Well, a week or so ago Apple had their special event (sans-steve) to announce iPhone 3.0 OS. The good news is that this software release bring the iPhone up to speed, where it should have been on launch day!

Yes, some of these features like copy/paste, MMS, and push notifications have been asked for by the community, but others like GPS, peer-to-peer connectivity landscape keyboard and voice-memos seem like a "d'uh" to me.

So the good news is that we are now where we should have been to begin with (with the exception of full bluetooth, but anyway). Some people may bemoan that fact that as a platform the iPhone is behind other platforms. I personally don't think so - and that's the other set of good news.

Windows Mobile is aging. It's going to be a while before Windows Mobile 7 comes out to blow us all away.

WebOS and the Palm Pre are still being developed, nothing is on the market yet.

Blackberry is trying to figure out where it's going on the consumer front. Applications aren't completely there, and the Storm is a bit of a flop

The Symbian foundation has yet to launch their OS, and Nokia is trying to figure out S60 Touch.

Microsoft with Sidekick...well, I am not sure where that's going (I am wishing for some interesting developments though).

So that leaves us with a level playing field. Right now it's a mad dash to the next big thing with integrated mobile chat and unified messengers, and integration with the could (see the iphone blog link).

Keep your eyes peeled, this should be an interesting race to watch.




For more commentary, if you haven't seen it yet:

TUAW: http://www.tuaw.com/2009/03/17/iphone-3-0-feature-roundup/
The iPhone Blog: http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/03/17/iphone-os-30/

Tags: technology, apple, iPhone

at&t announced this week that they will be selling contract free iPhones,s o people can pay full fare ($700 for a 16GB iPhone) to get it without a two year commitment.

Seriously though, what's the point? You can't unlock it for use with other carriers and you still have to pay at&t the mandatory $30/month for data. The reasons to buy an iPhone SIM-free (or contract-free) are essentially nullified.

Way to make something out of nothing

Tags: technology, apple, att

I enjoy finding cool mods for computers, be they Mac or PC.


I cam across this mod a few weeks back. Having used Apple ][ and Apple IIgs computers back in the day I thought that this was pretty cool!


There is just one problem with it, no access to ports! The mac mini appears to just be stuffed in the casing on an Apple ][ disk drive. There appears to be no effort in making the ports in the back of the Mac (USB and Firewire ports for instance) usable.


Good try though!


Now if we could only cram an iMac into an Apple IIgs casing...or into the 20th Anniversary Mac casing

Tags: technology, apple, appleII, macintosh, modification

One of my RSS feeds deals with all of the free apps on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Initially I looked at every app just in case there was something I wanted, but now this whole "FREE" and "LITE" bullcrap is driving me nuts.

Apple claims that there are a gazzilion apps on the app store. OK smartypants, how many of those apps are "FREE" or "LITE"...in other words DEMO versions of full apps? How many of them are useless fart apps?

When I see "FREE" next to an app, I ASSUME that it is free, as in "a free, fully featured app" not "a free demo".

I would seriously like to see *real* free apps, not just a boatload of //free demos//

Thus ends my rant for today

Tags: technology, apple, itunes, applications, rant, iPhone

It's funny to think that my PowerBook G4 is now obsolete...or vintage as TUAW puts it.

Amazingly, my PowerBook runs with few problems, and I can still do (almost) everything I need to do on it - if you exclude the brain aneurism it had a few years back and it can do WiFi, Accelerated Video and Audio.


I post this from my obsolete Mac. The funny thing is that an obsolete Mac is still better than an Obsolete Dell

Tags: technology, apple, computer, powerbook, obsolete

Not the iPhone 3G (meaning that it runs on HSPA),
but the 3rd Generation (3G) iPhone...in other words the third iteration of the phone.


I know it's just a model, but it's pretty cool.

Make the Camera a 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics and I'm game

Tags: technology, apple, iPhone, concepts

There are many services out there that offer you cloud based PIM+ (plus email, photos, storage, etc.) Some are free, some are for pay. I think that 2009 will be the year that we see more competition for consumer mindshare.

Yahoo has been in the game for quite some time. They've got Yahoo Mail, which has free 'push' to Apple's iPhone/iPod touch platform (last I checked anyway). They've got an OK addressbook, calendar, notebook, and photo management through Flickr. The problem is that they haven't put it all together. They do have Yahoo! Go but results do vary from smartphone to smartphone and it's not available for all platforms.

