brave [little] meme

iPhone 3.0 + Tumblr: almost, but not quite.

Say it with me: Cut and Paste is the most versatile feature to come to the iPhone. Ever. Yes, it took forever to arrive, but now it’s here dammit, and it’s time to make some good use of it.

Since the release of iPhone OS 3.0 and my subsequent purchase of a 3GS (Yes, I’m a sucker for new gear, so sue me), I have been spending a lot of my downtime exploring what the new OS update can offer in terms of everyday tasks. Wouldn’t you know it, updating this here blog is indeed one of those tasks, one that’s now become somewhat viable thanks to the ability to quickly swap data between apps like Safari and Tumblr.

But therein lies the problem: the addition of nice things like Cut and Paste and the semi-ubiquitous landscape keyboard has highlighted some considerable shortcomings in Tumblr’s own iPhone offering. Specifically:

Lack of a landscape keyboard
Typing a post in portrait now feels all the more painful knowing the alternative should be just a tilt away.

Lack of a persistent state
Take this use case as an example: you want to paste a quote from a web page into an email as well as the link of the page it’s from. So you go into Mail, start a new email, then go into Safari, cut some text out of a web page, go back into Mail, and paste it. Repeat for the link.

You’ll notice that this is no big deal, given that both Mail and Safari maintain their states when you close them. So why, pray Tell, does Tumblr not do the same? If I have a new post open when I close the app I want to see that same post when I get back into it, and no, a blue dot in the main view next to the post’s category is not as good.

Lack of video support
OK fine, this is a 3GS only feature, but it would be great to be able to upload my newly filmed clip onto a suitable hosting service and embed it into a new post, all in one click, and within the Tumblr app. 

Inability to directly edit already published posts
This is not a 3.0 specific gripe, but it surprised me as I started making more use of the Tumblr application. While the app does a relatively decent job of presenting an interface to create new posts, it does nothing to offer the ability to edit a post that’s already been published. Opening the Tumblr Dashboard from the Sites icon and editing the post in there leads to some page formatting issues, so much so that it’s just easier to go do the whole thing in Safari. It would be nice if the same custom interface used to create and tag new posts were available to edit what’s already on your Tumblr blog.

In summary, since the arrival of 3.0 the iPhone now has all of the key components of a blogging platform, but no real interface to take advantage of them. I really hope the Tumblr devs are listening and preparing a revision of their app to take advantage of the newly available functionality. Only then will we see a surge in the kind of spontaneous, fresh content that the Tumblr platform as a whole is so well suited for.

Behind the Scenes: Interview with the Plex Team

On January 11, 2008, the following post appeared in the fledgling Plex blog:

“Videos actually sort of play now, although there’s no sound […] and videos play at strange rates. Sometime fast, sometimes slow.” - elan

That was then, and this is now. Just over a year later and Plex is already one of the most advanced and full-featured Media Center packages available on OSX. Accelerating away from its roots as an XBMC port, Plex has over a short time managed to carve out its own unique identity as a solid, rich media platform.

Today we have a chance to look behind the scenes of one of the Mac platform’s greatest labours of love, by sharing some question time with two of its key creators: Elan Feingold and Isaac Ordonez.

Q: Tell us a little bit about your background.

Elan: I was born in Pakistan to American parents, grew up in Europe, and my first computer was an MSX2. I studied Computer Science and Electrical Engineering in upstate New York, worked for Digital Equipment Corporation and then a string of start-ups.

Isaac: I’m a self-taught Server and Systems administrator for a medium sized school district in California.  I’ve been working on Unix and Mac servers for quite some time.  Since I deal with students and teachers on a daily basis I tend to understand what everyday computer users expect while at the same time also understand the nitty gritty. I try and apply this when working with Plex as I feel our target market is going to be the everyday user.

Q: Why Plex?

Elan: I was looking for a media center for my Mac, and I was trying Perian and Front Row. However, Perian had horrible support for AC3 passthough and no support for DTS passthough (at the time, at least). I was considering coding it up, but then got bored one evening and started on the port of XBMC, which I had used on an XBOX for years. More to the point, why Plex and not XBMC? I found that I had very different goals for the application, which is I guess how most forks occur.

Isaac: As with most people I started as an XBMC user on my Xbox1.  I’ve always bounced around trying to find the perfect media center.  I got an Apple TV, Played with VLC, Perian and Frontrow but none of these really stuck.  The biggest problem I had was that while I could use these systems, my wife and most of my friends couldn’t. Heck I had to pay someone to mod an Xbox1 and install XBMC on it.

When I saw Elan was porting XBMC to OS X I jumped at the idea of creating something easy yet functional.  Once we forked it’s been great only having to focus on one platform, we’ve been able to avoid having to develop features for a “hobby” audience and try and focus on the masses.  Whenever we look at a new feature we think “Is this wife friendly?”.  I usually sit my wife down in front of the feature and hand her the remote to get feedback.  If the feature is too confusing we have to take a step back and consider if it’s worth implementing.

