The iPhone is indeed the most successful phone or PDA model ever, it seems. Apple now has 16.6% of the worldwide smartphone market, and almost 10,000 apps in their AppStore. That market share chart is very old (pre-iPhone 3G), and I expect that the iPhone by now has well over 25% of the smartphone market.

This applications point is very important too. 10,000 apps in just 6 months in unprecedented. Think that it took Windows Mobile 6 years to get to 20,000 apps, and PalmOS about 7 years for 30,000 apps. And if you want to laugh a bit, think that it took Nokia 3 years for its S60 3rd Edition platform to get… 600 apps. Remember, S60 phones are actually very popular, but there are not many apps for them! And the reason why 3rd Edition S60 has such a low number of apps available is because, as I have said many times in this blog, Nokia broke binary compatibility with S60 2nd Edition (that already had 2,000 apps at the time). Binary compatibility is very important and Nokia is paying for it for these stupid decisions that continues to make. They seem to never learn, and this is why they will go bye-bye eventually from this market. Their new touchscreen platform is a bit of a joke too, as I blogged in the past.

Google’s Android has quite a few apps too, possibly in the hundreds by now, and it’s already deemed successful. But this fragmented “app market” that doesn’t have a single store, is a terrible idea in my book. Personally, while I like the idea behind Android very much, I don’t like the Android UI and the current HTC phone at all. The funny thing is that our landlord’s office manager couldn’t wait for the G1 to come out, only to sell it a few days after he got it. He also hated the UI, and he couldn’t deal with the shitty HTC phone design (he couldn’t type correctly because of the oversized right side). He got a Blackberry right after that, he sold it within 3 days, and he’s back on the iPhone. The iPhone offers the best user experience hands down indeed.

The only thing bugging me is the kind of apps that Apple doesn’t offer us in the iPhone and third parties can’t fill in these blanks. And because of the various SDK limitations, the iPhone apps are mostly games and other useless crap.

If you read any serious analysis of “Lost” around, you will find it getting compared to “Twin Peaks” all the time. The two shows are of course very similar in many ways, but we didn’t have official confirmation about “Lost” being artistically the natural continuation of “Twin Peaks”, until now. Damon Lindelof, one of the two geniuses behind “Lost”, said recently:

“The show that REALLY affected me, however, was TWIN PEAKS, which I’d watch every week with my dad. He’d tape the show on his VCR (remember those?) and we’d watch the episode AGAIN right after it aired in our quest to pull every last clue out of the show. The idea of a TV Show being a mystery and a game that spawned hundreds of theories obviously was a major precedent (that’s a fancy way of saying we ripped it off) for LOST.”

I am very happy how Damon has evolved the whole idea behind “Twin Peaks” (my review) to something so much better, like “Lost” is. Here’s hope that someone in the future will evolve “Lost” itself to a step beyond it too.

In the same interview, the two writers also say that they won’t be revisiting Libby’s story (to the dismay of many fans online), and that seasons 1 and 2 won’t get released in Blu-Ray individually — which of course pisses me off, as I would need to buy a final boxset to get these two seasons in BD, even if I would already own all the seasons by then. Very unfair for us loyal customers.

Elsewhere, the first sneak peek of Lost’s new episode in January was released too. Not a major spoiler, don’t worry.

MGMT is the new band that I love. They are playing “psychedelic electro-alternative rock”. And they are successful in the alternative rock scene in the last few months. If you like the “Muse” or maybe even the “New Order”, you will love the MGMT too. Listen to their song “Kids” below (video is unofficial, does not depict the actual band).

Interestingly, my favorite song of the band is not a single (yet). It’s called “Of Moons, Birds & Monsters”, listen to it below. Psychedelic to the max!

And if you happen to like the MGMT, you might just like the 3OH!3 too, another duet, who play “electronic rapcore” music. That’s rap that has rock & electronic elements. The music video of their most known song is here, although this specific song is more pop than rapcore (compared to the rest of their songs).

For those who would like to embark into filmmaking territories, I would suggest you take a look at the “Pi” movie by Darren Aronofsky (trailer). The movie has a film school cutting and camera movement style, it was cheap ass, and yet, it has a very high rating on IMDb, because it has a great story. This movie is the definition of story telling.