Google provides superior email service (in my experience) and their calendar is pretty useful - although lack of iCal sync (for free) makes it less useful for me. Their addressbook stinks - big time! I really wish they would fix it. They too have photo management through picassa. The one problem with the google verse is that is only available on Android devices -although I guess separate apps could be available on other platforms.

MobileMe is Apple's paid service (and sometimes I feel like a sucker for using it, but I can use my nokia phone and my ipod, and my mac to use it, so I guess it's valuable).

Ovi is Nokia's platform for all things PIM+ - haven't used it much, and the sync times out on my Nokia N80, so I guess I won't be fully using it until I get a new S60 phone.

Finally Microsoft has announced SkyBox, it's own version of PIM+ that is set to be unveiled sometime this month.

There is of course the Danger sidekick PIM+, but I am not sure if this is sticking around for very long (I think it would be better to integrate it with SkyBox...but what do I know?)

The one problem I've got with all of these services is that they don't play nice with one another. On my Mac I can sync my contact data with Google and Yahoo. Awesome! What about my ToDo and Calendar? What about an Ovi plug in? I don't mind having a different cloud provider for my PIM data, however it's imperative for this data to be interoperable with each other.

So what will happen in 2009? I think we will probably see an improvement of services in order to gain mindshare. I don't think we will see much cross-sync compatibility - as much as I would love to see this happen.

Tags: technology, PIM, Nokia, windows, apple, cloud

It seems like Apple is going down the non-removable battery route.

Their iPods, iPhones and now the new MacBook Pro do not have removable batteries.

This is illegal in some countries that require it to be easy to recycle old batteries, but beyond that, does the non-removable battery really matter?


I've had a PowerBook for five years. Never bought second battery.

I had an iPod (original click wheel) for five years. Never replaced the battery.

I've had many cellphones. I never had backup batteries.


While I have a problem with non-removable batteries in theory, in practice in the last 10 years I've never had a need for another battery.

Tags: technology, apple, battery

Well, along with the Y2K10 issues, there's been a lot of discussion about redefining the Newton. I came across this post by Michael, and I have to say I agree with a lof of his comments.

This is very interesting because this is exactly what I have been thinking for a while.I have long thought, the future of the Newton was in becoming a series of enhancements and applications to assist a chosen platform to provide those features which the Newton had (and differentiated it) which no longer seem to exist. (Keep in mind that different users will see this as a different mix of items)

I agree. The features that the Newton had that differentiated it for me (beyond the Apple Geek factor) were the addressbook, calendar, mobile office suite and my multilingual dictionaries. Oh, the large screen too.

In my case, I have recently purchased an iPod Touch to use as my basis for this.

I went with a Nokia Internet Tablet (N800 Model), plus an iPod Touch more recently.

My reasoning for this is pretty simple:1. The iPhone / iPod Touch SDK is FREE!

I don't care about developing, so this isn't a factor for me

2. The Developer community is alive and kicking and considering the size of the user base I have a good chance that something will be developed which may deliver what I am after or that something I develop will be useful for other users and therefore make the development effort pay off.

This is true for both maemo on N800 and the Mobile OS X on the iPod Touch. I have almost more functionality than I had on my Newton!

3. It's from Apple and syncs well with my iTunes Library on my Mac ( and the Address book and iCal and MobileMe).

This was, and is, the most important thing to me. My Media syncs perfectly with my iPod Touch, and all my calendars and contacts are synced. Yes, even the ones in Greek! My major problem with the Newton was the lack of Greek support, even though the OS was fully unicode. Initially this was not a problem since most of my contacts were non-Greek. I could literally count on two hands who my Greek contacts were. With the rise of the internet and social networks I've reconnected with many of my old friends, and it is easier to keep in contact with new ones making Greek support all that much more important.

4. It already had FMTouch which is a 3rd party Filemaker Database Engine so I can take my existing Databases and Sync them to "MyTouch" ( yes I was lame enough to call it that and you can guess my iMac is called) and carry them with me. Something I always wanted for my Newton but never quite had

.

Now, I am far from 100% satisfied with the platform.I have some minor annoyances with the following:1. Address book:  It doesn't support Custom Fields ( which I'm not sure was a Newton feature out of the box or an extension ) so all my Custom Fields from the Newton were lost

The iTouch does not fully support Greek, so even though I can get my contacts on there, I can't easily get to them! The system is built for latin based alphabets
Custom fields don't bother me as much as I don't use them

2. Calendar: Seems to be missing a few things as well. I'm not sure I actually need them but I guess time will tell.

Having used iCal for the last 3 years, whatever is missing, I haven't missed

3. Notes:  This has to be the most useless Notes App ever made! You cannot set the title of the Note it is simply the first line of your Note so I am forever having to put the title there. There is no Landscape Mode. It doesn't support Checklists or allow you to put them in Folders ( or at least Groups like in Address book ) and I cannot seem to Sync them only Email them!

