1. Our amazing guest host is my friend Gina Smith. Before I’d met her in person, I used to watch her on Good Morning America and World News Tonight. She was ABC News first Tech Correspondent, and covered the web 1.0 boom for them. She’s also the author (with Steve Wozniak) of NYT bestseller iWOZ: From Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-founded Apple and Had Fun Along the Way.
2. Another friend is presenting: Mike Smithwick. He started writing Distant Suns for the Amiga in 1985, and I first met him during my days as an Amiga engineer. More than 25 years later and Distant Suns is still going strong, and he has new announcements to make Tuesday night. It was a great coincidence that he applied to the show without even realizing I was involved.
3. The wraps are finally coming off the secret new project from best-selling author Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, Quicksilver, Cryptonomicon, Anathem) and my friend Jeremy Bornstein at Subutai Corporation.
4. It’s cool that we have custom iPad bags from Rickshaw Bag Works, and that we have Intel as a sponsor, as well as SugarSync and Appency PR, and a lineup of other great media, presenters and guests.

Please grab a ticket and join us for cocktails and appetizers starting at 5:30pm!

(I’ve also been meaning to update my review of the AT&T 3G Microcell… but I’m still waiting for another return call from AT&T tier 2 support. I’ve spent hours on the phone with AT&T over the past month.)

(via @scobleizer/@ChrisPirillo/@shadoestevens)

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Imperative: dress well for iPad line. Dale Larson in line for launch at the San Francisco Apple Store. (photo by Andrew Mager)

As I suggested in a previous post (where I completely failed to guess the name of the iPad correctly), the results of iPad sales seem to be the only thing exceeding the hype around iPad.

According to Quantcast, iPad constituted 5% of all mobile web traffic consumption on launch day.

In fact, they’re selling so fast that Apple has been forced to delay the international launch of iPad (just six days after insisting the launch would not be delayed by US success).

It’s interesting to note how important new iPad apps are in driving iPad sales. Folks continue to underestimate apps.

My fianceé, Laura La Gassa, adds:

I had my iPad at the National DanceSport (competitive ballroom dancing) Championships all last weekend.  I was an “Observer,” which means I watched the competition to make sure it was being run according to the rules, and checked that costumes followed the rules, and so on.  As such, I walked around all weekend with the rulebook open in a PDF on my iPad.  It never seemed slippery to me, although once it slid off my lap onto the (carpeted) floor.

The fun part was that when I went up to an athlete to inform them of an rule infraction, invariably the response was “WOW, is that an iPad, can I touch it???” rather than them getting all huffy about me telling them to fix whatever it was they needed to fix.

We asked our friend Yiying Lu to make for us the opposite of the Fail Whale for our wedding invitation.

She calls her new design “Win Penguins”

We combined the new and the old when we got engaged on Twitter. I asked Laura to marry me on bended knee with ring in one hand, iPhone in the other, in a room that included many friends as witness. In the same way, our invitations include Yiying’s new design and Laura hand-wrote the text of each one  with a fountain pen. They were mailed last week.

Thanks, Yiying! (And thanks to our friend Bob Meyer of Galaxy Press for printing them.)

UPDATE
Our friends at Laughing Squid blogged about our wedding invite, then Mashable.com posted about it, as did Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop, and the Huffington Post, too.

AT&T 3G Microcell

Yesterday I read on Mobile Crunch that the AT&T 3G MicroCell went on sale. I ran out and bought the last available one from the AT&T Store nearest me. I’ve tested it in two San Francisco homes and can report on how it works for me.

The theory is great. I pay AT&T an extra $150 to fix service that I’m already paying more than $100 a month for. They give me a cute little orange and white box by CISCO that connects to my broadband internet and makes a micro cell site out of my house. Voila, a little bubble of reliable service in the wasteland that is trying to make iPhone voice calls in San Francisco.

Or so I hoped.

I desperately need this. You see, I still want to be able to make and receive voice calls on my iPhone. AT&T has done everything possible ton convince me that it isn’t actually necessary. I live in San Francisco, near 16th and Harrison. Repeated long conversations with AT&T support about my inability to use my phone as a phone on their network have resulted in a little more understanding, but no better service. While I have great signal from multiple nearby towers, they are so congested that while standing in one place my phone switches constantly between Edge and 3G, and goes everywhere between one bar and five. My phone frequently doesn’t ring at all when someone calls, and often drops if I do manage to get connected. Using data works less well than voice, but it’s not as disruptive when it drops out for a minute. Still, I love my iPhone, haven’t been able to make the switch to Android on T-Mobile stick, so I stay connected to WiFi whenever I can and try to text instead of using voice. Thus, when I heard the Micro Cell was on sale, I made some calls and braved a rainstorm to grab one immediately.

Buying the MicroCell was easy, and they helped me log in to my AT&T account from a store computer. Besides entering the device serial number and address where it will be installed (necessary for 911 service), you have to program the AT&T numbers that will be allowed use the cell site (up to 10, but only 4 simultaneous). Instead I wish there were an option to let anyone near my house could use AT&T to make and receive calls.

