One of our favorites in recent months is Plants vs Zombies (PvZ). As a seasoned gamer, I learned the basics, learned the nuiances about each play piece, each zombie, and how they interact, my mind quickly build up various tactics and strategies. All the while balancing the strength of the economy, defense, and offense.

My daughter had been watching me play over the past weeks. It wasn’t until today when she started to play herself did I realized how little she actually learned via observation. While she is aware that each play piece and enemy does different thing, she did not recognize that there are 3 areas that requires balance. It wasn’t until she started playing did she have the a-ha moment.
As I discussed with my wife on this observation, we noticed a parallel just this past 2 months. As she started 4th grade, her work load has significantly increased. It wasn’t until she experienced the pressure of not having enough time, and then the relieve of managing her time correctly did she learned what she needed to do. My only conclusion is that resource management can only be learned experientially, not by theory or observation. This may explain why even graduates of Finance have poor personal financial skills.

Many prevalent genres of computer games, notably real time strategies (RTS) and role playing games (RPG) among others have strong emphasis on gameplay based on limited resources and forcing gamers to make intelligent and educated decisions. Gamers who are accustomed to this type of constraints often learn new games very quickly. If theirs and my gaming experience are any indication, this type of skill is transferrable. And if it can be transferred from one gaming experience to another, it could very well be transferrable from gaming to real life. It will definitely be interesting to observe how my daughter handle limited resources (time, allowance, etc.) in real life as she grows up.

As she continues to play PvZ, she encountered more difficult levels that require the pieces to start in a certain way and be changed to a different layout later. This is where I came to my second revelation. The ability to visualize a future state and the ability to plan a series of actions to achieve that future is not innate. Instead, these are skills that must be learned, practiced, and honed. As I coach her on how to build the initial stage and then progress to slowly replacing the pieces with better ones (and in the process destroying the old pieces), I can sense the hesitation in her. It wasn’t until the 3rd or 4th iteration did she came to accept the mechanics. Let’s hold that thought for a minute.

This leads to my third revelation: change is not just a difficult thing in the work place. New management, new philosophy, new process, new software, even new forms can be difficult for all of us. Change is also a difficult thing for a 9 year old playing a computer game as the tactic shifts from build-win to build-destroy-rebuilt-destroy-ebuilt-win. The funny thing was that as I came to recognize the parallel between what she was experiencing and what we were taught about change management at work, I started to apply some of those techniques on her. I show her how I do it. Then I let her be in control and I walk her through how to do it. Then I let her do it herself and only give advice when asked. Then she successfully conquer the level herself without assistance. And you know, it worked.

Now back to the second revelation on visualization and planning. After about 40 levels, she encountered a series that she does not comprehend (for those of you that plays PvZ, it was the roof levels with the bungee zombie). This time, instead of showing her what to do, I explain to her how one of the key pieces work (the umbrella plant), opened up Excel and drew a grid and help her plant out what pieces to put where. She went back to the level and executed it flawlessly. As she finished, she came back and said, “I want to plan the next level!” As an IT manager, it was music to my ear. And she was just playing a game. If this experience (and others alike) is transferrable, computer games would have turned her into a planner for the rest of her life. … Okay, I can dream, can’t I?

I have always believed that gaming experiences, like any life experiences, do things to our brain and not all of them bad. Let’s see if it proves true over time.

The first reason is naturally just to look for the iPad version of the apps I have.  Even though all my iPhone apps ran, many actually have iPad version that took advantage of the bigger screen and additional functionalities.  Shazam, Twitter, Bing, Google, eBay, and many media-centric apps all have better iPad versions.  Just from my poking around the app store, it would seem that presence-based commercial entities are the first group to re-release their apps in iPad.  Social media companies and mass media companies (Reuters, CNN, etc.) dominate this group.  Majority of these apps are free as their commercial value is not derived from the purchase price. Notable absence
includes Facebook and Foursquare.  The recent rumor that Facebook is switching its site to HTML5 could point to the realization that thick client (that’s what this type of app is) may not be the proper way to exist in the fragmented mobile operating system market.  In fact, developers are experiencing in the mobile OS market what they experienced in the personal computer OS market in the past decades.  The web homogenized the computer OSes by making them irrelevant through common UI rendering standards. It would seem that the world is noticing the patent much quicker this time around with the mobile OS market.  More and more companies are starting to ignore the app layer and go straight back to the web layer.  The second group to re-release iPad version of their apps are the commercial entities that charge for their apps and determined that there is a buy/re-buy market and the said market is sufficient to justify the re-development cost.  The most prominent categories here are games and productivity apps.

