Something Different

Okay, so I’ve had my iPhone for a little over a week now and I’d like to share some of my impressions and my wishlist. The iPhone has been awesome. The user interface is very intuitive. I have fun every time I use the phone.

For example, I love having my phone and music in one package. When you’re listening to a song on the iPhone and receive a call, the music fades out for the duration of the call and resumes when the call is over. I also like that the earphones have a built-in button that allows you to skip songs. The iPod functionality on the iPhone is awesome. More memory to store music and movies would be nice, but 8GB is managable. The coverflow functionality that lets you browse your music library by album art is super cool.

I’ve owned several PDAs and I have to say that the iPhones web browser is the most useful one I’ve used. It’s actually somewhat practical to browse the web on it. The wifi on the phone works really well and is much faster than the Edge. The Edge network is slow, but still useful when on the go.

The two big things I wish the iPhone had is the Flash plugin for the web browser and copy and paste functionality. There are many websites that don’t work without Flash. I think Apple would be smart to add it. The fact that you can’t copy and paste is a bit annoying. Sometimes I want to send an email with someone’s phone number that I have stored on the phone. I would be nice to be able to copy it and paste it into the email.

In short, the iPhone is a really cool piece of technology. It has a great design and functionality all in a small package.

I’ve only had Leopard for a couple days now and I’ve already had some problems with it. The first problem that I’ve had is that the iSight camera doesn’t work sometimes. I’ll open applications the require the camera such as iChat and Photo Booth and I’ll get the “no camera attached” warning. The second is that I can’t seem run movies without it getting choppy unless I close all other applications. I used to do this in Tiger all the time with no problem. I’ve even checked the memory usage when I run Quicktime and there seems to be plenty. Although, overall Leopard has been really great. It has some nice features that make things nice.

Tomorrow Apple releases it’s latest and greatest OS yet. I will probably get a copy somehow, but I’m not sure whether I should be excited about it or not. Apple’s website lists about 300 new features, but I’ll have to be honest, there appears to be only a few features that even strike me as being features that I can be excited about. Here they are:

1. Time Machine - From the reports about the Time Machine feature, it looks as though with the help of an external hard drive you can back up all your files very easily, thus making it convenient to find files that you’ve deleted at some prior date. The time vortex of power interface also looks nice.
2. Desktop - With a more 3D-ical dock, the new desktop attempts to redefine the way we use a desktop. For example, the new desktop sports a new feature called “stacks.” These stacks allow you to remove the clutter that we all have on our desktops, including the grouping of files that have been downloaded.
3. Spaces - There have been third party virtual desktop solutions for awhile, but spaces gives it to you built-in to the operating system. I have tried a couple apps to accomplish this same task, but have been unable to find a completely satisfactory option. We’ll hope this feature does the trick.
4. Finder - The new finder features a more iTunes-like layout and style, including the popular coverflow view. You will also be able to do what is called “quick look” which allows you to view the contents of a file without opening a separate application.

So, out of the 300+ features that are supposed to be “new” in Leopard, these four have been the ones that I’m most interested in having. I’m sure I’ll find some other niceties along the way, but I guess I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out.

I thought I would put out a public service announcement in place of my usual drivel today. To everyone who has puchased an iPhone since the $200 price cut, do yourself a favor and sell it on ebay. “But I can’t” you say. Au contraire, you can and you must. The iPhone ebay market is still rediculous. Last time I checked you could get over $100 for you iPhone if it has been run over by a car and crushed to an indestinguishable pulp, more than the cost of a new iPhone if your screen has been damaged beyond repair, around $450 if you iphone is used, and if you iPhone is new and unlocked, you can get around $600. So please, if you have an iPhone that you paid $399 for do the only thing that makes sense: sell it for $450 plus shipping, buy a brand new one, and pocket the difference.

In my pursuit of the ever elusive cheap iPhone (and by cheap I mean less than $399) I have recently frequented several online auction sites only to be appalled by what I saw. As far as I can tell, people who buy iPhones from these sites have either never actually been to an apple store, online or otherwise, or are entirely oblivious to the $200 price cut. I continually see people paying as much as $500 for a used iPhone. It truly boggles my mind. Why would you buy a used one, and have to pay shipping, and take the risk that the seller wasn’t legit and still pay more than retail for it? If anyone with in the sound of my cyber voice have ever even thought of doing such a thing, please stop now!

Well, I thought this day would never come. Since the creation of the Macbook Pro I have wanted on. Well, that day is here. The wonderful company that I work for was wonderful enough to buy me one. I can’t tell you how happy I am about it. Until now I was using my younger brother’s year old Windows computer for all my mobile computing. Now, I’m working on a 15″ Macbook Pro. It’s quite the sweet little machine. From the sleek design, to the  back-lit keys, the integrated web cam, and everything in between. It’s great. I was a Mac hater for a long time, but my iMac and now this Macbook Pro are my favorite computers I have ever had. So, if you are considering buying a new computer, I strongly suggest a Mac.

Well, Apple came out with new iPods this week. They’ve refreshed their entire lineup. Well, Steve Jobs said they refreshed the iPod shuffle, but frankly they just changed the colors. Not a big refresh. The iPod Nano however looks completely different. It has an brand new shaped and a new UI. I think it’s my favorite. Mostly because I don’t have a huge music library and I don’t do a lot of bus-type commuting. I would like to have a couple of T.V. shows in my pocket at any given time and the new iPod Nano would hit the spot. The next generation of iPod has been named the “iPod classic.” It also sports the new iPod UI and has the following capacities: 80GB and 160GB. This is a nice player, but lacks a large enough screen to reasonably watch a long movie. The last and final iPod is the iPod Touch. It’s basically an iPhone without the phone. I don’t know how big of a hit it will be given that it only has a 100 dollar price difference from the iPhone. I suppose there are a lot of people who don’t want to pay the cell phone bill and that is probably would drive them to buy the iPod Touch. The unfortunate part about the iPod Touch is the smallish capacities: 8GB and 16GB. This isn’t a lot when considering the best feature of the iPod Touch is the brilliantly large and beautiful screen. It makes it hard to pack around a good movie collection with only 8 or 16GB. My ideal would be an iPod Touch with a 160GB hard drive and 50 hours of battery life for video.

I, as many of you know, am a Mac user. I bought my first Mac this last January. I’ll have to admit that I never thought that day would come. The reason is that I used to make fun of Mac users when I was younger. Although even legacy Mac OS users have to admit that anything pre-OS X was not very good. Anyway, since buying my Mac I have recommended the Mac to everyone in my family. Most people have the misconception that Macs are A LOT more expensive than their PC counterparts. This actually isn’t true. Although some models are slightly more expensive, I can show you some cost comparisons that I created. The numbers are actually pretty close. Anyway, I have made it my personal goal to convert as many people as possible. That being said, I don’t think that Macs are for everybody. They’re for a select group of people. So, if you’re a member of my family, you’ll be using a Mac before too long.

After watching Star Trek the Next Generation this evening, I’ve come to the realization that Apple rules the future of technology. First of all, the computer panels throughout the Enterprise use multi-touch displays. Furthermore, Captain Picard’s computer in his ready-room has a screen and one physical button. This is obviously a futuristic version of the iPhone.