This IS a major annoyance. The Notes app is useless. I used my newton to take many, many notes. In meetings, in the classroom, at work. It was great! My iPod Touch is awful at taking notes. The N800 has a program that is somewhat comparable to the Notes app on the Newton, but it's slow.

There are of course features missing:1. HWR - There is a program called WritePad which gives you HWR via finger which works really well and I would love to work out if they are using Inkwell or a Home-spun HWR Engine; they are producing apps for this as well and their Notes App looks interesting but it is missing Checklists which I feel is a must.

You know, I would love HWR on the iPod Touch, but truth be told, I almost never used it. Initially I used it a lot, and it was great on the Newton. However as I met and recommended with my friends from Greece, I started taking notes in a mixture of Greek, English and something in between. The Newton did not recognize this. In class, I would take notes of words in German and Italian, but the dictionaries would not always recognize the words. The notes app on the newton worked well for monolingual people, but in my case it didn't fit my needs. Ink-notes were more useful.

2. Find - There is no Search feature so I can't simply search on a Clients Name and get a list of all my Visits from the Calendar and the Address book entry which I used quite a lot on the Newton.

Ditto!

3. Copy and Paste - Such a simply feature which could be implemented just like the Newton is missing. But I have yet to have missed it.There is probably a lot more that could be said.

I have missed copy/paste on the iPod Touch, but I always have my N800 to fall back on, so if I need to copy something to/from the web browser into/from another app, I use the N800

At this point I have gotten the touch to the point that for the first time since I owned a Newton it is actually sitting on my desk at home and not being carried to and from work each day. I think the potential is there but it will need some Apps built to provide the "missing" bits. For me, the first step will be the Notes App. I hope to start working on building such an App in the next few months.

One thing that I really miss from the notes app on the Newton, that I wish were implemented on the iPod Touch OS is the different kinds of notes. I want to-do lists (and have the synced with mail/ical). I was graph paper. I want plain paper to draw on. I want shapes and different size marker tips. Yes I can get all those in three separate apps (kinda), but the notes app on the Newton did all this.

Tags: technology, apple, Newton, opinion

Along with the Y2K10 bug I saw a lot of people playing the blame game concerning the cancellation of the Newton platform, and thus leaving this Y2K10 time bomb unfixed.

People are quick to blame Steve Jobs because the Newton was not his creation. Valerio Mitritsakis has a great answer to the steve-blame (and I agree with it):

A bit off topic here, still I've had a thought I want to share with  
you. Most people attribute the decision to kill the Newton to a  
revenge of Steve Jobs against Sculley.

However "colorful" (to put it mildly) Steve\s character is (from what  
we read here and there) he is no fool. What I believe happened with  
the Newton was that when Apple faced bankruptcy and called back
Steve Jobs in 1997 as a CEO it needed a few things in order to move on.
1st and foremost to focus on the key areas it was best at which were Creative
Pros (DTP, Design. Prepress) and Education. The next important thing it
needed was a commitment for the development of one of the most
renown application suites, Microsoft Office.

However the deal was something more than that as it included a patent
cross licensing plus some serious cash and more stuff.

This brings us to what I think happened with the Newton. Apple agreed  
with Microsoft to kill the Newton so that they would have the handheld  
marked to them selves.

In the light of saving the company, killing the Newton was a small  
price to pay and kept Apple out of the market for a decade until 2007  
when they introduced the
iPhone...

Of course it is totally possible that all of this exists only in my  
mind as I do not have any connection whatsoever to Apple and I could  
not have any insight on this matter.

Tags: apple, technology, Newton

Earlier this month I went to visit my dad, and per chance I picked up a box with old memorabilia which included old apple ads from magazines like MacUser, MacWorld and MacAddict (as well as a few full issues!)

I found this ad for an Apple Newton 2100 which is awesome (and it made me want a Newton even more, even though as a high school students I could not afford one).




for a larger image click here

Tags: technology, ads, Newton, apple, PDA, macaddict

I saw the following mockup recently on a number of websites.

Of course it's a fake, but it's rather interesting.

What I like about it is the front facing camera for video conferencing, the keyboard and joypad buttons, and what looks to be a higher resolution camera with good optiocs on in.

Would I buy one of these? Well, if I didn't have to buy a data plan, sure!

