I’m happy that it is happening. Check back in 5 years to see if Apple makes my Worst Of 2013 list when I hate Apple for being like Microsoft, or something.

The Best Mobile Twitter Client: Hahlo

For me this is a no brainer. Being an iPhone-owner means that I have many, many applications at my disposal for posting and keeping up-to-date on Twitter. Whether we’re talking about iPhone applications or web applications built for the iPhone – Hahlo is far and away the best mobile Twitter client.

The Best Twitter Account: @MarsPhoenix

Duh. The Mars Phoenix Twitter account is the only somewhat-non-human account on Twitter that I follow that I’m not directly related with in some way. I’m sure there are other great Twitter accounts that are out of my own echo-chamber but this just strikes me as the obvious choice because of the way it has fundamentally changed the way that NASA delivers its news about their programs.

The Best iPhone application: Handshake & Ocarina

Two bests? Yes. These two are tied for very different reasons. Handshake is probably the iPhone application that I feel should have been part of the iPhone all-along more than any other application that I have installed. Being able to share contacts with other iPhone users through the air is awesome. Ocarina just simply makes me happy in a way that no other iPhone application has done. I can’t play a lick of music with the thing. But the ability to listen to other people who are equally horrible Ocarina players makes this application get a dedicated spot on my iPhone’s home screen.

How’s that for subjective!

The Best Application: Coda

I don’t do near the same amount of programming as I once did. However, the one application that completely changed the way that I do programming has got to be Coda. It’s single-window environment has made working much more enjoyable, less frustrating, and much more focused than ever before. The latest update which allows other developers to extend its text-editing functionality will, I think, improve the built-in text editor at a much quicker pace. I’m really happy about that.

The Best Browser: Fluid

I don’t know what else to call Fluid and it needs to be on my list somewhere.  My normal browser of choice (that is, the browser that I use to ‘surf’ the Web) is Safari. But as far as creating a single site browser for my favorite applications; Hahlo, Brighkite, Gmail, Google Docs, and Basecamp – Fluid is the best choice.

The Best Preference Pane: Connect 360

This selection could also be categorized as The Best Way To Save Money By Not Buying An AppleTV. If you have an Xbox 360 and a Macintosh – I suggest purchasing a copy of Connect 360. You can use your Xbox 360 to view photos and videos and listen to music on the television in your living room. Painless. Perfect.

The Best Email Client: GMail

I switched to GMail this year, using the aforementioned Fluid, and haven’t looked back. My main reason for switching was because Mail.app was slowing down a lot. On my first-generation black Macbook, using Mail.app with IMAP for 3 email accounts, Mail.app was incredibly sluggish.  I’m fairly certain I could have done something to improve the performance of Mail.app – and I do appreciate its synergy with the Mac OS – but GMail has won me over with its speed and operator searches. To be specific, I use Gmail for domains and so does Viddler.

The Best Messaging Client: iChat

I do not know why people on the Macintosh use anything else besides iChat. Not mentioning any names, most of the other clients do far too much or suck up too much memory or have features that just do not work. iChat works, is simple, has small foot print, and has generally every feature I could ever want in a messaging client.

The Best Keyboard: Apple’s wired keyboard.

How did a keyboard make this list of obviously Internet-related things? If you don’t ask, I don’t have to come up with an answer. My Macbook’s keyboard is crazy-fantastic. Since I connect to an external monitor while working in my office, I needed a keyboard that would offer the same level of crazy-fantasticness. Apple’s new wired keyboard does that. It has not only reduced the noise of typing – which I appreciate – but it has done it in a way that has not taken away from the tactile response that I have come to love.

 

In an effort to get this list out the door – this is not an exhaustive list. I didn’t keep a list throughout the year so this is an off-the-top-of-my-head list.  I fully plan to add a few more ‘categories’ to this list, especially if you care to suggest any in the comments, and will hopefully have a much more revised list for 2009.  I will do one of these every year.

Thanks to everyone who made the list this year because, in some way, you made my technology experience much more enjoyable. You probably already have my money – but now you have my public applause too.

