Things That Just Fit

Short film “Apple of My Eye” demonstrates how good storytelling isn’t about the tools but the storyteller. Michael Koerbel shot and edited this delightful video on an iPhone 4. No PC or other editing system required. That’s not to say the tools don’t matter. The right tools just matter more in the right hands. As a journalist, I’m totally intrigued by what Michael has done here and the tool Apple provided. Color saturation is just delightful. “Apple of My Eye” foreshadows a near-distant future when mobile devices replace PCs.

Do you have a mobile movie making or iPhone 4 story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

Storytelling takes many forms. Yesterday, my 15 year-old daughter posted Facebook album: “Double D’s SeaWorld Adventure,” featuring a stuffed penguin she bought at the entertainment park. She composed the photos and wrote the captions. I picked six photos from the 18-pic set. I changed the order but used her captions. By the way, Double D stands for Daredevil. Do you have a stuffed-critter adventure story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com. Storytelling takes many forms. Yesterday, my 15 year-old daughter posted Facebook album: “Double D’s SeaWorld Adventure,” featuring a stuffed penguin she bought at the entertainment park. She composed the photos and wrote the captions. I picked six photos from the 18-pic set. I changed the order but used her captions. By the way, Double D stands for Daredevil. Do you have a stuffed-critter adventure story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com. Storytelling takes many forms. Yesterday, my 15 year-old daughter posted Facebook album: “Double D’s SeaWorld Adventure,” featuring a stuffed penguin she bought at the entertainment park. She composed the photos and wrote the captions. I picked six photos from the 18-pic set. I changed the order but used her captions. By the way, Double D stands for Daredevil. Do you have a stuffed-critter adventure story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com. Storytelling takes many forms. Yesterday, my 15 year-old daughter posted Facebook album: “Double D’s SeaWorld Adventure,” featuring a stuffed penguin she bought at the entertainment park. She composed the photos and wrote the captions. I picked six photos from the 18-pic set. I changed the order but used her captions. By the way, Double D stands for Daredevil. Do you have a stuffed-critter adventure story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com. Storytelling takes many forms. Yesterday, my 15 year-old daughter posted Facebook album: “Double D’s SeaWorld Adventure,” featuring a stuffed penguin she bought at the entertainment park. She composed the photos and wrote the captions. I picked six photos from the 18-pic set. I changed the order but used her captions. By the way, Double D stands for Daredevil. Do you have a stuffed-critter adventure story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com. Storytelling takes many forms. Yesterday, my 15 year-old daughter posted Facebook album: “Double D’s SeaWorld Adventure,” featuring a stuffed penguin she bought at the entertainment park. She composed the photos and wrote the captions. I picked six photos from the 18-pic set. I changed the order but used her captions. By the way, Double D stands for Daredevil. Do you have a stuffed-critter adventure story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

    Storytelling takes many forms. Yesterday, my 15 year-old daughter posted Facebook album: “Double D’s SeaWorld Adventure,” featuring a stuffed penguin she bought at the entertainment park. She composed the photos and wrote the captions. I picked six photos from the 18-pic set. I changed the order but used her captions.

    By the way, Double D stands for Daredevil.

    Do you have a stuffed-critter adventure story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

    Storytelling is an art form, but it isn’t solely the purview of artists. Video “Trashed iPhone and iPad!” is good example. The video isn’t the most sophisticated filmmaking, but the story is compelling: A guy arrives at his office and realizes that he has neither iPad nor iPhone. He last remembers placing them on a box while taking out the trash. He is everyman. Who can’t relate to the mistake or fear of making it? Thus begins Eric Boehs’ quest to recover the trashed items, and because he is everyman, his hero’s journey is ours. There is suspense, doubt and supernatural influence (“Find my iPhone”).

    I came across the video at Gizmodo, which did the storytellers a disservice. Rosa Golijan embeds the YouTube video but then summarizes it in two paragraphs. She should have linked and encouraged Giz readers to click through and view. When I first watched the video yesterday, there were a little more than 8,000 views and today a little less than 18,000. I expected to see a huge increase—tens of thousands—in number of views, driven at the least from Giz’s techie readership. I must blame Rosa’s summary, which robbed many possible viewers of a story that really is about them.

    Do you have an everyman’s story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

    Blogging: Is Curation or Comments Better?