As I've said before I agree that the iphone needs some game controls (a pad and buttons) because the touch screen + tilt control aren't always convenient (anyone try playing Cube?)

Tags: apple, iPhone, technology, telephony, gaming

We've seen SNL spoofs of Mac products, but how often do you see a BBC spoof?

Here is the Mactini - the smallest mac in existence

Tags: technology, humor, BBC, apple, macintosh

Well, decided to take some of that birthday money and get myself a new iPod, so I went and bought a new iPod Touch. This device is amazing. I like to call it "PDA 2.0" because it does a lot of stuff that PDAs did way back when, but also is a great media player (which is what I use it for, mostly).

So what would I change about the iPod touch? Some things are software based, and others hardware based. Here's a quick rundown.

1. Need a built-in iSight and Camera, and give us iChat
The form factor is great, and the ubiquity of WiFi means that you can use your iPod touch as both a text-chat communicator for various services like AIM, Yahoo and MSN, and as a voice/video chat communicator for the aforementioned services. In addition, if a microphone is included we can finally use Skype on our iPods

2. Bluetooth with A2DP
Bluetooth is a great technology. You can transfer files back and forth between many different devices, you can attach devices to your iPod and build around those additional services. A2DP is also great for wireless headphones (which I would really love to get)

3. GPS
OK, GPS is not a *must* but it is definitely a want. The Nokia Internet Tablet has it, and it has preloaded maps with the possibility of turn by turn directions. A built-in GPS and collaboration with Garmin and TomTom would make the iPod not only more useful, but also compete with GPS-only units. With Apple's DRM what this means is that TomTom and Co. can work on better versions of their product for PDAs but still get paid for their effort (apparently S60 and WinMo versions are highly pirated)

4. Camera
Now this would be cool. Apple isn't into the digital camera business, but think of all the uses that such a device could see if there were a camera in it.

5. FM receiver + Transmitter
I listen to FM radio - I do! I think that the FM receiver, with RDS, would be a good addition to the iPod Touch. In addition, an FM transmitter would be nice to be able to listen to our audio through FM (no need to shell out another $50 for an iTrip)

6. HWR!
I know that the current software has handwriting recognition for asian languages (Chinese and Japanese if I am not mistaken). I would love to see HWR for English (and other languages). The HWR on the Newton was legendary. It's time to get this on the iPod/iPhone software!

7. Copy/Paste
This is a sore point with some users. I think it's important to include this functionality so you can copy some info from a browser, let's say an address, and paste it into another program...let's say the addressbook!

8. Flash & Java
I know that Flash isn't really optimized for the mac, and even less so on the iPod/iPhone, but this is something that is necessary. A lot of streaming sites exist, other than YouTube, and there is no access to that content unless you've got Flash and/or Java. My blackboard (Learning Management System) is almost useless on the iPod because I don't have java, so I can't check my class discussions on the iPhone (which is OK because I do that on my N800 when I am on the go...but it would be nice to have it on the iPod)

9. iPod-wide search & the assistant
This is something from the Newton world. This would be a search that searches all the local content (and the internet if you are connected) for particular info. So if I want to search for Bob Jones, it will go through the addressbook, calendar, to-dos (oh yeah, I want a good todo list too), podcasts, songs, videos, etc. and give me all the info about Bob Jones that I have. The assistant would be something like the newton assistant where you would be able to write "appointment with John Johnson at 2" and this would create a new appointment for you, with John as the participant and it would ask you for additional info if it needs it (like day, end time, etc). Linked data is a good idea!

10. iOffice
Just because I like decimals, this will be the last one. Any good PDA 2.0 needs office support. Something to open and edit word, excel, powerpoint and PDF documents (as well as common open office formats and other formats). This could be a paid app, but we need to have it

PS: Yes, I would love themes, but sadly I think those were buried along with MacOS 9

Tags: ipod, touch, apple, improvement

Maybe this isn't that exciting to people using Windows, but I just got my invite to participate in the Boxee alpha for MacOS.
I've played with it for a couple of days now and it seems pretty interesting! I wonder how I can get hulu on it...

Tags: apple, boxee, beta, test

All I have to say is LOL!

I recently watched this episode of the Simpsons on Hulu (I no longer watch FOX's sunday night programming live). If you haven't seen it, head over to Hulu and have a look. The Apple parody is simply awesome!

Here's an excerpt:

Tags: television, entertainment, simpsons, apple, parody, ipod

Well Linux is now on the iPhone (woohoo!)
I am not a crazy linux fan, but I think this is cool!
Now I wonder how long it will take to port android to the iPhone



iPhone Linux Demonstration Video from planetbeing on Vimeo.

