holloway.me

We’re all born to broken people on their most honest day of living.

And since that first breath, we’ll need grace that we’ve never given.

I’ve been haunted by standard red devils and white ghosts, and it’s not only when these eyes are closed.

These lies are ropes that I tie down in my stomach, but they hold this ship together, tossed like leaves in this weather.

And my dreams are sails that I point towards my true north, stretched thin over my rib bones, and pray that it gets better — but it won’t, at least I don’t believe it will…

So I’ve built a wooden heart inside this iron ship, to sail these blood-red seas and find your coasts. Don’t let these waves wash away your hopes.

This warship is sinking, and I still believe in anchors.

Pulling fistfuls of rotten wood from my heart, I still believe in saviors, but I know that we are all made out of shipwrecks, every single board, washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores.

So come on and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach.

Come on and sew us together, tattered rags stained forever.

We only have what we remember.

I am the barely-living son of a woman and man who barely made it, but we’re making it taped together on borrowed crutches and new starts.

We all have the same holes in our hearts… everything falls apart at the exact same time that it all comes together perfectly for the next step.

But my fear is this prison that I keep locked below the main deck. I keep a key under my pillow, it’s quiet and it’s hidden.

And my hopes are weapons that I’m still learning how to use right, but they’re heavy and I’m awkward… always running out of fight.

So I’ve carved a wooden heart, put it in this sinking ship, hoping it would help me float for just a few more weeks, because I am made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam, lost and found like you and me scattered out on the sea.

So come on and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach.

Come on and sew us together, just some tattered rags stained forever.

We only have what we remember.

My throat, it still tastes like house fire and salt water.

I wear this tide like loose skin, rock me to sea.

If we hold on tight we’ll hold each other together and not just be some fools rushing to die in our sleep.

All these machines will rust, I promise, but we’ll still be electric, shocking each other back to life.

Your hand in mine, my fingers in your veins connected, our bones grown together inside, our hands entwined, your fingers in my veins braided, our spines grown stronger in time.

Because our church is made out of shipwrecks from every hull these rocks have claimed, but we pick ourselves up, and try and grow better through the change.

So come on and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach.

Come on and sew us together, we’re just tattered rags stained forever.

We only have what we remember.

— Listener, “Wooden Heart”

If someone you look up to gives you a book or tells you about one, read it. They’re trying to tell you something, whether it’s a personal message or something they think everyone in the world should learn.

Over the last few years, somehow I’ve become the expert within my circle of friends and acquaintances about when the next iPhone is coming out. Seriously, this is probably the number one question I get asked. The odd thing is people ask me as if I know for certain what the next iPhone is going to be and when it’s going to come out.

I don’t usually like to feed into the incessant rumor mill surrounding Apple products, and when asked, I usually just say, “I’m not sure. We’ll find out.” But enough people have asked me this time around that it’s probably worth summarizing my thoughts in one place just to make it easy for everyone.

Please note that I don’t have any insider information. All of this is speculation, however well-educated it may be. Without further ado, here is what I believe about the next iPhone:

Design

I believe the next iPhone will feature an all-new industrial design that marries the best of the iPhone 4 with the rounded back and sides of previous generations. Expect to see something thinner and lighter than the iPhone 4, while being perhaps a little taller and wider. It probably looks something like this.

Screen

Based on leaked case specifications, it’s likely that the next iPhone will have a physically larger screen measuring somewhere between 3.7 and 4 inches. The screens on all previous iPhones have been 3.5 inches.

Despite a physically larger screen, it would be foolish for Apple to change the resolution from the 960 x 640 pixels that is used on the iPhone 4. Exactly doubling the iPhone’s resolution for the Retina Display was the only way for Apple to maintain a bit of uniformity while still making a nicer screen. I seriously doubt that we’ll ever see an iPhone or iPod touch with a resolution that doesn’t map to the general dimensions of the current one.

Under the Hood

It would come as no surprise to anyone if the next iPhone ships with the same Apple A5 system on a chip that powers the iPad 2. And despite that chip being a few months old, it would be a welcome addition to the next iPhone. It’s dual core design and new GPU give it at least double the performance and much faster 3D rendering. No surprises, but exciting nonetheless.