Q: How would you define your role within the scope of the Plex project team?

Elan: I’m one of the people coding, obviously, and I try to help keep us focused as a team and set priorities. I also act as gatekeeper for the release branch of Plex and make the releases.

Isaac: So far my role has been “do a little bit of everything”.  I manage web services, keep an eye on our forums, dabbled in coding, help with plugins, project management and the list goes on.  I also try to keep developers grounded with the user base.  Sometimes I worry someone will run off and create something totally useless like an ASCII video player.

Q: With its Plex/Seven series of releases, the Plex project has been establishing a more defined sense of identity by diverging from its XBMC roots through new features such as TV Themes, the Plex Media Server, and the new App Store. What inspires you and the team as to which new features to pursue?

Elan: These things all play into our plans for world domination. Honestly, I think we have a shared vision, but the exact pieces of the puzzle change over time, and we’re lucky to have really creative people like James (author of the TV Themes feature) who’s always coming up with great ideas. Also, one of the great things about forking is that we have this powerful code base, but without any of the potential baggage that comes with it in terms of ownership, existing priorities, or politics.

Isaac: As with most projects, personal interest is what drives new features.  You have to be really excited with a feature to want to work on it.  At the same time you have to listen to the user requests and sometimes work on a feature you have little to no interest in.  As long as in the end it’s for the good of the project.

Q: There have been a few hints in the past as to a complete rebuild of the Library system for Plex. How’s that coming along, and what sorts of improvements can we expect from it?

Elan: We don’t comment on upcoming features, but if you look on the forums, you’ll see that it is one of the biggest annoyances at the moment.

Isaac: Without directly answering the question, I think you could say we’ve make good progress already. Since we added full iTunes and iPhoto support the Music and Picture library system is becoming irrelevant.  Most Mac users already have their music and pictures neatly organized in these programs.  I think Apple has provided a really great way to manage your these types of media so there isn’t much of a reason to re-invent the wheel here.

Q: Are there any new features you can hint at on the Plex roadmap?

Elan: I can’t say much beyond saying that we’ve scoped out our roadmap for the rest of the year, and that there’s a lot of exciting stuff on it. If we manage to get it all done, I think users will be really pleased.

Isaac: We’re looking at adding Gopher support and possibly streaming RAR files over telnet, other than that we have some ideas.

Q: How, if at all, is Plex’s reliance on XBMC code changing as the project increasingly develops its own unique feature set?

Elan: The reliance will continue to lessen over time. If you break down XBMC into components, you have the skinning engine, the players, and then everything else. The skinning engine is the component of primary interest to us, along with the players. The other parts will likely be of decreasing importance as time goes on. What people don’t seem to realize is that every feature comes with a non-zero support cost. More features doesn’t imply a better, more stable, or more usable product. We’ve not serving our users well by trying to be everything to everybody.

Q: What about skinning; Plex currently defaults to MediaStream. What’s your team’s relationship to the skin’s creators?

Elan: Mike Beecham (one of the authors of MediaStream) is a great guy, and he’s now part of our team. We take design seriously, and we actually have as many or more designers as we do coders.

Q: How would you rate MediaStream in terms of aesthetics and usability?

Elan: I don’t think that’s a totally fair question, because I think that a skin’s usability has a lot to do with the underlying structure of the XBMC application/UI code. Having said that, I think the appearance of MediaStream was groundbreaking in terms of both aesthetics and usability.

Isaac: I’d give it an 8 and a 7.  It’s a great looking skin, when people come over and I show them Plex they go “what’s that!?”.  My wife can use it, but sometimes she gets lost.  I’ve programmed “Movies”, “TV Shows” and “Music” buttons on our remote to help with this.  Sometimes I see people getting stuck on a scroll bar or on the options menu to the right (or top).  All in all I think Mediastream really raised the bar for XBMC/Plex skins in balancing beauty with usability.

Q: The upcoming Aeon Stark interface has been getting quite a buzz lately, and seems to also shaping up to become one of the more user-friendly interfaces available for XBMC. Are there plans to extend Plex’s skinning support to be Stark-friendly upon the skin’s release?

Elan: First off, major kudos to DJH, who’s an incredibly talented designer. We don’t have any concrete plans, although a resync with the skinning engine code is definitely in our plans for the future. We have our own priorities, and I worry about getting distracted by these sorts of things; at the end of the day we only have a limited number of spare hours.

Isaac: Aeon Stark looks like a beautiful skin from the videos and pictures I’ve seen.  From it’s looks though I wouldn’t put it in on a device and give it to the common user though.  Personally I would like to see something that way halfway between Front Row and Mediastream.  Being able to control every little aspect how your setup looks is important, but only to a small subset of people and in the end usability will always trump eye candy.

