There are 3377 Paid iPad photography apps. Auto Adjust and Normalize are both in the top Paid in the less than 200 area (which is good because they actually get seen somewhere on iTunes). If the often-number-one iPhoto makes a few million a week, how much do each of the steps down make?

In the iPad rankings, you merely need to sell to be in the top 400. Period. I think 10 is enough. So while apps like Photoshop, iPhoto, and Camera+ have millions of downloads per year, once you’re out of the top 10 it’s mere hundreds a day at best.

Not only did I return from a camping trip to immediately changing apartments, but I have to get ready for the release of updates to Normalize and iDecorate, a very BIG iDecorate update. Things are in Apple’s hands so I have some time. I’m very excited. Tip: Always, ALWAYS release your apps manually. Don’t ever “Release once _ has been approved”.

In the meantime, I have a week of 5by5 podcasts to catch up on. I can’t just listen to Build and Analyze from last week because he might talk about last week’s Amplified or Hypercritical and I don’t want anything spoiled.

My parents have an Kindle Fire and an iPad 1. Their review of the Fire: painfully unresponsive BUT fine for reading once you manage to get it up and running.

In other words, the Fire sucks because of Amazon’s crappy software, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with the 7″ screen, even with their prescriptions.

This is less of a prediction and more of a plausible desire of the Fall Event and its outcomes.

• $99 iPod Touch 8GB (single core A5, ATV style)
• $199 iPad Mini 8GB (A5, XGA display, WiFi) AKA the Fuck You model
• $299 iPad Mini with Retina Display 16GB (A5X, Retina Display, LTE)
• $399 iPad 2
• $499 iPad 3

Let’s talk realistically about the new iPod Touch. It has to exist. It serves a very important purpose as the iOS gateway drug. So how on earth could Apple get the price down $99? Simply by not changing it (same shitty non IPS screen, useless cameras) but “upgrade” it to those half-A5s they’re putting in AppleTVs. Keep in mind this is the 8GB model for $99. 64GB for $199, 128GB for $299 – Classic laid to rest. The Touch has room for two NAND chips so it’s realistic to expect it to have twice the capacity as the iPhones. The 8GB version is the “penalty” for wanting a $99 device and in fact will further encourage future purchases as users want more. I’m not going to speculate on the Nano/Shuffle at this time.

A big question that remains is if Apple will make a non-retina iPad mini just for the sake of the $199 price point. They’ve already used “with Retina Display” as a model differentiator/title for the MacBook Pro so it actually seems more likely now than it did prior to WWDC. This device will similarly carry the 8GB “penalty”. It will be easy for users to see the $299 version with twice as much storage AND a retina display as the better value.

It’s worth reiterating that the panels on the iPad mini will be iPhone panels cut larger. So take an iPhone, extend it to XGA/@2X and that’s how big it will be (which is 7 inch ish). Someone on stage will say something to the effect of the retina display not being around when Steve made his comments on 7 inch devices. They’ll talk about how it has the highest pixel density of any 7 inch device, 300+ppi, just like iPhones, and how it’s the best reading experience. Then they’ll talk about how children have better eyes and smaller fingers and announce the cheap non-retina model for budget conscious buyers like schools (but everyone else too). Cue heartwarming video, Tim getting choked up, it’s time to talk iPhone 5.

Actually, switch the order. Announce the XGA one first to a bunch of yawns, then announce that you can have a retina display on it for a small premium.

Since the iPod touch announcement will be first, it won’t have any new features the iPhone 5 is to gain, such as a different screen shape. The two will continue to grow farther apart feature and spec-wise.

If you’ve been following RIM’s “earnings” (losings) for 2012, you’ll see they’re not doing too well, and they’re firing a lot more people, again. Considering they’re supposed to be hard at work at BB10, I’m wondering who they’re firing. People involved in it? People that weren’t doing anything anyway?

Previews of BB10 have not been as friendly as Windows 7/8 reviews. Windows 7 actually deservers a little marketshare. But it was too little too late for consumers to change course back from iOS and Android. BB10, which is most likely worse, and more incomplete (in terms of feature parity) than Windows Phone isn’t going to magically not have the adoption problems Windows Phone is having.