Tags: technology, linux, apple, iPhone, android

I found this graphic on wewantapplegreece.com, and it's quite funny (but I am sure it's all Greek to you)

The iPhone was released in Greece last August, but there is neither an OS localization available nor a Greek keyboard for people to input text in Greek. This image makes fun of that.

The Mac asks What's going on here guys?
The PC responds: This guy had the bright idea of buying an iPhone 3G because he saw somewhere that "really soon" there will be an update of the firmware to enable support of the Greek character set, and we've been waiting for three months now...

I am warming up to the iPhone, but no Greek means no purchase for me

Tags: iPhone, apple, technology, humor

With Apple's removal of FIrewire 400 from all laptops, and complete removal of the port from the MacBook line, I am wondering if the firewire port is going the way of the dodo. I hope not because it's an technology!

Tags: technology, apple, SCSI, firewire, extinction

Not much to say about this one.

It's an appstore rejection timeline using a cool web 2.0 tool

I just found it interesting (both the tool and the timeline)

Tags: apple, iPhone, appstore, applications, NDA, rejection

Interesting question!

I've been reading recently of all the apps that are getting the axe from apple, and I've been reading all the commentaries on sites like Engadget and I can say with certainty that this is yet one more reason why I stay away from the iPhone.

Many defenders of Apple's actions either use incorrect logic or write off apple's action as something normal for a phone. People who use incorrect facts claim that it's apple's prerogative to protect their source of revenue because they created xyz - in the case of the podcaster application it was that Apple created and hosts all podcasts. What? really? Is this what you believe? Apple neither created podcasts, nor hosts them!

In the case of 'the iPhone is just a phone and you can't run whatever you like on your Moto RAZR"...well, no. Apple is positing the iPhone as a smartphone for the rest of us. Smartphones, no matter what brand - symbian, palm, windows, blackberry, have a wealth of apps and their distribution is not controlled by the maker of the device.

I can get a lot of apps for my Nokia N80, just as I could for my HTC Blue Angel. Neither Nokia nor Microsoft could tell me what to run on my device, and they could not tell their devs what not to make for those phones.

Now what IF apple took the same stance with the MacOS as they do with the iPhone? Well - quite simple, we would all pretty much give Apple the finger and tell them off. Application of value would be few and far between.

We would not have great applications like Rapidweaver because those would "replicate" the features of iWeb.

We would not have MailPlane because those features "replicate" the features of Mail.

We would not have Textmate because textmate "replicates" the features of SimpleText.

We would not have Transmission because that would be a bandwidth hog.

We wouldn't have open source apps, or apps ported over from Linux because those would violate the NDA agreements.

In other words, what we love about the Mac would cease to exist.

It's time for Apple to stop stifling the iPhone and the iPod Touch and it's time to let the Mac community do what they do best - support the platform!

Tags: WTF, apple, iPhone, applications, technology, critique, unforseen

One of my problems with the iPhone is that it lacks an MMS client. Now I don't send MMS messages often, and I don't receive them often. Having unlimited data on the iPhone would encourage me to send out more MMS messages. Sadly, the iPhone does not support this feature.


Many fanboys will says that MMS is antiquated, we not have email so we can send photos over email - hooray for email! What these fanboys are failing to see if that MMS is so much more than just a simple photo sending application. The applications of email and MMS are different and are aimed at a different demographic.


To claim that you can do with email what you do with MMS, and you can do it better is to claim that can do with a mallet what you can do with a jewel's hammer. I suppose you can, but the end result is not the same.


An email is built for text, and attachments come second. There is no presentation layer with email, and there is no streamlining of the data for mobile phones. If you send a 5MP photo over email, it's going to be 5MP - overkill. In addition, there is no notification of whether you have email unless you constantly poll your email server, and even today not all phones come with email clients.


MMS on the other hand is available on all handsets, from the cheap handset you get for free when you sign a contract, to the most advanced smartphones (with the exception of the iPhone of course), so there is a layer of compatibility there.


MMS messages allow you to create slides with content, almost like powerpoint, but as a message platform. The MMS application takes that huge picture you took and scales it down for you to make sending and receiving faster and easier. When you send a picture message (MMS) to someone, the point is not that you want them to have the photo, you just want to show them something.


Finally, with MMS messages you get a notification that you have a new MMS, over the network. You don't have to poll a server to do this - it's just pushed to you.


I wish the fanboys would quiet down already about the superiority of email because they obviously don't get the difference.

