congrats. I am waiting a month for sure... no way I would spend 30+ hours to try and get one. But I am glad you are having fun with yours. And yes, I am a wee bit jealous.
the disconnecting thing is rather a big deal. my best friend is never disconnected and when she gets her iphone I suspect it will be worse. *sigh
I am prone to it too but I do like to enjoy the moment so that is a good reminder that you can't be in the moment if you have your nose pointed down to your lap top or now your iphone.
I have had a long history with connective devices.
When i first got a pager, I think it took me years to really internalize the idea that I could not rush off and find a phone (this was before cel phones were common) to call the number back.
When I switched to a cel phone, it took less time, but still probably at least a year, before I could refuse a phone call and not feel guilty.
As I've aged, I believe that I can now disconnect more easily if I know that I can connect if necessary. That's what the iPhone does for me.
I dunno. You're buying the lastest gadgets, but then asking for money.
Congratulations on your new toy. Like you, I have a hard time prying myself away from them while they're still in the 'shiny' phase. (And sometimes beyond. I still remember my HP-41CV addiction quite clearly...)
Anyway, I'd managed to hold off on getting a connective toy like that for some time...but then HP came out with the iPAQ 910c Business Messenger...
I. Hate. It. When. That. Happens.
OMG!
It almost has the functionality of a '05 vintage Palm T|X! Get back to me when it has removable media and a linux distro and doesn't require you to deed your soul to at&t.
I have a very simple rule: if it is a time eating gadget, and even worse, can be labeled 'cool', I don't want it.
For me, coolness induces nausea.
Also, I am inclined to feel as Bollox does. I'm worried that donating may be the cool thing to do.
I'm also disappointed that a person with the ability to discuss advanced economics would waste so much time {just purchasing and activating, never mind afterwards} on a toy designed to extract far more value than it is worth.
Pardon my judgmental attitude. Uncool people are that way.
Not cool RC!
Bollox there is no reason why they can't ask for money and buy an iphone.
I didnae know that the old palms had all thye same features as the iphone. Anyway the lockin scares me.
Wait for the Google Phone. Open source OS, an entire community making commercial and free 3rd party apps, and you don't have to feel like you are supporting a company whose bureaucratic makeup reminds me of the Soviet system with better marketing.
iPhones are only cool if you like letting Apple and AT&T dictate your lives. For the rest of us, just wait a couple months.
I guess I should point out that Evan's already put more into the GNB Denver trip kitty than anybody: He's paying my full freight for the whole trip.
None of my expenses are coming out of this fundraiser -- which frees up that money to cover expenses for everybody else. Given that, do you really begrudge him a replacement for his beat-up three-year-old el cheapo no-frills Motorola phone?
Wengler, it's not AT&T. Here in Canada, it's Rogers, which has its own issues. The biggest was that they set up what was easily the world's stupidest and most expensive data plan (I mean that literally: no other country had one even in the ballpark), which pissed off both Apple enthusiasts and Apple Corporate no end.
After much complaining, they amended it a couple of days before the Friday launch so it's more in line with what other countries are doing. But there's speculation that this is why the Rogers stores across Canada got so few phones. The downtown store in Vancouver had a line of 200 people for something like 20 phones. Rumor has it that Apple did this to Rogers on purpose, basically to teach them a lesson about wanton customer abuse. Fuck our customers, we'll fuck you back.
Crazy times for everybody. It's why I'm not usually an early adopter. But I have to say: this is absolutely the coolest tech toy I have owned since I bought my first Mac in 1985 -- and it may well be the most life-changing.
Wasn't OT but is now.
Bollox Ref and RC --
Front Page post coming on this later tonight in an hour or so.
No GNB donations went into anyone's damn iPhones. Good Gods.
I understand the deep-seated American Puritan bullshit where this concern comes from -- which is why I'm writing a front page post to be out as fast as I can finish it.
In the meantime, the donation thing is Off Topic for this thread, not because I'm afraid of dealing with it but simply so as not to derail Evan's thread. I'll have the new thread up shortly; an hour or two at most.
This thread is about the iPhone, experiences with the iPhone, software, telecom, economics, and so on.
