everyday

I have had my new iPhone 3G for a little over a week now and I absolutely love it. As some people have noted, the OS on the phone does seem a tad glitchy. I think Apple may have rushed the SDK enabled OS out the door. That being said, I fully expect any minor issues to be fixed with simple software updates. Enough about the issues, on to what makes it the best phone I have ever had…

The iPhone 3G is the best phone that I have ever had. Now, I am not much of a gadget junky, so I have only owned a few smart phones, and that name was a complete misnomer for them. My first foray into the smart phone world was around 2003 with the Motorola MPX220. This phone worked well enough as a phone, but the limitations of the “smart” aspects of the phone left me wishing I hadn’t spent so much money on it. In fact, the phone completely turned me off to the whole smart phone scene. While the phone hinted at the glorious future of a workable mobile computing platform in a phone, it delivered none of it.

My next adventure in smart phone land began in 2007 when my employer decided to provide a number of us with a Nextel/BlackBerry 7100i. This is perhaps the worst phone I have ever seen. It is large and bulky and quite simply doesn’t work. If the phone isn’t answered within the first nano-second of a ring, it goes to voicemail. The email functionality via a corporate BlackBerry server again leaves me wishing for more. When an email is deleted on my desktop, it still shows up on my BlackBerry. The synchronization does not work as well I would like. Also, the web browser is decent, but certainly not perfect. Oh, and it has PTT which is perhaps the single largest hindrance to communication that mankind has ever invented. Why, when it is completely possible to engage in a duplex conversation would anyone opt for simplex? The phone does have a couple of nice features though. It has a good speakerphone and the battery lasts forever, probably due to it’s massive size.

So, on to the iPhone and why it is so nice. First off, the “phone” is rock solid. Calls are clear and the sound quality is really good. I think any smart phone needs to focus on being a phone first and “smart” second. I carry this thing around with me because it is a phone, not because I can read my email on it. “Smart” is a bonus, the phone is a necessity. That being said, the “smart” in the iPhone is really smart, genius level smart. The UI is very intuitive, Apple must have poured money into the development of the UI on this phone.

Perhaps the single greatest feature of the iPhone is also the one that I think about the least, the touch screen. So much of my time is spent focusing on the content being presented that I quite frankly ignore the technological marvel that is the iPhone’s touch screen. Actually, until I began writing this, I hadn’t given the touch screen a second thought. That is truly the hallmark of a great design, I don’t ever think about it. Since the moment I bought it, I have swiped, typed, pinched, scrolled and cursored my way across that screen a million times without ever thinking about the way it works. It works so well, it is so intuitive and natural to use that I simply forget about it while using it.

The last thing that I will write about in this installment are the applications on the iPhone. The whole iPhone and Apple community were up in arms over the lack of native application development support on the original iPhone, so Apple began working on an SDK equipped version of the OS for the second generation of the iPhone. While Apple certainly has delivered, I am not so sure that they wanted to do this. When the first generation iPhone was released, Steve Jobs touted the phones fully functional web browser as the sole target for iPhone development. I think this was a brilliant move and, while not sad to see native applications, I do think that the existence of the SDK will detract from the web based development on the iPhone. Of the few applications I have downloaded so far (Last.fm, Sudoku and Twitterific) I only really use Soduku. I do however use the web applications I have added many times a day. I currently have Digg, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google Talk and Hahlo on my main screen. These “web apps” work flawlessly and I am truly impressed with them. I think that Apple was correct with their 3rd party development strategy for the first generation iPhone. Limiting development to web apps, while certainly constraining was also the way of the future. I hope that the existence of the SDK doesn’t mean that web app developers will lose momentum.

Unbeknownst to most, your when you provide your user name and password to the Google Notifier for either Gmail or the Google Calendar you are transmitting those credentials in plain text. In order to secure your credentials, you need to configure the Google Notifier to transmit your credentials via secure http (https). To do, follow the directions in this article on macosxhints.com. I have discussed security in regards to Gmail before (see: “Secure your Gmail“), but that wasn’t necessarily in regards to the notifier.

While this may not seem all that important to you, just take a moment to consider how much of your personally identifiable information is transmitted through email. Without securing your credentials, you are inviting anyone to sniff your packets and pull any information that they want.