Tags: technology, iPhone, apple, MMS, telephony, annoying, settingTheRecordStraight, rant

My second attempt to use what I have as an iPod replacement is my Nokia N800. On the surface it kind of looks like an iPod touch, so it should work, no? Well, yes and no. Compared to my N80 and the PSP the N800 requires the least amount of investment. It came with 4GB worth of SD memory, and I had 2GB from my now defunct HTC Blue Angel, so I have a total of 6GB to play with. It has been a bumpy road, but I am working with it.

So what are the tools of the trade? I use the built-in media player to play back my music and podcasts, I use gpodder to subscribe and download podcasts and the USB cable to connect the N800 to my PowerBook whenever I want to load more music on it. Just like most things, it's got its good, its bad and its ugly.

The good: I can play my MP3s, I can listen to my podcasts. The volume is acceptable - it compares equally to my 4.5 year old iPod but when I am on the train I sometimes have trouble hearing. I like that I can download podcasts directly to my N800, so if I run out of podcasts during the day, I can hop on to a hotspot and download a few more for my commute home.

The bad: gppodder lags a bit. There are times that the application is simply non-responsive and you need to just let it do its thing. This can be *very* frustrating. Another frustrating thing is that you can't do a partial keylock. You can either lock the touchscreen and all keys, or you can leave it unlocked. This is frustrating because there are times that I simply want to increase or decrease the volume and I have to remove the unit from my bad, unlock all keys, adjust the volume, re-lock, and put it back in my bag. The device is not very media friendly in this way.

The ugly: Well, there aren't many ugly things about it. The one thing that I would shoehorn in this category is the lack of adequate video support. I was looking forward to downloading video podcasts again and viewing them during my commute. Unfortunately the video lags A LOT, it's badly out of sync when it does start working and it's choppy. So much for video podcasts...

Now I know that it is an Internet Tablet, and not a media player, but the N800 is a great device! I really wish that Nokia had pumped up the video processing on this unit device and that they had created a media profile where the screen locks automatically after X time, the wifi/BT are turned off automatically and certain keys are mapped for media functions (next song/previous song/volume up/volume down)

All things considered, the N800 is a great media player IF you don't watch video podcasts AND you don't have the urge to keep skipping to the next track.

Tags: apple, ipod, Nokia, internet, tablet, N800, technology

I was recently reading some commentary about the new iPhone. Some users (or perspective buyers) were commenting that they were really bummed about the new iPhone. Now granted, this is probably a figure of speech and it doesn’t really reflect their mental state, but when I read things like these I have to take a step back.

There are people out there that are genuinely bummed about ford not having X in their cars, or Dell not throwing in Y in their laptops, or Apple not including features A, B, C in the new iPhone, but my response to them is “get a grip!” Seriously! Think about it, it’s just a consumer product! If it doesn’t do what you want it to do, then don’t buy it! Wait for version x.x when they will incorporate what you want it to have!
If you want to be bummed about the financial crisis, food shortage, health crises around the world, the by all means be bummed, but don’t be bummed about something as insignificant as “no MMS on the iPhone!” Jeez!

Tags: technology, apple, iPhone, forums

Many of my friends know I am a technology geek, and of course their first question to me, after Jobs’ announcement of the iPhone 3G is to ask me whether or not I am getting a 3G iPhone. The answer at this point is ‘no’ and this perplexes very many people who consider me an Apple fanboy. There is quite a logical reason to my denial of the “jesusphone 2.0” and it has (almost) nothing to do with features.

Does the lack of a front facing camera, lack of copy/paste and lack of MMS bug me? Well to some extent yes, but not enough to deter me from buying the phone. What deters me is cold hard pragmatism.

My iPod (20GB click wheel) still works! I’ve never had any problems with it, never replaced the battery, it’s all original issue, it works, and I am still not using the entire capacity (I’ve got 6GB available). My Nokia N80 still works and it has a kickass camera on it, when compared to the iPhone’s camera anyway. I do take the train to work, but I still have schoolwork to do, so I read on the train, I don’t need the iPhone to keep me company. On top of that at&t’s $30/month data plans are too expensive for my tastes. I know that business folk pay that much for their windows mobile, palmos and blackberry plans, but they can also write it off, or their company pays for the device. $20/month for data+ SMS with the iPhone 1.0 was something that would entice me to get the iPhone and the data package but $30 and no SMS, gimme a break.

