And you remember how this unnamed large corproate entity was part of the resistance to Philadelphia having their own public wireless network…

To think, if your network went down in your office, you could just walk a few blocks to the park, or… a coffee shop… or anywhere if your city has a well build wireless network not tied up in interference from corporations who are trying to monopolize internet access.

This evening I’m headed up to NYC to visit my brother for a few days. I decided to take Bolt Bus. They say it has wifi, and the price is very good.
So what the hell. It can’t be worse then the China Town bus, can it?

Right now, as I type this, I’m sitting about midway back on the bus, plugged in and on the internet at 75mph headed north on I95. The fall evening has turned dark, and I’m listening to friskyradio typing in to the glow of my monitor as the highway blurs by me in the windows. I’m in a sort of future pause right now, as I see what tomorrow will bring us, and how its already here if you’re looking in the right spot.

In 83 Gibson wrote about a ubiquitous data network. At the time it was raw fantasy with the “internet” as we know it only a sketch on a drawing board, and barely connecting only the most major Universities in the world. His vision was of a matrix of computers, connecting everyone together, making communication and the exchange of data effortless and integrated fully with our daily lives. We’re not quite there yet with the level of Virtual Reality he predicted, but its almost impossible to not find somewhere where I can get on line… and the power to share, collaborate, and integrate that it brings us is amazing.

Case in point.
Obama Iphone App.

The Obama campaign continues to blow the lid off of what you can do with the internet in coordinating grassroots campaign movements. Wired has a great article on how it is connecting people all over the country in a way that has never been done before, for the purpose of grassroots organizing.

And now the Obama campaign has an iPhone app thats leveraging the digital device we have in our pockets to track and manage that same campaign at the level of what you, as a single person can

The ability to share information quickly and effortlessly is the biggest problem with running any organization. Your team can not execute the plan if they don’t have the knowledge to do what you want them to do. The advent of the internet as a way of distributing that information easily was the first step. The devices that most of us carry in our pockets are just waiting for the connectivity to take the next step.

The iPhone, I’ve always said, is the first generation of a new paradigm in connected devices. its easier to use, slicker, better interface, and developed in mind for applications as a small computer, not as a phone. Its screaming for applications that leverage our own personal data, such as your phone book, and GPS sharing, with a larger organizaation that needs you to participate in the mission at hand. Leverage this for any grassroots or low capital oganization that needs to maintain connectivity and organization and you no longer have to have offices, phone trees, or even email if the system communicates the data you need to share exactly how it needs to be consumed at the other end. If that data integrates with you personal knowledge, such as the phone book, or GPS system, you then have the ability of coordinating that data with real action in real time. The Campaign software tracks calls made, and your position when you make the call (its not tracking who, just that a call was made from its interface). This data can be shared with the head quarters, and you’ve instantly got a knowledge network based on not only abstract contact info, but also geospecial relationships. You know know exactly where the holes are in your coverage, and can see whos near by to fill it.

I think its brilliant, and for the purpose of a volunteer force organizing to elect a man president its perfect for their needs.

this *IS* what we’ll see in 4 years, and in 8 years, and I cna’t even imagine in 12 years….

The military has been working on the smart warrior technology that does this for the use of soldiers on the ground for decades, I think a simple iPhone app made it look old, and useless all of a sudden.

I don’t want a day when you can’t unplug.
But the day when everything I need to do my job, and connect with who and what I want to connect with is right around the corner, and I can taste it. The future is in beta, and we’re all testing it.

From my personal observation, with out reading any of the documentation, this is what I observed…

Last Thursday at some point I update iTunes to 7.7. Easy as pie.

Roughly at 10am the next day (Friday) the iPhone 2.0 software was released for general consumption (lets ignore the thursday leak…) via iTunes.

I dock my phone with the macbook pro.

I let it sync the iPhone.

I press “update software.”

*begin headache*.

The update does the following.
1. It backs up all data on your phone.
2. It wipes your phone of all data.
3. It installs the new software.
4. It tries to authenticate with Apple.

Steps 1 through 3 went very quickly.
Step 4 took 3+ hours.

This is where I’m upset.
Apple knows how many iPhone’s they’ve sold.
They also know how many 2nd generation iPhone’s they were shipping to retailers.
If you have spent the last 6 months (yes, they have, I know for a fact) testing the iPhone 2 software with select customers (yes, they have, I know for a fact, I’m one of them)…

Then as Apple, shouldn’t you know **EXACTLY** how much bandwidth and processor cycles you’ll need on friday to support the existing customer base and new customer base who are trying to update their phones?

I mean… Its math right? its not magic… its not… a guessing game?
Right?

As I said, at approx 10am Friday, I updated my phone, it took 3 hours to go from firmware 2.0 install to completing authentication with apple’s servers to allow me to use my phone, as a phone.

This is unacceptable.

Sure, around 1pm, or 2pm, it started working again, but it wasn’t seemless.
it wasn’t even “well communicated”.

The error messages, as you can see in my previous post are esoteric and confusing. “Error number -4″ and error number -9000 something…

I’m a IT guy. I read error messages for a living. These error messages are shit. (mostly cause you can’t copy and paste from a popup item like that in to google and find an answer)

They’re not explanitory of the problem.
They don’t offer a clear answer. “Try again later”

“why?” you ask?
Cause steve jobs hates you, I guess???

So, for the next 3 hours, between all of the other shit I had to do during my day, I kept attempting to get apple to accept my phone as “real”.

For 3 hours I wondered if I had a brick sitting on my desk, that a year ago cost me 600 dollars…
Would they accept a brick for a $200 phone today? The obvious chain of thought flowed through my mind, and I wondered if I would have to turn on my old samsung phone, which never needed a hard-reinstall of new software, ever… (let alone never randomly crashed when i was sending a text message).

All said and done.
It works. The Application store is a model of good-design. It simply “works”.
Apple has an amazing product, thats a model of what we all should expect in our “mobile devices” for the next few years. every higher end phone you will find on the market for the next year is a direct response to the iphone, let alone the iphone 2. Android is a competitor, and maybe symbian is one also after the opensource release recently. But apple, as always, (if you ignore the **MASSSIVE* fuck up friday) makes a product that you’re able to just plug in, and have work.

It wasn’t perfect. I’m not at all happy. but I have a feeling they learned their lesson…. or at least I can hope.