Suggestions, comments? Add them below!

The responses were a mixed bag. Some told me to ditch Mail.app, some said that they’d rather use POP3 instead of IMAP, and others with far less email messages than I have sympathized with my situation.

Today while starting up the Macbook and sipping my coffee, I noticed Apple released Mac OS X 10.5.5 as a free software update.  In the change notes I took notice of this particular line.

“Addresses performance issues related to displaying IMAP messages.”

To be honest, I don’t know what this actually means. It could mean that it speeds up Mail.app’s ability to display IMAP messages with in-line attachments.  But it doesn’t say that.  It could mean that it speeds up Mail.app’s message list, which is what I want it to say, but it doesn’t say that either.

After updating to 10.5.5 this morning I gave Mail.app a whirl.  After several “restarts” of Mail.app it seems to be a little slower than it was before at displaying the message list.  It takes 33-seconds to load the list on an IMAP-powered Mailbox with 11,899 messages.

So while the above update is, I’m sure, an update to Mail.app with regards to IMAP performance. I’m not seeing it yet.  It looks like I’ll either switch to a web-based client for my Gmail-for-domains powered email (especially now that Gears runs in Safari) or somehow keep 1,000 messages in my Inbox at a time.

Suggestions?

“Sigh, I was excited about Google contact syncing in 10.5.3, but it turns out it’s only for iPhone and iPod touch users. Lame.” — Kyle Slattery on Twitter.

I didn’t care too much about this at the time because, well, I have an iPhone and I figured I’d have the feature once I updated to the latest version of Leopard.  But then I got to thinking.  Why would Apple, or Google for that matter, want this feature to be limited in such a way? Turns out, even the daring John Gruber thought the same thing.

I have no idea.  But such as limitations are, someone took the time to figure out a way to hack it.  And so now it is up on Lifehacker and all of you out there without iPhones and/or iPod touches can rejoice.

Source: Lifehacker: Enable Google Contact Sync Without an iPhone or iPod Touch.

I’m sure everyone reading this, especially those of you that use Gmail, is aware that IMAP is now available through both Gmail and most Google Apps accounts*.

My Google Apps account became IMAP-enabled on Friday, November 2nd, 2007. Once I saw this I quickly moved into action to setup IMAP on my iPhone and in Mail.app (Apple’s Mail client on the Mac OS). I followed the instructions in Gmail’s help section to the letter. First I setup my iPhone and everything went swimmingly. Then, I moved all of my email from my Inbox into an archive folder in Mail.app (in case something went awry) and setup IMAP in Mail.app. Once I hit save, Mail.app went out and grabbed all 4,000+ messages from the Gmail server.

The email address that I’m setting up is my personal email account that I’ve only had for a few months, which is why there was only 4,000 messages to sync. To date, I’d been using POP with Gmail and so all of the messages came in marked as ‘unread’. I thought nothing of selecting all of the messages and clicking “Mark all as read”. This led to four days of Mail.app syncing with Gmail’s servers before I was able to receive a single new message. Very frustrating.

I’m not sure what I could have done differently to save myself from this four day hassle. Perhaps logging into my account through my browser and marking all messages as read there first? Either way I am definitely happy it is over and if you find yourself in a similar situation to mine – know that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Derek Punsalan has some really great tips for setting up Gmail’s IMAP on both the iPhone and Mail.app that go beyond what is provided in Google’s help area. I recommend that you make these small changes to your setup, which seem to make things much much nicer when dealing with multiple devices.

* I say “most” because it seems to be that gmail.com users got IMAP quite a bit sooner than Google Apps accounts and that some still haven’t had it enabled for them.

You don’t have this choice with web applications. When an update is rolled out for any of the web applications you use, sure you might be notified of the update and even be told what has changed since your last visit, but you are not offered the choice to use this updated version because it is forced on you.

But progression is good, right? The new version is surely better than the last.

