Nuf said.

This time around we’re talking about favorite back to school flicks. Movies set at school which make you remember the good old days. It’s a tough one. I want to say Breakfast Club but it’s a little before my time in school, though the angst is probably all there. It’s also a bit heavy for going back to school. As far as a movie to lift my spirits and get me ready to return to college, maybe I have to go with one of a number of knock-offs of the Animal House lineage. You know what I’m talking about. Slightly awkward but cool main character leads a band of misfits against a douchey antagonist and a staunchy school administrator. Oh, and in the end, the protagonist always gets the girl.

Think about it. Old School? Van Wilder? Accepted? Sorority Boys? These things write themselves! Of the list, I think I have to go with Old School as my favorite. Man, does that cast do it. Will Ferrel, Vince Vaughn, and Jeremy Piven (okay not part of the frat pack but whatever). It’s the perfect cast to cater to my absurdist sense of humor. Plus, there’s the requisite amount of naked ky jelly fighting. Something so amazing, I can’t believe I’ve never actually been a spectator at one.

Well, let’s see favorite child star… I think for anyone that grew up in the 90s, you have to say Macaulay Culkin. Come on, he’s Kevin McCallister! Who didn’t want to be free to eat as much cheese pizza and ice cream as you could or order ludicrous amounts of room service in a posh New York hotel? And, don’t tell me you never dreamed of setting up the world’s best Rube Goldberg home protection and intruder alert system. Kevin McCallister. We all wanted to be him. Plus, he was much cuter back in the day than that blank-faced kid from AI. Where the hell is he now?
It really is too bad that Macaulay ended up going the way of every other child star. Legal battles with their parents despite only being 14. Getting caught for illicit drug use. And, falling into anonymity having peaked at the age of 11. Macaulay is back on his horse, though. There are sightings here and there as he makes appearances in movies, TV shows, and Broadway. It’s just too bad, though. Once a child star, always a child star. I’m not sure how he could re-invent himself more than disappearing for years. But, he’s only 26 and who knows maybe he’ll be a real actor yet.

Apple was the first company to release a graphical OS. Particularly, the first OS capable of proper, no, beautiful typography. It’s this perspective that has marked all of Jobs’ best achievements while with Apple. While the rest of the tech world focuses on technical specifications and feature lists, Jobs’ Apple focuses on the user and the end experience. Steve Jobs knows what personal computing is. That is, it is personal before it is computing.

The iMac, the iPod, AppleTV all represent leaps forward in the way we think about each type of product. The iMac was the first real personal computer that a user would rather flaunt than hide from view. The iPod and its ingenious click wheel made listening to MP3s a breeze and, outside of a few iRiver gadgets, remains completely unequaled by any other personal media product. The AppleTV has the potential to do the same for the PC-to-the-Living-Room experience as most of the products available before the AppleTV did not provide the ease of use nor full integration from content provider to delivery (iTunes->Apple Computer->Air Port->AppleTV).

Notice one glaring exception from my list of iNnovations? Yea, that’s right, the iPhone. A product more anticipated than the second coming of the Messiah. But, you know what? Not a winner in my book. What is it anyway? I guess it’s classified as a personal media player and PDA smartphone. The problem is that, in the end, trying to do both results in a few too many compromises than is necessary for a product with so much potential. A comfortable phone, as always, should be small, unfortunately, a good PDA just can’t be too small. There’s a minimum screen size that we need. In this case, a 4.1 inch diagonal would have been much better than a 3.5 inch. The removal of a physical keyboard is a good idea. Keyboards take up valuable space in a design where the only room for splurging should be in screen size and memory (though with the rapid miniaturization of memory the latter may not be true much longer). Unfortunately, Apple decided to replace the keyboard with an on screen keyboard.