So when would I buy an iPhone? Probably around the third generation of iPhone when they add more features, if my current phone is busted, if my iPod is busted, if I have no other readings to do while commuting and if I am still commuting (although with gasoline going up up up, this is probably a given)

Tags: apple, iPhone, technology

A few weeks ago I saw Apple’s new promotion. Get a new Mac, get a free 8GB iPod Touch! The offer is for college students, but since I am a graduate student, the offer still stands for me.

OK, I thought to myself, an iPod touch is a nice little web browsing device, I can put on it my most listened to music and podcasts, and use my older, four year old, iPod for more heavy duty tasks (such as outdoor entertainment while doing yard work). I also thought, OK, maybe this is an opportunity to get a MacBook. We’ll leave the MacBook rant for another time, this one is solely for the free iPod Touch.

The iPod is indeed free, but the caveat is that you need to buy it ($300), and then submit rebate forms in order to get that $300 back. Seriously, WTF? Just give me a free iPod touch, with the purchase of MacBook, and let’s forego the filling out of forms, getting receipt copies, mailing them to a rebate center, waiting six to eight weeks to get a check, and then deposit that check. My purchase is going to be electronic anyway, so why not let those internet electrons do all the work and save me from paying $300 that is just going to come back to me anyway!

I know that there are people out there that neglect to fill out their forms, so that is profit for Apple, but let’s get serious now!

Tags: ipod, touch, macintosh, apple, deals, opinion

I do not know how this escaped me last week, but it did!
I saw this on TUAW and it blew my mind! The IIgs has a special place in my computer usage history, it being the machine I learned to code on in high school. Some of the specs for this laptop are:

Large 15″ color screen. Much bigger than the ones on my other 8-bit computer projects (thus far)
Uses an original Apple IIgs motherboard with RAM expansion.
Custom acrylic keyboard. It uses the original keyboard PCB, but the buttons were custom made for a cool modern look.
CompactFlash adapter inside unit functions as an original equipment hard drive.
Glowing backlit “][” logo. Blue for on, with a bit of yellow during disk access.
Built-in stereo speakers.
Side port access for floppy drive, joystick and mouse.
Can play all your classic games


Now if they can figure out how to add in WiFi, a browser and email, we’re all set to go! Move over MacBook Air!




More info here: http://benheck.com/04-14-2008/apple-iigs-original-hardware-laptop

Tags: geeky, IIgs, apple, laptop, hack, modification

I never really cared about Black Friday, as a matter of fact I always thought there was something wrong with individuals that spent the previous evening staying up late and celebrating, and the very next morning crowding shopping malls at three in the morning for those hard to beat deals. I always prefered to sleep late and enjoy my day off, or when I had to work, go into the office and be free to work without distractions.

This year may be different, I am actually looking forward to black friday! Why do you ask? Well, it's no secret that my aging powerbook (4 years, 1 month old) has been acting up and I have been waiting to get a new MacBook Pro. Now new models may come out in January, but if the deals are great during black friday....well why not just buy one then? I wish Nokia would hurry up and release the N810...so that can go on black friday sales as well.

I wonder if any PSP games will be on sale...

Oh...yeah, I am not crazy to get up a two AM so that I can get in line at some mall entrance...all my shopping will be online, probably on amazon and the apple store (unless my local apple store has a compelling reason for me to go into groupie mode...like $1000 off the price of a MacBook Pro)

Tags: macintosh, apple, purchases, Nokia, N810, internet, tablet, computer, PSP, amazon

Lately Apple has been showing ads on television for their iPhone product. I really like the iPhone, even though I don't own one, but I really dislike the ads. The ads are reminiscent of the 'switcher' ads that ran in the 90's, with one major difference. The switcher ads were funny, and in some cases the stories they told were real stories of frustration with using Windows (even if they were exaggerated a tiny bit sometimes).

The iPhone ads lack that wit that the switcher ads have, and sometimes, dare I say, they are even dumb!
Take this for example: you see a guy showcasing his iPhone and he says that it replaced four devices. Before he used to carry his iPod, a digital camera, a cell phone, and a communications device to send email and text messages. The iPhone took care of all of that! My first reaction to this was 'huh?' what are you smoking? OK you can indeed have your iPod and your phone in one device, this is a valid observation, however
1. If you REALLY want a good camera, you won't settle for what is available on the iPhone.
2. Most cell phones already have a 1.3 or 2.0 megapixel camera on them, so if you don't really care about the photo quality (as is evident from point 1), why carry a camera?
3. You carried a 'communicator' device with you for email and text messages? Why? Why not get a blackberry, windows mobile, palmOS or symbian device that has a built in keyboard, and camera and is also a phone? Where have you been living?