As far as I know, this little tip only works on the wonder-filled Mac OSX operating system.

via: Digg

N.Design (a site I will be frequenting from now on) has a über-cool looking OSX dock for websites. If you are a fan of the Mac, as I am, you will certainly appreciate this. If you aren’t so much a fan of the Mac, then you should at least appreciate the look and feel of this navigation bar. Web 2.0, whatever that means, is certainly producing some interesting stuff!

Apple Inc. has released an update to their awesome wireless router, the Airport Extreme. What is the big deal? Well, the old Airport Extreme was cool, but the new one is even better. It includes 802.11n (faster wireless), and the ability to hook an external hard drive up and share it with multiple computers wirelessly!

So, Apple had a little press show today, if you aren’t familiar with Apple’s press events let me just say that it is almost a cult phenomena. That being said, the new products and software they have released are really cool!

iPod

The new iPod, iPod Nano, and iPod Shuffle are really sweet. The design changes and improvements, while subtle and evolutionary in nature are really well thought out. I really like what Apple is doing, with the direction they are going.

iTunes

More of the same here, subtle changes that just make you go “ah… that’s nice”. It seems that Apple truly cares about making their products better. Instead of letting their accountants design their products and software by cutting corners everywhere, they are making high quality products and software, charging appropriately and reaping enormous profits!

My new MacBookPro! First let me start with, this thing is awesome. I haven’t been this excited about a piece of electronic hardware in ages. The look and feel of the MacBookPro is amazing. It just feels good! The operating system, OSX, is wonderfully intuitivel; it never seems to be in the way.

Now on to my complaints… My first MacBookPro would boot up with no problems, then the keyboard and trackpad would quit working after anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. This was very frustrating and I came very close to hurtling my $2,000 MacBookPro across the room in anger. I called AppleCare and we went through a couple of steps that I had already performed as a result of my online research regarding this problem, they then suggested that I return it to the store. This is where my biggest complaint lies. The nearest Apple Store to me is approximately a 1.5 hour drive, I had to go there twice to get a fully functional MacBookPro. When I took my first MacBookPro back to the store, they were very nonchalant and unapologetic about the hardware failure. I fully expected that they would throw in a free Mighty Mouse or at least a cheap case for my trouble, but no. So much for customer service!

Despite my troubles, I would fully recommend everyone in the world switching over to a Mac, they really are just better!

I got a Mac Book Pro!

I think I want a Mac. A Powerbook to be exact. I am getting more and more frustrated / let-down with the Windows enviroment. Everything works in Windows, it just doesn’t feel right. Maybe I am using the desire for a Mac as an excuse for my recent lack of creativity. It seems like all the good musicians, writers, artist and all other generally creative types are using Macs. Perhaps if I had a Mac I could be more creative also. I do know that when I sit down at my PC to do something, get halfway through it and my PC locks up I generally just give up! As time goes by I am becoming more enamored with OSS (Open Source Software). I don’t think I am quite ready for Linux just yet, but switching to a Mac is definitely a step in the right direction for me.

Damnit, I wish I had an extra $2,000 laying around. Apple has just unveiled their newest portable computer, the MacBook Pro. While the style is the same as the previous PowerBooks, the innards are significantly more powerful thanks to a switch from the G4 PowerPC processor (IBM) to a Intel processor. Unfortunately for those with cash in hand, the new models aren’t shipping until next month, and even then I would expect delays due to what will probably be a rather high demand. As stated in a previous post, I was looking into getting a Mac Mini. I was really hoping that Apple would update the Mac Mini as well, but it doesn’t look like that is going to happen this go-around. So now the question is, do I wait and see if Apple updates the Mac Mini in the near future, or just go ahead and make the plunge. This is, of course, the age old question when purchasing electronics of most any sort.

I have posted about wanting a Mac before a few times, but now I am getting serious. I am duly impressed with Apple’s recent hardware offerings. It seems like almost everything the company does is a step in the right direction, at least it is in my opinion. The most recent offering from Apple that I simply cannot live without is the new MacBook. I think this would be the perfect solution to my desire for a new Mac. It has the relatively low price of the Mac Mini, the portability of the MacBook Pros and it is powered by the new Intel chips so it’s performance should be impressive. Not that the performance of the previous Macs was lagging.