The second reason for the search is to look for replacements. Honestly, some iPhone apps are just ugly on the bigger screen. Developers not planning to re-release iPad version provide the catalyst for this search. And after 16 months and 2 versions, iPad running iOS as a platform has established itself as more than a fad.  It is interesting to see a broad spectrum of developers and companies who simply choose to ignore it and continue to rely on the iPhone version of their products.  Then there are those who choose not to do so due to cost/benefit, basically determining that the cost of development would not provide sufficient profit.  This is especially true to older iPhone apps (e.g. games) that are already at the tail end of its life.  If an app does not have an iPad version, it could be a warning sign for the app or the developer.

The third reason for the search is to look for apps that provide functions that couldn’t have worked well in a small device. In the case of iPad vs iPhone, the larger screen made reading large volume of text possible.  This group of apps is dominated by custom readers.  iBook and Kindle are the 800 lb gorillas for books.  Marvel, DC, Dark Horse are the equivalent in the comic books world.  Surprisingly there is a fairly large foreign presence in this area.  Books in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other languages are readily found.  All of these apps come with its own store inside the app.

Here are a few gems that are now on my home screen:

Pulse – a fairly well-designed touch-based RSS reader.

Dropbox – a cloud based file share, it also have clients with synchronization capabilities for platforms that support it (primarily Windows and Mac OS).

Friendly – a 3^rd party UI for Facebook.

FileBrowser – a network file share browser.  I use a NAS and have UPnP setup to stream media to any UPnP capable rendering devices in the house (Xbox 360, other computers, etc.).  I used  PlugPlayer on the iPhone. Unfortunately, PP requires a re-buy for the iPad.  On the suggestion of others looking for similar solution, I tried FileBrowser and it achieved the same purpose with the benefit of it being more stable.

Some apps I’m still looking for:

A decent spreadsheet app, a decent clock/alarm/stopwatch app, and a decent compass app.

Here’s what worked:

• iPad 2 – iPad USB cable – large square plug that came with the iPad – home electrical outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPad USB cable – mini square plug that came with the iPhone – home electrical outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPhone USB cable – large square plug that came with the iPad – home electrical outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPhone USB cable – mini square plug that came with the iPhone – home electrical outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPad USB cable – large square plug that came with the iPad – car 115V electrical outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPad USB cable – mini square plug that came with the iPhone – car 115V electrical outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPhone USB cable – large square plug that came with the iPad – car 115V electrical outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPhone USB cable – mini square plug that came with the iPhone – car 115V electrical outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPad USB cable – large square plug that came with the iPad – car cigarette-to-110V outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPad USB cable – mini square plug that came with the iPhone – car cigarette-to-110V outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPhone USB cable – large square plug that came with the iPad – car cigarette-to-110V outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPhone USB cable – mini square plug that came with the iPhone – car cigarette-to-110V outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPad USB cable – car cigarette-to-USB outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPad USB cable – car cigarette-to-USB outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPhone USB cable – car cigarette-to-USB outlet.
• iPad 2 – iPhone USB cable – car cigarette-to-USB outlet.

Here’s what didn’t work:

• iPad 2 – iPad USB cable – computer USB port.
• iPad 2 – iPhone USB cable – computer USB port.
• iPad 2 – iPad USB cable – powered USB hub.
• iPad 2 – iPhone USB cable – powered USB hub.
• iPad 2 – 3rd party dedicated 30pin-iPhone/iPad-port-to-110V charger – home electrical outlet.
• iPad 2 – 3rd party FM transmitter-USB – car cigarette-to-USB outlet.

