Mac.LTL

I just want to rant a bit about my iPhone 3G. I bought it the day it came out. It’s been quite a headache. I’ve already returned it for a new one, hoping that would solve my problems. I’ve been updating the firmware and iTunes as soon as they’re available. I’m experiencing dropped calls. My iPhone’s screen will turn black as I’m using it. It had a problem with frequently restarting, but that doesn’t seem to be happening anymore. I’ve experienced a problem where none of the apps I’ve installed will open, even after turning the phone on and off. I’ll just have to do a restore. I think this has happened three times. On the note of restores, I’ve done that about a half dozen times so far. For me, backing up the iPhone takes hours and I have no idea why. I’ve done the restore, I’ve removed apps, I’ve deleted and reinstalled iTunes. Much of the troubleshooting I’ve done was from the instruction of Apple’s tech support.

And of course, there’s the recent discovery that you can get by the locked phone screen by making an emergency call and double pressing the home button.

I’ve been showing the iPhone to people and suggesting they also get one because it’s such a great phone. The hardware is great. Perfect size. Lots of features. Great applications. But at this point, it’s just not stable enough for me to recommend to people. In fact, I realized that when I’ve been showing the phone to people, I’ve been trying to avoid indicating to them that it has problems. It will shut down as I’m showing it to them and I’ll just keep talking and describing the features as I turn it back on. At this point, I’m just not recommending people get it. I tell them it’s not very stable right now and there’s been a lot of problems and they may wish to wait for future updates and revisions.

In all honesty, I feel like I’m back working on the Windows platform. I have a Windows laptop from work and I hate it. Although I’m venting about my iPhone experience, while I’m at it, I might as well also note that 10.5 hasn’t been the most stable experience for me, either. And I understand Mobile Me has been a problem for people.

Oh, and on top of all that, when I returned my iPhone at the Apple Store, they had me scheduled for 6:00, but I ended up having to wait 45 minutes longer because they were backed up.

I was much happier with my Mac experience two years ago.

My iPhone broke again and I had to do a restore. It was the most peculiar experience. I plug my iPhone in to sync and charge it and I notice that my videos and music are being listed as other. (As you can see from the pics.) I immediately check and I can’t find any music or videos on my iPhone. So I unplug it and plug it back in and I get the same thing. Frustrating. Still looking forward to the 2.0 update, though.

I installed the latest version of ZiPhone to jail break my iPhone. I installed several apps and everything was working pretty well. I was enjoying Tap Tap Revolution. After installing a terminal application, my iPhone ran into a slight problem…

(Sorry the video stalls a bit.)

So what do I find underneath a power strip behind a desk all dusty and forgotten… a Palm Vx from 3com. I wanted one of these so badly when I was in high school. Having an amazing mobile device just seemed so cool. I ended up getting a far less expensive and less feature rich DaVinci. (Copying a certain older brother. You know who you are! Not the best tech investment.)

Now of course, I’m keen on my iPhone and even my slim and sleek Nintendo DS to compliment it. But nonetheless, this was an incredibly nostalgic moment. I immediately looked up all the old specs for the device. I recall there is still a big following for the Apple Newton. In fact, I know of at least one T-shirt you can buy supporting it. This has got me thinking about how tempting it would be to look into some old mobile devices that I can pick up for cheap that are incredibly hackable. I’m too scared to do anything to my iPhone. $400 is an expensive phone to break. And even if I can restore it fine, this is my main line of communication to the world. As soon as I start tinkering with it, I lose that connection while I’m hacking it.

I’ve got my Nintendo DS setup to play ROMs and games like Doom. It’s also setup to be an MP3 player. Which isn’t of much use with the iPhone.

I’m actually pretty amazed with how thin the Palm Vx was. I hadn’t held one since my hands weren’t fully grown. Soon as I get a chance I’m going to see about getting one and tinkering with it. Although, I’ll have to make sure it will work with my computer as best I can.

I remember considering my TI-86 graphing calculator as one of my awesome mobile devices. I use to program games for it with the scripting language they had for it. I could only view five lines of code at a time. That was pretty hardcore. Paradoxically, spending all my time programming using pretty advanced math for my age is the reason I received a D grade in my algebra class. “Hmm… as Adam’s teacher, I really need to get him to return to doing materiel that he finds remedial and not encourage his gift. Who cares if he’s acing all the tests? He needs to be doing his homework! Programming video games is no different than playing them.” Okay, I never actually heard my teacher say that, but I’m sure that’s what she was thinking.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my nostalgia.

I went to Macworld again this year. The MacBook Air is incredibly nice. It’s very portable and it’s something you have to pick up and hold to fully appreciate. I was always very happy with my 12″ iBook G4. I thought the size of that was just perfect. I was a little hesitant about a portable laptop with a 13.3″ screen, but it’s still surprisingly nice. Being so slim and light weight really makes up for the other dimensions.

I’d say there are a few good criticisms of the MacBook Air and what was announced, however. With the MacBook Air, Apple also released an external USB Super Drive. It seems that drive exclusively works with the MacBook Air. I was told by the Apple gentleman showing the laptop to me that the USB port had an additional line to provide more power, thus preventing the drive from working on other computers.

I thought the Remote Drive seemed pretty cool. I typically just use disk images on a file server that I mount, but I could see the benefit of having a mounted physical drive from any other networked computer. Asking about that, I was told that the Remote Drive software would only work for the MacBook Air. I can imagine scenarios where that software would be very convenient for me to use.

I have mixed feelings about gesture pads and I’m not certain how much success Apple will have with it. Looking at the MacBook Air, the trackpad button is much smaller and the trackpad itself is 20% larger than the MacBook. If Apple has a lot of success with gestures, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just remove that physical button altogether.

This probably only effects a small group of portable users. But many people buying these ultra-portable laptops are doing so because they’re doing a lot of moving around and field work. As a result, opportunities to plug into an outlet and charge your battery may be few. The MacBook Air does not have a user replaceable battery. So unlike many other laptops, you can’t carry around an additional battery to pop in once you’re running low on battery life. I personally have never needed to do that. Speaking anecdotally, I can think of only one person I’ve ever met that carried around a second battery. But I’m sure there’s some people out there that take long flights and need the additional battery while working on a plane, for example.

In addition to seeing the MacBook Airs, I also had a chance to browse the exhibit hall and for the first time used the ModBook. It’s a MacBook that is modded to be a tablet with the keyboard removed and touch screen added. This illustrates to me a demand for this kind of mobile Mac. I’d really like a computer that is something between my iPhone and my MacBook. I frequently walk around my workplace and could benefit from a Mac that is as easy to hold and use as a clipboard. My iPhone doesn’t have the software and my MacBook requires me to hold it in an awkward way and sometimes balance it on my knee to type.

I was told the ModBook also works with the Tablet Edition of Windows. The ModBook only comes in white, which is a shame, because the gentleman at Macworld had one specially made for him that was black and it actually looked really sleek.

It looks like Steve Jobs will be launching the iPhone in the UK next Tuesday.  More from c|net UK.  It also seems there’s a strong hope for a 3G iPhone.

A new agreement between Apple and wireless company, InterDigital, may mean 3G iPhones in the very near future.

Read more about it here.

Hate the new iPod shuffle colors? Well, you can still order the old colors new from Amazon.com (sorry, full-price though) while they last.

Orange

Pink

Green

Blue

Note that none of the new iPod models released yesterday support Mac OS X 10.3 “Panther”, even the new shuffle, though I don’t see why it would not be unofficially supported, as the new update is just cosmetic changes.Just an FYI to all you Panther users..

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