Thanks.
Ah... see.
Sara just got that up before I did.
Sara -- I'm going to write a front page post on the whole concept. It needs to be addressed in general.
I'll email it to you in about 45 minutes.
And now I am Off-topic. Sorry.
Interesting assumptions.
GNB is asking for money to send people to the DNC. I'm paying for one of those people to go to the DNC (see my fundraising post: http://www.groupnewsblog.net/200...onspiracy.html)
, and to Netroots Nation next week. That is to say, I'm donating in excess of $1000 to GNB in the currency of sending Sara to shows for them. As the fundraising post notes: I'm happy to do it.
If you think that makes me unworthy to spend money on an iPhone, well, I guess I don't know what to say.
As for AT&T, I can assure you that they are getting none of my money. Because they don't live here in Canada 
. Rogers is, but I was just as locked in to Telus before switching to the iPhone -- I don't see that it makes a difference. The economics of cel phones are very different here in Soviet Canuckistan.
As for the TX ... I don't recall GPS, I don't recall 3G. I loved the Palms (I've owned them since before they were Palm, back when U.S. Robotics sold them) and believe I've owned ... 7, including 3 Palm Vs and 2 Z22s. the VII was this kind of special jump forward, but it didn't succeed. The iPhone is succeeding, because it's making the connectivity available to more people.
As far as removable media and a linux distro, you're mistaking yourself (and me) for the mass market. Mass market customers don't care about technical wondrousness, they just want it to work. They don't want removable media (besides, who needs it when it tethers to a computer via USB and other things via the cloud?) and they sure as H*LL don't want to deal with linux. Heck, I'm a geek and *I* don't want to deal with linux (although occasionally the un*x underpinnings of OS X are very useful).
As for loss of time in the pursuit of cool, I think you don't know me very well. I spent a total of 5 hours and 15 minutes acquiring the phone: 2 hours of that was spent in line working on my Masters' project. Of the remaining 3:15, half was spent reading (mostly Flirting with Disaster, a fascinating book about how "unexpected" disasters are almost always foreseen but somehow not acted upon). That leaves about 1:38. Long for getting a cel phone, but not unheard of.
And I spent an hour this morning while running video at church being productive because I had the iPhone, so I'm down to 38 minutes of wasted time. I imagine I'll get that back next week on the way to class, since I'm spending 30 minutes on the seabus without connectivity for the laptop .
i have a love/hate relationship with my music technology. mostly while the world goes digital i go further analog. every now and then something grabs my ass and won't let go.
right now it's my line6 variax and the attendant "modeling" amp. the thing is, line6 didn't waste a lot of time and effort in trying to make their electric guitar sound like much beyond an electric guitar. they didn't fuck around making it sound like a string section and shit. ok, they blew an entire channel on bullshit effects like sitar and banjo which sound like fake shit, but, i reprogrammed it all out in less than an hour and replaced it with things i wanted.
here's the thing they did well. the variax sounds like a telecaster, stratocaster (i was even able to make it sound like the custom self-built strats that i play), les paul, SG, gretsch, big body gibson, ricky 12 (which means my prized ricky never has to experience the dangers of the road again), and a host of other incredible guitars.
i really began to fall in deep deep geek love the night the folks i was playing with were doing floyd's "comfortably numb." i started out with a strat voicing and had the amp set to a etherial, shimmering very floydish set. then, when the final vocals were done i clicked a lever, twisted a knob, stomped the floor box a few times, and i was all of a sudden playing a big ass les paul in an open G tuning and my amp was switched over to an overdriven fender twin voiced like the BBKing solo on "the thrill is gone" (it was already preset in the amp when i bought it). i stuck a coricedin bottle on my pinky and got the fuck down.
every player on and off stage was fucking paralyzed. they had never seen anything like that before. it was as if i had swapped out a guitar, and whole other amp setting.
technology is great. GPS is wonderful stuff. although when i head out into the hills and backcountry i still take my compass and my sextant.
one never knows do one.
"every player on and off stage was fucking paralyzed. they had never seen anything like that before. it was as if i had swapped out a guitar, and whole other amp setting.
technology is great. GPS is wonderful stuff. although when i head out into the hills and backcountry i still take my compass and my sextant.
one never knows do one."