All things point to while the connector is physically USB compatible, it is not electrically compatible with USB spec. More research online showed that this toy actually need 10 Watts of power to charge. That’s why computer-speced USB source cannot charge the iPad. The last two seem strange but it could be that the transformer circuit actually regulated the power output to USB standard, making the wattage insufficient to charge the iPad. Given that, there is really no way to know what iPhone charging accessories will work for sure unless you can find out the wattage output. The best way to confirm is to try it. Can’t assume.

Another revelation is that it would be natural to want to stand the iPad up at a proper viewing angle while it is being charged so it can still be used. But without a proper holder of sort, the charging cable is going to be in the way in portrait mode. Looks like a stand of some sort will be in order.

3G Connectivity

The first thing after I got home was to get online and start researching how to properly activate the iPad’s 3G connection so it billed to my current AT&T account.  After 10 minutes on AT&T’s stie and another 10 on Google, I came to the conclusion that I’d be better off getting the AT&T people to do it for me.

Off I went to the nearest AT&T store.  The store wasn’t crowded and I was with a service rep very quickly. After finding out what I want to do, he explained that it was actually pretty simple.  Instead of activating the SIM already in the iPad, they would add a phone line (yes, the iPad line has its own phone number) to my AT&T account, create a new SIM for it, and replace the iPad one with it.  The longest part turns out to be trying to open the micro SIM slot.

On a side note, adding line carries a charge ($15).  Since it would have been an iPad self activation, they waived the fee (some manager have to key it in).  20 minutes and I was out the door with a properly setup 3G connection, billed to an existing account, no setup fee, no contract.  Since the iPad is not a phone per se, the only place the phone number will show up is the monthly account statement.

Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, Photos

Synching media files is relatively simple. Connect the iPad to the computer, run iTunes if it didn’t start already, pick and choose.

Apps

Getting the Apps on the iPad was not difficult but a lot more cumbersome.  Rather than picking them from iTunes and just let them copied over randomly, I decided to pre-arrange them one at a time according to how I have them put together on the phone.  That took a while but moving them around on the iPad by touch would have been much more painful.

Apple Apps

Once the sync was done (it took a while for 40GB), it was time to test all the apps.  As I was picking through the apps and arranging them, I already noticed certain things.  Testing all apps re-affirmed that Apple did intent the iPad to be used differently than the iPhone.  Even though it seems like the iPad was just a big iPhone, some design elements made them distinct:

• There is no Clock/Alarm app.
• There is no Phone app (obviously).
• There is no Messaging app.
• There is no Voice Memo app.
• There is no Calculator app.
• There is no Stocks app.
• There is no Compass app.
• There is no Weather app.

Most of this points to a couple of assumptions: 1) There is no expectation that this is a communication device. 2) There is no expectation that this device will have constant connection to the Internet. 3) There is no expectation that this device will be carried on-the-person (or at least near the person) 24×7.

Other differences affirm the design intent. The iPod app only plays music and podcasts. Video is played through a dedicated Video app. The Photo app is more advanced in its display, lending it to make a decent photo frame for the desk.

Other Apps

In general, most apps are not created for the iPad.  When run, they retain the small size resolution.  The 2x magnify option is pure graphical stretching, making these app grainy looking.

Here’s a few fairly common apps I used and what oddity I found during testing:

• Twitter scales properly but TweetDeck doesn’t.
• There is no iPad version of Facebook.
• Yelp can only do search and map in iPad. You cannot access the discussion forums, checkin, work on your profile, or look up friends.

Other Bits and Pieces

Along the way, other things to setup include picking wall paper, setting up email connections, setting up all the logins for all the websites, redoing the bookmarks in Safari, setting up MobileMe so the iPad can be located if it was lost or stolen, getting it connected to home/work WiFi, etc.

All in all, not a bad 6 hours.