Camera

Rumor has it that the next iPhone will come with an 8 megapixel camera. Considering that every iteration has received a progressively better camera upgrade, this is another no-brainer. But yet again, if you consider the quality of the iPhone 4 camera, an upgrade to anything even slightly better will be astounding.

There’s also mild speculation that the next iPhone will feature a dual-LED flash. I really don’t have an opinion either way on this matter. I think the flash on the iPhone 4 works great, and I don’t see any reason for Apple to change it.

Home Button

One of the biggest rumors surrounding the release of the next iPhone is a wider, touch-sensitive home button. Based on the amount of information from all different sources, I’d say this is probably likely. I expect the home button to still be physical and clicky, but will also act as a gesture area meant primarily for switching between apps.

Wireless and Communications

I don’t think much is going to change here. The new iPhone will come in separate CDMA and GSM versions for Verizon and AT&T in the US, respectively. It will have an 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi chip. It will have Bluetooth, probably fitting the new 4.0 spec. What I don’t think it will have? A 4G cellular radio and Near Field Communications (NFC) chip. Neither technology is proven and widespread. I would not be surprised if we saw both of these in the next next iPhone in 2012, however.

Announcement and Release

This is the big question, isn’t it? Apple surprised many people when they didn’t announce a new iPhone in June of this year like they have every other year previously. But their reasons for not doing that make a lot of sense. John Gruber has been very vocal about the idea that Apple wants to line up all of their iDevice release cycles — and I agree.

For the past 10 years or so, Apple has held a special event in September to announce the new iPods for the holiday season. It’s been like clockwork. It only makes sense for Apple to bring the iPhone into that fold and get everything out of the way all at once. Plus, it would be difficult for them to start selling a brand-new iPhone in July when the Verizon iPhone 4 came out just six months earlier.

The trick with product announcements in the fall is that if you’re too early, people will forget about the product by the time Christmas shopping rolls around, and if you’re too late, there won’t be enough product in the channel to fulfill demand. There’s no way that Apple would wait until November to release their biggest product, and August is a notoriously bad month for announcing or releasing anything.

So that leaves us with September and October. We’ve already heard many rumored dates, the most recent one being an announcement on September 7th. But Jim Dalrymple, famous for his inside sources and spot-on predictions, says it’s not happening.

So here’s my guess — Apple will hold a special media event sometime late in September to announce new iPods, iPhones, and perhaps a new Apple TV. The new iPods will be available the next day or by the end of that week. The new iPhone will be available three to four weeks later, putting it sometime in October. And it seems extremely likely that models for Verizon and AT&T will be out on the same day.

The Mythical “Cheap iPhone”

I firmly believe that a big component of the iPhone’s success is that every year when it comes out, there is always one flagship model — just “the iPhone”. There’s not “iPhone mini” and “iPhone Plus” and “iPhone HD” and “iPhone Bionic”. Just iPhone. And despite every year’s model being a new iteration, all you really have to choose is what color and how big.

I think it would be foolish for Apple to change this model and split the iPhone into multiple tracks. There is a lot of talk that Apple might release a cheaper version that is crippled in some ways, that’s missing capabilities. I just don’t see this happening.

Come fall, if you want a cheap iPhone, you’ll be able to buy the previous generation iPhone 4, which, 14 months after its release, is still one of the best cell phones on the market.

The Name

My final prediction? Don’t expect this thing to be called the “iPhone 5” or the “iPhone 4S”. I really have no idea what they will call it, but I really don’t think it’s either of these. Slapping a higher number on the end of each new iPhone is going to get unwieldy soon — are we going to have the iPhone 13 some day? And I think that this phone is going to be a much bigger leap than the 3G to the 3GS was. I think it deserves its own name, and I think it will get a good one.

The bartender asks, “What’ll it be?”

The Android developer answers, “Just a beer, anything is fine.”

The Android developer finishes his beer and, fishing around in his pockets, asks, “How much do I owe you?”

The bartender says, “That’ll be four bucks.”

“Hang on,” says the Android developer as he walks away, “I’ll be back in a month.”