The myth that they can cling to Enterprise customers.
The only reason enterprises didn’t want iPhones at first is because they didn’t support Microsoft Exchange email and calendaring. They do now, and have for quite some time. (iOS 3? 2 even?). Encryption? Check. Remote Wiping? Check. Tracking? Check. Wiping from bad password attempts? Check. Alphanumeric Passwords? Check. IT managed security profiles? Check… I’m not sure what exactly RIM thinks it does that iPhones don’t do in the enterprise, but clearly many companies, including healthcare, the most security conscious industry there is, are moving to “it just works” iPhones.

Can RIM be saved? Sure, if they reduce themselves down to just having BBM as product. But at this point I don’t even think they have the resources (or morale) left make a BB skin for Android much less fork it Amazon Kindle style.

Perhaps RIM, Nokia, and Microsoft should learn that there simply is no blowing Apple out of the Water. Whatever they slap you with was 5 years in the making. You’ll never catch up. So obvious is this fact to mainstream media that the only reason these pieces of crap get press is because we want to see Apple misstep. “Dethroning” Apple is an interesting story. It’s just that it’s so-far a made-up one. And don’t pretend Android isn’t. Let’s count Android 4.0 devices vs iOS 5.0 Devices.

If there’s one thing I noticed immediately about the Nexus 7, it’s that is’s intended to be held in one hand in portrait mode, like a phone, rather than being orientation agnostic like the iPad design.

And surprise surprise, the only thing it’s shown doing in landscape on Google’s website is media related. And rightly so. There’s no good way to read in 16:10 landscape. 2-Up still gives you plenty of unused room on the sides. And “scale to fill” gives a really awkward 1-paragraph viewport.

If the 7″ iPad ever does exist, it will have a uniform bezel like it’s bigger brothers, and you’ll hold it the same way as your iPad, with one hand holding it, the thumb placed in the bezel, and your other hand operating it. I would love a 7″ iPad with 3G to offset my MacBook growing from 11″ Air to retina 15″ (whenever mine ships).

On that note, I bet the reason this doesn’t even have a 3G option is because Google wanted to make something completely out of OEM and carrier control. They want to show that they can ship something with Jellybean and update it to KeyLime Pie. That way they can steer the blame for fragmentation onto the carriers/oems where it rightfully belongs, and hopefully Android can be more like a desktop OS, that merely has general RAM, processor, and HDD requirements. You’d think drivers would be easier to come by given that there are only 3 display makers, 2 processor makers, and 2 cellular radio makers… but as an iOS user I don’t care enough to actually have this discussion.

I bet the Nexus 7 with 3G (maybe not LTE) does exist somewhere, but for political reasons Google needs something to twist carriers arms. They still don’t have the leverage Apple has to not have AT&T or Verizon stamped onto their hardware. A Nexus 7 with WiFi selling in big numbers might get them there.

Still… it’s won the race for which Android device (tablet, phone, or otherwise) I’d start with. That doesn’t mean I’m ready to make that plunge. Unlike games and Instapaper, people haven’t been clamoring for an Android version of my apps.

On Saturday I went outlet shopping with my girlfriend. Since this was a new destination for both of us, we looked to our iOS devices for directions.

Still sitting at home, I found the LL Bean anchor store on both with 4S with iOS 5 Google Maps and my AT&T iPad 3 with iOS 6 Beta 1 Apple Maps, powered by Garmin I believe. There were differences every step of the way. First, the Google routes, all of them, had me drive through a bunch of non-major highways to get to the first major highway. The Apple maps told me to drive to the highway closer to our start, which was of course more distance, but less steps. I started the route on the iPad and we were on our way (I am not driving btw).

First off, Siri is a little weird to hear out of an iPad, especially since I didn’t talk to her first. Since her directions weren’t in reply to anything and were often repeated it felt much more robotic than Siri usually does. I didn’t feel like I was talking to Siri, it felt more like the disembodied Samantha voice was just screen reading to me. She still sounded better than most GPS. She’d say very human things like “turn right onto this exit and at the end of the road turn left onto…”.

The drive was quite pleasant. We didn’t miss any turns period, our fault or hers, so I can’t comment on how that’s handled. What she did screw up was the arrival. Coming from our direction, the outlet mall was on the left side of the highway, but there was a protected left turn lane there for us. Google new about this, but Apple Maps wanted us to make a mid-road U-Turn. Yes, a drive across two or three lanes U-Turn. Neither service knew of the “roads” once we got off the highway.

