This hysterical video was made by a Best Buy employee who was later suspended because of it. While the PR storm that ensued eventually led the company to agree to take him back, the creator is considering going into visual design. Regardless of the drama, check out this video for a good, nerdy laugh.
-
-
So I noticed my first scratch on my iPhone 3G's screen yesterday. I am usually pretty neurotic about my gadgets and almost always have them covered by a screen protector, but I guess I fell victim to the hype that the iPhone had a resiliant screen that was immune to scratching. I stopped by an Apple store last night and picked up a screen protector, and now the risk of future damage is mitigated. I have been mastering the art of a bubble-free screen protector application for years now, and wanted to share my technique. I've updated this guide to take into account new tricks, tools, and process refinements to help perfect this system:
1. Pick out a good protector. This means that it should be thick, and probably not the cheapest. This becomes especially important with portable video game systems, which are plagued by sub-par peripherals. I like Boxwave, Invisible Shield, and Power Support.
2. Be careful with the protector as you take it home. One of the main reasons that a protector doesn't apply well is that it becomes slightly bent, and won't adhere well. Be sure to keep it flat until you're home.
-
So I am now an owner of the new "iPhone 3G". I picked up the white version (it matches my Nintendo DS), and am digging the high-speed internet acccess and location-based services. The main attraction, however, is the application platform. I love Yelp, Shazam, and a bunch of others that are really making the iPhone more of a tiny computer to me, and less of a phone.
Perhaps this exists, but one app I would love to see is one that turns my phone into a wireless modem. Back when I was in college I had a Sony-Ericsson T610 that I could tether to my Mac and use to connect my laptop to the internet while I was taking the train to and from school. With the iPhone, my understanding is that it doesn't support OBEX, which is a bluetooth protocol necessary for dial-up networking. However, the iPhone does have wifi, and I have seen apps using Apple's Bonjour zero-config networking protocol. It seems possible to create an app that would share my iPhone's 3G data plan with my laptop via wifi. I haven't dug through my terms-of-use with AT&T, so perhaps this isn't possible, but it would be incredibly useful.
-
This has been a chaotic day. One of my friends waited in line for six hours to get the new iPhone, only to be told that technical difficulties would prevent him from being able to purchase one. Apparently the Apple store in Santa Monica wasn't letting people take it home for activation. I am waiting until tonight to check and see if some of the activation problems have cleared up, and then will try to pick up my new iPhone.
In honor of the occasion, here are David Pogue's thoughts on the new offering.
-
I'm too busy playing with the new 2.0 firmware to write anything meaningful today. So far I am digging: NetNewsWire, AIM, Twitterific, Facebook, MySpace, Yelp, Loopt, Remote, Pandora, and Paypal. What apps are you enjoying?
-
For the other faithful looking to purchase the 3G iPhone next Friday, or for those curious as to what sort of financial ruin these service plans can start steering you towards, please check here.
I personally am not going to be waiting in line. My hope is that one of my local Apple stores (either The Grove or 3rd Street Promenade) will still have inventory when I get off of work. I made the mistake of queueing for hours last year only to find I could have walked right in, and I'm not keen on repeating that mistake.
-
Next week is a big week for me. Finally, after a year of waiting, I get the iPhone with the featureset I've been wanting since day one. The GPS and high-speed data are reasons enough to upgrade, but Apple's real treat is the new 2nd-gen software shipping with the unit. The availability of the SDK opens up a world of opportunity to developers, and I am looking forward to hopefully getting some amazing 3rd-party applications.
With the floodgates set to open, I have musing about what I want to be able to do. It occurred to me that their may be a whole class of applications that could make use of TV-out. I am not sure if this is permitted with the SDK, so if anyone knows, please throw it in the comments. However, imagine how great it would be to be able to use the iPhone as a gaming control that plugs into a TV, or being able to use a remote desktop application that showed your desktop on the television, or having the ability to show presentations and use the iPhone as a control. There would be an avalanche of applications that could leverage this feature to help take the iPhone to the big screen. Even if this isn't in 2.0, there is always 2.1...
-
Today at Apple's WWDC developer event they announced "MobileMe", a replacement for the ".Mac" suite of services. "MobileMe" will enable a user to keep their contacts, calendars, e-mail, synchronized across all devices via push. It also offers enhanced photo sharing capabilities that will be integrated into the iPhone and new website, as well as better data synchronization courtesy of iDisk. All of these new web applications and services can leverage "MobileMe's" new 20GB of storage space.
So, the question inevitably becomes, "is it worth $99?". For me, the answer is a resounding, "no". There are a couple of major snags in the offering. First of all, my e-mail is associated with this domain, and so I have no interest in getting a "me.com" e-mail address. I have scoured the new documentation, but it doesn't mention allowing you to do an MX forward so that you could associate a personal domain with these services. Major bummer.
Second, the services don't match the price. $99 is a hefty sum for synchronization services. I use a Zimbra mail host for my personal data management, and it provides roughly the same functionality (disclosure: I work for Yahoo, which owns Zimbra, but this has nothing to do with why I use it). The Zimbra hosting allows me to keep my personal domain, and offers an iSync conduit that keeps my address book and calendar in sync across all of my devices and has a web interface for accessing my e-mail, calendar, and contact list. iTunes also supports syncing iPhone contacts with Gmail and Yahoo!, and I imagine that both of these companies will offer native apps for the iPhone to help keep everything up-to-date.
If you combine one of these PIM solutions with a free file storage solution like the most excellent Dropbox you can replicate these services for a much cheaper cost. I pay around $6 a month for Zimbra hosting from 01.com and Dropbox is currently free. Sure, you may not get everything managed in a single place with the extreme elegance and simplicity of an Apple product, but you do get a more flexible solution. Is "MobileMe" for me? Certainly not. Is it a great service that would be perfect for my mom? Definitely.
-
Yesterday Apple announced their much-anticipated iPhone SDK. For all of the geeky iPhone owners out there this event marked the unleashing of the true potential of the platform. This will be the Jean Grey-to-Phoenix moment. So, as we sit hear in anticipation waiting for version 2 of the iPhone firmware to go live, enjoy this catchy tune by The New York Times' gadget guru, David Pogue, as he croons about the iPhone launch.
-
Apple announced that on March 6th they will be holding an event to discuss their software roadmap. This will most likely mark the introduction of the long-awaited iPhone SDK. Let the countdown begin!
