(Finally) Some Good Use for the Camera Phone

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:56:00 -0700

I've been reading some mentions/reviews of Evernote on various sites so I decided to try it out for myself. Right now, the latest beta version is by-invitation only. I tried my luck at their invitation-only beta registration and was lucky enough to get an invite the next day. Since then I have sent out 5 (of the 10 invites) to my friends.

The coolest feature of Evernote is its ability to recognize text within images (see this demo video). The ability to recognize text in images is not something new but this is the first time I have seen it offered in a consumer application. Because of this, I finally found a good use for the built-in camera of my iPhone.

Text recognition is not built-in to the application itself. Instead anything that you store in Evernote is synchronized with the Evernote's servers (this allows you access your notes from the web). The text detection/processing is done at the servers and the metadata is sent back to your application. That means that unless you sync with the servers, you can't actually get text recognition. I think this is a good idea since it lets Evernote change its recognition algorithm without bothering the user with some software update.

So how good is the text recognition? I decided to do some experiments and come up with the following observations. These are merely observations so they are not rigorously tested. Also, expect the recognition capabilities to increase over time.

It recognizes some non-standard letters like Intel's old logo on this mouse pad.

It does not recognize vertical text well.

In fact, for vertical text, its recognition seems to be pretty off; recognizing things that are not there.

It probably only recognizes words in the English dictionary since it can't recognize "DTrace".

It recognizes most words but might have some trouble pinpointing their exact location.

I don't think it recognizes symbols well; it's probably optimized for numbers and letters.

It seems to have trouble with multi-colored words like the Google logo.

So for better results, the text should be horizontally written, unicolored and contain only alphabets and numbers. But it works pretty well for most cases. It certainly beats having to enter information by hand.

So, will I continue using Evernote after its beta period? I am expecting that it will require a paid subscription for the ability to sync and recognize text within images but if the price is reasonable, I might continue using it. Moreover, if they decide to create a native iPhone app (an offer it for free for paid subscribers), the likelihood of using it is even higher for me. After all, there isn't a convenient way to sync notes between my iPhone and my computer. I'll definitely keep Yojimbo around though since it handles PDF and has some nice predefined containers for storing image, serial numbers, etc.

Thoughts on the iPhone SDK

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:07:00 -0700

As I am writing this, I am also partly listening to the Apple March 6 Event where the iPhone SDK was first introduced. And halfway through, I cannot help but notice that Scott Forstall was practically emulating Steve Jobs. He even used phrases like "... a screamer...", "... we made it even better...", "... the iPhone is the most advanced... ", "... years ahead of any other...". He is definitely a smart guy but I think he is emulating Steve too much. It would have been nice to see his own personality. On the other hand, this also means that I probably have watched too much of Steve Jobs to know how he talks....

So, I downloaded the free version of the iPhone SDK. It comes in at a whopping 2.1 GB so it took about 20 minutes to download.

After extracting it, the README has this to say:

It requires about 5.3 GB for installation.
It requires OS X 10.5.2 on intel machines (some claim that it can work on powerpc as well).

There is the option to keep Xcode 3.0 and Xcode 3.1 Beta that comes with the iPhone SDK on the same machine. I did not choose this option so it replaced my original developers tools (meaning that I did not need to sacrifice extra disk space at the expense of a possibly buggy beta version Xcode 3.1).

I tried some of the sample apps from the iPhone developer site (it uses a generic URL of http://developer.apple.com/iphone/samples/index.action which checks to see if you are authenticated).

Here are the ones that I tried:

Kalimba - Supposed to be a replica of an African thumb piano. We should be able to strike each bar and have a musical note sound. It failed miserably on the iPhone simulator -- sound will not play and the piano refused to rotate to landscape mode. See this thread. Here's a picture to show what I mean:

This is one of the examples for the iPhone SDK. Unfortunately, it does not seem to work properly on the simulator – sound doesn't work and it refuses to rotate into landscape mode.

Jigsaw - Just a simple jigsaw puzzle. Works fine.

TheElements - Shows the periodic table with the possibility to view each element's page on wikipedia. When I clicked on the link to wikipedia, the simulator crashed gloriously -- no warnings, no output to console. It just crashed. After some playing around, I discovered that it crashes when you run it immediately after it opens up in the emulator. Instead, if you go to the home screen and then activate TheElements application, then opening a link would work!