I took the box home and plugged it in, where it took nearly an hour online before it was ready to use. The manual tells you to expect this delay while it gets a good GPS fix (again, for 911) and configures something for their network.

Once the light stopped flashing, I was disappointed that my phone phone’s display hadn’t changed from “AT&T” to “AT&T M-Cell.”

I looked through the manual. I turned the phone on and off. I thought about it for a while. I went to settings on my iPhone and re-enabled “3G.” AT&T support tells you to turn it off if you have problems with dropped calls. Apparently, switching from 3g to Edge and back is one of the things the iPhone does poorly, and it’s a place where you’re likely to drop a call. One less thing to switch means one less thing to go wrong.

Having made that switch, my phone’s display changed. Yay! I was now connected to “AT&T M-Cell.”

I immediately made a call that dropped. I had switched back to “AT&T” while walking around my house.

Disappointed, I re-read the directions and moved the Micro Cell further from my router/wifi, hopeful that this would keep me better connected to the working cell. It worked a little better, but I could still drop my micro cell for the outside towers when inside my home and well within 50 feet of the Micro Cell.

I now understood that your phone tries to always pick the strongest network signal. As soon as you are far enough from the MicroCell that an outside tower presents a stronger signal, you switch. Worse, while you’re on a call, your phone won’t switch back to the MicroCell.

This may not sound like a big deal, but if so, that means you don’t understand the network problem in San Francisco. Poor signal strength is not usually the issue. From my home in particular, I should have fantastic coverage. Congestion and switching is the issue. So as a bunch of other folks use their iPhones constantly (especially as they move around while doing so), their demand for voice and data bandwidth means the load on the towers is continuously fluctuating. I don’t need a stronger signal, I need a signal that is always ready for my calls.

What I want is to be able to tell my phone to prioritize the M-Cell. Don’t be so ready to change over to the regular network. Be willing to drop a call first. I’d rather know that I’m likely to drop a call if I leave my house than to know that I’m going to keep dropping them while in my house.

Instead, I now have the same old problem at home, except my phone is now switching between more things than ever. I’m forced to be in 3G mode, so I get Edge/3G iPhone switching problems, and I switch back and forth between the MicroCell and the outside network.

So it sounds like the iPhone and MicroCell might work wonderfully at a location with poor reception, but less so at an urban site with great but congested reception.

Since I have a friend in San Francisco with exactly that situation, I decided to test that theory out. She has a topography problem at her house so that there is poor to no signal on any network (not just AT&T). I asked her if she wanted to try the MicroCell at her house, and she was excited for the chance. I’d already added her number to the configuration web page while at the AT&T store, so I grabbed the gear and drove it up to her house. I plugged it in and waited about 30 minutes before I saw “AT&T M-Cell” on my iPhone. But hers refused to connect. I fiddled for a while before I thought to check her 3G setting. Of course, she had it set to Edge-only to try to get more reliable (if slower) service from AT&T’s crappy overloaded San Francisco network.

That fixed it, and she immediately popped up on “AT&T M-Cell.” It worked much better at her house, having a better tendency to stay on, but it was still ridiculously easy to loose a call to “AT&T” network. Just stepping out onto the deck would do it. Despite the fact that it was almost certain you’d drop your call from out on the deck.

Did AT&T actually test these things in it’s worst problem area, San Francisco?

To be fair, I’ve had the box at two locations for less than 24 hours and haven’t yet made a support call. Perhaps the box would work better with more effort put into placement and more geeky understanding and tweeking.
Really, no one should have to do that.

Apparently, the MicroCell signal needs to be stronger, and there should be some way to set your phone to prefer it more strongly over other signals.

So far, It looks like the MicroCell has made using AT&Ts network in San Francisco more complicated and more expensive without making it more reliable.

When the iPhone app store was announced, I predicted that even the most optimistic scenarios projected by analysts were likely to fall short of the mark. It seems that apps have also changed more than even the hype suggested — they were off by even more than I’d thought.

So what will become of the Tablet that  Apple announces this morning?  Is it possible that the hype will be exceeded only by the results?

Until I learn more about what is being released, I suspect that there will always be a larger market for devices in a phone form-factor than in tablet factor. I doubt that tablet sales can even eclipse laptop sales within the next few years. Yet, there is the possibility that this will change as much about publishing as Apple has already changed about music, mobile and apps, and that computing will be further changed in the process.

I’m not sure what to predict, except that I hope there are some surprises today beyond what I’ve listed below and others have been predicting!

Display: With all the talk Apple has been doing with print publishers (books and magazines), I hope they’ve included a fantastic high-resolution display (OLED would be great), showing off images as good or better than some magazines.

Voice:  Ironically, the thing iPhone seems to do least well at is voice. One wants to shout “it’s a phone, dammit!” Since the tablet will have a much faster processor and more memory than a phone can support, it will have even more capacity to support great voice recognition and speech as alternate input and output. It might even have a larger antenna with better wireless performance so that it drops voice calls less often (whether VOIP on WiFi or carrier voice).