Line 6 guitar port is a nice little toy also....for about 150 bucks!
OT:
I'm holding up on that post probably till tomorrow evening sometime.
It's written, but I want Sara to take a look at it before I post up.
We'll likely to all of tomorrow's fundraising as normal, and then in the late afternoon/evening pacific time, give folks a chance to talk about this other thing.
Again, it's purely a timing issue. Sara's (I'm pretty certain) gone to sleep for the evening. And I'm not going to put up a post about B when the topic of the Day is about doing A.
I'd hoped we could do it tonight, but we just ran out of time.
Sorry about that. Tomorrow.
It's almost midnight here. I have to get some rest now.
Talk with everyone tomorrow.
Evan,
The Android OS is based on the linux kernel but I extremely doubt that it will be only geared to tech-savvy consumers. I'm sure the command line is going to be there, but the baseline stuff that will be developed for it is not going to require hours of forum questions.
Some people enjoy Apple's closed environment. It has cool marketing and a definite near universal buzz. But you pay for that marketing and everything is subject to Steve Jobs' approval. Waiting for hours to activate because of a glitch in a server that handles Apple's proprietary music service is ridiculous as well. And the major corporations' copyright concerns prevent some of the best features from becoming standard(see Microsoft Zune).
My hope is the Google phone gets out there, makes corporations cry, and carves out its niche as a gadget that is extremely customizable and versatile.
bahh my phone is far better.
it was free..
I can tell work that I have a cell phone..
after teh kids droped it in the bath tub, work can't bother me....
Maybe next year I will get either a gphone or an iphone. Depending on price and other things.
Wengler, the other thing to remember here is that our family connections to Apple are long and deep.
Between my sister-in-law and brother and Evan's best friend (who just left in the last year), we've had family or close friends working inside Apple since about 1986. I've worked there as a contractor. Evan spent five years at Adobe (if you're using Acrobat in a language other than English, thank him), which has a big revolving door with Apple through which employees are constantly exchanged.
You may consider them The Great Satan. Around here, we'll reserve that status for Microsoft, which historically has taken a dull chainsaw to the cutting edge of product design.
Mrs Robinson, whiel MS is on top they look far worce...if appel had gaind controlling market share they would be jsut as bad.
-- Not the greatest strategy to conjunct your celebration of purchases that lots of readers can't afford with your plea for funding.
>Problem: all their 8 GB phones are White.
Problem Solved: A black Sharpie marker and two minutes of downtime.
Yer welcome.
I'm looking for some advice and this seems a good place to get it:
In the fall I will be starting a job that will require me to carry an electronic leash. The majority of people at the firm use some variety of Blackberry. I will be given a technology allowance that will more than cover the cost of whatever device I choose. The firm's service provider is AT&T. All I really need is phone and email capability. But I listen to music constantly and I live in New York City. For someone with a terrible sense of direction and limited geographical knowledge of Manhattan (I've spent the vast majority of my time in NYC in Brooklyn), a handy GPS device would be exceedingly useful.
So my question is whether there is any reason to opt for a Blackberry rather than an Iphone? I should point out that if all other things are equal, I will happily choose the Iphone because I love the design of Apple products and that's important to me, and I have a Mac laptop as a container for most of my life, so easy compatibility will be beneficial. I should also point out that cell phone/PDA technical jargon goes zipping by so far over my head that I can't even hear its engines.
Any input would be VERY well appreciated. I'm sure the IT dept at work will tell me what I need to know when I start, but I want to know NOW, dammit! Thanks.
As for GPS on the T|X and the n800 it was done by bluetooth and same for 3G. Using a small bluetooth GPS module is usually much better than integrated GPS for two reasons, first off GPS works best with a full view of the sky which in a car corresponds to being as close to the windshield as possible, Secondly GPS antennas are best pointed upwards at the sky and should have a reasonable area. With an integrated GPS this requires considerable compromises in operation. On the other hand a bluetooth GPS reciver may be of the needed size and area and placed flat and nearly at the join point between the windshield and the dash providing a high gain nearly 180 degree view of the sky for optimal satellite count and precision even the the presence of multipath interference and foliage and overhangs.