    John Gruber has responded to my Saturday post at length: “I’ll Tell You What’s Fair.” John’s response is thoughtful and responsible, so much so I’m trying things his way. I challenged him to turn on comments at Daring Fireball, which clearly won’t happen soon, if ever. I don’t agree with all his reasons but see how he applies a writer’s mind to blogging. His writing is an artform.

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    Tweet if You See a Tooting Llama

    Mark Arm’s Tumblr post—photo of a Central Park animal—reminds me of a story. Summer 1980, I had just turned 21 and lived in a group house on New York’s Upper West Side. The Democratic National Convention convened at Madison Square Garden for about four days of mayhem.

    llama

     I hung around outside harassing the crazies (e.g., protesters) that New York City cops separated by barricades. I was legal, a Maine boy breathing the big city and just naive enough to pump up on the excitement—whether inside or outside the Garden.

    One evening—it might have been August 14, last day of the Convention—I walked down Fifth Avenue with a couple of friends. We were cutting up as we approached the New York Public Library, at 42nd Street, around 10 p.m. Off in the distance, I saw a man and woman walking an animal down the Avenue. I recall the air as being crazy hot, but they were both overdressed—he in a heavy coat, cowboy boots and cowboy hat. The women was blonde, beautiful and much younger, and a thick fur pelt wrapped round her loveliness. 

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    Joe: Netflix for iPhone, huh? Well, what do you think of those new 200MB, 2GB metered data plans now, assuming Netflix supports 3G?

    Joe: [Steve] Jobs is making the right pitch to developers: $$. How much they can make. Successful platforms make third parties lots of $$.

    Greg Glockner responded: @joewilcox Great point Joe. Windows is successful because it's a platform that made many others successful.

    Joe: Apple Store online is open, which means no new products for sale today. Otherwise, the store would be down during Jobs' keynote.

    Joe: Nice smoke and mirrors by Jobs about "Retina Display". There's more to the display than ppi. For text, font rendering, for example.

    Joe: My criticism aside, iPhone 4 contrast ratio and clarity look pretty good.

    Joe: My Nexus One has 252 ppi; 854 x 480 pixels. Human eye can see 300 ppi. iPhone 4 is 326 ppi; 960 x 640 pixels.

    Joe: I've said smartphones will replace PCs. iMovie for iPhone is taste of the future. If you can shoot and edit on phone, who needs PC?

    Joe: RT @teedubya: the new iPhone4 seems more impressive than the iPad... [Joe: Agreed. Too bad about those new AT&T data plans]

    Robert Scoble: I turned my phone off. Steve Jobs is that convincing. :-)

    Joe responded to Robert: @Scobleizer You're giving up on Android so soon? That Kool-Aid is intoxicating. Cover your ears! Close your eyes!

    Joe: RT @anildash: Attention Apple keynote attendees: You don't have to put down your laptop just because Steve says. You paid to be there...

    Tim Conneally: I'm missing #wwdc, but while 9000 ft up in the Alps. I theres full 3G with tmobile where I am...so #iphone 4 would work here.

    Joe responded to Tim: The Alps. You're still in Europe, Tim? How is that T-Mo 3G over there.

    Tim answered: @joewilcox 3 more days then back home and probably out to E3. T mobile is going strong. Its been good everywhere but poland.

    Mugunth Kumar: Someone edited wikipedia already. There is no more iPhone OS page. It redirects to iOS!

    Joe responded to Mugunth: @mugunthkumar Not just iPhone OS. Someone edited the [Backside] Illumination page to include iPhone 4, ignoring CMOS makers like Toshiba.

    Mugunth answered: @joewilcox Looks like they are much faster than twitter :)

    Kawika Holbrook: @joewilcox Nice thing about @Scobleizer giving up on "Android so soon" is that he—nor anyone else—doesn't have to. Use both.

    Joe responded to Kawika: @kawika I'm sticking with Android. New iPhone looks cool, but AT&T metered data plans, termination fees and calling problems keep me away

    Joe: iBooks for iPhone is no shocker. Good usage rights, like when iTunes launched. DRM is there, but most people won't notice it.

    Joe: RT @rossrubin: Three stores is not a benefit. One integrated store for everything is a benefit. [Joe: Excellent point]

    Joe: Does everyone get Jobs' "emotion + interactivity" pitch for iAd? "Emotion" is missing from the Google ad model.

    Joe: All this integration & exclusivity may haunt and help Apple, like Microsoft. Office locked in Windows sales & trustbusters balked.

