Archive for June, 2007
I’ve never seen such amazingness.
Just like the other One Million loyal apple fans out there I just got my iPhone. Instead of getting off my blackberry that I love so much I thought I would just activate a new number with a new contract through AT&T. Which means I had to go through the entire process of establishing new service which is normally a bit of a process. NOT THE CASE with the iPhone. It couldn’t have been easier and quicker. Even on iPhone Day it was easy. You would think that during this mad rush of activating we would see some slow downs. But I didn’t. Amazing.
About the sync process.
See, I have like 80 gigs of music movies and pictures on my laptop and I was a bit worried about how the sync process would go down. So I just sync’d up one playlist 2 movies all my pics, 2500 contacts, a monster calendar. All without a hitch.
Before I noticed it the iPhone had found my wi-fi and jumped on. The first thing I did was open google maps and I have to say. I was so so impressed at the speed in which it launched and how fast it was rendering (zooming) into my neighborhood on satelite view that I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Now you have to remember that I’m blogging this on my BlackBerry 8300 and that I use google maps all the time and the 8300 is awesome. It really is. The text input on the iPhone was surprisingly easy and it seemed to have a natural layout of sorts. Like my super strong geek instinct took over and I just knew how to work everything as if it were with me for years. Now that may have something to do with all the apple ads I’ve seen or that I have watched all the videos of the iphone. But let’s chalk this one up excellent planning and a super slick OS.
I’m going to spend the evening dining texting browsing and showing it off. Expect an update in the morning….
AF
Incipio Making a good Show at the NYC 5th Ave Apple Store
Our good friends at http://myItablet.com made the long trip out from
Arizona to the NYC to Camp out in line at the 5th Ave Apple store for an
iPhone. Now they could have just gone down to the local store for one.
But not these guys - they live and die Apple. We thought we would show
them and the first 10 in line a little love, Incipio Style! Staying
true to our “Made for You” attitude we hooked up these loyal fans with
Custom made Incipio Shirts numbered 1-10 for the first 10 people in
line. The shirts were awesome! Individually numbered with little
iPhones in the background. Ben got these done in literally 20 minutes
and we barely got them into FedEx in time and . We also hooked them up
with Brand New Hipsters and Ranger Cases as well as our awesome 2 Step
Cleaning Kits. Needless to say these guys were stoked.
I want to personally thank Vincent from myItablet.com for putting in so
much effort and sitting out there all night in the rain. Also, if you
caught today’s Good Morning America Show on ABC you can see our Shirts,
Vincent and a few of the loyal campers in the background.
AF
Service above all….
Now, those of you who know me, know that I love Apples – Both the delicious and nutritious variety as well as the stylish battery operated type. Don’t get me wrong - I love my PC even though its been acting up the last few weeks.
One of the reasons that I love the latter is really about the service – I’ve owned Macs for years and I haven’t had a horrible experience yet – Now, I’ve had hard drives go out “Damn Fujitsu!!!!” But I have yet to have even a less than excellent experience from Apple.com sales or from the Apple Store - (Fashion Island is my favorite). Since its only 2am and I am waiting on some much needed information from production I’ll let you in on what’s happened in the past few weeks….
I used to own a 13” MacBook till I lost a hard drive (as mentioned above) - So, I took the thing into the my local and favorite Apple Store and the nice people back there took it out tested and concluded that it might be dead and we there’s nothing they can do and that I should call a data recovery service – or just swap it out for a new one (now I don’t have a receipt or anything) – They stock Toshiba now (excellent)!! Fujitsu is just crap. I told the dude there that I would give the data recovery a try and if it didn’t work out I would come back for an exchange.
So, I couldn’t wait - I bought a big fat 150gig Toshiba drive threw it in there and sold the thing to my cousin that night – who seems really happy with it by the way. So about a week later I went back into the Apple store and picked up another MacBook – It was ok and I used it for about a week then took it back because it just felt slow – Now I don’t know why – but it did. I got a 15” MacBook Pro – You know, cause that’s how I roll….Pro! (the nice people there were more than happy to accommodate me, mind you without a receipt) It was a sweet deal for me and my out of pocket was really minimal. So, a few weeks go by – actually 4 of them and sure enough Apple decides that they want to update the MacBook Pro line with all kings of goodies that I actually want – See, I got the 13” for battery reasons. These 15” suckers love to be plugged in. So – needless to say I called the store and they were more than happy to exchange my 4 week old now discontinued MacBook Pro for a brand new LED backlit, Santa Rosa, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT sporting version with 2 gigs of RAM for the same price (that might hopefully run 30 minutes longer). Now, they could have just told me to “F” off but they didn’t - they knew that the new one was so much better and that I would be so butt hurt if they didn’t let me exchange it. So, I roll in there and worked out the exchange (sans receipt) and they were even nice enough to throw in a new iPod. Not that I need one – Cause, we have like 20 of them. Meanwhile they are totally cool and helpful about the whole thing – Have you ever been to BestBuy or Circuit City? Its nuts in there and they kinda don’t like you to return things….