We have good examples of desktop applications gone awry between versions. In recent memory we have the upgrade from iMovie ’06 to iMovie ’08 in the new iLife ’08 suite of applications from Apple. The move from iMovie ’06 to ’08 was less an ‘upgrade’ and more ‘a whole new application’. For some, this came as an un-welcomed surprise. There are some things that iMovie ’06 was able to do that the new iMovie ’08 can not. This isn’t to say that iMovie ’08 isn’t a great application worthy of purchasing, just that as an “upgrade” it can be jarring when features and interface familiarity drop off the face-of-the-earth.

The best thing about the iMovie situation is that people can choose to upgrade. I know people that have both iMovie ’06 and iLife ’08 installed. Choice is good.

What if you woke up this morning and Gmail looked like Hotmail? The feature set, the interface, everything – was exactly like Hotmail. You’d probably think that the Gmail development team was pulling a fast one on you and you’d probably check your calendar to see if it was April 1st. But surely the Gmail team is smarter than this. They know that making huge changes to an application can alienate past users, so they just won’t do something like that. Or will they? Or have they?

Perhaps I’m ignorant of a good example of this happening in web applications. Maybe there is a service out there that, when making major upgrades, does somehow offer the user the choice to use the most up-to-date version. I’m not sure. But supposing this is something to think about how could it be done? Is it feasible? Or am I just too picky?

My precious!

Ok. So what do I think of the iPhone? As you might have already guessed, I love it. For the entire weekend I rarely got onto my Macbook to do anything except sync my latest settings of my iPhone to the computer. The iPhone is a great mini-computer for getting most of your core Internet activities done like checking/responding to email, surfing the web for information, or other simple daily tasks like this.

I won’t get into the speed of the EDGE network or how the virtual keyboard is. To me these are non-issues thus far and I don’t have much to compare these two things to since I have never had a cell phone that used the Internet, nor a full sized hard keyboard. I can type pretty fast on the keyboard and the Internet is nearly as fast as being home on Wifi. So again, both are non-issues.

Again, it is the little things

One of my fellow line-waiters John Gruber did a fantastic job giving his general overview of each feature of the iPhone the other day. My impressions are on par with John’s except that I’ve found myself typing just fine. Be sure to read his thoughts if you’d like to catch some of the nice things about each “feature” of the iPhone.

However, I’d like to extend his list a little bit to remark on some of the little things I’ve noticed while using the iPhone that I think make the experience all the more enjoyable.

The weight of the iPhone came as a surprise to some. Yes, it feels heavier than it looks. To me this make the iPhone feel tough and rugged when compared to the way it looks. I think the fact that we’re seeing people surprised at how tough the iPhone actually is, is because it doesn’t look very rugged. It looks elegant, which doesn’t usually mean tough. However the weight of the iPhone makes it feel very rugged to me.

The speed of the interface is something that I was very skeptical about. The commercials led me to believe that the interface was just as fast, if not faster, than switching windows on my computer. In my relatively little experience with mobile phones – the interfaces on these things have never been described by me as “snappy” or “fast”. However the iPhone’s interface, in general, is incredibly fast. When speaking with John Gruber in line, he remarked how the iPhone’s “one app at a time” focus really lent itself to being able to be very fast. The iPhone doesn’t need to show windows inside of windows or multiple layers or even windows on top of windows. The application that you are currently looking at is obviously getting the priority in the Operating System which makes the iPhone blaze.

The sleep, volume, silent, and home buttons are the perfect combination of buttons that were decided to be “hard buttons”. Although one can easily adjust the volume in most applications within the iPhone’s interface, you can also use the hard volume control on the side of the iPhone. The same goes for the silent and sleep buttons – I never have to “turn on” the iPhone to use these options. And the home button is definitely far better than keeping the “doc” visible and having a “desktop” button or something. I’m really glad the iPhone has a home button.

Within each application on the iPhone there are small, hidden gems that you will only find through experimentation or someone telling you that they are there. Like the ability to turn on the caps lock key, or tapping the top bar to auto-scroll to the top of the page in Safari (both tips came from John Gruber’s site), etc. None of these small interface features are handed over, but once you find them you love them.

