A few days after messing about with my new iPod Touch, I discovered there was TV Out capability. I quickly jumped on my bike and rode down to the Apple Store where I picked up the Apple Composite AV Cable and and the Apple Universal Remote Dock. My excitement levels were at all time high as I rode home with my new entertainment center. I could finally recycle my old VCR and DVD player! I was pretty disappointed when I laid back on the couch and tried to Front Row a movie.

Artist Rendering of iPhone running Native Front Row

This !@#$ sucks!
Well, it doesn’t completely suck. But if you’re expecting the Front Row experience, and for someone reason I was, you’re not going to get it. After unboxing it all I made room for my new setup atop my old television. I set up all the cables and docked my iPod Touch and the saw a Volume Status indicator pop up on the screen. I’m assuming this is the feedback letting you know that you’re plugged in and ready to go. But besides that, there was no indicator on the television or the iPod touch I was connected to the dock. If your audio video cable’s pin connector is plugged into the usb/wall plug or into a computer’s USB port, you’ll see the charge status in the taskbar.

Navigation
…well, there really isn’t any. There’s no way to navigate around like the Apple TV or the Front Row interface. I was expecting some sort of message, or perhaps an Apple logo screensaver. I pressed every button on the Apple Remote… nothing. Realizing I needed to pair my remote (hold down menu+next track for five seconds) I quickly got it working. With the iPod touch displaying the home screen, I pressed the Menu button and nothing happened. Then I pressed the previous and next track buttons. Nothing. The volume -/+ buttons do increase/decrease the volume, with the same transparent image that pops up center screen  on the iPod, like in OS X.

Music
The play/pause button launched the Music application, displaying the album list. I was expecting the volume -/+ buttons to let me select the file I wanted to play. The volume buttons just increase/decrease the volume, where in Front Row, it lets you select files in the list. Even if you could select files in the album list using the Apple Remote, you’d have to be standing next to your iPod to see what you’re highlighting, as there is no output to the TV. Play, pause, rewind and fast forward work.

Video
After messing around with the Music screen, I hit the home button to return to the springboard. I selected the Videos icon and selected a movie to play. This time I got a pop-up window that asked if I wanted to output to the TV. I hit yes and I was able to see my movie play through to the television. Volume -/+ works, but there are no visuals on the television to let you know you’re toggling the audio. The volume slider on the iPod screen does shift left to right. Pause, play and seek do display an image on the top left of the screen. Unfortunately, pressing the next or previous track on the Apple Remote neither skips to the next chapter of a video file or plays the next video file on the list, like it does in the music application.

Photos
Photo slideshows are very nice, although it only supports fade-out transitioning,  ignoring whatever option you have under photo settings. I was really disappointed that there was no way to select a song for playback during a photo presentation. You could start music playback and then start a photo slideshow, but then again, the remote functionality is lacking. A possible bug: pressing the next or previous track button on the Apple remote closes the Photo app and launches whatever you had open last, Music or Video. If you had Music open, it starts playing whatever the last track you plaid before was, or continues to play whatever track is currently playing.

The Hardware
Expensive. Worth it? Maybe.

The A/V Cables are a great way to view content on your iPhone and supported iPods on your television. You don’t need to use the Universal dock in conjunction with the cables, which is great for portability. Also, the A/V cables with the USB wall charger. The actual cable ends that plug into your TV or receivers connectors are smooth and very applesque, but make them difficult to insert and disconnect. The dock lets you connect to your computer which is a slick way to keep your iPhone/touch organized on your desktop. The navigation lacks real useable remote functionality but hopefully this will be addressed with a later firmware update and software support when we finally get the iPhone 2.0 software. I’m pleased with the entire set up its nothing to write home about.

UPDATE: NO FORWARD FACING FRONT CAMERA AT WWDC!!

noSight in sight

I wanted a walkie-talkie wrist watch since I first saw Dick Tracy. Then a few years ago I bought  some cool walkie-talkie watches. They were pretty sweet and came in handy for quick communication at a newspaper I used to work at. Total Recall made me want a video phone soooo bad and I drooled over a prototype I saw at Staples in the early ’90s. It’s 2008!!! … I mean, we have the tech to fake a moon landing, but the iPhone can’t make video calls?

Why doesn’t the iPhone have an iSight?
I’m not sure, but looking at the diminutives of it at the top of my iMac, and on the macbook air, it should be possible. I mean, how freakin’ dope would it be to video call using Skype, or iChat? Perhaps, the molasses of Edge is what kept it from being introduced in the first place: ATT doesn’t want bandwidth hogs.

Possible Features
I’m very hopeful that the 2nd generation iPhones will have a built in iSight feature. The following is a list of features I hope are  included in the next iPhone hardware revamp: 

Native iChat client…
…that supported the coverflowesque group video chat and slideshow photo sharing would rock. And with support for Powerpoint presentations in the works, this would gel very well with corporate users.

Visual Voicemail is not Visual until…
Well, you get the point.

An h.264 hardware encoder
You know, to speed things up.

TV Out support
I love the TV Out feature on my iPod Touch and use it all the time to watch movies and music videos on the TV. Villains love to order to their minions around via huge televisions screens. Landscape video conference support to an HDTV using the A/V cable accessory would really make you feel like you’re the head honcho, or at least your neighborhood billy bad ass in no time.

Camcorder
There’s been a million times when I’ve needed to record something impromptu… disasters, family moments, police abuse… film festivals? PXL THIS is a film festival established in 1991 in which directors debut short films recorded with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy video camera. Hello iPhone, I’m ready for my close-up.