Pre features I want on the iPhone

I like the way the Pre can have multiple apps “active” at once and quickly switch between them. It’s a pain when trying to do something on the iPhone that requires flipping between two or three apps.

I’m not crazy, however, about how such “active” applications on the Pre remain running in the background. To conserve processing and battery power, only the “frontmost” app should have the full app running.

The iPhone should allow third-party apps to do background processing. (Something I’ve changed my mind about.) With a good scheduler (the part of the operating system that decides what program gets processing time when), there’s no worry that the phone part of the iPhone won’t get every clock-cycle it needs. As long as the system limits the priority third-party apps can have.

Although, background processes shouldn’t be full apps. They should only be limited processes dedicated to a particular app task that can take advantage of being in the background. In fact, from what I’ve read, this is the case for the built-in iPhone apps. There are minimal little “iPod helper” and “Mail helper” background processes that take care of the background processing for those apps when they aren’t running. Also, giving developers services that they can leverage instead of writing their own background processes—like notifications—is something else I’d like to see. e.g. An app like Pandora ought to be able to leverage the existing iPod background process to play audio when other apps are running. (If that isn’t already available.)

Speaking of notifications, the Pre’s bottom-of-the-screen notification system looks like another good idea Apple should borrow.

Role-playing game mechanics: To unify or not

The problem with unified mechanics is that everything feels the same. A lot of the fun in play for me comes—I think—from taking advantage of my character’s and my party’s strengths while minimizing the impact of their weaknesses. Which means there needs to be tradeoffs to be made. Brute force versus magic versus stealth. Strong fighting style versus agile fighting style versus ranged attacks. And so forth.

A subtext there is that a lot of games that tout their unified mechanic aren’t really all that unified. They still present tradeoffs. They just moved them about a bit. e.g. Despite arbitrarily unifying many (though far from all) things under the “roll d20, higher is better” regime, the d20 system ended up being a lot more complex than Expert D&D with it’s handful of different rolls.

The problem with “different things deserve different mechanics” is balance. It’s hard to well balance different mechanics. So, one set of tradeoffs often ends up too good against the others.

Like the way that two-weapon fighting rules in every edition of D&D that has had such rules have made it either too good to not choose or too weak to bother with.

Palmtops

Daring Fireball Linked List: The Pre Is Palm’s Last Chance

The reason it’s important that the Pre succeeds is so the mobile market doesn’t wind up like the desktop market — with just one single great experience, alone in a sea of crap.

One of my friends said something about wanting his phone to just be a phone. The three of us with iPhones had pretty much the same response: The phone in the iPhone is almost incidental for us. The iPhone is our iPod, mobile Internet device, GameBoy, &c. I didn’t buy an iPhone to replace my old phone. I bought an iPhone to replace my Palm V. That it could also replace my phone was just icing.

When pundits talk about the iPhone (or the Pre) and the mobile phone market, they’re missing that to many—if not most—iPhone customers, it really isn’t in the same class as mobile phones. It’s a palmtop, not a mobile phone.

Though visual voice-mail is enough for me to also consider the iPhone a better phone than every other mobile phone I’ve ever used.

Palm did everything right with the Palm (née Pilot) that Apple got wrong with the Newton. The iPhone, however, is closer to where the Treo should have evolved to. Now, Palm has gotten the wake-up call and produced the Pre.

Which is great. I want to see these two companies continue to make each other better.

Just credit where credit is due

So back in blog 2.0 I’d mentioned how the Wikipedia article on EVH said that he tuned his B-string to be just intonated against the G-string. This allowed him to play (some) major thirds with distortion without the dissonance even tempered major thirds cause.

Well, it seems that open-G players (like Keef and his inspirators) have long used this trick. In fact, it seems like it’d work better in open-G than in standard tuning.

Why Keef misses the Beatles

From Keith Richards comes clean on distortion and the meaning of music:

I wish the Beatles were still around in a way, because they could have kept on doing what they always did first for us, which was open the doors and take the brunt. (Laughs)

Lots of good stuff in this interview with “Keef”, but I thought this particular line was pretty funny.

Free Dragon Warriors Introductory Book

Magnum Opus Press has a free Introductory Book for their Dragon Warriors role-playing game available through DriveThruRPG.com. It looks like it will serve as a decent “player’s book”.

Digital guitarist: Amp edition

Having decided that I’m a digital guitarist, it’s seems like it would be nice to get a combo amp that had the digital modeling and effects built-in. Yet, the footcontrollers for a Line 6 Spider III or the a Peavey Vypyr or a Fender G-DEC 30 or what-have-you are at least as big—some bigger—than my Digitech RP350. Whether the digital processing lives in the amp or the footcontroller doesn’t really have an impact on what I have to carry and set up.

The RP350 is actually more flexible because, if there’s a PA available, I don’t have to take an amp at all. The RP350 can also drive two amps (in stereo) as monitors while simultaneously sending balanced, line-out signals to the house.

So, again, I’m validating my choice.

My little Crate 15W 1×12 has served well with the RP350. Plenty loud enough for small venues and a decent monitor when plugging the RP350 into a house PA. (In one case the sound tech insisted on micing the Crate instead of taking the direct outs from the RP350.) I’ve been thinking of getting a second one so that I can run them in stereo.

I’m wondering, though, if I should get a keyboard amp. Would that do more justice to the RP350’s sounds than the Crate? They also typically a mic channel and sometimes additional channels as well, which could be handy. I’d considered that when I got the RP350, but the Crate was cheap, and I just needed an ad hoc solution.