On screen keyboards are a cop out. The added tactile sensation makes it possible to have physical keyboards with tiny keys like on Blackberries. As you get good, you know how to apply pressure one way or another so as to target the keys of your choice. Unfortunately, once this goes on screen, you lose that. With an on screen keyboard, you just can’t miss. In the case of the iPhone, even my girlfriend’s slender fingers weren’t small enough to rapidly fire away text messages without a disappointing number of mis-typed letters. Yea, you get faster with practice but not that fast. The few friends of mine who do have iPhones seem to have resorted to using only their index finger. Effective and accurate but never as fast as the twin thumbs of a caffeine-addled investment banker and his Crackberry. This is where Apple had a chance to truly revolutionize the mobile computing user experience and they missed.
What about the other innovations, you say? What other innovations? No, Multi-touch doesn’t count. Nor does a really pretty user interface. Nor does the fact that the screen flips around because it has a gyroscope in it. Yea, kudos to Apple to putting it all together since no company seems to have been bright enough to do that. But, no company has had the gall to charge $600 for an overhyped PDA phone either. Want to see a truly good use of multitouch? Check this out. (No, I don’t love Microsoft and everyone who knows me knows my disdain for Vista. But, that is just truly awesome assuming MS can pull it off.) Apple’s gimmicky little expand and shrink gesture is just that. A gimmick. A decent user interface feature, but no more. The flipping screen is used in a Canon digital cameras and should probably be used in any PDA and likely will be. A really smooth transitioning OS doesn’t represent an innovation in my book. Really, it’s just smart. And, if you see some of Microsoft’s new mobile devices, they seem to have caught on too. Yea, Windows is still ugly, but The Origami Experience is looking pretty decent. Further, this time around, it doesn’t truly add to the experience the way that Mac OS’s really nice GUI adds to the experience over Windows (that’s more because Windows is so damn ugly and bloated). Actually, if you look at Windows Origami (announced more than a year and a half ago) and some of its new Ultramobile applications, you might notice that Apple’s PDA OS design has the same dark colors and sweeping gradients that Windows has employed… woah… who copied who!? Speaking of that, check out the Prada Phone by LG, it won a design award in 2006.
So, how is it that Mac could have truly impressed with one of its patented paradigm-shifting user interface improvements? Well, it could have found a way to type using gestures. A bit too much? Well, tell that to Mr. Qwerty. Sometimes, someone has to take a chance and, who knows, maybe set an industry standard. Granted, you could end up like Dvorak…

Okay, how about a compromise. Use something people accept as an input method and just make it worthwhile for the first time ever. The stylus. I don’t think anyone would have a problem with the iPhone having a stylus. Heck, most of the image conscious, wannabe fashion forward people who buy Apple products would probably prefer a really cool looking stylus that keeps their precious baby iPhone from being smudged up and gives them an extra trophy to dangle in everyone’s faces. Hey, maybe Apple could make it white so it stands out everywhere you go.

So, what could Apple have done with a stylus? Make it work like the Wii. You can swing it around in mid-air and perform gestures to control your iPod or type. Maybe you could even add personalized voice commands so you could flick your wrist and yell “stupefy” to turn your phone to hibernate or “alohamora” in order to unlock it. Too whacky? How about inventing the first natural handwriting system on a PDA. No more learning proprietary shorthand when you want to write a message. Spend an hour “training” your iPhone on your handwriting and then use it like notepad.

The beauty in the iPhone isn’t its all-in-one ability. It’s in its declaration that real life and technology have truly combined. That’s where I think the iPhone misses the boat because it doesn’t quite get there. Would I use my iPhone for everyday browsing? Even with zooming being as easy as a snap of the fingers, the screen size and resolution make it less than optimal. Would I really want to use it as a PDA to organize my thoughts, my events, or write e-mails? Eh. That on-screen keyboard is okay, but it also takes up a heck of a lot of screen space. The iPhone doesn’t cross over from useful/cool gadget to necessity. In the end, it’s just an over-priced premium product which appropriately utilizes state-of-the-art technologies. Awesome in its own right but completely undeserving of its hype.

What I want from something so tempting is a device that I just need to pull out. One that I would willingly surf the web with while in bed rather than get up and turn on my computer. Along those lines, a device you could comfortably read an entire e-book with. One that I could pull out and jot down my thoughts with. Maybe even start doing class notes on or at least taking down assignments in. A digital moleskine, if you will. Does this necessarily mean a bigger product? Well, I guess it would create some problems for those hoping to use it as a phone, but you know what? I’m willing to take a free RAZR from Verizon if it means I can get a product like the one I just described. Or, just sticking in a blue tooth headset which can be stored in a little compartment on the back or carried separately in your pocket.