The first choice is of course … well, let’s take one more step back. Why an iPad? Well, the debate of Apple iOS devices vs various Android devices vs the looming Windows 7/8 had been going around in my head ever since the first iPhone came out and became a hit. But the day before, we were talking about games and I showed one of the guys at work Peggle (from PopCap Games). He tried on my phone and decided to get it. Except that he was on Android and Peggle for Android had not been released. Later that night, I was talking to my wife and she said she’s not going on any platform that doesn’t have Peggle. Well, I guess that settled it. Since I’m spending now, we are staying with the iOS. So iPad it is.

Now the real first choice as far as iPad goes is WiFi only or WiFi+3G. That really is a decision based on where it will be used. Majority of the time I will have WiFi access (home, work, even at McDonald’s and Starbucks). But that few times without WiFi could be painful. In years past, I have used many mobile devices. The two most notable ones were a slate from Motion Computing running XP and a mini-mini tablet from Nokia running a variant of Debian (the model was N770). I have travelled with both and it was painful when WiFi was not available, usually out in the booney or in hotels that charged an arm and a leg for Internet connectivity. Even more recent years with my iPhone, many things were not possible without 3G in the same situations. Being the never-want-to-regret-not-having guy that I am, I decided to spring the extra for a 3G one.

The second decision is storage. My iPhone 3GS is 32GB and I have already reached its limit with my media library. Considering I have to select a minimal number of movies to load to my phone and that the iPad is meant to be used to watch movies (among other uses), it doesn’t make sense not to go the next step. So the decision was a 64GB one.

The third decision is where to buy. Since we were heading to Ala Moana today, the choice was the Apple Store there.

The fourth decision is accessories. My experience with all the different devices taught me one thing: you never know what else you need to buy except 2 things: 1) something to protect the new toy for the first 2 months and 2) an extra power supply. The Smart Cover was an easy choice since I have no basis to deterministically *want* other features. Whether I actually need the extra power supply will depend on whether my existing cords for the phone will work.

I have also considered the HDMI adapter and the VGA adapter. While I can think of use cases for them, online reviews all mentioned issue with possible signal noise and the fact that not all apps will display its content in mirror mode (monitor, HD TV, etc. via said adapters). So in this case, the time spent doing research saved pain and money.

With all that in mind, we got to the store and was greeted very quickly by an Apple Store employee. She got my name and info on what I need, logged it, and determined which pool of specialists to pick from. Even though the store was packed (today is a holiday for many people), I only waited 2 minutes. I was greeted by another girl. She was evidently on the sales side. Here’s roughly the sequence of events:

• She asked and found out I already know what I want so we jumped right in.
• She entered everything into her own iPad, checked inventory, and requested someone else to get the iPad out from the back.
• While we waited, we went to the side to get the accessories.
• The runner came back with the iPad and we get to an open spot and start to configure it.
• She scanned everything into her iPhone, ran my credit card using her iPhone.
• While we waited for the receipt to print, we opened up the iPad and checked to see everything worked. She activated it and proceeded to highlight a few things different about the iPad (from the iPhone), also pointed me to the part about 3G activation, advised me I will need to contact AT&T to connect this plan to my existing plan.
• While I poke around a bit more, she left and returned with the printed receipt and a bag.

The entire purchase of almost $1,000 worth of technology happened in less than 30 minutes. I was left on my own for no more than 1 minute the entire time. Never once was I sent to a cashier or a counter. If there is one thing other stores can learn from an Apple Store, it is that the customer experience is hugely important at a subconscious level.

Now that I think about it, my last experience purchasing the iPhone was exactly the same. At a subconscious level, I have absolutely no issue entering the store and talking to the people there. When I was considering Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc., I was filled with doubts on whether the people there can help me. What this translates to is a level of confidence from the consumers’ perspective. As an IT person, I don’t shy from technologies but a computer (that’s what an iPad is) is a big purchase. Having someone there walking you through every step of the way, confirming your own research, and answering new questions are all very re-assuring.

The one-person handling everything end-to-end is very different from traditional retail’s division of labor. Labor specialization is good for the stores as it can derive efficiency and cost less in training personnel. But in this case, well trained personnel enabled better service, leading to superior purchasing experience. There is something to be gained operating this way.

With my new bag of toys in hand, I know what I’ll be doing this weekend.