Of course, I want more

Keeping in mine that, technically, this is iPhone 1.0 which includes all the hardware and software that came in those beautiful black bags on Friday, I have a few things that I’d like to see improved. I’m sure that, internally, this is build 10,000+ of the iPhone’s OS and its applications, but from my perspective it is still 1.0. Being such, I fully expected to have the wish list that follows.

• Better integration with Gmail. Right now Gmail marks things as “being downloaded” when I look at them either via Mail.app on my Macbook or on my iPhone. This causes some frustration since I’d like all of my email to be “everywhere”. To fix this, I think either Google or Apple will have to update it so that it marks it as being read on the iPhone or not. Either way, the email “works” – but it could work a little bit better. (Side note: On the first day of release, the Gmail integration was wrought with problems ranging from getting duplicate messages to simply not working with Google App’s hosted domain email. These issues have been fixed, presumably by Google, over the weekend. So ++ to them.)
• Though I haven’t used the “Notes” feature yet, I could see a huge amount of improvement being done here, which might make me want to use Notes on the iPhone. Simply saving the notes saved as RTF files that are synced to your computer into ~/Documents/iPhone Notes/ would suffice for me. Why create notes that you can’t really use? A work around is taking a notes contents and creating an email out of it, which can be done fairly easily.
• iCal integration seems to work “ok” but I have the same complaints as others. If I have separate calendars within iCal they should also be separate within iPhone’s calendar application. And, when syncing with my Macbook, I shouldn’t have to choose only one calendar that the iPhone can write to. I am not sure why there is this limitation. Something else I noticed is that if I setup an iCal alert on the iPhone it works perfectly but it doesn’t work within iCal. It shows up in the application but iCal never shows me the the alert when I asked it to. Not sure why, perhaps this is a bug.
• The camera feature should allow a photo to be taken by tapping anywhere on the screen. I think some people would hate this because it would cause a lot of accidental photos to be taken, but taking photos of yourself and someone else with the iPhone is very hard with only a small button to push. Perhaps this could be a setting? Can has Photobooth for the camera? I don’t care about the crazy bulging eyes and stretching chins stuff, but it’d be nice to have the ability to take black and white photos or something simple. Obviously this is a minor, minor update that I’d enjoy seeing to the Camera feature.
• Small browser cache? From what I’ve been able to tell Safari on the iPhone only caches the current page you are looking at. Reloading a page is fairly quick but the second you navigate away from a URL the cached version is lost. I have an 8Gb iPhone, I wouldn’t mind dedicating even a few hundred megabytes to Safari’s caching if it would mean that hitting the back button wouldn’t reload the page.
• Normal headphone jacks “don’t work” with the iPhone because the iPhone’s input jack is sunken so low into the casing of the iPhone. Jason Kottke resolved this by actually cutting his headphones a little bit to allow the jack to sink in deeper. There are several add-ons being offered to make this easier, but I am unsure why this was done in the first place?
• The iPod allows you to update your set of icons on the button of its menu. I think this should be an option in all applications on the iPhone including the home screen. There are a few web applications that are being released for the iPhone that I’d love to create a shortcut to from my home screen. The first button I’d get rid of from the home screen? YouTube followed by Stocks. I simply won’t use those things on my iPhone too often.
• Google Maps on the iPhone is amazing! But I feel this application will probably receive the greatest number of updates over time. It is perhaps one of the most “complex” applications on the iPhone and using it is a delight most of the time. However, there are a few usability problems when you switch from searching for a location to getting directions to that same location. (I’ve found that it is easier to save locations in your Google Maps bookmarks.) I’m sure these little things will be improved soon and that integration with the rest of the phone’s applications will happen in the future. One of the first things that comes to mind is to tell the camera application where you are using the Maps feature, which would in turn write the Latitude and Longitude to the photos.

I’m going to cut this list short because, as I said, this is a 1.0 release and one that I’m overwhelmingly happy with. I’ve found the iPhone becoming an extension of my laptop in ways I hadn’t considered before. I knew that I’d find the iPhone useful, I didn’t expect to want to use it more than my laptop.

What are your thoughts on the iPhone? Any wishes that I didn’t cover?