Do products like this exist? Well, if they didn’t, then I don’t deserve to be ragging on the iPhone do I? These products do, in fact, exist and a whole slew of them will likely be coming out in the near future given that Intel has recently classified a class of products above a PDA Smartphone and below an Ultramobile PC with the intention of helping to develop them. They call it Mobile Internet Devices. A few currently on the market include: the Nokia N770 and N800 as well as the Archos 604 wifi and soon to be released Archos 605 wifi. The two products are a bit different. The Nokia is closer to a computer while the Archos is more of a personal media player. Unfortunately, both require some compromises. The Nokia isn’t quite so powerful and as a result has some difficulty with playing back streaming videos as well as higher quality videos stored on its memory. Furthermore, the N800 does not have built in memory and instead depends on two SD card slots meaning you’re limited to 16 gigs at most. The Archos has a 30 gig hard drive, but does not have the PDA features. It’s also kind of ugly. That being said, its media playback rivals the iPhones and you can download software to make it a full fledged internet browser. Unfortunately, you can’t get little programs like a calendar, notepad, etc. Neither of these products is a cellphone but as I said earlier, that’s the feature I’m least concerned about with any mobile internet device. All of these products offer a larger screen than the 3.5 inch iPhone screen and the 4.1 inch screen (with 800×432 resolution) offered by Nokia, I know from experience is just enough for comfortable PDF reading and net browsing.
For me, the N800 stands as the best product in its class right now. Yea, there are some kinks for video playback and I’m not a fan of Nokia’s stylus writing system. But, it does almost everything I described above. Further, it has full support of VoIP protocols (like Skype and GTalk) and even has a built in webcam for potential video conferencing. I almost wish the hardened cover used on the N770 were available on the N800 because I like the idea of having something which can protect the device since I’d be willing to take it just about anywhere. For these things to be truly worthwhile though, we’re going to need more ubiquitous wifi cover or 4G WiMaX technology. If that comes around, cell phones may become dinosaurs and I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank with the money I saved by not buying a $600 phone and locking into a 2-year contract. (Exaggerating a little. Those of you with iPhones now will likely be coming out of your contracts just as Wimax begins taking off as it doesn’t seem to be quite ready yet. Though, Sprint has invested heavily in the technology and plans to release it in the US by the end of 2008.)

I think the first time I ever found a movie “moving,” if you will, was upon watching Good Will Hunting back in middle school. Though, now that I look back on it, I probably would have found any moderately deep, Oscar-bait-ish movie moving given that I was a hormone driven, moderately depressed kid in the throws of puberty trying to figure out who he was. As a result, Good Will Hunting struck a chord. I mean, I was pretty good at math. I felt like a loner. And, I had adjustment issues. My parents didn’t quite abuse me as bad as Will Hunting got abused, but I had my fair share of getting whipped by garden bamboo, hit with rolling pins, and even once getting beat with an alarm clock (long story). To an extent, it gave me a bit of hope during a rather confusing period in my life. Heck, I might not fit in, but I could just be a genius. (I still don’t fit in and, unfortunately, I soon found out that I wasn’t a genius.)

Either way, I credit Good Will Hunting with having opened up my eyes to movies that could do more than just entertain for an hour and a half. It opened my eyes to story telling and movies that begged their audiences to form relationships to its characters. To this day, Good Will Hunting is remains one of my favorite movies and, to a certain extent, has shaped the way I judge other movies. I’m always a sucker for a good story especially those that leave me wondering what happened to the characters. It’s so odd that a story could create characters so real yet when the movie ends each character’s lives just stop. The weird thing is that we all hate sequels. So, maybe, Will Hunting was on to something when he was reluctant to go on a second date with Skyler. It’s nice to have the perfect lingering ending. Resolution, sometimes isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

If it’s been a while since you’ve watched Good Will Hunting, I do recommend you get it on your Netflix queue and enjoy a night in. I think I might just pull out my copy and watch it tonight.