GLGravity - Draws the canonical OpenGL teapot and allows you to rotate it by rotating and tilting your iPhone. This refused to run on the simulator -- claiming that it needs to run on an iPhone.

I have to agree that the iPhone SDK has a lot to offer. If you don't believe me, just watch the video. The demo comes on at about 30 minutes through. It's akin to writing for a mini version of OS X with the addition of an impressive user interface, multi-touch control and internal accelerometers. Games will definitely benefit from this. So it should be easy for most developers to get started once they familiarize themselves with the new human interface guidelines.

Spore on the iPhone. It uses the accelerometer on the iPhone for controls.

However, as impressive as the SDK is, it also has some shortcomings which can't be ignored. Here's why (some of these might change when iPhone 2.0 debuts but I doubt it):

No garbage collection.
Creating an iPhone Application:
Note: iPhone OS does not support memory management using the garbage collection feature that is in Mac OS X v10.5 and later.
Maybe most Objective-C developers love doing manual reference counting but this seems like something that should be addressed. After all, Google's Android platform supports this. Moreover, Objective-C 2.0 already supports it so garbage collection could have been enabled from the beginning.

Some might argue that garbage collection adds extra performance overhead. But consider what happens when your app starts leaking memory all over the place. And with all the rich history that garbage collection has, it's really amazing that companies don't really start to take it seriously.

In fact, during the video, they showcased several different developers creating fantastic prototypes for the iPhone in two weeks. I suspect that development and debugging time could have been reduced more if only garbage collection was enabled. =)

Crippled simulator
Not sure if this will change in the future but the current simulator is rather dumb and featureless. You cannot even trigger the hard buttons (like the volume UP/DOWN, silencer, top button). The only button you can activate is the home button -- the one at the bottom of the screen. And no, you can't simulate the features of the accelerometer.

It does however support the two-finger gesture if you hold on the OPTION key on your keyboard.

I suspect that this is a ploy by Apple to get people to i) buy iPhones to test on b) subscribe to the $99/year developer deal to get your app on to the iPhone. After all, how are you going to test your next greatest app that relies on the accelerometer if the simulator cannot even handle it. However, of my three criticisms, this might be the easiest one to fix.

Google's Android emulator is currently better but that could be because there isn't an actual phone to run it on yet!

$99/year (yes, it's PER YEAR!)
Apple Announces iPhone 2.0 Software Beta
During the beta iPhone SDK program, a limited number of developers will be accepted into Apple’s new iPhone Developer Program and offered the ability to get code onto iPhones for testing. The Standard Program costs $99 (US) per year and gives members an iPhone SDK and development tools; access to pre-release iPhone software; technical support; the ability to get code onto iPhones for testing; and distribution of applications via the new App Store. The Enterprise Program costs $299 (US) per year.

To even get your app for testing onto the iPhone you need the special version of the SDK or a special license. This is weird since that means that I cannot even write an app for MYSELF and install it on my phone just for my own PERSONAL use.

Plus, right now no one can install your app unless you list it on iTunes (which minimally also requires the $99/year contract).

You can argue that this annual fee is not really a problem with the SDK but I think it is. After all, without paying the fee, your SDK basically allows you only to experiment and not actually get anything onto your iPhone.

I think the $99/year (or $299 for Enterprise) fee is somehow used to do code signing which I think is a weird way to guarantee that your program is non-malicious. I could be wrong.

Also, after having to pay $99 would anyone release your app for free??!! I look forward to seeing how many free apps there will be. My prediction is that apps that are somehow tied to a desktop app that costs money (for instance, Transmit, NetNewswire, etc) might be free since the cost is absorbed by the desktop app.

It would be interesting to see how it would compete with Android in terms of interested developers. I am not sure if it is a good idea to actually get developers to pay to actually use the development tools.

I do like the idea of paying the yearly fee to have Apple list your product for you on iTunes but it would be good to offer developers the choice of distributing their own applications if they want. In fact, just being able to install your own app on your own phone would be fantastic!

So while the SDK definitely has a lot to offer, it also has some serious shortcomings that might discourage some developers. But with all things Apple, they certainly won't mind ostracizing some developers in favor of others....

.::output >> /dev/null::. : Tag iphone, everything about iphone

(Finally) Some Good Use for the Camera Phone

Thoughts on the iPhone SDK