As for 3G, both the Palm and Nokia n800 use bluetooth connectivity to provide 3G via a DUNS link. This has the advantage of not limiting you to a single cellular company, particularly AT&T and Roberts. In addition it allows you to control the connectivity and keep track of the traffic occuring on your link.
As for multimedia, the Palm nicely ran the TCMP player which could replay just about any video or audio format you could desire and had a display which was identical in resolution to the iPhone. The n800 on the other hand completely blows away the iPhone on image quality sporting a 5" diagonal 800x480 resolution screen and a full implementation of MPlayer. Both also support SDHC cards for removable storage, which allows me to carry a multitude of video images and audio with me at any given time. The formats employed are fully interoperable with my EEE, and in the case of the n800 employs the same software from the same base distro (debian).
My apologies to Evan and Jesse. All the same, away from the expenditure topic and away from the donation topic, I am not a fan of any kind of "coolness" marketing, I find it an abuse of my intelligence and am always immediately inclined to never buy the product. I also have zero tolerance for marketing schemes that get launched before they are ready. Avoiding tech rollouts usually allows me to not have those particular personal buttons pressed.
I'm sorry to have hit a nerve, and perhaps that is due to my extreme personal uncoolness. Yet, Apple and their devices may disappear from the face of the Earth, and really, will the result be noticable? I think not.
Tech, games, MP3 and so on are vastly overrated as components of a happy or meaningful life. I have no expectation of ever winning any arguments with tech devotees about that opinion, but it is the one I hold. I am aware that Sara and Evan have related backgrounds in the games field and I can understand their interest. I just can't penetrate the popular mindset about the need for investing in whatever the seasonal coolness is. The whole march is one that I am missing the beat on. Maybe I am the problem individual. In that case mea culpa. I do live very far from the population centers and there are no malls or stoplights on my island, so in my pathetic remove from the important things occurring upon the Earth perhaps I should be pitied in my simplicity.
Mr. Godin has something to say.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/set...7/
scarcity.html
RC, there are some assumptions at work here.
We've been through a long three years. Two of us in grad school, drawing down savings. Two teenagers. We have been way short on coolness around here for a long time: everybody in the house is on computers that are several years old, and our phones are the cheapest ones the company offers.
Two things have happened. 1. Two out of the four of us are finally graduating, which means school expenses are no longer eating nearly so much of our resources, and both those former students are now free to work. And 2. Oil is up (you may have noticed). Which means if you're in that business, times are better than they've been in quite a while.
So we had a little windfall, and it went to upgrading the family tech -- new computers and phones all around. And since it'll probably be another three years before we do it again, we got the good stuff this time.
This willingness to jump to conclusions -- and attribute all kinds of nasty motives -- without knowing the backstory is really unpleasant, and I hope y'all get over yourselves Real Soon Now.
Sorry again. As I promised, I'll limit my statements in the future. I will never again agree with Bollox, that's for sure. At least I won't say I agree in comments.
I share your relief that your circumstances have eased.
Perhaps in the interest of understanding the commenters, it might be wise to consider that for most persons reading here, the next 18 months are going to be very tough. I wish that were not so but
reading the economic news of the last year leaves me no other option than to express that thought.
Happy phoning and enjoy your well deserved rest.
Mrs. Robinson,
You have mistaken my argument to be Apple vs. Microsoft. If it was I would've advocated Windows Mobile. Instead my argument is for open source standards to be the foundation of cell phone communication just like the internet.
In the coming years, talking on the cell phone will consume less and less of the time people spend on them. To have a closed environment for any company will be destructive to the development potential of cellular communications. A nearly universal open source platform is the closest to the ideal solution. It is not shackled down to a single carrier and the limits imposed on the technology placed there by the IP litigators will be wiped clean. Our technology needs to free itself as much from corporate control as it does government control. And Apple nor any other corporation will do that.
Google has their own reasons for supporting this(namely trillions of dollars in ads), but overall open source is good for business since it doesn't bleed away billions in license fees.
GBCW
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