Pi was shot in Super16 ten years ago, it has virtually no shallow DOF, it is extremely grainy, it’s black & white, and it generally looks like ass on first look. But the story takes you away and all that weird look add to the weird world the hero lives in.

Update: Aronofsky’s new movie, “The Wrestler” that comes out in a few days (trailer), was also shot in 16mm and has no shallow DOF to speak of either.

* I never watch music award shows, this last Sunday was a first with the AMA awards. Watching Coldplay performing live was a proof that Chris Martin can’t sing. He was only a tiny bit better than in the SNL show a month ago that I blogged about. As bad was the Jonas Brothers’ singer too. Everyone else excelled in vocal performance that night, and I was positively surprised by Miley Cyrus.

* Our webmaster on this server, Adam, blogged about economist Peter Schiff who has been predicting the house bubble, oil prices, economy crash since the beginning of the decade. Watch the video on Adam’s page about how everyone laughs, live on TV, at Mr Schiff predictions — it’s so pathetic. I guess he laughed last. On a recent interview with him, he predicts very dire stuff, like this recession will be much worse than the 1930’s Great Depression, as the crime will rise a lot and there will be civil unrest. He predicts that the rest of the developed world won’t be in the same situation, only USA will pay the price of its own “consume a lot, and don’t produce enough” philosophy. You can read more of Schiff’s articles here. He made me think twice that bailing out failing businesses was the way to go.

* Handbrake 0.9.3 was released yesterday and it now allows for single file transcoding instead of just DVD ripping. It’s also available for Linux now, not just Mac/Win. I put up a tutorial on how to use it to export in 720p HD. Change the resolution to 640×360 and bitrate to 1500 if your camera is a widescreen miniDV instead.

* YouTube supports HD now. Sure, you did see the widescreen new page format, but that’s not what I am talking about. YouTube re-encodes videos 4 times: 192×144 3GP for cellphones, 320×240 FLV (this is what it loads by default), 480×270 h.264 (”high quality”), and 1280×720 h.264 (loads only if you append the &fmt=22 code at the end of the URL of a video that was originally a 720p uploaded video). My Android video was uploaded in 720/30p, so when you click on this specific URL you can view it in HD. I believe that YouTube’s h.264-based HD re-encoding is better than Vimeo’s, not only because of the video quality, but because they support 30 fps (Vimeo only goes up to 24), and also it seems that Adobe’s h.264 decoder is faster than its FLV HD one. However, I expect Vimeo to follow suit in terms of h.264/fps, so I am staying with them rather than moving my videos to Youtube’s ugly user base who know only how to discredit you and spam your comment section to hell.

* Speaking of YouTube, I watched a bit of the first YouTube Live show the other day: Katy Perry can barely sing. From all the Youtube internet personalities, Mr Safety, Smosh and Sxephil are my favorites. Smosh’s latest video is really funny.

* [BSG SPOILERS]: SyFyPortal says that one of these five people will be the last Cylon. Given that the… Xena Cylon said that “the last Cylon is not among you”, we can easily take out 3 people out of the list. It will be between Ellen Tigh and Cally Tyroll. And if Cally is indeed the last Cylon, I will do a big fat “I told you so, twice“, blog post.

A short video about boats, shot for the purposes of my upcoming Kodak Z1012 IS digital camera review. It was shot within half an hour with this HD-capable digital camera at San Mateo’s marina (Coyote Point) yesterday.

Most scenes are over-exposed as the camera has no exposure control in its video mode. The video is color graded. HD version, comments and download here.

Update: And a pseudo-HDR image I shot and tone-mapped yesterday with the same camera:

Geeks.com sent over three nice gadgets for a review, two of which will be reviewed here. The third item’s review, the Kodak Z1012 IS, will be published in a few days at FreshDV.com.

* Micro Innovations PD5230LSR 3-Button USB Laser Travel Mouse w/Retractable Cord

A travel mouse is an ideal companion to use with the Acer Aspire One netbook, and at first glance this Micro Innovations mouse sounds like a good deal. It is a high DPI laser-based mouse, has 3 buttons & a wheel, and a retractable cable. It feels pretty good in the palm, and after using it for hours didn’t made my wrist hurt. Unfortunately, I can’t qualify it exactly as a travel mouse. This mouse is not very long, but it’s very tall! It is taller than my regular mice in my office! And when you pack gadgets in your laptop bag, you mostly care about their thickness, not so much about their length. Given these realities, this mouse is just too thick to fit nicely in a laptop bag and this takes away a lot of its value.