Remember that hard drive that I sent off to the data recovery service? Well it came back - There was nothing they could do for me and my stuff was lost! Did I mention that Fujitsu is crap!!! So, I roll into my favorite store again and find my favorite Genius (who will remain unnamed) and show him the drive – he says, “where’s the computer?” ahhhh…..I sold it - So, with no more than a few seconds of cajoling he heads into the back (with my now out of warranty opened and loose hard drive) and brings me out a new Toshiba 100 Gig replacement for my dead Fujitsu Crap drive – Just like that! Easy!
Thanks to our wiley eBay ways we got a 2.5” SATA hard drive enclosure for .99 cents and I now have a new kick ass thoroughbred notebook that rocks some killer specs and and an external 100 Gig drive that is going to provide me with years of trouble free service. This could have gone south several times – Think about it – the first one was shot, the second return was legit but I could have been charged a restocking fee and the third one was way out of the allowed time for a return. Not to mention the hard drive thing at the end of it all - Wow!! Am I a happy kid!
AF
iPhone “Killer App” - “Smart Error Correction”
Now, its nuts to think that the iPhone is going to for sure without a doubt be a 100% slam dunk success. But, I tell you – I’ve been doing this for a long time and I have never, I mean never seen this type of buzz and industry readiness about a device. There are all kinds of folks out there claiming to have specs details and whatnot. The feature that raises the biggest question about its success is the keypad or lack thereof. What’s weird is the feature that seems the least talked about and what this device will have that no other QWERT device that I know of does. Smart Error Correction while typing…. I think that a large part of the success of the iPhone depends on the ability to quickly and accurately enter data into the device.
According to David Pogue of the New York Times
“Fortunately, you don’t have to be especially precise. Even if you hit the wrong “keys” accidentally, the super-smart software considers adjacent keys — and corrects your typos automatically. If what you actually managed to type is “wrclme,” the software proposes “welcome.” You tap the Space bar to accept the fix. It works beautifully”
Almost like T9 or RIM’s SureType I am under the opinion that the iPhone will have awesome Error Correction. Meaning that the phone will know there is no word in the English language that is spelled “aspoopklew” Well I just type “apple” with 2 fingers and the keyboard on my laptop gave me this. I am under the firm belief that the great people in Cupertino have accounted for mine as well as Steve J’s thumbs and will change “asoopklew” to apple for me. I had a conversation with a software engineer from Apple at MacWorld Expo on launch day and I asked him about the keypad and I said “ what about mistakes?” He said, while pointing to Steve Jobs “look at the size of his thumbs - Trust me, it works and its awesome!” He didn’t say what it was that made it work so well - but that is most likely what it is. Something along the lines of a custom word dictionary paired with error correction and spell check is what its going to take to make this the “Killer Device”.
…..and if it doesn’t and I’m wrong and the keyboard sucks – Well, we’ll just make a real QWERTY Keyboard for the iPhone.
AF
Foleo, eat your heart out! Meet the Asus’ new Eee PC 701
Asus EEE PC 701
The 7-inch ultraportable is based on an unnamed Intel chipset, and runs
regular Windows XP or Linux without a problem, but really shines in its
“easy” mode that strips things down to a barebones OS mainly for
internet browsing. The Eee line will kick things off with the Eee PC
701, which will sport 802.11b/g WiFi, Ethernet and a modem for
connectivity, along with a webcam, 512MB of RAM and a 4, 8 or 16GB flash
drive for speedy, reliable storage. The real kicker is that prices for
the 2 pound laptop are supposed to start as low as $200, and the Intel /
Asus duo won’t be aiming this at massive governmental purchases, but
instead will be offering it to consumers through traditional retail
channels.
AF
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