My Comcast DVR for example, the interface is ugly as dirt, but there is no need for an instruction manual. But at the end of the day millions of people use it, and it doesn’t even come with a user guide. After I created a help screencast for adding your movies to Plex someone who had used been using Plex/XBMC for years went “Woah! You can add multiple paths to a source!?” Basic functionality like this should be intuitive for even casual users.

Q: Does the team have any interest in evaluating Stark ahead of its release?

Elan: I’m interested but sadly don’t have the time. The ideal would be a Plex user with some development experience who could be an advocate for the skin, test it out, and perhaps cherry pick some of the new skinning features that are required. Also, I’m sure the (very talented) author of Stark has a good idea of what new things he needed.

Q: What about the skinning community as a whole: it would seem that, currently, most of the third-party interfaces in use by the Plex community are originally designed for XBMC. Does the team have any plans to further engage the skinning community to encourage a stronger focus towards Plex?

Isaac: Personally I would rather see one KILLER skin for plex than 500 mediocre ones.  But that is just me being a stick in the mud. ;)

Elan: I agree completely with Isaac. Having more skin choices isn’t always better for the end user who just wants to sit down and watch something on their TV. To answer the question, we definitely engage with designers who approach us, which is why we have quite a few of them working with us now.

Q: I’d now like to talk a little about Plex in relation to its siblings in the HTPC software market, namely XBMC and Boxee. In a previous interview with Jmarshall from the XBMC team, he stated they maintained no real relationship with the Plex team as a whole. Would you agree with that, and if so, is that by choice?

Elan: It depends how you define “relationship.” If you mean “share code” then yes. If you mean we email back and forth to exchange ideas, then no. I respect and like Jonathan, and I’ve always gotten along well with Vulkanr of the Boxee project. However, at the end of the day we all have different visions and different priorities.

Isaac: As Jonathan noted in his interview Scott and I had lunch with him when he was in San Francisco.  He has always been open to communicating to us and we appreciate that. Aside from Jonathan there have been a few XBMC members who have been more than willing to talk about common issues via PM or E-mail.

Q: How do you think communication between the Plex and XBMC teams could be improved?

Elan: To what end? The basic fact is that we have different aspirations with our respective projects. As long as we have open communication channels to discuss common issues (which we do), I think things are working fine.

Q: Would it be fair to say Plex has adopted a more closed-off development model relative to XBMC? If so, what factors influenced such a move?

Elan: Yes, it would be fair. Releasing the source at the same time as a release (which is also what Boxee does), reduces or eliminates the number of half-baked or “in-between” builds that might exist, which helps lighten the support load. Overall we haven’t found any downsides in doing things this way, especially since we tend to release fairly often.

Isaac: Open or closed development makes no real difference when it really comes down to the end user that I can see.  Most people aren’t going to be bothered to download the source and compile.  Bottom line is they want new features and they want them now.  This is why our auto update feature has been such a big hit.

Q: Looking at Plex’s new App Store feature, one might observe that it is taking Plex into a somewhat analogous direction to the more streaming-focused Boxee. Was that intentional?

Elan: I don’t consider it a change of direction, just an additional piece of functionality. It rounds us out.

Isaac: Streaming is just once piece of the puzzle, mediocre quality video on demand probably won’t replace higher quality files that reside on the users system.  It’s the way the world is moving though.

Q: Does the Plex team maintain any contact with streaming service providers like Hulu with regards to making their content available via App Store plugins?

Elan: No, although this is likely to change. To be honest, though, I’m really not very impressed with the major content providers (I described my feelings more here) as I don’t think that they’ve provided a viable alternative to pirated content, which is what they should be doing. I’m personally much more excited with things like TED Talks than I am with low-resolution, ad-laden old episodes of MacGyver.

We have been approached by companies who are interested in getting their content onto people’s televisions, and this is the sort of win/win relationship we are interested in.

(As a funny side note, if you look at the source of a Hulu video page and search for ‘pl’ - with quotes, I can only assume it stands for “Plex” - you’ll see the only communication we’ve received from them, in the form of a hidden div countermeasure.)

Q: Has Plex’s increased focus towards streaming content provision raised any legal issues?

Elan: We are rendering these sites in a web browser, we just happen to zoom in to fit the content inside the Plex player, so we believe we are within our rights.

Q: How does the project keep going financially without relying on advertising or other commercial tie-ins?

Isaac: We get paid in smiles… Almost literally.  We have some fantastic users who have provided hosting for our files and liquidgravity.com has provided us with an almost dedicated server for our web services.

Elan: As a team of people working on this in their spare times, there are no real financial requirements. As Isaac said, generous people have come forward to provide us with the bandwidth and hosting we need. Everything else is just fingers and a keyboard. People have been very kind and generous in providing us with beer, as well.