After a day or two with the issue myself, I’ve decided to do some research instead of waiting for Apple. Online searches result in similar inconclusive messes of forum postings. Like any other obscure problems in any other OSes, some people encountered the problem, some people didn’t, some claimed certain fix work for them, some claimed otherwise, some just whined and complained, some just proclaimed the end of the world.

After actually messing around with the addresses on file with my credit card company and the addresses on my phone without resolving the problem, I have concluded that the problem is not about matching the two addresses exactly. Logic dictates that the problem lies elsewhere. The next step is take a look at what possible things Apple can do to mess around with address matching. The first thing that came to mind is address standardization and cleansing. We’ve had some experience with it dealing with US Postal Service and the derivative service providers whose primary business is related to marketing (mass mailing to put it nicely).

There are two reasons why even badly written addresses (or sometimes incorrect addresses) can reach the intended recipients. One, USPS actually put a lot of effort in sanitizing what people write on the envelopes. The sanitized addresses are used in distributing the mail to the correct local center. Two, good local postal workers will recognize names and addresses and make the delivery to the right people, households, and businesses. Because the effort to sanitize addresses is significant, USPS provide incentives to mailers to pre-sanitize addresses before mailing (research CASS Certified address verification software and you’ll discover a different world). In addition, mass mailers have an incentive to develop highly accurate address list so that their services offering is superior than those of their competitors.

Using one of the free online services available (I used Experian’s), I noticed the resolved address is different from both my address on record with my credit card company and the address on my phone. I updated the one on my phone (but not the credit card company’s) and viola, problem solved. The end result: My address on record with credit card company is different from my phone’s but my phone’s address is the same as the USPS sanitized version of my credit card address.

While the entire problem is quite easy to resolve for techies, it would not be apparent to today’s normal users of technologies. Two things are working against us. First, more and more of the technologies and what happens behind the scenes are hidden from the users. The old days of everything editable and configurable is gone. Users are shielded from everything they are “not supposed” to change. Not only that, users are shielded from even knowing the existence of these settings and configurations. Today, companies like Apple even make changes without announcing what they’ve changed. As unacceptable as it was years ago, it is now the norm. Second, today’s average technology users are less technologically savvy just because of the law of average. When everything works, everyone functions at a higher level, sure. But when hiccups occur, everything stops and few people knows how to research and handle problems. Even basic diagnostic skills are no longer expected from users.

This is a dangerous trend where the knowledge gap between the users and the manufacturers are once again widened to the degree that the users become totally dependent on the manufacturers’ ability to produce good technologies. This is a reversal of the trend of the past 30 years. Throughout technology history, community (not individual companies) has been the fundamental force advancing usability and supportability. With the way things are working, especially with companies like Apple, we are looking at a probable meltdown.

Bengaluru airport doesn’t have fixed checkin counters. Instead, the airlines share the counters and whoever has flights will use it. Took me wandering a few minutes and asking an airport personnel to figure it out.

Unlike US airports, the security is a lot stricter. I passed through the checkin desk out front, immigration, carry on scanner with the machine, a body scanner (the detector frame you walk through), then a personal scanner (a security use a wand), and another guard before able to enter the concourse. Every single stop checked for passport and boarding pass. As we board, there were another passport/boarding pass check, and another personal scanner check right before entering the plane. The last one was interesting as the men and the women are separated and the scanning area for the women is screened.

The flight was uneventful. I spent most of the 4 hours either sleeping or watching a little rascal nearby struggling to get away from mom so she can roam the plane. She looked so happy the couple times she got away.

The layover at Dubai was only supposed to be 1 hour 15 minutes, meaning I only have 30 minutes to get to the next gate. My experience at O’Hare gave me nightmare about short layovers. But in this case, the first flight arrived really early so there was actually plenty of time. Another carryon check later, I arrived at the concourse. It is now past 6 am. This place is absolutely packed. With 30 minutes to burn, coffee seems to be in order. This end of the concourse didn’t have a Starbucks but any will do.

More check points (passport boarding pass, another passport, and another carry on check) later, we were finally boarding. While I was in Bengaluru, I was able to select seats for this flight. My strategies worked and I was able to get an isle seat at the absolute last row of the plane without someone next to me on a 4-seat row. Yay me!