Keyboard: Apple’s great little bluetooth keyboard will make it easy to use the tablet to enter long text and work as a laptop replacement.

Storage: Hopefully the machine comes with enough storage and the operating system includes better support for easily building all applications to work seamlessly offline or on. Of course, we expect Apple to announce working with other carriers today as well, but with the rapid shift to mobile data, all carriers may soon have the problems we currently face with AT&T.

Apps: Hopefully Apple realizes how important it is to have a seamless experience across computer, phone and tablet.  I want my data and applications to work across them as in science fiction, where I can swipe to send a screen to my other machine, or to a colleague’s. And I want the app store ecosystem to include more than just mobile so that desktop apps can be monitized as well as mobile apps. I’ve been hoping for a Mac App Store for two years.

Depending on price, features and partnerships announced today, Apple might just have a three-peat on it’s hands: extending to the iTablet (or whatever they call it) hype that is exceeded only by the reality.

For example, I was on an $89 voice plan that gave me 1350 minutes a month with rollover. AT&T was going to happily keep charging me $20 per month extra indefinitely. (I effectively had unlimited minutes already — with text and data becoming my dominant means of communication, I had accumulated tens of thousands of rollover minutes.)

$69.99 per month for unlimited voice -- but I had to go online to make the change

I went online to login and make the change to my account. In approximately 90 seconds total, I switched and am now paying $69.99 per month for unlimited voice.

So now my iPhone costs $120 per month ($30 data plan and $20 unlimited texting) before taxes and fees (and apps!).

The change means that AT&T now effectively offers only two voice plans — the only other plan that might make sense is 450 voice minutes for $39.99. So if you’re sure you’re not ever going over on voice minutes, you could save $40 per month. Since AT&T keeps dropping my calls, that’s going to be tempting for me as I start giving out my Google Voice number and using my Google Nexus One phone on T-Mobile more.

Hopefully, dropping voice rates isn’t just the prelude to the carrier’s plans to raise data rates.

Last week I looked at the version of a common app on Droid vs. iPhone. The iPhone still won hands down. (Not that a great app couldn’t be delivered on Android, but iPhone has been so much more successful that developers still prioritize it far above the others.) Why will that change this year?

iPhone has the lead in most areas as the most polished and intuitive device with the most apps. But Android and Palm are set to rapidly gain enough market share and maturity of their own to stand up as viable competition.

And they’re all being freed of carrier lock-in. Palm announced WebOS handsets for Verizon. AT&T announced that it will sell Android and WebOS. iPhone may be available on carriers other than AT&T as soon as June. Google has announced its Nexus One, and many more Android handsets are sure to come this year.

For me personally, this means a big change. I am, afterall, the guy who camped at the front of all three previous iPhone lines.

But at least in San Francisco and NYC, the experience of being on the AT&T network is bad enough to drive one to accept a distant second best phone in order to avoid dropped calls. I ordered a Google Nexus One yesterday. Now I’ll have two phones, one that’s good for apps and one that’s good for phone calls and Gmail. I’ll have to carry both until one does it all for me again. (Maybe I’ll even pick up a Verizon WebOS handset.)

On the one hand, I’m a little sad that I have to carry two devices. I thought the geeky habit of having two kinds of computers was a habit I broke a long time ago. On the other, these are exciting times — it’s been a long time since the competition and advancements have been significant enough that I considered using two computing platforms. Twenty-ten looks like it’ll be a fun ride.

Update: Harry’s having the same problem with AT&T coverage, and taking a vote on what he should do about it.

After a failed terrorist attempt yesterday, the TSA has responded with the next escalation after their previous high-water mark of stupidity (no pun intended), the no-liquids rule. Now: no more electronics in flight, nothing in your lap, only one carry on, and no movement in the last hour of flight. Many of those I follow on Twitter are frequent travelers, most are highly intelligent. All who’ve commented seem pissed (and not just that they won’t be able to pee).

They know the real impact of what security expert Bruce Schneier calls Security Theater (if you don’t like that link to his blog, try this one to 60 Minutes, even if they haven’t read his latest reaction.

My first reaction was When I stop flying, it doesn’t mean the terrorists have won, it means the TSA has!

As it sank in fully and I realized fully how absurd the new rules are, I wondered if we might all protest with our bodily functions. What are the TSA regulations on peeing into a ziplock bag from your seat?

Robert Scoble had one of the mildest reactions. As a 100,000 annual mile flier on United, he’s looking to cut back his travel and fly less as a result of the new rules. Though he did retweet several people to let them say things in more pointed terms, by linking to an XKCD comic and boiling it down to “the dumbest load of crap I have ever seen.”

TechCrunch had two great reactions: MG Siegler’s thinking that perhaps the TSA is attempting to save print media and Paul Carr’s NSFW: The Physical Impossibility of the The Future in the Mind of Someone Trapped In Chicago.

Here are messages I retweeted, along with a few reactions to my comments on Facebook. Please add your thoughts to the comments in this blog post, but more importantly:

Please let your elected representatives know that it’s time to end TSA-sponsored terrorism in the air and on American soil!