* Made-Always-On camera cases

This is a great little cheap addition for yourself and for sharing with your family. The package includes three cases for digital cameras. The more serious-looking black and blue, and a pink one that feels softer to the touch than the rest two. These cases feature a thin metal bracelet at the bottom that has a tripod head-sized screw on it. You screw this on your digital camera’s tripod hole to hold it steady, and then you wrap the case around the camera to secure it via the provided Velcro. What I like about this case is the fact that you never have to fully remove the case from the camera, you just unwrap it, shoot your picture, wrap it back. This is much more convenient than having a traditional case where you remove the camera from within, place the case in your bag, shoot, take the case back from your bag, put the camera back. Now, you are probably thinking that not having the tripod hole available is not a good idea when using a tripod. That’s true, but these cases only fit the “thin” consumer cameras (e.g. Kodak’s V- and M-series), the kind of cameras usually people just point and shoot. The Canon A-series, Kodak’s Z-series don’t fit, for example. So this product is useful and well-thought, for its intended audience.

* Once a year I do the same mistake. I am down the aisle on a shop, and I see this great price on sanitary pads. It’s from an unknown or semi-unknown brand, but I let myself think that creating sanitary pads is no rocket science — it’s got to be usable. And I fall into the same trap again, and I buy the cheaper brand. And then I use it. And it’s a bloody disaster. Why, oh, why no one can make sanitary pads as well as Always can? Either these companies employ bozo engineers, or Always holds patents that no one can touch. No other explanation exists.

* Hugh Jackman was named sexiest man on Earth. For once, I wholeheartedly agree. The guy is dreamy, one of a kind. What makes him irresistible is not his looks, but the gentlemanship, and loyalty his face emits. Evolution-wise-speaking, that’s the kind of thing most women ultimately want, and Jackman radiates these characteristics very strongly. Heck, he’s married to a (not-so-pretty) woman many years his senior, and he’s been very loyal to her and their family.

* I received the Kodak Z1012 IS for a review yesterday (review will appear on FreshDV). It has a 1/2.5″ sensor, and my tests revealed that its HD video capability yields the same amount of background blur as the HV20/30 do. You need to start zooming in at around 33% to start getting some blur (the equivalent amount of blur on the HV20/30 is 75% of zoom though).

* Bush is set to relax endangered species rules. God damn it, I wish that we didn’t have to wait until January for Obama to take office.

* Premiere 4.0.1 was released yesterday, it now supports the opening of Final Cut projects and reading RED’s R3D files.

* Neuros released a set-top box for TV entertainment. It’s important for us videophiles as it is able to playback 1080p h.264 files, and run a normal distribution of Ubuntu in it that allows for true Flash support. PC Linux’s Flash support is much superior to what you get on the PS3 for example, which doesn’t even do fullscreen. I might be able to get a unit and write a review for OSNews.

I blogged about Christina Aguilera’s new song earlier today. As I said there, the song is very nice, maybe the best ever from Christina.

The official music video for it is pretty good too. It was directed by Peter Berg, the same director who did the movie “Hancock”.

In the meantime, Christina signed an exclusive contract with the Target superstores, and Target did a 30 second commercial for it, featuring Christina and her new song.

Here’s the trouble: the commercial is about 10 times better than the official video, and everyone who has seen both says so. If something like this was the official video, it would have kicked so much ass.

I am not sure how the director will take all this though. It can be a blow to him and his morale.

I revisited my “Garden Spinners” (was: “Kites”) video this afternoon, making at least 8 changes to the video. It is much more faithful to the beat now, and a bit more interesting too. Additionally, I upgraded the bitrate to 6 mbps VBR (original version was 5 mbps VBR), so if you had downloaded the previous version, please re-download the new one — it’s better.

I got some pretty positive feedback about this particular video, so I am interested to know if people prefer it over my jellyfish video. The jellyfish video is one of most “liked” HV20 videos on Vimeo ever, so I wonder which one is better.