Q: Is Plex’s financial model likely to move in a more commercial direction in future?

Elan: First of all, we’re obviously not in it for the money, because we’ve put in thousands of hours over the last year with very little in return. Getting an appreciative email, forum post, or a beer donation is really awesome, and we absolutely love our users and think they’re great.

The second thing I’ll say is that obviously we really love working on Plex. Wouldn’t it be great if we could actually make a living doing it? The question is whether we can figure out a way to do that without compromising our vision.

Q: Where do you see Plex going over the next year?

Elan: We have big plans for the year, and I’m really hoping we can release 1.0 before 2010.

Q: Finally, do you have a message for our readers?

Elan: Thanks for reading, thanks for your interest, and if you’re a Plex forum user, thanks so much for contributing to the nicest and most productive forum I’ve ever seen on the Internet!

..

bravelittlememe would like to thank Elan and Isaac for their time, and encourages you to visit them over at the Plex home.

Where can the iPhone replace a desktop?

For better or worse, the vast majority of my day is usually spent in front of a Mac. Whether it’s my work laptop or my home iMac, the familiar OSX desktop is pretty much a steady feature of my weekday.

Yet, I have recently noticed that there are a few common tasks for which I instinctively reach for my iPhone, even when I’m right in front of a computer screen. For example:

Google analytics: The excellent Analytics App on the iPhone provides me with a quicker overview of site visits for the current day than Google’s own pages, and does not require me to go through a login. When I need to check out how many hits a particular story has gathered, the iPhone is my first port of call.

Twitter: For some reason I seem to prefer using Tweetie on the iPhone than any of the many desktop Twitter clients available on the mac. The iPhone experience just feels more personal, like sneaking a quick peek at what’s going on in the twittersphere within the privacy of a small screen. Tweetie’s uncluttered interface has a lot to do with it.

The Calculator: Yes, it’s ridiculous, but I find myself reaching for the iPhone’s calculator application rather than firing up the desktop version. 

Movie Times:  The Flixster application is a perfect example of an application upon which I rely on almost exclusively when it comes to checking movie times in my local area. honestly  can’t remember the last time I used the web to find out where a movie was playing.

Last.fm: I find it easier to dedicate my iPhone to the role of Last.fm player than to dedicate a browser window to the desktop equivalent.

Xbox Live: When it comes to checking is any of my friends are online for a game of Gears of War 2, the iNXEs app on the iPhone provides a faster, better alternative to many of the dedicated apps and dashboard widgets I have found to perform the same function. 

If there is one characteristic all these applications share is that they are streamlined to the achievement of one sole purpose, and designed to provide quick access to one specific set of information at the expense of all else. 

In effect, their presence on the iPhone turns the device into an extension to the Dashboard concept, whereby each application (or widget) provides an optimised interface to one specific type of function or information.

As a result, the overall user experience for a given task on a device like the iPhone can, sometimes counter-intuitively, be superior to its desktop counterpart. Add this to the more private, personal experience provided by a handheld device, and you have a powerful combination for repeated use.

Reader Question: Where has your handheld device replaced your desktop?

Safari 4 Beta: First Impressions

I’ve been using Safari’s new beta for three days now, first on a Windows XP machine (Don’t ask, it was under duress) and then on my own iMac under Leopard. Having read conflicting reports about its speed, stability and compatibility, I was a little hesitant about installing it, but I must admit I am very pleasantly surprised. So here is how it stacks up so far:

Installation: I am ashamed to admit it, but it was easier on Windows, where it was a matter of a minute or so. On the Mac, installation required a reboot and the latest security updates in place. Sure, it has to do with Safari’s closer integration with OSX but still, point of pride here.

Speed: It’s blazing fast, compared to both Safari 3 and FireFox 3.1. The speed is very noticeable on most sites, but particularly those which rely heavily on JavaScript. The new Nitro engine must be working.

Reliability: Multiple tabs open, CPU-intensive processes running in the background, and a multitude of sites with quick hopping between pages and reloading. Not a crash yet. This was perhaps the biggest surprise for a beta release.

Interface: I’m still not sold on the concept of tabs-on-top, but it’s growing on me. I certainly don’t mind them enough to put them back the way they were. Top Sites is a cute feature, but only time will tell how much it gets used. CoverFlow in History, I can honestly take it or leave it.

Compatibiility: I don’t use third-party plugins with Safari, so no problems there. If you do, stay clear - they won’t work.

All in all, it seems as though I’m going to stick with this beta until I find a compelling reason not to. Its speed alone is a strong motivator, as going back to FireFox frankly feels like wading in treacle. I would recommend those of you with a taste for the bleeding edge to give Safari 4 a try, but bear in mind that its installation on Macs will effectively replace your existing copy of Safari.

If you’re so inclined, you can download the Safari 4 beta from here.