One of the coolest thing about these long range Emirates flight is their entertainment system. They have cameras in front and in the bottom of the plane and you can watch them throughout the flight. I was poking around when we were flying over the polar region and the sky was clear enough I can actually see the ice cap. I don’t think this is one of those things I will ever see in person so this is as close as I’m going to get aside from watching Discovery channel.

Now if only they have free Internet access, it would have been perfect.

There were a surprising number of kids on the plane. Of course, once they got comfortable, they start to run around. One of them is a 2 year old named Isha. I had talked to her and her mom before take off. This time around, she saw me with a headphone and the computer and she took an interest. Burn Notice isn’t exactly kid-friendly so I showed her some of the kiddie movies I had. She was first fascinated with the earbud headphone, moving them closer and farther to her ears. And then she pressed them to her head and said that’s too loud! LOL. One thing good about the Dell Mini 9 is that it is small enough to move every which way, even on an airplane tray table. She turned the keyboard to face her, proceeded to start moving her fingers on the keys, and proclaimed that she was typing. I guess her parents do it so often that she already knows the act.

This is the generation that is born into a world with computer. There is no reason for us to not encourage them to explore. People often asked why I’m not worried about them damaging the computers but playing on them. My take on it is that if our computing environment is that fragile, we are doing something wrong. We should know what to do, what not to do. We should have backups and know how to restore thing if necessary. If something on it is important, we would keep them safe. If we were to provide an environment where our children can learn using modern means, doesn’t that also mean we as parents, educators, and just grown ups in general need to learn the same so that we can watch over them and guide them. I could never understand the parents who are not willing to learn so they can teach their own children. I mean, we are willing to die for them, what’s so hard about committing to learn new things?

16 hours later, we landed at San Francisco airport. Unlike the trip leaving the U.S., this was much more complicated. First we need go through U.S. Custom which is a very long line. Then we have to pick up the luggage. Those two took a good hour. Then we have to re-check-in the lugguage in the next room which involves another line. As I continue to walk towards “Connecting Flight”, I found that I was effectively outside of the airport and had to go through all the security check again! Really? No, seriously, really? I just got off an airplane and went through all the security. *sigh*

Anotherr long line. At that point, I have 30 minutes before the next flight starts boarding. I guess it was a good thing that I had a 3-hour layover. My original itenerary only have 2 which means I would have missed the flight home. When I got to the gate, the flight was already boarding. From now on, I should insist on having at least a 4 hour window when making International to Domestic connections.

When I was at India, I had a chance to talk to a few executives. One of the casual conversations revolved around airlines and tourism. We agreed that U.S. airlines and their counterparts from other countries have very different approaches when it comes to their bottomlines. U.S. airlines’ focus is on cutting cost. The planes are old, very little perks, the flight attendants are primarily there for the passengers’ safety (yes, the pilot actually said that over the PA). On the other hand, airlines from other countries like Singapore, Korean, Japan, and Emirates focus on better services. The planes are continually refitted, lots of perks and goodies, and the flight attendants are there to make your trip comfortable and pleasant. I’m forced to conclude that traveler fly domestic only because they have no choice. When there is a choice, non-US airlines are almost always more pleasant.

As this was fresh in my head, I observed several things in this flight (United 77). The attendants don’t check the cabin or the passengers. They come out when it is time to serve drink or sell snacks. The rest of the time they are no where to be found. I can’t help but to recall that conversation. Domestic flights are nothing but bus rides with wings. There is nothing enjoyable about them. That is a dangerous thing to do. All it takes is some savy airlines elsewhere to jump into the U.S. market with premium offering. Even at a price difference, those who seek better experiences will flee from US airlines. The like of United, Continental, etc. will turn into Grey Hound. It is a shivering thought.

The flight landed safely at Honolulu International Airport. I was greeted by my family and thus ended my trip to India. It was an enlightening trip. And we always learn new things when faced with changes and new experiences. As I have come to learned, I do like India and I would not mind the opportunity to go there again… but not too soon.