The premise of the switcher ads in the 90's was that the Macintosh 'just worked', it didn't eat your homework, it didn't give you cryptic error messages, you didn't have to worry about dip switches. While the iPhone is revolutionary in it's own terms, there are cell phones out there that do what the iPhone did before the iPhone did it, and they worked!

The one ad that is an exception to my disapproval of this new batch of iPhone ads is the 'visual voicemail' one. This one I really like.

This ad is the one I dislike the most:

Tags: iPhone, advertizing, apple, switcher

When I was a MacOS 9 user, I really did not pay much attention to uptime. When I left home, I turned the machine off, when I was home, it was on. I never had the need to turn the computer off in order to perform system cleanup as a regular task. When MacOS X came out, 'uptime' was all the rage on the forums that I frequented. People just jumped into the Terminal application and with the uptime command they could see how long their Mac was running without a shut down. Various forum members thus had contests to see how long their Mac worked without a reboot (or a Kernel Panic). This is where I entered the uptime craze.

When I got my powerbook - the same one that isn't functioning properly today - I kept it running for a long long time without reboot. I think my personal record was three or four months without a reboot. All this time, I did not really have any performance problems because I think that the cleanup processes were happening automatically. I later got some utilities to run the cleanup processes on demand, but that is another matter.

Anyway, since my Mac started not working properly, I generally turned it on when I needed to do some work, like type a paper, input data in an excel sheet, surf the net, and so on. About ten days ago I got lazy. I did not turn my computer off, I just put it to sleep. Today it started being slow and it took quite some time to switch applications and move from tab to tab in my browser. I decided to restart my Mac to clean it up, but before doing so, I checked my uptime...it was 10 days!

Now this is quite phenomenal considering the fact that my Mac is running in Safe Boot mode! Also, comparing my somewhat broken Mac in Safe Boot to a Dell GX280 with Vista: my Vista machine takes about 2 to 3 days uptime before it becomes as unresponsive as my Mac became today. Amazing!

Tags: apple, safe boot, uptime, performance, powerbook

It has been about ten days since my Mac went all wacky on me and it only functions in Safe Boot mode.
I've since been using it daily for almost everything that I used it before it started acting all wacky in normal mode. I surf the internet, I open and edit all popular Microsoft office formats, I use RapidWeaver to publish on my blog and I download my podcasts on iTunes.

The only limitations are that I cannot use WiFi, I need to be plugged into an ethernet cable, and I don't have any audio. This lead me to think back...back to last January when I upgraded my Dell GX280 from Windows XP to Windows Vista (and office 2007). I must say that my older Mac running in safe boot is actually faster and more usable than a newer Windows PC running Vista! Simply Amazing!

Tags: apple, microsoft, windows, vista, functionality

It appears that TUAW (the unofficial apple weblog) has gone ahead to claim that the release of leopard does not mean the end of support of G4 PowerPC machines (like my dysfunctional powerbook). Well that's good to know, even though I think I will be buying a new MacBook Pro in January....6 months to go!!!

Tags: apple, leopard, technology, powerbook

I followed Steve Jobs' keynote address, and (like the rest of the world) learned more about leopards secret features.
Some things I liked, and others I could care less about. One thing really did stand out though: leopard being full 64-bit.
It got me thinking...could this be the end of the line for G4 based machines like all powerbooks, and later iBooks?
Of course G5 Powermac and G5 based iMacs are 64-bit machines, so leopard would run on those machines.
We'll just have to wait and see...

Tags: apple, leopard, speculation, powerbook

A little over three years ago, I made the decision to go mobile with my computing. I have been a Macuser ever since I decided to buy my first computer (having been through the DOS/win 3.11 hell, and Amiga having gone under, Macs were the the logical choice). I bought my Powerbook G4 (the last of the PowerBooks) and I never looked back toward the world of desktop computing. Laptop + Large LCD + WiFi = Happy Camper.

I did notice one thing though, that I never noticed on my desktops and that is how much heat these things produce! If you get the laptop working, putting all of its MIPS to work for you, the bottom of the thing gets really hot! Not hot enough to burn you (I don't think - but then again it never makes contact with bare skin). Now I am running virtual PC (hopefully not for long), and other applications concurrently - I keep my mac cool with ice packs and appropriate moisture absorbers so I don't FUBAR my mac.

I think despite the heating issues, I would never go back to a desktop. Now if only docking stations were still available for Macs. I have two external hard drives, a keyboard, mouse, and printer/scanner. If I had a monitor too, it would be cool to just have one connection to make, not 6.

Tags: apple, macintosh, computer, temperature, hot, FUBAR, powerbook