    Joe: About iPhone 4, I don't see much more than Gizmodo already revealed in stories and videos about the lost prototype. Anyone else?

    Joe: iPhone 4 video calling is the One More Thing? Like Nokia has offered on N-Series handsets FOR YEARS?

    Frank V. responded: Many of the things Apple introduces have been done before. Just not widely adopted. The Ipod was not the first MP3 player.

    Joe answered Frank: @StationA It's all about marketing. Scoble's tweets suggest he's going back to iPhone. He just got to Android. Jobs is the master salesman.

    Frank: That is true Joe. But like most things Apple does, this will signal the time when people actually start to use it.

    Frank: @joewilcox I figured more people would have picked up on that M.O. by now..

    Joe to Frank: @StationA I'm definitely not going to iPhone 4. I did a 29-day refresher in May. I'm Android and T-Mobile. AT&T is more the reason though.

    Kawika: @joewilcox Curious which plan and carrier you have that doesn't have termination fees? (Obviously AT&T is still the weak point for iPhones.)

    Joe answered Kawika: @kawika I switched to T-Mobile in Oct. Lower termination fees than AT&T (as of 6/1) and unlimited phone, data and text.

    Kawika: @joewilcox @nokia doesn't have Sam Mendes directing commercials about video chats with kids, moms, and sign language. Very different.

    Joe: So iPhone 4 video calling is WiFi-only in 2010. Many overseas carriers offer the feature over 3G on Nokia phones. Don't forget HTC EVO 4G.

    Patrick Gauthier: @joewilcox But Nokia doesnt have a superstar CEO and legions of fans...

    Joe responded to Patrick: Nokia doesn't have an all-star CEO, but it does have legions of fans. What strikes me is iPhone 4 similarities to some Nokias.

    Patrick: @joewilcox NOKIA will capture 3rd party developers like APPL and GOOG can. I wish it was different. But numbers tell otherwise.

    Joe: @PRGauthier Nokia doesn't have an all-star CEO, but it does have legions of fans. What strikes me is iPhone 4 similarities to some Nokias.

    Joe: @PRGauthier I agree that Nokia has fallen behind in design. But Nokia still delivers quality, performance and price to emerging markets.

    Patrick: @joewilcox Yes when it comes to emerging market the line up of phones AND services is strong. India is poster child there.

    Joe: @PRGauthier Last I checked, Nokia's market share in India was something like 70%. It's pretty high in most BRIC countries.

    Joe: Boy Genius Report says 200,000 HTC EVO 4G sales over weekend: http://tinyurl.com/2amzrf6

    Joe: iPhone 4 launches June 24, but in only five countries—US, France, Germany, UK, Japan.

    Nicole N.: Thinking I should get an iPhone ...but I really don't want AT&T...their coverage is so terrible....#decisions

    Joe warned Nicole.: @NicolePRexec Nicole, take a week and let Jobs' Reality Distortion Field wear off some before deciding on iPhone 4. Breathe.

    Nicole responded: @joewilcox That is good advice. I've stayed away from the iPhone hype for years...but now I'm starting to appreciate the video/app qualities.

    The Stake Knife

    Last night, while washing supper dishes, I saw that someone had left a steak knife point-side up in the strainer. I saw it more as stake knife, as I would never let the point standup like that.

    See, when I was a third (maybe fourth) grader, a knife accident left an indelible mark on my psyche and on the body of my youngest sister.

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    Brandon Hardesty has appropriately answered YouTube yanking (or disabling) dozens of “Downfall” parodies. Brandon recreated the ”Hitler Bunker” scene for all those people looking to make their own “Downfall” parody. You can laugh at Brandon or with him. Perhaps not Brandon’s intention, but this video may be the biggest “fair use” protest ever.

    Do you have a story about copyrights, patents or fair use that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

    Gizmodo Made the ‘Next iPhone’ a Great Story

    Gizmodo iPhone Scoop

    I have deeply mixed feelings about siding with Apple and not Gizmodo regarding the iPhone prototype the Weblog paid to acquire. After all, as a seasoned journalist, I should strongly advocate no-questions-asked free speech. Instead, last night I blogged for Betanews: “Apple should sue Gizmodo over stolen iPhone prototype”. I had planned to write something at Oddly Together, but Betanews founder Nate Mook asked for a story, which I gladly delivered.

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