—

Going home was a little worse. We decided to go to a Cracker Barrel on the way back. We kinda knew where it was so we decided to let Siri take us there. Two pins showed up when I searched, both were wrong. I had to go to the website to look up the actual address, which when pasted in brought up an accurate pin drop. That’s fine while I’m sitting here saying “hey this satellite picture points to nothing” but imagine if I spoke “Take me to Cracker Barrel”, she replied “the one in Clinton, NJ?”, I said yes, and she took us down that random dirt road she picked.

Overall, as of Beta 1, I’d say she’s great at driving directions, but seemed to be 0/2 as far as having perfect directions to the actual destination. From Cracker Barrel, we had her take us to the Bridgewater NJ Mall. Her directions this time were a lot better. She actually got us onto Mall property all by herself. Of course, this was a destination we didn’t need directions to. She also had no trouble getting us to a ShopRite. 2/4. Not Bad.

Note: This was all with Beta 1.

Thoughts and Conclusions:
First, a hat tip to AT&T for working 100% of the time in Pennsylvania. They really do have better middle-of-nowhere performance than Verizon does (note: Sample space limited to the northeast).

Now onto maps.
I find it disappointing that the turn by turn maps are “drawn”, no option to use satellite imagery, and no 3D terrains. Don’t give me that “well you’re only looking at it while driving” BS because you’re not supposed to do that either. Your screen should be off and she should be able to talk you through it. If the screen is on, it’s probably a passenger navigator, who would appreciate a much more graphically impressive experience.

I miss the ability to step through the route on map. You can only view the whole directions in list view or just tap “Start” and she won’t update until you move. I like having visual indicators for my turn offs (am I going up, down, cloverleaf, jug handle, etc) that you get when you zoom in using satellite view. Without being able to step through the route, you have to find these points yourself and it kinda sucks.

As I mentioned earlier, the routes are great, I prefer them over Google’s, but the destinations aren’t there yet. She’s not at the point where you can say “Newark Airport” and she’ll know you mean Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark NJ yet. Sometimes I get “Newark Airport Limo”, sometimes “Newark Dock”, all sorts of crap. Google gives me the damn airport.

Devs say Retina-optimized Macs will take time

The biggest issue here is that developers who didn’t order one during the keynote won’t be getting their retina MacBook Pros until 2-4 weeks from WWDC. Yes you can enable HiDPI mode on a 27″ and get a pixel doubled 720p experience and yes you should have been including @2X artwork since the writing was on the walls, but it’s not a simple matter of recompiling. You need to test on real hardware.

I dream of a day where Apple has a developer store that gets items a day or two before the public store. There wouldn’t be any units reserved for developers, they would just get to place their orders before the general public. It’d be interesting if Apple started requiring shipping binaries to get many of the developer perks.

If you saw my thunderbolt post, you’ll see that my ideal machine is something with a lot of Thunderbolt / Display options, Quad i7, and a real GPU. The Retina MacBook Pro is exactly that, oh, and it’s also a retina MacBook Pro.

My only “disappointment” is that its logical resolution is 1440×900. I don’t really care about the 512 SSD being too expensive because I intend to leave my iTunes and Aperture on my Mini server and sync my iEverything to that.

Regarding the existence of my 11″ Air – I’m not waiting for a Retina Air because I never expect a decent GPU to be in them. I also don’t intend to take the 15″ anywhere other than the desk, the couch, and maybe WWDC. It certainly won’t be coming camping with me.

I’ll buy one when I can get it in store. I don’t like multi week shipping times. I can’t coordinate that.

I’ve run into a weird situation here… If I don’t dispatch this loading thing onto another thread, the app just hangs for two seconds as it loads a new stamp. However, since UIKit can only be updated on the main thread, it’s possible for the loading to finish before the main thread realizes that it’s done and gets rid of the “Loading” message.

I’m sure I’m doing something wrong, but this isn’t the first time where iOS has spent noticeable time dispatching things. The last thing I want to do is to fire off a timer like one normally does for progress bar updating. It seems like overkill. I’m just loading 4MP pngs here. Not that complicated, just takes a noticeable 2 seconds. As this is a file I/O thing and has little to do with the rest of the hardware it’s not any faster on the third generation iPad than the original iPad.

I’m probably overreacting. People might think the loading screen makes it feel slower even though it’s “more responsive”… this might be the first time I test with real people.